What do zipper injuries, holiday party mishaps, and servant leadership have in common? They’re all part of today’s wide-ranging look at careers—what to do, what not to do, and how to make your next move smarter (and safer).
Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, and Neighbor Doug are joined by contributors Sandy Smith, Jesse Cramer, and a few classic career stories from the SB vault. Together, they explore:
- The surprising power of likability in the workplace
- How consistency and personal branding can open big doors
- Why some leadership styles flop and others inspire
- The real-life career missteps that made us all a little wiser
- A closer look at the Elevate Conference, which champions financial literacy for Black women
And of course, it wouldn’t be a basement episode without a trivia challenge. This time, Doug delivers a stat that’ll make every listener squirm—let’s just say it involves zippers and emergency rooms.
Whether you’re climbing the corporate ladder, considering a leap, or just trying to avoid HR’s bad side, this episode packs in real advice and memorable stories from people who’ve been there, done that, and got the awkward email to prove it.
Smart moves, cautionary tales, and Doug’s very specific warning about pants—this one’s got it all.
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Topic: missteps, unforced errors, and strategic genius in the office
During our conversation, you’ll hear us mention:
- Career missteps
- Public mistakes
- Workplace blowups
- Internet backlash
- Personal branding
- Job reputation
- Career transitions
- Learning moments
- Social media
- Burnout recovery
- Job quitting
- Layoff reactions
- Apology timing
- Reputation repair
- Career pivots
- Employer loyalty
- Exit strategy
- Bad bosses
- Online presence
- Resume gaps
- Professional values
- Personal growth
- Industry change
- Toxic culture
- Future planning
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Jesse Cramer
Another thanks to Jesse Cramer for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Jesse on his show, Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors, at Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors – The Best Interest – Podcast – Apple Podcasts.
Learn how you can work with Jesse by visiting The Best Interest – Invest in Knowledge.
Sandy Smith
A big thanks to Sandy for always being up for a visit to Mom’s basement. You can find more from Sandy at her site: YesIAmCheap.com. Learn more about the Elevate Influencer Conference.
OG
For more on OG and his firm’s page, click here.
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- How many Americans go to the hospital each year for zipper-related injuries to their junk?
Mentioned in today’s show
Join Us on Monday!
Tune in on Monday when we welcome back Angelo Poli from MetPro, who joins us to help keep you in peak shape.
Miss our last show? Check it out here: Elevate Your Career (with Lorraine K. Lee).
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Doug: Describe your perfect date. [00:00:04] bit: I’d have to say April 25th because it’s not too hot, not too cold. All you need is a light jacket. [00:00:18] Doug: Live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:33] I am Joe’s Mom’s Neighbor, Doug. And this week we’ve been helping you improve your career trajectory. And today well, we’ll polish it off with three people who’ve successfully navigated careers of their own. We’ll talk missteps, unforced errors, and strategic genius in the office. But that’s not all. We’ll pause briefly halfway through for today’s edition of our year long trivia challenge. [00:00:57] And now a guy who. Might have just hit the pause button on an Xbox just to come join us. It’s Joe’s Sea. [00:01:09] Joe: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Not in the middle of a workday, although I haven been playing this cool new game. Doug called South of Midnight. I don’t know if you’ve seen that yet. Have not, but I’m sure you’ll suck me into that, some. Fantastic, uh, goodness. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Work Hard Play Hard podcast. I am Joe Saul-Sehy, and we’ve got a fantastic way to end career branding week. [00:01:30] We’re going to share some salacious, some amazing things people have done to blow up their career that, uh, you may be able to learn from, and then sometimes when people might have made their career, we’ve got the perfect people for that. We’ll introduce our guest of honored last, but let’s start off with a guy across the card table from me who’s had a whole career in financial planning. [00:01:51] Mr. OGs here. How are you? Man? [00:01:53] OG: It’s like I’ve had two careers in financial planning. It’s been so long. [00:01:56] Joe: Well, you and I way back in the day on our American Express days, we, we saw some stuff. We saw some people blow up some careers. Pretty, pretty Well, [00:02:06] OG: you know, I don’t have any, um, I don’t have any memories of any of that stuff, honestly. [00:02:11] You blocked it all out. Yeah, I mean, totally have, and when I was thinking about this, I was thinking more kind of broad brush stroke of like ways to do it, not any particular stories. Yeah. So I’ll be interested to hear you tell me the things that I should have remembered from the nineties because, um, it was a, it was a while ago, so I just, I flush all that stuff, you know, that it’s like, I remember what I had for breakfast, let alone, uh. [00:02:36] What happened to an office mate 27 years ago? [00:02:39] Joe: It is interesting though, OG, because like you read about financial planning, I remember a great piece, I think it was in the Wall Street Journal way back when, during that time, and they were talking about Bill Clinton and the whole Monica Lewinsky thing from a financial planning perspective, which was interesting because at the time they said that, you know, presidents make a ton of money writing their memoirs. [00:03:04] And you have all of these income seeking opportunities with Bill Clinton from a modeling standpoint as a financial planner, could you model him making any money after his presidency? Which of course he did. [00:03:17] OG: Turns out he did. Okay. [00:03:18] Joe: It turns out he did. All right. Uh, spoiler. Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. [00:03:22] OG: What? [00:03:23] Joe: Too soon to talk about this. [00:03:24] OG: He is a gazillionaire and, uh, he don’t have to worry about money. No mo. [00:03:27] Joe: Yeah. But just imagine the financial planning nightmares that happen from blowing up your career. Yeah. Uh, uh, speaking about a guy whose career’s blowing up as we speak, but in a good way, Mr. Jesse Kramer’s here. [00:03:39] How are you, man? [00:03:41] Jesse: Hey guys. Uh, I’m doing well. If it seems like I’m talking kind of slowly, it’s because I’m lagging behind by 10 or 15 or 20 seconds at a time. Other than that, other than the time warp between us, I’m doing quite well. [00:03:53] Joe: Yeah. You’re not doing the time warp the fun way. Like it’s midnight at your local movie theater with a Rocky Horror Picture show. [00:03:58] Jesse: Correct. I’m not doing it that way. I’m doing it the unfun way. It’s just me in my office alone. [00:04:03] Joe: Wouldn’t it be wild if on these, uh, Stacking Benjamins episodes, like people threw rice and toast and what else do they throw? Like toilet paper? Like we could have our whole own, own thing. I don’t know. [00:04:13] Jesse: Well, we’ll save that for the next 1600 episodes. [00:04:16] Maybe [00:04:16] Joe: just throw money at us. And a woman who makes the show every time she’s here. The woman behind the Elevate Conference, also the woman who was the creator of Yes, I Am Cheap. The woman who speaking of Cheap, came on this show and talked about doing her wedding for, I don’t even remember the number, Sandy. [00:04:35] $5,000 in New York. Yeah, $5,000 in New York. Sandy Smith is finally back. How are [00:04:40] Sandy: you? Good. Nice to see you’ve, uh, grown. A couple more hairs. Well, I think I’ve lost some. I don’t know. Oh yeah. I like that little dusting going on, on top there. Yeah. Thanks. It adds a little quo. It, [00:04:54] Joe: it always takes Sandy, like 47 seconds to start making fun of me. [00:04:57] I’m losing my edge. 47 seconds. What’s going on? So Sandy, lately. I thought of you. I wrote you because I thought of you immediately with this topic. Sandy seen a person or two blow up their career in her lifetime working in HR once or twice. Yeah. I’m super happy that you can be here with us. You’ve got a conference coming in July. [00:05:18] Tell us about what’s on tap for July in Sandy Smith. [00:05:22] Sandy: Yeah, the Elevate conferences are usually a series of workshops once a year, most years that focuses on the intersection of money and some other topic. So in the past it’s been about Black Wall Street. This year it