How do you stand out in a competitive workplace—without shouting or burning out? In this episode, Joe and OG sit down with Lorraine K. Lee, a sought-after keynote speaker and former LinkedIn and Prezi leader, to dig into the real strategies behind building a career brand that lasts.
Lorraine shares what she’s learned from coaching thousands of professionals, plus her own journey from behind-the-scenes to center stage. She introduces her EPIC framework—a smart approach that helps you craft a standout career identity built on:
- Experiences
- Personality
- Identity
- Community
You’ll also learn:
- How to advocate for yourself without being “that person”
- The power of thoughtful feedback (and how to actually get it)
- Tactical tips to master Zoom meetings, digital presence, and virtual impressions
- Why embracing your differences can give you a serious edge in your career
And after the career conversation? We shift into Stacker-style financial clarity—covering key money decisions people face during uncertain times:
- Should you wait to buy a home, or pull the trigger now?
- What do tariffs mean for your next car purchase?
- How should you approach investing when the market’s wobbling?
From personal branding to practical budgeting, this episode gives you the tools to think clearly, act strategically, and build a future you’re proud of—no matter the economy.
This one’s packed with high-leverage insights. Bring a notepad.
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Mentor: Lorraine K. Lee
Big thanks to Lorraine K. Lee for joining us today. To learn more about Lorraine, visit Global keynote speaker & Instructor at LinkedIn Learning, Stanford Continuing Studies. Grab yourself a copy of the book Unforgettable Presence: Get Seen, Gain Influence, and Catapult Your Career
Our Headline
- How to Make Major Investment Decisions Right Now From Mortgages to Stocks (Wall Street Journal)
Doug’s Trivia
- What company owns LinkedIn?
Have a question for the show?
Want more than just the show notes? How about our newsletter with STACKS of related, deeper links?
- Check out The 201, our email that comes with every Monday and Wednesday episode, PLUS a list of more than 19 of the top money lessons Joe’s learned over his own life about money. From credit to cash reserves, and insurance to investing, we’ll tackle all of these. Head to StackingBenjamins.com/the201 to sign up (it’s free and we will never give away your email to others).
Join Us Friday!
Tune in on Friday when we’ll talk missteps, unforced errors, and strategic genius in the office.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: Craft Your Career Brand: Actionable Tips for Influence and More Benjamins (SB1672)
Episode transcript
Joe: [00:00:00] I look out my
OG: window and I see my neighbor,
Doug: Doug
OG: four. Lazy deplorable,
Doug: Doug.
Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show.
I’m Joe’s moms neighbor, Duggan. Remember that zoom meeting where one person sounded like they were underwater and another had a horrible camera angle, and the third tried to pretend they were at work, but you knew they were really at the zoo? Well, here to help you hone the tactics to avoid your career from becoming a circus, we welcome Lorraine Lee Plus in our headline.
What if you had a big financial move you were considering and now. With tariffs and the threat of a recession, you aren’t sure what to do, how do you pull the trigger? We’ll help you [00:01:00] sort through several big moves to strategically make the best decision and don’t you worry yourself even a little bit because you already know, don’t you?
You know it. I’m gonna swoop in halfway through all this goodness with the most goodnessy part of it, all my trivia, and now two guys who were relieved to find out that career branding had nothing to do with a hot iron. It’s Joe and o Jean.
Joe: Thank goodness for the clarification. I appreciate that. Hey everybody, welcome to the, this is going to hurt a lot less than we thought. Podcast. I am Joe Saul Cihi and welcome. To the Stacking Benjamin Show. Sit back and relax because man, we’ve got you. You know what, actually today you might wanna grab a sheet of paper or your favorite, uh, note taking device because Lorraine Lee is bringing it.
Okay, boomer,
Doug: grab some chalk and a slate.
Joe: Grab your Abacus ’cause it’s time [00:02:00] to start doing the math on all of this. Career branding. Uh, Lorraine Lee is just a dynamo and I cannot wait to get her advice on making your career better. I know that hopefully after today’s episode, well some of you’re gonna score some raises.
Some of you’re gonna make a little more money. Maybe a lot more money. Og imagine if we help people make a lot more money. You think that they’ll, uh, it’s like tipping the server. They’ll come and they’ll tip us.
OG: Yeah. It’ll probably be tips like, uh, buy
Joe: low. It’s so high.
Doug: Don’t drink your bath water. Don’t eat yellow snow.
I’ve never heard the one about bath water. Is that a thing? Really don’t drink the bath water.
Joe: Who, who knew that you shouldn’t do that? Apparently not. Doug, settle
OG: down Portage, Michigan.
Doug: Whole communities in South central Michigan are up in arms. Wow. Holy cow. That
OG: advice, the things you learn about Joe’s upbringing on this show. Don’t drink the bath water [00:03:00] again, Joe,
Doug: that’s seriously not a phrase. I think that was just something your parents had to say to you.
Joe: I’ve never heard that ever.