is elevate the 92% focusing on the 92% of black women who voted for Kamala Harris and how we can improve their financial lives. [00:05:46] Specifically because there is a common thread there about how black women vote in mass, which is. Not the same as the rest of the United States. So I wanna explore that a little bit more with an eye towards finance, always towards personal finance. [00:06:02] Joe: Awesome. And that’s it. Well, e everything you do, I think always has that edge. [00:06:06] The financial literacy edge. Yes. Where can people get more [00:06:09] Sandy: elevate? The 92%. It’s elevate the nine 2% spelled out. [00:06:14] Joe: Awesome. We’ll link to it in the show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. Today we’re gonna tell some stories, uh, that hopefully will elevate all our stackers to maybe not do, maybe, maybe not do some of the things that you’re gonna hear about in the next 30 minutes. [00:06:28] So sit back, we’ve got a couple of sponsors that make sure this is free so that you don’t have to pay for any of this goodness that you’re about to hear. Let’s hear from them. And then we’re gonna talk about, uh, some career missteps. Let’s go. [00:06:48] All right. The scene is set. I’m just gonna go right to the professor here, Sandy Smith. Sandy, I feel picked up. What is a no-no? That people, maybe a story that somebody may be able to learn from that you probably shouldn’t do if you wanna have a successful career brand. I’ve been in HR [00:07:06] Sandy: for over a decade. [00:07:08] Secretly, I’ve had like dual careers going on at the same time, and so lately. Since many non das have expired, I have been sharing some stories, and that’s what, that’s what, uh, Joe has seen for my years in HR and people definitely blowing up their careers and crazy stuff. So, um, probably one that I’m gonna mention now is one that I shared, and it’s about relationships at work. [00:07:35] OG: Looking at you, Doug, [00:07:37] Sandy: I mean, Doug, it’s irresistible. Come on. You know, you’re spending a lot of time at work and you know, it is natural that you’re going to maybe have a connection with somebody at work. It happens. And as a HR professional, we know that it happens. That’s just normal par for the course. [00:07:52] However, if you sit on high and you have a relationship with someone on low, you should not be using your influence at that job for that person. So the story that I, I shared recently was as somebody in the C-suite who formed a relationship with somebody who was very, very, very junior in a different department. [00:08:12] That was enough to like have the red flags going off already. Was it public or was it just Everybody knew, but nobody talked about it exactly. Everybody kind of knew but didn’t talk about it. See, no evil hear, no evil whispers are going on. If I don’t know it exists, I don’t know it exists. However, it couldn’t be ignored when somebody on the department, in the department for the junior person resigned and in their exit interview they mentioned this relationship causing a toxic environment in their department. [00:08:43] Really. Then employment log kind of had to get involved because when we dug in that C-Suite person was putting undue stress. Onto that person who they were dating as direct manager. So if that manager asked that person to do something and they didn’t like it, they would complain to their C-suite boyfriend, oh my God. [00:09:04] Who then approached the manager, right? And so the manager felt that they could not manage this person anymore. And because they could not manage this person anymore, it impacted the department, the entire department. So if you are going to have a, a relationship with somebody at work, it’ll happen. Do not be the person in the relationship that is in a very senior position. [00:09:23] Number one, pretend it doesn’t exist at work. You guys separate church and state, do not ever have an impact any work that you are doing. And most definitely do not have a direct reporting relationship at work. This is a C-suite person with a base mid half million dollar base salary plus stock equity, a former equity option. [00:09:45] Former, former [00:09:45] OG: C-Suite person. [00:09:46] Sandy: That’s exactly what happened. He was gone. And because of why he was gone, we could not even give him the severance that was normally in his golden parachute. Couldn’t even get the severance, not the full severance to what he was entitled in his golden parachute. Okay. And you know, finding a C-suite level job takes some time and people gonna wanna know what happened at the last place. [00:10:12] Wherever you are, the industry is smaller than you think The city is smaller than you think. People talk, people know each other, and whether you like it or not, or whether you think it or not, it will get around. So yeah. [00:10:25] Joe: Relationships at work, just in general are, I would never, never, [00:10:30] Sandy: but then I have seen it successful. [00:10:32] I’ve had two colleagues who got married, but they were in two separate departments. They were on the same level. They never, even when they were dating, it was not. In the office. It wasn’t in your face. They would, you know, go out after work. They would occasionally, they would have lunch together outside of the office, and it was fine. [00:10:48] No issues. They did not interfere with anything within, they kept it very, very like, quiet, but then there were Japanese, so that was a different culture anyway, so it can work, it can be successful, but not, not in this case, and not if you’re a senior person and you’re using your influence on that person’s manager. [00:11:05] Joe: Have you, Jesse, have you seen relationships at work either work or not work? I. [00:11:10] OG: Um, good question. Yeah, I think Jesse’s like, no comment. [00:11:16] Doug: Why are you asking me, Joe, vice [00:11:17] OG: counsel? I’ve been on me, Joe, I’ve been instructed to plead the fifth. [00:11:23] Jesse: Uh, I’m going back to my old, I mean, right now I work in a, a relatively small office of 40, but I’m going back to my old job where I was in a engineering office of like a thousand. [00:11:31] And yeah, there were some relationships there that definitely worked, including some that were preexisting before I started working there and, and people who had been married for decades plus at the time. So it definitely can work, but at the same time, I think there’s always that, uh, I mean power dynamics in general, and I think that’s what Sandy was getting at. [00:11:47] It’s like whenever there’s a power dynamic, sometimes it’s just, it’s the perception of one. Sometimes it can be like, well, technically no one is anyone else’s superior. But this person has been there a lot longer and it seems like they have more responsibility and they have the ability to do favors for someone else. [00:12:02] And even that alone is where you, you kind of get into some gray area. [00:12:06] Joe: Yeah. Og, how about you? Have you seen relationships at work? [00:12:09] OG: Well, we’ve always been a small firm, so none that I can think of. But I can also see this, not even just in a relationship in this context, but also like your kid comes to work for you and just being aware of how that looks. [00:12:25] I mean, if you work at a big company that’s hard to get into and your kid gets a job, even if they didn’t connect the dots, right? It’s like, it’s still gonna be like, well, yeah, your dad’s the senior vp. Yeah. It’s like, no, I went to this great school. I tried really hard. I, it’s like, yeah, okay, yeah, okay, but also your dad’s the vp, you know, or whatever. [00:12:44] And it’s like even just that appearance of that, I think you have to really do a, you have to work really hard to guard against any sort of even appearance of impropriety at any level, whether it’s a sexual relationship or if it’s just a parent-child relationship or, or any sort of nepotism type thing. [00:13:02] So. Be aware of it anyway. [00:13:04] Joe: Yeah, I saw a small business, a financial planning business where a dad brought in his daughter and he had, before that a whole succession plan before he found out his daughter wanted a piece of the company. And when that happened, it just wrecked morale in the entire company. [00:13:17] Yeah. [00:13:17] OG: I mean, I can see that in our business. Both of my boys have said something about it, you know, just kind of casually like, well, maybe I’ll just go work for you one day. You know, while that would be super cool, there’s more to it than just show up to work and, you know, let’s hang out and have fun. Uh, I’ve worked with my brother before and that was a different dynamic and we’re really close and it was, it was very weird to kind of go, okay, at lunch we can be bros, but you know, from nine to 1130 and from 1230 to five, you have to be the associate