It was Southwest Michigan, by the way. We don’t associate with those mid-Michigan people. Oh, you’re in Michiana. Very close to Michi. Not quite. Uh, Lorraine Lee is a top rated global keynote speaker, consultant and instructor at, uh, little university called Stanford. She also works at LinkedIn Learning.
She’s recognized as LinkedIn Top Voice and is more than 300,000 LinkedIn followers. And over a decade of experience leading editorial teams at the world’s top tech firms. She has been a trainer and a guest speaker for Zoom, Cisco, Amazon little company called McKinsey and others named a top virtual speaker by Read.
Wright was a finalist for Global Conference Speaker of the Year by Women Tech, also named a top 15 link expert in San Francisco by Influence Digest. But today she is teaching [00:04:00] us how to make sure that we’re not passed over for that next raise that we deserve. It’s not just about working hard or stackers always working hard.
It’s about making sure that you get noticed. So here with the tactics to get you noticed in just a moment, Lorraine Lee first, we got a couple of sponsors that make sure that this is free and you don’t have to pay a dime for Lorraine’s presence here, get it. Her presence, unforgettable presence, maybe. No, we’re keeping this joke going for Monday.
I have no idea, but Lorraine Lee, coming up next, let’s hear from them. And then the Lorraine Lee.
And I am super happy we finally have this woman coming down to the basement. Lorraine Lee is here. How are you? I’m doing so well. Thank you for having me. I am so, so, so happy because I love this idea of taking control of your career, taking [00:05:00] control of your brand, but I think the best place for us to start today after everybody heard about you on Monday and a lot of these concepts on Monday, tell us your story because really I think that this whole project has a lot to do with your own personal journey when you started at LinkedIn.
Lorraine: It does. Yes. , I share my own personal journey about my early career was at LinkedIn. I was there for six years. I worked on some really high profile projects and, and initiatives and things. Many people I think would recognize and use today LinkedIn newsletters on that new module, in the top right hand corner of your feed.
I moved to Hong Kong for a year writing those stories. Folks in the US would wake up to fresh news, a lot of things LinkedIn influencers, and I loved my job there. I loved my coworkers. Everyone liked me. And as hard as I tried though, you know, I’m an an ambitious person. I, I was in the middle, mid-level of my career.
I really wanted to get promoted. I wanted to be viewed as that senior leader. You know, I was there for six years. As hard as I pushed, I could [00:06:00] not not get that promotion and I couldn’t figure out why. You know, I was like, I work hard. I’m delivering results. People like me, what’s wrong? And after six amazing years at LinkedIn, ended up moving to a company called Prezi.
And it was only at that point where I started reflecting a little bit more, realizing, oh, maybe I wasn’t doing things in the best way. And I was at LinkedIn. I wasn’t really, I. Advocating for myself and promoting my work in the best way, and I wasn’t making it clear what I wanted. Even though I worked on important projects.
I was someone who executed, said yes all the time, was less strategic. It was through a lot of conversations, a lot of reflection that I realized, okay, these are the things I want to improve in my next role because I do want to reach that next level. And went into my new role at Prezi really. Thinking of myself as a CEO of my own career and realizing I need to take my career into my own hands and be really proactive and intentional about it, much more so than I was early on in my career.
Joe: But it’s funny, [00:07:00] most of us, especially when we first start out, Lorraine, I think that we think, well, A, I don’t wanna brag BI wanna be a team player because it’s the team player that everybody likes and every, everybody wants. And I think you do a great job though of saying, listen, you can promote yourself and still be all those things.
Lorraine: Yeah, a lot of it’s a mindset shift. Of course, we don’t wanna be that person who’s bragging all the time and it’s like, me, me, me. But there are ways that you can talk about your work that still benefit the rest of the team, right? Frame it in terms of learnings. Here’s what I learn and here’s what might apply to you as well.
Or, uh, there’s like language, uh, adjustments you can make that make it. And seem more collaborative, but also are still highlighting your achievements and accomplishments.
Joe: It’s wild because I know there’s a portion of our audience that when they first were introduced this subject, they kind of roll their eyes and they’re like a personal brand.
I, I don’t need a personal brand. You kick off this whole project with this great statement. You have a personal brand already, like it’s either a really crappy one [00:08:00] mm-hmm. Or it’s a good one and, and you get to choose, but you have a personal brand, whether you know it or not.
Lorraine: Exactly, and I call personal brand, career brand, because to your point, I feel like when we hear personal brand sometimes we’re like, Ooh, that sounds kind of slimy.
Or I’m like selling something. Or it’s just for brands or just for companies, but a brand is essentially a reputation and what people can expect when they work with you and they meet you. And so career brand, I think maybe a little less disingenuous sounding and, and, and explains like, your brand is in service of your career.
And so we need to be intentional about it because we have one like you said, and it’s either of us to define it or others are gonna define it for us.
Joe: It reminds me of that old CEO at General Electric in the nineties, Jack Welch, who always said, control your destiny or somebody else is going to, and I love your phrasing of being the CEO.
All right, you have these maxims. I kind of wanna walk through these. In the old days, you might’ve said hard work alone will pay off in the new days. The new way, the Lorraine way of thinking about this, if nobody sees my [00:09:00] work, it’ll be like, I didn’t do anything. I need to share my accomplishments. So can we address that one?
How do you share, we brought this up a little bit earlier, Lorraine, but how do we share without bragging? We see these people online and they’re so braggy, and as you know, it just lands so flat sometimes.
Lorraine: Mm-hmm. I like to share this analogy, the analogy that’s like if a tree falls in a forest and no one’s there to hear it, did it happen?
And I feel like that’s like hard work, right? Like if no one sees it, like what’s it all for? Does it matter? And so it’s really important to keep that visibility piece in mind. And so the first thing I would think about is, you know, if you’re worried about sounding like you’re bragging, if you have strong relationships with the people with whom you’re sharing the work, that is very important, right?
Relationships are the foundation of business. And if people know you and they know your intentions and they know your personality. It’s very unlikely they’re going to think, okay, Joe or Lorraine are bragging all the time about themselves. Oh, they’re, they’re just trying to be helpful. So that’s one is that you want to lean on your relationships and building those relationships at work [00:10:00] as the foundation.
Uh, another thing you can do is use more collaborative language. So there is this data in Harvard Business Review that shared. That people who use, we, us our to describe their accomplishments versus people who use I statements a lot. So the, we, us, our people were actually viewed as more senior. And the i people were viewed as more junior, which is very interesting.
So for people who are a little bit nervous about sharing their work, there’s good news, right? You frame it in terms of team and we’re sort of all raising the, the bar together and uplifting each other together. And I think that’s a really maybe more genuine way to share accomplishments, especially for, uh, any introverts out there.
I’m an introvert and so Me too. Me too. You want yeah, attention on yourself. So it’s like, oh, the whole team, like, we worked on this together, but people know like, you’re leading the charge or, or you had a big part in it.
Joe: There’s a, I think a wonderful sidelight to this too, which is I think the more you talk in terms of we, Lorraine, I think the more you are a we player, you know what I mean?
Like if you are always [00:11:00] using we language, you’re thinking about how can I lift other people up, which really on a LinkedIn post or wherever it might be, is a huge thing where you’re helping other people.
Lorraine: Exactly. I think the best leaders are those who lift others up and those who help. You mentioned
Joe: relationships, old way of thinking.
Lorraine writes, my network will grow naturally. New way of thinking. I need to make sure I’m actively building relationships, not just when I need something, which seems to be all the time when people reach out to me, Hey Joe, I need your help. Yeah. Hey, I’ve talked to you six years ago. Sure, sure. But this seems to speak to some sort of career CRM, uh, for people who, dunno what a CRM is like a client relationship management thing.
Is this like a CRM? Because we tend to forget people sometimes, Lorraine. How do we make sure that we are out in the world building these relationships?
Lorraine: You can use something as elaborate as A-A-C-R-M and I, I interviewed, uh, content creator corporate Natalie, and she mentioned she has a network tracker.
I don’t have something like that, but it is really important to have those [00:12:00] one-on-one conversations with people at work. It’s not just, I’m talking to you because we’re working and I need something, but hey, let’s. Grab a coffee or let’s go out to lunch, let me get to know you a little bit more. Just be, you know, it doesn’t have to be like you need to know their whole life story, but a little bit more beyond the, the surface level talk and, and the work talk.
And so I think that’s very powerful. And then it’s about checking in with your, with your hour caliber, it makes sense for you. So for example, I actually have this yearly holiday newsletter. And so anyone who I meet who I feel like I have a connection to, I’ll add them to the newsletter. They’ll hear an update from me about once a year.
And then I also ask them like, tell me about what’s going on. I wanna hear about it. And so that’s a very light touch way to stay top of mind and to keep that connection going.
Joe: That’s fantastic. The other piece I like about that, you mentioned being an introvert. I’m an introvert. I play an extrovert on the podcast, but
Lorraine: I wouldn’t have been able to tell.
Yeah,
Joe: I always need two days. I need those two days alone. You know, after. Yeah,
Lorraine: yeah, yeah.
Joe: But seriously, grabbing the coffee, I think makes it more comfortable for the [00:13:00] introvert instead of transactional business. If I know you, it’s going to make me exude less energy to have this relationship.
Lorraine: Mm-hmm. And introverts are very good at building those relationships in a one-on-one setting, because they are really good listeners, because they’re empathetic.
And so that’s the introvert strength.
Joe: Third on your list feedback comes during annual reviews. That’s the old way of thinking. Of course you change that feedback should be ongoing. If I want to grow. This is also a tough thing for introverts, Lorraine. How do we ask for feedback? When we look at our boss and people around us and they seem so busy,
Lorraine: it’s really important to have that regular feedback because we don’t wanna wait.
A year to find out that something’s wrong or we should have been working on a skill that would’ve gotten us promoted, like that’s too long. And so again, becoming the CEO of your own career, you have to take things into your own hands. You may have the best manager in the world, but to your point, like everyone is really busy.