and. [00:13:50] Uh, it is just a, it’s just hard. It’s just a difficult position and that’s why I [00:13:53] Sandy: would never hire family or have them in the same company that I was in. [00:13:56] OG: Yeah, it’s hard. [00:13:57] Sandy: I was interviewing at a company for another HR position, and I didn’t realize that one of my cousins worked there. You know, you do research on the company when you’re interviewing, and there he was on the website and I was like, oh. [00:14:08] I can’t do it. I can’t. And you’re gone. I can’t. Yeah. And so I withdrew from consideration. They were like, why? And I said, I have a family member who works there. Now, had I talked to my cousin in a while? Absolutely not. And I probably hadn’t talked to him like five or six years. But the fact that even that we had this fully family relationship, I don’t want his mom calling me up. [00:14:26] You know what I [00:14:27] OG: mean? Why did you lay off my kid? [00:14:29] Sandy: Exactly. Because that happens, right? Absolutely. I’ve had to lay friends off, people who I consider friends. Can you imagine if it was a family member? [00:14:35] Joe: Yeah. [00:14:35] Awkward. Or what do you think about the pressure of the girlfriend’s boss? That the girlfriend’s boss felt that? [00:14:40] After hours going out to dinner with boyfriend, who’s the CEO, and next thing you know, it shows up in your performance eval. You’re like, oh, how did this, how did this stuff happen? I remember a relationship when I was with American Express, the manager of an office and his office man. So this guy, this guy was in charge of the office. [00:15:00] He was the district manager, but the woman that was in charge of like the support staff, his office manager, they were having a relationship, and here’s a lesson, which is the woman in charge of the support staff sent out an email to the district manager that said, Hey, where do you want go to dinner tonight? [00:15:20] These two worked together nonstop. Nobody knew that anything was going on. In fact, if she had left that email alone, there would’ve been no big deal. Like I think 99.9% of us thought, oh yeah, the two of ’em are just going out to dinner to talk about work stuff. That’s fine. But then Sandy, she decided to withdraw the email. [00:15:39] She tried to withdraw it, and it was the nature of withdrawing that email that all of a sudden the entire office goes, oh, what the hell’s in that email? And then. I wasn’t even paying attention until I saw the withdrawal request. And then I said, what is she trying to withdraw? And I saw she was trying to withdraw a dinner with the manager and I went, oh, oh. [00:16:00] This is a whole different thing than we thought. The good news is now they’ve been married for a long time. It worked out. And frankly the office still ran the way that it ran before, but, but [00:16:08] Sandy: what happens when it doesn’t work out? When it so sour doesn’t, right. That’s the other thing. And it can be very awkward. [00:16:15] Yeah. The risk there is [00:16:16] Jesse: huge. Joe, did you make any judgements about them based on the restaurant that they were going to that night or did that not cross your mind? [00:16:24] Doug: Applebee’s dude. Applebee’s. Really? That’s all you could do is Applebee’s. It’s [00:16:29] Joe: the neighborhood place. Doug, come on Sizzler. Yeah. No, uh, I did not, but I, but you know, it’s funny, Jesse, to that point, and Sandy to your point too, I did begin judging them when they were having this relationship because I was like, what are they talking about? [00:16:44] How, how is this affecting everybody? How is this affecting us because they have this extracurricular activity going on. Jesse, what’s another spot where somebody might have stepped into the danger zone? [00:16:56] Jesse: The one that I think of from some experience is, uh, chronic negativity, chronic cynicism, which maybe in and of itself is just a reason for someone to a, a way that someone can sabotage their own career. [00:17:09] But even, there are some cases where I, I guess what I’m saying is like if we can picture someone who’s always negative, like yeah, they’re probably self-sabotaging, but there are some cases where someone. They think they’re being helpful, like they think they’re being the helpful critic, but they don’t realize how negative or how constant they’re coming off with their criticisms and that ends up shooting themselves in the foot because someone else, or or someone above them in the food chain just kind of gets sick and tired of this constant stream of, of criticism. [00:17:38] You just have to be careful with it is all I’m saying. Everyone knows that a good employee, hopefully is trying to improve the company and, and make things better, improve the systems and that can include some constructive criticism, but there’s a line that we all need to be careful about crossing. [00:17:53] Joe: I had a family member, from what I heard, this family member was recently let go for questioning the finances of her boss and, and this person has a history of being. [00:18:05] Outspoken and sometimes in a very negative way. And the more comfortable she gets with you, the more negative she’ll become and kind of pick on your life. And when you pick on your boss’s life, no matter what you think, I guess just maybe a, maybe a bridge too far. [00:18:18] OG: Yeah. Praise in public chastises in private. [00:18:20] Right. [00:18:20] Joe: Well, and this OG I think is a lesson that, uh, for me, I had a mentor talk to me about this and I actually had to talk to a direct report of mine about this, and this mentor of mine said, beware clusters of misery. And this is groups of people at work that get together and like to bitch about the company culture. [00:18:39] And every big company has this cluster of people. This particular woman that worked for me, uh, would go on smoke breaks, which I was fine with, but the people that she would hang out with at the smoke break, she’d always come back negative. She always knew about all the company gossip that had nothing to do with us helping our clients make any money. [00:18:58] And I just had to caution her. I’m like, be where those people, like I don’t care about whatever you do. I’m just giving you a little bit of career advice. I would not spend that time with those people. ’cause those people every time make you negative and cross and then it takes you forever to refocus. [00:19:12] Saying to, you’re nodding your head. You must see these clusters of misery everywhere. [00:19:16] Sandy: Oh yeah. [00:19:16] Joe: Because [00:19:17] Sandy: that perception will wash over whoever’s in that vicinity. If you know, and I’ll say that, typically your HR team knows who the squeaky wheels and who the really negative people are. They know. And if they see that there’s more and or other people hanging with the same group of negative people, they’re going to assume that that’s also your thought process as well. [00:19:36] And whether it’s valid or not, there’s like a, a strike in the back of their heads. And is it the right thing? No, we’re all human. We all have our biases. But that will creep in whether you know it or not, or whether they know it or not. There’s unconscious bias and it might impact you. In a negative way, just because you’re hanging with people who other people perceive to be like [00:19:59] Joe: that. [00:19:59] Yeah, we talked about this on Wednesday, show that people can’t, you know, sometimes we call it shallow, but you just can’t help it. I see you with a person who’s the constant complainer. I immediately think that maybe you’re a complainer too, or maybe you believe what that person believes. Exactly. [00:20:13] Sandy: You’re, it’s a contagion now. [00:20:14] Are you spreading? Yeah. Throughout the office. Typically you want that contained and those are the people when there’s a reduction in force, magically weird, they’re on that list. [00:20:25] Joe: Weird how that happens. [00:20:27] Sandy: Og, what’s one you’ve got? [00:20:28] OG: So again, I was thinking more of a big broad brush stroke of this, and I was thinking about the idea of chasing whatever seems to be hot. [00:20:36] You know, at the moment, and I’m thinking about this in the context of a personal, you know, the, the personal brand component. One minute you are, you know, a finance guy. The next minute you’re talking about hustle culture. The next minute, you know, you’re. All about like calmness and serenity and mindfulness. [00:20:55] It’s like what are you trying to be an expert in or what, what are you trying to be, you know, focused in or focused around? Like what’s your message? If you’re gonna be this, like you were talking about before, if you don’t have a personal brand, you have one. You just don’t. It just sucks. Are you the hustle guy or gal? [00:21:12] Are you the finance bro? Like what, what is your thing? And if you keep on moving all the time, if you keep on bouncing around between whatever happens to be top of your social channel today, then nobody knows what to, nobody has any trust. Like what are you trying to do? What are you trying to say? What’s your message? [00:21:29] What are you, it’s okay to kind of go with different trends, but. You still have to be who you are. [00:21:35] Joe: I had a guy early in my career at American Express who did that. He was always the different guy every week, and you could tell he was trying to find his way. He was just doing it very publicly. Mm-hmm. Like very today, I’m this, and he was a hundred percent this person. [00:21:48] And then two weeks later is a hundred percent that person. It’s funny because he isn’t changes. I mean, I don’t know him that well, but we’re friends on LinkedIn and Facebook and social media. And still, when I see this guy, I still think of him as the guy who is changing every third, third week. And I haven’t known him for 20 years, and I still think of him that way. [00:22:08] Yeah. Very difficult. Doug. Doug, you spend a lot of time in corporate America. What’s a public career blowup, somebody nuke their own career that you’ve seen? Well, [00:22:17] Doug: I have a funny story that was a blowup, but, uh, I also have Simon, my own personal advice of things that, or a, a thing that. Definitely derailed me for a little while. [00:22:28] Not totally, but a little while. But the funny story is be careful of your humor because your humor is not everybody else’s humor and. It was a guy that was a peer of mine who was leading a portion of the technology team, was having a meeting with a vendor and in walk, somebody who reported to him happened to be a woman who was very small, physically. [00:22:50] I mean, she might, I don’t think she was five feet tall and she’s just a small person. For some unknown reason, this guy decides to say in front of the vendor who was sitting in his office, I’ve crapped bigger than you. Oh my God, yes. [00:23:04] Joe: No. [00:23:05] Doug: Oh my God, [00:23:06] Joe: yes. Could not believe it. I love how the woman from HR Sandy responded to that. [00:23:11] Yeah, [00:23:12] OG: no. Sandy wants a meeting with him right now in his office. I know immediately. Well, it’s not like we didn’t respond. Joe, do not, ASCO do not collect $200. It’s [00:23:22] Joe: not even in Sandy’s company and she wants to meet with him. Just a classic story. We got [00:23:27] Doug: HR managers from seven different companies that wanna meet with you now, and he never really talked about hunting. [00:23:33] You know, we’re here in Michigan, lots of people hunt, but um, oddly he was gone for a whole week during hunting season for the next couple of years. Huh. And it was ’cause he got sent off to sensitivity training for as long as he was with the company and they just scheduled it hunting season just to, uh, give him cover. [00:23:49] But, uh, yeah, that, so be careful of when you think you’re being funny. You might not be. I find that out every week on this show. I get told and taken to our HR department in the corner of the basement every week. But the, you know, the other thing that I was gonna talk about, and both you and OG just kind of touched on it, was think about the kind of manager you wanna be known as. [00:24:08] If you get promoted into a, into a management level position, it’s very easy, especially in your first one or two management roles. It’s very easy to get drawn into being the people manager rather than the mission. Manager. What I mean by that is you feel like in order to get your team behind you, you have to create these personal relationships with people and try to solve their problems for them. [00:24:33] And that’s what to OGs point a second ago, that’s what you’re gonna get known as. So then when it comes time to really buckle down and say, this is the mission of this, of this team, this is what we have to accomplish, you may not get the reaction you want because of the type of relationship you’ve developed for the proceeding, whatever, six months, a year, two years, even. [00:24:51] People are [00:24:51] Joe: saying, she or he is soft. I don’t really need to do this. [00:24:54] Doug: Well, or they know I’ve got a different, maybe if it’s not that they’re soft, but then I’ve got this, I’m a little tighter with that person. I can kind of, I don’t have to react the same way. When they say jump, I don’t have to say how high. [00:25:04] And I found that out because I, I had a career path plan, deliberate plan from shortly after college that I would rather have been a bigger fish in a smaller pond. So I deliberately worked for small to mid-size companies on purpose knowing that that way I would get really broad experience so that when I got a little bit older and I wanted to move to larger global companies, that I would have this great breadth of experience. [00:25:26] That part all worked great, but the downside was in the smaller company, you get promoted early. If you’re any good, you get promoted. Earlier, I got promoted into a leadership positions I was not ready for. I was too young and I didn’t have the experience to be leading 112 people in my mid twenties. And so I kinda leaned on the personal side of management and it really made things difficult. [00:25:47] Joe: You see that with young managers a lot, Sandy? [00:25:49] Sandy: Yes. Especially now because the current generation. Sometimes I feel like it’s a, it’s us against the company kind of a, a, a thing. And they relate very, very closely to the, the folks who work for them. It is a cultural shift, and I actually don’t think it’s a negative thing per se, because they do relate to each other on a different way than say, my generation Gen X would to somebody who’s, you know, my sister’s generation who’s Gen Z. [00:26:19] But I think there is a danger of being too familiar because when it comes to really having to have tough conversations, then it becomes very difficult. Then it’s like, dude, you’re my friend. We just had beers last night, kind of thing. Right? And they find it very difficult to draw the line when it’s been blurred the entire time the line hasn’t existed. [00:26:39] Joe: Can we talk about beers last night? Because that’s the one that I wrote down that we haven’t gotten to. I wanted to make sure that nobody else brought this up. I will tell you what I’ve seen in my career has been, remember the company holiday party. You’re still with people from the company. I have written about this so many times. [00:26:58] I have seen Sandy so many careers destroyed at the company holiday party. [00:27:04] Sandy: I stopped going to company holiday parties about, I. Six or seven years ago on purpose. Because once I was HR and I had a responsibility, I didn’t wanna be responsible here. No [00:27:15] OG: evil. See no evil. I like it. I don’t wanna [00:27:17] Sandy: go. I literally stopped going to company holiday parties. [00:27:19] Did you see what [00:27:20] OG: Nancy was doing in the bar? No idea [00:27:22] Sandy: who was drunk. Who do I have to call a car for? Who’s hooking up in this corner? Who’s on that drug? Who’s on this drug? Man, those sound like awesome parties. Sounds like [00:27:31] OG: this [00:27:31] Sandy: is, [00:27:32] OG: hold on, I’m, I’m asking for a friend, but when would be the next company party? [00:27:36] Joe: I had a colleague get propositioned to be part of a threesome at the company party with one of the VPs and their spouse. Sounds about right. Go on. I know a woman who is showing off her new, um, implants, purchases. That’s very popular. I definitely had that happen. Mm-hmm. I have seen. I’ll even tell you who this is because this was a big, I don’t even know this person. [00:27:59] I wasn’t at the company party, but I heard Lester Holt, the CB or the NBC news that [00:28:08] Doug: Yeah. [00:28:08] Joe: Was so drunk at the NBC holiday party and he sang karaoke that I heard about how horrible it was. Like, I don’t even, I wasn’t even at that party. And this has become like a cultural thing where everybody knows that Lester Holt, just [00:28:24] Doug: hold, hold on. [00:28:24] I was down for all of these crazy stories until you started saying karaoke is not okay. [00:28:29] Joe: Karaoke can be okay, but apparently Lester made it, uh, pretty, pretty bad. How off key was he? Was he singing a Rod Stewart song by any chance? Here’s a guy who at the time wanted to be an anchor right at NBC News, and I have heard in publications that that affected his ability to move up. [00:28:46] Yeah, was people, I mean, he finally made it and I think we all know him and how responsible he is. Do you think [00:28:52] Doug: I’m sexy? Do you want my father? But yeah, [00:28:54] Joe: Lester and karaoke, more people are gonna hear about what happened at the holiday party than be care at the [00:29:00] OG: holiday [00:29:01] Sandy: party. [00:29:01] Joe: Even people [00:29:02] Sandy: who are not there, we will hear about it because I hear, I always hear about stuff at the holiday party. [00:29:06] It’s like, Hey, wasn’t there unless somebody comes and complains about something at the holiday party. I dunno what happened, didn’t happen. Right? [00:29:14] Joe: Well, something that does happen every week on this show is halfway through. We have this year long trivia competition. So we’re going to pause for a second and jump into this because Sandy, today you are going to play for team Paula Pant. [00:29:28] Woo. We have three frequent contributors. Oh, G’s here every week. Jesse. Uh, we got Team Jesse and Team Paula. So you’re representing Team Paula, do you want the good news, Sandy, or the bad news about where you’re standing so far in 2025? Okay. Throw me the bad news. Let’s go. I dunno if it’s bad news or good news. [00:29:44] The bad news is Paula’s in the last place. That’s where Paula generally spends our trivia competition. She’s got two and a half points now. She did have only a point and a half, but she won last week. Okay. Jesse, three and a half points. OG has five. So with a win today, you could be in second place. Still didn’t last, but in second place, if Jesse wins, he finally puts some pressure on og. [00:30:10] If OG wins, oh God, no, let’s not even consider that. So that was the are the stakes. Sandy, you’re gonna guess last. That’s the good news, Jesse. You’ll guess in the middle. OG will go first. We need a trivia question though, Doug. What’s on tap This beautiful Friday. [00:30:29] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and today we are helping you zip up your career, maybe as mom says, by remembering to zip up that mouth at the holiday party especially. Yeah. The zipper was an innovation in more ways than one. Not only does it help keep tents closed and purses protected, it also keeps your privates private except when the worst happens. [00:30:53] As we saw in a film that earned tons of Benjamins way back in 98, that gave us the poetic line, we have a bleeder. Here’s today’s question. How often does that something about Mary problem actually happen? And for those of you who haven’t seen the movie, let me lay it out there for you. How many Americans go to the hospital in an average year for zipper and related injuries? [00:31:19] I’ll be back right after I figure out how to say that question without crossing my legs. [00:31:25] Joe: Yeah, that hurts. Something about Mary Sandy. Have you seen something about Mary? This is a nineties film, isn’t it, at 1998? Yeah. Going way back. I never [00:31:37] Sandy: watched [00:31:38] Joe: it. No. Well that’s fine, but the, the, we have a bleeder line is exactly what you think it was. [00:31:43] Jesse: Yep. [00:31:44] Joe: Jesse, have you seen this movie? [00:31:45] Jesse: Yeah. Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz. Am I thinking of the right movie? [00:31:49] Joe: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Cheryl and I actually watched it in a hotel room and then we were on the elevator to just come out and it was new to the hotel. You know, movie don’t scene. [00:31:58] Doug: Are you really telling this story? [00:31:59] We get in [00:32:00] Joe: the [00:32:00] Doug: elevator, [00:32:00] Joe: God and Cheryl takes her hand and goes like this, and the people in the elevator go, you just watched something about Mary ’cause Yeah. Hair gel. Uh, but anyway, no. Yes, I didn’t watch it, but even I know that scene, you know, that’s it. I think that we have a bleeder scene as a close second. [00:32:17] So, OG in an average year, how many people go to the hospital due to zipper injuries? [00:32:25] OG: I think that this has gotta be, uh, largely children. I have distinct memories as a child of having this happen. No less than twice. Uh, the old footy pajamas will get you every time. It just, uh, that’s a big, long zipper, and you just kind of, you get the momentum going from the ankle and you just, and it just, you know, bang, just, just jumps up to get you, you know, it’s like a rattles stake. [00:32:51] Um, the average number of Americans that go to the hospital for zipper related incidences is it’s gonna be 74,319 [00:33:03] Joe: 74,319 people. On average. On average [00:33:09] Jesse: per year. [00:33:10] Joe: Yes. Sandy, use your hand up to ask a question. That’s a lot of people who don’t wear underwear. [00:33:19] Doug’s not wearing underwear right now. It’s a whole new world. Uh, Jesse, you don’t know Jesse. Whatcha gonna do that? Don’t send [00:33:23] OG: me to HR because of it. [00:33:26] Jesse: I’m gonna go lower than og. My first instinct was in the thousands. I’m gonna say three. I’m gonna say 3,500. 500 per year. [00:33:40] Joe: You’re going way lower. Way, way, way lower. [00:33:43] Jesse: 75,000 is a lot. I mean, that means over. Over 10 years, it’s happened to close to a million people. [00:33:50] Joe: Well, like Doug said, while we were planning this segment, everybody’s got a story. [00:33:54] Jesse: Well, that’s the thing, it’s everybody’s got a story. But this is a hospital visit. [00:33:58] Joe: Yeah, it’s a, yeah, that’s a serious story. [00:34:00] Jesse: Again. Uh, sorry Sandy, if this is too much, but this isn’t like, a little like pinch and go like, oh, alright, time, time to get back to work. Now this is like, I have to stop work, call the ambulance [00:34:11] Sandy: because we have a bleeder, [00:34:12] Jesse: correct? Yeah. Correct. Oh my [00:34:14] Sandy: God. I have had to extricate a cousin from one eye. Oh. [00:34:18] Jesse: Oh my goodness. [00:34:19] Sandy: I have a little bit of experience with that. [00:34:21] Jesse: Oh, did they go to the hospital or not? There was a lot of screaming, [00:34:24] Sandy: but [00:34:24] Jesse: no hospital. Case in [00:34:25] Joe: point. The good news is, is that Jesse thinks a lot more people wear underwear. So, [00:34:31] Jesse: yes. [00:34:32] Joe: What did [00:34:32] Jesse: I, what did [00:34:32] Joe: I end up saying, Doug? 3,500. [00:34:35] Jesse: Alright, [00:34:35] Joe: good. Alright, uh, Sandy, here’s what you got. [00:34:38] 74,003 19 from og. 3,500 from Jesse. [00:34:42] Sandy: Jesse stole my answer ’cause I’m thinking like 10 people a day. Like who you’ve gotta really be, you know, yanking on that zipper really quickly to warrant a hospital visit and having had to, ugh. Unzip and scissor my cousin out of the, come [00:35:03] OG: on. That was unnecessary. Oh God. [00:35:05] Oh God. I wanna go to hr, isn’t it? [00:35:08] Sandy: Oh, I here with four men. I’m a mom of one son and thank God I haven’t had to do this with him yet. ’cause I, yeah, I never wanna do that again. One time was enough in my life. Yes. [00:35:17] Jesse: Is that why you didn’t take that job, Sandy? Was it that cousin? No, I wouldn’t take the job either. [00:35:24] I know. Seen the [00:35:26] OG: bits. Like I haven’t talked to him in six years. [00:35:27] Sandy: Why? Well, it involved a zipper. We were younger. We were younger. I was the older teenage cousin and he was a little younger and I had to, oh boy, I was babysitting, so I had to, oh boy. Oh, get him extricated. Um, I, 74,000. Way too many people. Like that’s a, that’s a whole lot of momentum and a whole lot of meat. [00:35:44] Um, and I just, [00:35:49] Doug: this just became the best episode ever. [00:35:52] Sandy: Have you guys ever had to do this? [00:35:54] Jesse: I told you twice. Okay. No. [00:35:56] Sandy: Yeah, so I’m, I’m extricate somebody. I’m coming back to when I had to help my cousin out to get this. It can’t be that many people ’cause he didn’t have to go to the hospital. You just have to be very careful and had to like, you know, he lost a pair of pants. [00:36:07] That’s it. And I was like, in, in Jesse’s area, like 10 people a day. So can we be close? Can we go like three, [00:36:14] Doug: 3000 people? You can go one over one under. That is a common tactic to go one over or one, one under somebody. I’ll go a little under. [00:36:21] Sandy: Let’s, where, where are you at? 3,500. Let’s go 3000. Mm-hmm. Because there can’t be that many people with that much like trauma or junk. [00:36:31] Joe: That’s, yeah. [00:36:33] Alright, [00:36:36] let’s, let’s lock those in. [00:36:39] Doug: This might be the weirdest tribute we’ve ever done. No, we’re gonna find out. I got butterflies in my stomach right now. I’m so uncomfortable. We’re gonna find out who’s right. [00:36:47] Joe: We’ll be right back. All right. We performed this live on YouTube, and, uh, the comments are coming in. [00:36:54] Mike says, what is going on? Like, uh, and Tina says, how’d you get the beans above the Frank? I, no, don’t even wanna know. Uh, so OG started us off with 74,319. People have zipper related incidents. Both Jesse and Sandy thought you were way off. Og, what are you thinking? [00:37:17] OG: No clue. Got, I hope it’s way off. Yeah. [00:37:19] Jesse, [00:37:20] Joe: 30. I know. I think we all do. Jesse 3,500. Sandy stole the downside. You feeling good? [00:37:25] Jesse: Yeah, I, I’m feeling like I’m in the ballpark. You know the ballpark. Oh, I see what you did there. [00:37:33] Sandy: Sandy. Is, is Paula gonna win this one? I hope so. I, every time I’m here, I have won for Paula, so let’s keep the streak going. [00:37:41] Here we go, Doug. Let’s see [00:37:43] Joe: if the streak is alive. I wonder if I wanna win this one though. I don’t know. Or is it, uh, team Jesse getting closer to OG or OG pulling away. [00:37:54] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m bandaid lover and guy who suddenly loves button fly jeans. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Today we are zipping up our trivia with a question about the zipper. Ironic, isn’t it? The zipper actually might not be as old as you think it was created in 1913 as a separat able fastener by a guy named Gideon Sun back. [00:38:18] I still thank him daily for his modern miracle, mostly because I’ve never had a zipper accident and had to rush to the hospital. But today’s question is how many people do have to go to the hospital for zipper related incidences in an average year? Well, I’m not gonna give you the answer right away, but I will tell you that it was 72,319 less than the Evil Empire og. [00:38:42] It was 1500 less than Jesse and just a thousand fewer than what Sandy slash Paul had guessed. Keeping Sandy streak alive, she has won for Paula. The actual answer is 2000 people. Poor, poor souls per year. Yes. [00:38:58] Sandy: So you guys need more experience unzipping the zipper. No we don’t. [00:39:01] Jesse: Paula definitely would’ve taken the over, she definitely would’ve taken the over. [00:39:05] You did not do Paula Well right there. But congratulations on the win. [00:39:09] Sandy: I think I had the edge because I’ve had to do this and you guys haven’t had to do it. So, oh, [00:39:12] Joe: I will learn from your experience. Kinda like we were doing with those people blowing up their careers. I don’t want any part in that, but two thousand’s, a much better number. [00:39:22] I give you hope for humanity. This doesn’t happen that much, so, yeah. Hmm. Alright, let’s get on with uh, something maybe a little better. Well, we talked about the downsides ’cause those are salacious tales. Let’s talk about people who maybe made their career with something that they did. Something pretty badass They did. [00:39:40] Sandy, let’s stick with you. What’s something you saw where somebody. Really did something pretty amazing that, uh, catapulted them career-wise. [00:39:48] Sandy: I don’t think you guys are gonna agree with me on this one because it isn’t an amazing thing per se. It is a personality trait. I think people don’t realize that the more likable you are, the more your chances of improving your career. [00:40:04] What do I mean by that? You don’t have to be the smartest in the room. You do not have to know everything. You do not have to be the person picking up all the things. You have a better chance of success if people find you to be likable, okay? If you’re not the difficult person to work with, if you’ve got the can-do attitude, if you come in your ray of sunshine, you are smiling, they like working with you, you stand a chance of having more opportunities presented to you than if you are just the hard worker with your head down. [00:40:36] Because you’re not noticeable and I know that’s not something that you know is gonna blow everybody’s minds or whatever. Or something that you wanna hear. You want something tangible. Oh, study this, do that, do this amazing thing. No, be that likable person that people love working with and I promise you, your career has, stands a better chance of improving better, faster than people who are working hard at their [00:40:59] Joe: jobs. [00:41:00] I’m glad you said that ’cause that’s what we spent the whole week doing. You know, was talking Sandy specifically about that. On Monday, we led off with relationships matter. I. And being in the right meetings and taking part in, uh, groups that have nothing to do with your job, being a cheerleader for other people. [00:41:18] All of those things. Elevate people. Oh gee, you and I know somebody like this. Uh, Chris. Chris was actually really good at his job, but I thought, oh gee, when you and I worked with Chris back in our American Express days, that what you led with was he was, he was one of the most likable guys you could possibly meet. [00:41:35] OG: Yeah. Good guy to have in your corner, that’s for sure. [00:41:38] Joe: Yeah. Always a cheerleader too. Og. [00:41:40] OG: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Problem solver. It didn’t have to be necessarily work related. I felt like maybe he was always like a connector, right? Like, oh, you know what? Who’s good at this? Is this person. Let me. Lemme get you guys together and see if that won’t spark a conversation. [00:41:55] Joe: And this is actually, Chris is an interesting case study because I remember hearing from some more senior executives that people above him in the corporate chain kind of saw him as a goofball. Mm-hmm. But a management consultant, Tom Peters said that true leadership from the people that are your employees, your direct reports. [00:42:15] They’re the ones that will get you promoted in a big way. And Chris ended up getting some fantastic promotions later on. And it was mostly because the people that work for him were always his biggest cheerleader. ’cause he was always helping them. So Sandy, I think this guy Chris, is exactly like the model of who, who you’re avoiding clusters of misery, Sandy, I think. [00:42:34] Yes. [00:42:35] Sandy: You being the opposite of that, right? Yeah, that’s exactly what that is. And I benefit from that myself. I’ve had managers who I worked with previously at this current job that I have right now. The manager literally picked up the phone and said, I want you here with me at this current place because we’d worked together before, didn’t even interview anybody else. [00:42:54] Right. I know what you’re capable of. I know like your personality. I don’t have to worry about anything. It was literally just come meet the CFO and you’re in. And they even waited. Because I was working on a major project and my, and my former employer, I was like, Hey, I, I wanna leave with a nice bow here. [00:43:09] Will you guys wait four months for me to join? Yes, no problem, no questions asked. And that will follow you for other people. As people go to other companies, you reputation will follow you, and that might lead to other opportunities as well for you. I [00:43:24] Joe: do remember the aha, and I’m gonna go right back to the name. [00:43:27] I already said Tom Peters. I remember Tom Peters saying, if you spend all of your time as a manager helping your people with their resume so that they can make more money, they can do better work, and they can leave the company, those people will never leave. Or, or they will try not to leave. And by the way, if they do leave, they will help you make connections between their new company and your company because they want to work with you. [00:43:51] Yep. On the other side, most managers, by every report I’ve ever seen, spend a lot of time keeping their direct reports down so that they look better. And those people wanna leave immediately. [00:44:01] Sandy: Nope. I learned from a manager, she ended up being in the C-suite at BlackRock. I remember her saying to me, I was her executive assistant at the time I was in grad school. [00:44:09] She said to me, I hire people who are smarter than I am. Why should I be the smartest person in the room? These guys make me look good. [00:44:16] Joe: That’s fabulous. And I [00:44:17] Sandy: never forgot that. Right? You do have a lot of managers who wanna be like, yeah, the smartest person in the room. And the fact that she had the opposite philosophy stuck with me. [00:44:26] For my twenties to now. And I think that’s really important that you build your team. I love people who are smarter than me. I don’t wanna be the smartest person in the room doing all the things. That’s what you guys are here for. [00:44:35] Joe: It’s such a growth mentality and so, so, so cool. Jesse, what’s a time that you saw somebody make their career? [00:44:42] Jesse: Yeah, two quick comments. The phrase that you guys, I thought when you guys were talking there, servant leadership is, is that, are you guys familiar with that phrase? Mm-hmm. But it really is like, my role as a manager is to try to make sure that the people who I’m managing, that they are successful. And if there are multiple layers of management involved, like let’s say I’m the, I’m the senior manager and then they’re all junior managers to further