And so what I think is important to do is to make it really [00:14:00] clear what your goals are and carve out time, right? Ask your manager what makes sense, you know, given both our schedules. So at Prezi, I had a. I believe it was monthly to start a monthly career conversation chat. So separate from our one-on-ones.
I was like, I wanna get promoted, I wanna become a director. I’m gonna set aside this time for us. Does that work for you? And then eventually it, it changed cadence. Right. But to start, I was very intentional. I wanted to talk each month, check in, how am I doing? Learn about my manager too. Like
Joe: I think your manager would love this, by the way.
Would love this. Most managers. ’cause they know that you’re engaged.
Lorraine: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. And then I got the promotion. I feel like we were both always on the same page and there was never a doubt what my goals were. She knew.
Joe: That’s fabulous. Which brings up the, when you brought up the promotion, promotions and raises happen with enough time.
That’s the old way of thinking. New way of thinking. And you just referenced this, I need to advocate for myself. We also fear Lorraine, our differences. [00:15:00] I love this woman you pointed to Linda Tong, I think is a great early story in the book. ’cause Linda really, I think, exudes this point that sometimes our differences can be our kickass strength.
Lorraine: Yes. I love Linda’s story. So Linda is the CEO of a tech company called Webflow, and she used to work at the NFL and she’s an Asian-American woman. And so I was asking her about whether she’s faced bias or like how you can leverage perhaps your differences to stand out. And she said like, yeah, I’m sure sometimes maybe there were negative stereotypes being an Asian or being a woman.
But instead of kind of dwelling on those and being like, oh, these are blockers to , me getting to the next step. She instead flipped it on a 10. She said, okay, you might have these assumptions about me, but I’m gonna. Prove you wrong. And I’m going to show that I’m the biggest NFL fan and that, I have opinions and I have expertise in this area.
And it almost becomes a strength because you’re defying people’s perhaps lower expectations of you. And so that to [00:16:00] me was very powerful. And also another communications expert, ven Jing said something similar in that people said faces like you, we don’t see those on us stages. And he said, I’m not gonna dwell on that.
And said, I’m gonna be the best at what I do, and I’m gonna, I’m gonna show you all.
Joe: That’s fabulous. That’s fantastic. Because , between our ears, we get focused on our differences, we get focused and we think it’s a weakness when it can be your superpower.
Lorraine: Yeah.
Joe: All right, let’s start building this foundation.
You talk about having an epic career brand. What is Epic career brand?
Lorraine: EPIC stands for experiences, personality, identity, and community. And these are the four ingredients that are very important to think about when you are. Reflecting on, okay, what do I want my career brand to be? What is it right now? And so experiences, these are going to be experiences both personal and professional, that have got you to where you are today.
Personality. So for example, we are, Joe and I are introverts, and some people might be extroverts, [00:17:00] more serious, more playful, the energy, you know, bunny in the group. Identity. These can be your cultural background or values. This is also work values. So what’s important to me? How do I operate? So for example, relationships are super important to me.
And also being someone who is reliable. And when people come to me and I say, I’m gonna do something like they know, like Lorraine’s going to get it done. And then the fourth piece community, which I think a lot of people, this is what where they forget is, okay, I might have the EPI all set in my head of what I want people to think of when they think of me.
But if your community is not seeing you in that way. There’s a disconnect. There’s that alignment that needs to happen. You can’t have a brand where you’re almost shooting too high from where you are right now, and your community sees you as maybe a more junior person, but you’re like, I’m the, the C-suite level.
You know? Like it has to kind of align and then you sort of bring them up with you as things change and transform during your career.
Joe: When I talk to new podcasters and I’m giving them advice about how [00:18:00] to start their show, after I tell them don’t the, when I’m diving into it with them, they always say, well, I don’t know what to talk about.
I don’t have anything to talk about. And to your point, your experiences is yours. Your personality is yours, your identity. And you talk about starting there, like being a hundred percent, and I know the word authentic is overused, Lorraine, and some people roll their eyes, but truly it is about being authentically who you are, showing up as who you are.
Again, not being this braggadocio person on LinkedIn or wherever you’re meeting your audience.
Lorraine: Yeah, I think a lot of people get in their heads and they think, oh, if I’m going to say something or have a brand, I need to be the smartest, most unique person out there. But you know, looking at EPI out of Epic, like we all have our own lived experiences and there’s always gonna be people out there talking about similar things.
I say this a lot on LinkedIn, that there’s tons of people talking about similar topics to me, but we all have different stories and we all have a different approach and we [00:19:00] all have different backgrounds. And so that’s that connection, that’s what people resonate with. And to not, not worry about being the most original out there, but being you.
’cause people connect with people so people will wanna learn from you specifically.
Joe: Let’s talk about some differences between the sexes and we talked about promotions earlier in raises. You’ve seen the study as much as I have. Women don’t advocate for themselves enough. The studies show your boss wants to give you the raise.
You don’t wanna rock the boat. Men have trouble being vulnerable, Lorraine. So when you talk about your experience, how much vulnerability when you’re on social media, advocating for yourself is the right amount.