people below ’em, their job is to make sure that the people below them are successful. [00:45:04] And there are a lot of really good organizations that are kind of built on that idea that everybody’s job is just to make sure that the people who work for them, that they can find success themselves. Just like you said, Joe, it breeds great culture. But then there was another idea I had, lemme see if it’ll come back to me. [00:45:20] Oh boy. It might, it might not. It might not. Um, oh, I know what it was. Thank you Sandy Likability. Here’s a cool thing I, I learned recently, this isn’t me in my own study, but there was a really cool study done on like high schoolers and it kinda had to do with like popularity and likability and what was the number one correlated thing they found that makes people likable? [00:45:40] Like, you know, what was it? Was it being good looking? Was it being athletic? Was it being funny? No, the people who are the most likable are the people who like the most other people, so, right. If you’re the kind of person who goes around and you say like, oh, Joe Joe’s a great guy. I, I love hanging out with Joe. [00:45:58] Oh, Bobby, you know, he’s kind of quiet sometimes. He’s like, kind of snaps at people, but I like him. You know, I, I think he’s a sweet guy. If you’re the kind of person who can find a way to like other people, those people will tend to like you back. So if anyone out there is curious about becoming more and likable, it kind of just. [00:46:14] Has to do with you and your ability to, to enjoy spending time and, and like other people, I’m screwed. Yeah. Yeah. [00:46:22] Doug: There’s a reason you work for yourself og. [00:46:25] Jesse: I like you og. It’s okay. [00:46:26] Joe: By the time somebody made their career Yeah. That you saw somebody do something that was just brilliant. [00:46:32] Jesse: I mean, that’s a good one. [00:46:33] Brilliancy, like is it one act of brilliancy or, I mean, this is a boring answer, but some of the people who I feel like I’ve seen make the biggest careers for themselves. There’s this consistency. There’s this like unwavering consistency. Not that you have to be, for example, a workaholic, but one idea that does come to mind is this guy who’s like, his goal was everyone else was working nine to five and his goal was to work six to six every single day. [00:46:59] And from the time we started together as engineers as like 23 year olds to the time I left the firm seven years later, he was always in working six to six every single day. And he didn’t really rub it in. It’s just that he got way more stuff done and he learned way more. And so again, it, it’s not that I’m trying to promote this like workaholic culture, but it’s that whatever you choose to do, if you can show true consistency over a long period of time, and yeah, make sure that your managers are aware of it, that that becomes pretty hard to ignore. [00:47:26] OG: Oh gee, how about for you? I was just thinking about it. You know, in our industry I thought of a person that stuck very closely to their personal brand and just kind of repeated the same thing over and over again. I think a good example of that, uh, is Morgan Housel. You know, he’s not trying to be the next stay trader. [00:47:45] He’s not trying to. Figure out what the next stock pick is that’s gonna blow up. But just repeatable, predictable, good, solid financial planning advice over and over and over again. And now everybody knows the name. Everybody has his, he was a blogger, right? For a long time. And now everybody has his books on their shelf, who’s in the finance space. [00:48:08] And people who aren’t have obviously bought a lot of his books and a very well respected person by just saying like, this is what I believe. I’m gonna say it very simply and I’m gonna say it over and over and over again. And this is so, there’s no confusion about who he is. You know what I mean? Like, you know what you’re [00:48:23] Sandy: getting. [00:48:23] There’s something for that reliability and consistency as well. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That means people can really depend on you. Yeah. And that’s important. You have to worry about [00:48:31] OG: like all of a sudden, some weird direction, you know, he is not gonna be chasing. Chinese penny stocks all of a sudden or something like that. [00:48:37] Joe: Well, and Sandy also, to your point, I love how it’s the opposite of what OG said in the first half, which was the person who’s like showing up as somebody different every three weeks or every month or every two months, you know, or every couple years, that if they’re consistently, I am this person. Well, Jesse, it really goes to yours too, right? [00:48:55] About the guy that shows up same time every day. Yeah. Does the same thing. I remember going back to the beginning of the year and Alex Har saying, be useful. You know that somebody who’s useful and people wanna take the job to you because you’re useful. That person’s getting promoted. I saw a woman when I was at American Express who created a job for herself. [00:49:14] She saw a need in the company. She not only presented that need to her bosses, she literally said, here’s how this role would look. Here’s what it would do. And I think I’m the person who is uniquely created to fill the role to the, she made such a great business case using, as we talked about on Monday, using data, using data, and showing how we could have a bigger impact on clients if this role existed. [00:49:40] She created a whole job for herself and a great paying job and like a whole new spot that American Express wasn’t paying attention to. It was pretty badass to see at a major company like American Express, a woman create outta the blue, just a brand new role that was perfect for her. So [00:49:56] Sandy: what she did though, Joe, was she found a gap. [00:50:00] And created a solution and presented it. I thought for sure you were gonna say, zipped it up, you missed opportunity, right? Yes. Do you see that a lot though, Sandy? It’s harder to do it, I think now than than ever before. But if Sure if you absolutely can. And not only just finding the gap, but coming up with the solution is also very important. [00:50:23] Not just waving the flag, but that’s also what people do. I think when you have people who are, um. Finding vulnerabilities and systems and things like that and software, et cetera, they find the gap and they suggest the solution as well. And you’re suddenly this hero. So if you’re looking for the one big, you know, a big event, that might be something that might be a one big event that can really catapult your career, [00:50:44] Joe: like the takeaway. [00:50:44] Yeah. I also have one more, and this was during the interview I went to apply for, when I was in college, I went to apply to be a disc jockey at this place called USA Cafe. I played like fifties and sixties music and served burgers and fries and stuff, and became, uh, nightclub, uh, later on the evenings. And they were hiring new GJ. [00:51:05] So I showed up and there were maybe eight people there. The hiring manager comes out and goes, he goes, Hey, totally optional, but does anybody wanna like, dress up like Elvis right now and grab this guitar and just perform for this little group of people? There were maybe 12 people in the, you know, it’s, it’s 11 o’clock in the morning, so the lunch crowd is just beginning to come in and said, does anybody, you know, totally optional. [00:51:27] Does anybody wanna dress up like a Elvis Presley and, and do this fake guitar riff right now? And all of us. Except two people went, yeah, I’ll pass. Yeah. I just wanna get to the interview. And he goes, okay. Those two people said they’d do it. You’re staying, you’re hired, and everybody else is gone. Hmm. And I was like, think like the hiring manager. [00:51:45] Think about the other side of the table. And I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen people that by thinking, by thinking more like the person who’s trying to solve the problem at work, that is not your problem, but their problem and trying to think more like them, you immediately make huge, huge, huge waves. [00:52:03] Doug: I did that inadvertently once, Joe, without, did you? Yeah, I was living in London and uh, didn’t have a job. And a friend back here in the States who was pretty senior with Xerox got me an interview in London selling copiers. I mean just, you know, grunt work, hitting the pavement as entry level as it got there. [00:52:22] And they set up the interview back, they were doing crazy stuff in the eighties with interview, you know, crazy questions and weird approaches. And they did good cop, bad cop. And while. The good cop was asking a question, the bad cop would interrupt and be a total jerk about it and you know, be really high pressure on me and almost be mean to me. [00:52:42] And