Lorraine: You always wanna keep it professional still when you’re on LinkedIn. I love that. I’ve been seeing a lot more personal stories on LinkedIn, and I think that’s really what people connect to.
So talking about a layoff or talking about trouble getting promoted, or talking about how you negotiated the raise or how you perhaps didn’t get a funding round that you wanted. I think those are all things that. [00:20:00] We can connect to. It’s like a common human experience, right? Failing, quote unquote. But these are all learning experiences, right?
I don’t like to call ’em failures. Like each quote unquote. Failure leads to a learning that gets you to the next point in your life. I think showing vulnerability is great and, and you just wanna keep it professional. You don’t wanna get like too personal, but I think like you use your best judgment, right?
I think those personal stories really help people get to know us and then connect with us and want to root for us.
Joe: I love the start of that. You’re implying, uh, listen to social media, not your therapist. Yeah. But there are some times, frankly, when I’ve seen people, I’m like, I think you need help. I think you really shouldn’t be sharing this here.
You need to share someplace else. This is a big point that you make, which is where you show up is important. How do we decide where we’re going to show up and talk about our career brand?
Lorraine: Mm-hmm. The where piece of presence is so important, and I was really excited to include this in the book. So what I’m doing is I’m, I’m [00:21:00] redefining what presence means.
So a lot of people, they hear presence. They think executive presence, how I show up, uh, in a boardroom, right? Right.
Joe: I walk into a room and I puff up my chest or whatever. Yes, I’m, I’m
Lorraine: that executive presence, but I think executive presence is just one piece of the puzzle. So I like to call it professional presence more broadly and what it means is how and where you are seen.
And so the how piece a lot of us. Do well, but as you said, like the wear piece is really critical, especially in our new world of work where we are all over the place. Some of us are remote, some of us are going in person, like there’s a lot of places now where we can connect with each other, get to know each other, and so we want to make sure that we are showing up in those spaces and we’re being seen by the right people.
Right? And so to be on video calls and have a strong virtual and video presence to be on LinkedIn and have a LinkedIn presence, and have people be able to form an opinion about you and an impression of you even before meeting you, like. Those things are very powerful and should not be [00:22:00] discounted, especially given the way that we work now.
So that where piece, I mean you can have one part of the formula, the how without the where you’re not gonna be seen as much. You can have the where, but if you’re not doing the hard work and you’re not delivering, that will only get you so far as well. So you really need both parts of that formula.
Joe: I got really excited reading about this, I have to say, because I’ve messed up a lot of stuff during my career.
But one thing I did really well was when I was doing interviews, Uhhuh, I believe in modeling and you model the way that you want people to perceive you. So I would model Lorraine rock stars in interviews and you are Rolling Stone Magazine and I’m Joe Badass. And then I get this confidence, you know, not necessarily overly cocky, but I get this confidence, I get this whatever.
And I would generally get the job because I would exude this confidence, which frankly sometimes I didn’t really feel. But the second piece of that, I. I think clips along with that great. Which is, if I’m a rockstar, I’m taking my show on the road and which venues [00:23:00] I play are going to influence the entire arc of my career if I show up at this meeting, if I skip this meeting.
And just the fact that you’re thinking about that again and you’re engaged, your higher ups, see that how much you’re engaged in the right place.
Lorraine: Yeah. Ooh, I love that analogy.
Joe: It is so, so fun. Well, speaking of Zoom, let’s end today. If you don’t mind, by getting tactical, and I love a lot of the tactical stuff that you do here, but can we talk about Zoom?
Because all of us are on Zoom calls and you know, well, you clearly know because you talk about this a lot in, in your book when you’re talking about video. Oh my goodness, Lorraine, some of the people, the way you show up, you’re like, if you thought about this for 30 seconds, you could do better. So talk to me about video.
What’s important to make sure that that Zoom experience is really good and you kind of show up Well from a technical aspect.
Lorraine: Of course. I’m so glad you’re asking about this, Joe, because to your point, like people sometimes are like video, like we all know video, it’s been many years and then you get on calls with people and you’re like.
Whoa. I know,
Joe: I know. It’s been [00:24:00] many years and you still, yeah, still, still.
Lorraine: Yeah. And so I talk about this framework called the T method, and T stands for Tech, energy and Aesthetics. These are meant to be the three key criteria to think about before getting on any video call. It’s not meant to be overwhelming because you can get really fancy with it, but I don’t think you have to, to make a strong impression.
And so tech, making sure you have an external microphone, an external webcam, that you have, the relevant software that you need to make sure that you’re showing up well, sounding good, uh, on camera is very important. The energy piece, making sure that you are, uh, engaging with the person at the start and not giving into autopilot conversations as I call them, and building that connection and knowing how to show up with energy and, and really.
A little bit more energy than you probably think is necessary because we have this barrier of the screen now that we have to break through. And so there’s some methods in the book about how to really bring that energy. And then aesthetics. Um, so you wanna make sure [00:25:00] you’re looking good on camera. And so that means making sure that you have the right framing so you don’t want too much space above your head where it looks like, you know, my head is towards the bottom of the screen and then it looks like you’re looking down on me, Joe, or, and I’m looking up at you, or vice versa, where I’m looking down on you or you’re seeing like up my nose or under my chin.
Like you wanna make sure you have the right framing, it’s straight on. Um, you wanna make sure that you’re showing some of your torso so that you can use your hands on camera, because hands on camera is a very positive thing. And then you wanna have the right lighting, curate your background, your environment.
So a lot of pieces to it. They’re not hard though. So like you said, like take 30 seconds, you know, a few minutes to kind of go through the checklist in the book, and you’ll make some quick adjustments and I’ll make a big difference.
Joe: Yeah. And every little piece matters. I know that sometimes I interview people and they just don’t have that external mic, and they’re on this nationwide book tour or media tour, and I’m like, why wouldn’t you spend a hundred dollars on your career, like the microphone piece alone?
And then [00:26:00] to your point, the lighting. I mean, and you know what, Lorraine, let’s just, for people not watching us on YouTube, sure. I’m gonna describe it, but your background is not elaborate, but it is attractive. And you’ve got just a bookshelf behind you with a photo on one side plants, and then your book strategically.
Yeah. Behind your head. It’s very nice. And I would bet that didn’t cost you much money to create a nice aesthetically pleasing background.
Lorraine: Yeah, not at all. I get comments on it all the time, and people are like, is that a fake background? I’m like. No, this is real, but thank you.
Joe: Yeah, it just, I think it takes more thought than money to make that happen.
Guys, we just began digging into all of the lessons in Lorraine’s new book that came out yesterday. Unforgettable Presence, get seen, gain influence, and Catapult your career. Thank you so much for mentoring our stackers today. Lorraine. This is available everywhere yesterday, correct?
Lorraine: Yes, it is, and I’m so excited for everyone to start reading it.
Joe: Thank you so much, and hopefully you just help our stackers stack a [00:27:00] few more. Benjamins, Lorraine,
Lorraine: thank you for having me.
Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Duggan. How about Lorraine Lee? Huh? You are sure to score that promotion. Now, Lorraine mentioned she was a junior executive with LinkedIn, and so let’s ask that question. Which big company owns LinkedIn? I’ll be back right after I go update my LinkedIn profile to say that I’m busy.
Wait, how would Lorraine Lee upgrade that statement to make it, uh, sound more professional? Oh, I don’t, oh, I got it. She’d have me type that I’m engaged, you know, in, in the making of this show. Alright, OGs gonna definitely promote this guy.
Hey there, stackers. I’m engaged guy and man who’s very confused about all of the accolades I’m receiving. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. I mean, you tell people you’re engaged and immediately they write confusing stuff [00:28:00] like, who’s the lucky lady with a question mark? What? Well, people must assume that when you use professional language, the ladies love you.
I guess that’s gotta be it. Today’s question was about Lorraine’s first employer, LinkedIn. I just told OG that I heard that LinkedIn had a house ban called LinkedIn Park. He replied that in the end, it doesn’t really matter. It’s pretty brutal response, og. But the trivia question for today was this, what ginormous company owns LinkedIn?
That would be the Windows company, Microsoft, and now here to help you upgrade your operating system for your money, it’s Joe and og.
Joe: I think Doug, to be fair, OGs reply was,
Doug: but in the end it doesn’t really matter. Oh,
Joe: it just
Doug: occurred to me you were singing a LinkedIn Park song, weren’t you?
Joe: OGs all about the LinkedIn Park, huh?
Doug: Yeah,
Joe: I didn’t put
Doug: those two things together. Good stuff. Thanks for
Joe: helping. Speaking of good stuff. Thank you so much to Lorraine Lee for helping us get our Zoom. Presence taken care [00:29:00] of and getting that career technically aligned. Uh, let’s do a headline.
headlines: Hello Darlings. And now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamin’s headlines.
Joe: Today’s headline comes to us from the Wall Street Journal. It’s written by Veronica Dagger, who’s been on this show. Joe Pinker and Oyen Ian, and I think I messed up Ian’s, uh, name as, no, you never do that interesting piece because what they peel off here, og all we’re reading about right now is that there’s so much stuff going on with this thing called tariffs.
Not sure what that is. Never hear about that lately at all. But with all of the uncertainty, how do we make major financial decisions? And so they peel off a bunch of different decisions. I. Veronica and Company Wright. Suddenly, all the usual rules of how to save, invest and spend seem like they’re up in the air.
Uncertainty about the economy and a new area of extreme [00:30:00] unpredictable swings in the markets are making us all rethink decisions about everything from paying for college to buying a car. So let’s go through a few of these OG and get your take. I
OG: hate this kind of writing. It’s such bull. Every time people like, I don’t even want to talk about this.
This is just, ugh. Let’s say that I plan, I get people are trying to keep their jobs by writing sensational on the internet, like unprecedented market swings. I mean, unless you count five years ago when this happened exactly like this, only three times is worse then. Yes, this is unprecedented. Okay. You know, people are rethinking how to pay for college.