it just sucked. The whole thing sucked. And I decided I don’t wanna work here. This is not where I wanna work. So they get to the very end, we get through it, and then they broke character and they go, okay, well we’re glad that’s over. You know, we were just pressuring you a little bit to see how you reacted. [00:52:56] How’d you like that? And I went. I hated that. That was awful. They offered me a job because they just wanted somebody to be honest, I didn’t, I found out afterwards with the guy back here in the States who kind of set the whole thing up was like, they loved you because you were one of the few people who said, you know, I’m like, well, great, but I’m never working with them because I don’t wanna be, you’re be part of that’re you don’t want, you wanna play the game. [00:53:17] Don’t wanna be Elvis in the jumpsuit. Nope. Actually, I would love to do that gig. [00:53:23] Joe: You totally would’ve loved that gig. Yeah, absolutely. Well, this gig, speaking of gigs that ends this week, thank you guys for helping us round out our career branding week. I think those cautionary tales and then, uh, some of those great things people did to make their careers a big help to a lot of our stackers. [00:53:40] Let’s find out what’s happening where you are. OG got big plans this fine weekend. [00:53:44] OG: Uh, as a matter of fact. Yeah. Today’s a big day for, uh, third graders Every year. The third graders get to do this. Uh, they, they think they’re going on a field trip. And instead what they find out when they get at the park is that they are on the Oregon Trail. [00:53:59] They get wagons and they have to go through all the stuff that they’ve learned about the Oregon Trail and they run into, you know, bears and robbers and the sheriff and you know, all the stuff. And so all the parents are, you know, in different states. [00:54:10] Doug: Does one kid get dysentery? [00:54:11] OG: I was about to. They do have a lot of that stuff. [00:54:14] I mean, I don’t really remember it that well from the boys, but, um, but anyways, so we’re doing that today. It’s a big surprise for the third graders, which is really fun. That’s awesome. And then tomorrow is Alex’s birthday, so he is officially a man tomorrow, according to him. That’s fantastic. And I saw his Facebook post about going to Texas a and m. [00:54:29] Yep. So we’ve gotten some, uh, pretty cool emails about that too already. Somebody sent me a list of steak restaurants, so that’s pretty cool. That’s fantastic. [00:54:38] Joe: Speaking of fantastic, well have our guest of honor, fantastic. Guest of honor, go last. But also fantastic. Jesse Kramer. What’s going on at Personal Finance for long-term investors? [00:54:48] Jesse: Uh, we are releasing an episode soon with, uh, bill Yun from Catching Up to Phi, and then last week I think we released our sixth a MA episode. Took some good success with a, with an emergency tariff episode in there too. So we’ve had some fun episodes recently over on the podcast, but you’ve had [00:55:04] Joe: to create some emergency tariffs. [00:55:06] Jesse: It feels like it, is that what happened? It feels like it. You’re [00:55:08] Joe: putting a 10% premium on the cost of your podcast. [00:55:11] OG: Yeah, well it was 145, so it is a much better deal now at 10. Tomorrow it’s gonna be 190. [00:55:19] Joe: If you don’t watch it, if you don’t watch it, it’ll be 190. And that’s where people consume finer podcast. [00:55:25] Personal finance for long-term investors. We’ll link to it in the show notes. Sandy Smith, thank you so much for your expertise today. And, uh, that was just the tip of the Ichenberg of the stories that you’ve, you’ve seen. Yeah, I remember one about, uh, drug abuse. That was kind of only one, disconcerting [00:55:41] Sandy: only. [00:55:42] Was that the one who I put on a one-way plane ticket or the one who Yes. Um, threw up in the boss’s new apartment? [00:55:49] Joe: Well, well actually I know both of those, but the one you put on the plane ticket home because they were too busy doing cocaine, I think. Yep. To actually attend the company events and [00:55:58] Sandy: trashed the hotel of them. [00:55:59] Yeah. I’ve got some stories. Emily. Guy Burkin says she should ghost write my stories ’cause I’ve got so many up my sleeves. Tales from hr. Oh my Good. Well she’s the top [00:56:10] Joe: person to partner with if you’re writing something. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Well, tell us about the conference because people can now, I believe this week you’re gonna be opening it up and people can sign up. [00:56:21] Sandy: Yeah, always free and online, lining up some speakers and things so. Again, always is about intersectionality, always with a focus on finance and money and financial education and literacy, because I feel like that is one of the ways that people can change their entire lives. I’ve always spoken many times about how mine has been changed through financial literacy for sure. [00:56:41] So I want to continue to empower, specifically this year would be, um, black women with financial education and information that they can utilize, which I think is very timely. That’s just the niche that I’m focusing on this year. So go to elevate the 92 percent.com. You’ll get more information as speakers are announced, that you’ll see who the speakers are always useful and timely information that people can then apply to their own lives because it’s nice to speak in theory, but you walk away with theory and if you have no action items, then it doesn’t make sense. [00:57:12] Yeah, it’s not about what you know, it’s about what you do. Exactly. I’m putting it into place right now. So Joe’s known me for a very, very long time. I started out life minus 200,000 plus net worth. Now it’s. Seven figures on my own. You can definitely change your life, and I wanna continue helping other people change theirs as well. [00:57:30] Not changing just your life. The people around you’s lives. The people around. Yeah, exactly. [00:57:34] Joe: Yeah. Not just intergenerational wealth, but community wealth too, which is super important. And we’ll link to it on the show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. [00:57:42] Sandy: Yeah. And there’re always more tales from HR stories if you want to see how employees behaving badly. [00:57:47] Yeah, I’m always sharing that. That’s the name of your book. Employees behaving badly, you know, from your ellips to God’s ears. ’cause there’s lots of stories out there and I have to wait for different NDAs to expire so I can share more and more [00:57:58] Joe: stuff. And that’s how you know you’ll get continuing content from Sandy Smith. [00:58:02] Yes. Alright, that’s gonna do it for today. Thanks to everybody hanging out with us on YouTube. Normally we’re here later in the afternoon on Wednesdays, about around 5:00 PM Eastern Time, or Jesse, it’s around 4:00 PM Eastern Time usually. Right? 4:00 PM Eastern. Correct. Yep. I almost got my time zones wrong. [00:58:17] You can reliably find us then if you wanna hang out and say hello, like we’ve got, uh, several people hanging out with us today. Thank you so much. Doug ends our Friday show and our week by informing us. What are the three things that should be on our big, uh, to-do list now? [00:58:32] Doug: Well, Joe, first, if you’re someone who looks at your job like it’s a singles bar with better lighting, take some advice from Jesse. [00:58:39] What was that again? Jesse? [00:58:41] Jesse: If you wanna be a leader, don’t be a bleeder. [00:58:44] Doug: I had nothing to do. Okay, second, Sandy said Michael Scott on the office had the right idea by focusing all his efforts on being likable. Did I get it right, Sandy? Did I nail that? Zipped it right up. Come on. What do you guys let the big lesson. [00:59:02] Speaking of career ending missteps. Remember your P’s and Q’s. Mom just tried to fire me because I forgot to thank her for telling me to unplug the toilet. Geez. Thanks to Sandy Smith for joining us today. Check out her latest project on Elevate the 92 percent.com. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. [00:59:24] Thanks to Jesse Kramer for hanging out with us today. You’ll find his amazing podcast, personal Finance for long-term investors, wherever you listen to finer podcasts, with really long names, and thanks also to OG for joining us today. Looking for good financial planning. Help head to Stacking Benjamins dot com OG for his calendar. [00:59:45] This show is the Property of SP podcasts, LLC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. [01:00:06] Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and we’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. [01:00:31] Sandy: What do you suppose? They call that a novelty act. I, but it wasn’t too bad. Well, that’s a novelty.
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