No, they’re not. Like your kid’s still going to college next year. It’s not like, well, sorry, junior, the market’s down 4%. Guess you’re outta luck. Nobody’s rethinking college. So dumb. Let’s say
Joe: that I planned on buying a house this spring. Mortgage rates, uh, have been inching up og. Yep. And people [00:31:00] are worried a little bit about the
OG: extreme market interest rate rises.
You mean they, they, they skyrocketed from 6.75 to 7.05 Ir
Joe: if interest rates go higher, what do I do about, uh, make a bigger down
OG: payment,
Joe: buying the house,
OG: make a bigger down payment.
Joe: So then you wait. Because often people are struggling to come up with that down payment in the first place. You’re saying, wait,
OG: yeah, make a bigger down payment if you gotta wait.
Or just lower the price by a smidge, because I would bet that that’s somewhat commensurate. Uh, it depends on where you live, right? Obviously there’s certain areas of the economy, certain areas of the country, rather, that housing prices are not having any issues and the interest rate changes are not having any effect on market demand.
But to kinda give you an idea. People will freak out about this, right? And say like, oh my God, the interest rates went from six and a half to seven and a half. I’m totally screwed. The difference on the payment for a $400,000 mortgage over 30 years is like 250 [00:32:00] bucks a month. Now, I’m not saying that $250 a month isn’t any money or a lot of money, or not a lot of money.
It’s a number. But if your budget is so tight, that $200 makes the difference. Yeah. You shouldn’t be buying this house anyway because frankly, the windows could blow in or the roof could cave in, or the water heater can take a crap or whatever. We just had a $200 AC repair that seems like we’re repairing every 15 months.
And when I said it to the guy, I go, huh, the capacitor again. Huh? He goes, yeah, these things just, you know, you live in Texas, man, this thing’s running 20 hours a day in the summertime, nonstop. You know, it’s basically nonstop for nine months outta the year it’s gonna die at the rate of about once every year.
You know, and I’m thinking, okay. All right. 200. You know, it’s not, it’s now a budget item, but it wasn’t in the budget, right? It’s like $200, and if $200 is gonna make or break it, you shouldn’t buy this house anyway. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago. I don’t understand why people think that, you know, I, I think the phrase is, [00:33:00] don’t compare your beginning to somebody else’s middle, you know?
And it’s like you hear these things like, well, I’m 25 years old, I can’t buy a house. It’s like, okay, so wait till you’re 30. Save more money. Live in a cheaper area. I, I don’t wanna sound ultra insensitive, but there’s no rule that says you have to buy a house when you’re 25. And so if the interest rate change makes an impact that you can no longer afford it.
Then you were too close. Anyway, frankly, I love this idea with, oh, get a different mortgage, get an arm, get, you know, you know, I mean there’s a thousand ways to deal with this.
Joe: Well, and I love your focus, which is focus on the things that you can control. Right? I can control the size of the house that I buy.
Yeah. I can control whether I sign on the dotted line for this price for the house. I can’t control what the interest rate fluctuation is gonna be. And if it’s close to your point, if I think there’s a chance that my budget may get outta control level, a debt might get outta control, then I shouldn’t buy it.
OG: Focus on, yeah. I mean, if it was $200 one way or the other, that’s too tight. Anyway.
Joe: Way, way, way, way too [00:34:00] tight. I love some advice stackers we’ve given in the past, which is take a look on a calculator at what that’s going to cost you, what you think that monthly payment’s gonna be and play test it for a few months ahead of time.
Yeah.
OG: I was talking to somebody the other day about this. I feel like it was at about a house purchase, uh, or maybe house upgrade. And it was in the same vein. It was like, look, if you think that. In July, you can afford a $400 a month mortgage price increase. You ought to be saving 400 a month. Right. How, how come you can’t save 400?
Oh, you know, it was really tight. What are you gonna do when it’s due? If you’re in that situation where you’re upgrading or where you’re moving into a new thing or you’re saying, Hey, I think we can afford this deal. If you can afford it in July, you can afford it today.
Joe: I think there’s also something to be said in, you know, interest rates can be high for a long time or in these aren’t high interest rates.
These are pretty
Doug: Yeah, it’s kind of normal actually. These are normal interest rates. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Joe: If, if you widen your view, it, it definitely is normal. But I love what real estate investors always say [00:35:00] about this. Buy the property date, the rate. Right. Don’t get obsessed with the fact that I gotta keep this interest rate forever.
I can refinance later on.
OG: Yeah. I mean, that’s not a free proposition either. And, and again, I just come back to like, I think we’re focusing on the wrong sable. Like that’s what Mrs. Slates used to say in second grade. The reality is you shouldn’t be so snug in your budget that an interest rate change and it’s not changing by a whole percentage point.
It’s changing by, you know, a 10th of a percent or something that’s gonna matter. And frankly, you should be doing this the right way anyway. You should be putting 20% down on your house. And if that means you have to wait three more years, ’cause you need to save more cash, you wanna give yourself that margin of safety.
I bought a house with zero down interest only. I wish that somebody would’ve knocked me into a coma for five years, uh, as I was about to do that deal because that would’ve been a better outcome for me. It was so miserable every single solitary month with not a drip. Margin of safety. We bought [00:36:00] our house in Michigan, the literal peak of the market at the time, in 2004.
And by two years later, our house was worth half as much. We put zero down. So we were upside down every single dollar. The difference was, and it was interest only, so we had made zero principle payments on this, this thing in two and a half years. When we sold a house 10 years later, we sold it for what we bought it for and walked away with $6,000 after 10 years of mortgage payments because we got, you know, I, I will say we got kind of snookered into it that was self-inflicted.
Absolutely. But, but at the end of the day, you know, don’t put yourself in a position where every single solitary dollar has to be exactly perfect. ’cause if you have the AC repair or you have the, you know, something wrong with the car, or you know, some unexpected travel that you have to do, mom and dad are sick and you need to go home, there’s, there’s, it’s too stressful.
Like there’s, take the pain up front. The pain up front is I need to save for another year to make a bigger down payment. But then you have a lifetime of not as much [00:37:00] pain instead of a lifetime of paint for one year of, you know, extra house living.
Joe: Let’s go to a slight tangent. Somebody’s been in their house for a while, og, but you know, not in love with the interest rate they have.
Uh, right now, a couple weeks ago, rates briefly dropped, literally for two days. We saw a nice drop in interest rates, refinancing activity jumped by 35% according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. So here’s the question. Should I be looking like, apparently a lot of people have been looking to refinanced?
OG: Ref is a very personal decision as it relates to what the terms are. And the cost structure of what you have originally. I mean, for somebody who has a bunch of debt at 27%, getting a home equity line at 10 is a bargain for somebody that’s got a bunch of debt at four. Refinancing at six is the stupidest idea imaginable.
So it’s [00:38:00] really, really particular about your situation. And I think the other piece of it is all the cost structure that goes into it. These are not, you know, $0 cost deals. So you have to, even if, even if you’re like, I had a seven and now I can get a six, it’s like, well, but what’s the cost to get the six in terms of payback time?
Joe: Yeah. I remember a mortgage broker telling me also that whenever you look up rates online often, this is a banks, he called it their best lie because the way that they will publish a cheaper rate is by increasing the fees right when you sign on the deadline. Yeah.
OG: Everything counts in that calculation.
Just ’cause you see, well, I can get this for 5% asterisk as asterisk, right. With a $50,000 payment of fees. You know, it’s like, okay, so what does that effectively turn into, you know, in terms of the long-term piece of the loan.
Joe: Next one they have here is, of course, as we record this, uh, stocks have bounced off the lows and contrary to all the things that we were telling you here, uh, a stacker and, you [00:39:00] know, you can’t take back the sins of the past.
Og you panicked and you sold some stocks at a loss. Is there a way to turn that into some tax savings maybe?
OG: Well, uh, so you’re saying that there’s somebody out there who did freak out, like, what do you do now?
Joe: Did freak out. They sold their stuff at a loss, now they’re sitting on cash, number one. Yeah. And the market’s higher than it was when they sold off the bottom.
And then number two is, you know, it’s all, it’s all sitting there. Can I. I don’t know. Can I turn these lemons into lemonade?
OG: Well, the only thing you can do to write the asset allocation problem is to be back to where it should be. So if you made a mistake, don’t compound the mistake by keeping it in cash and watching the market go ever higher.
And I’m not guessing at what the market’s gonna do, I’m just saying it’s pretty difficult to time this out correctly both times. It’s hard to say whether or not you timed it out correctly the first time if you’re in cash right now. But don’t try to time it out the second time and you have to buy back in.
Now, the problem is, is that if you’re buying back in and you took a loss on something, you can’t [00:40:00] buy those same things back, or you will not get the tax benefit of the loss. So if you had an ETF, you know you bought it for $10,000 and you freaked out and you sold it at 9,000, you have to wait 31 days before you buy back that same ETF.
So buy something that’s similar but not the same one. If you had a stock and you’re like, well, I had Apple and I sold it at a loss, I freaked out like, I wanna get Apple back. You can’t buy Apple for a month. And the big risk, obviously, is waiting that month in cash. Nobody knows what’s gonna happen. And this all just boils back down to when do you need the money?
If this is long-term money, if this is money for your retirement, you should have no concerns about what’s going on. You’re not gonna remember whether or not you bought when the s and p was at 5250, 100 5400, 4900. All you’re gonna be happy is that you bought it sometime in 2025 when you go to take the money out in 2045.
You’re not gonna remember the price at which you purchased. So get back in. Yeah, all in one fell slip. Get back
Joe: in, get in now. And I think the big thing, you know, we spoke with Lorraine [00:41:00] about tactics and uh, we also on Monday spoke about Rory McElroy talking about how, you know, you fall to what your systems are.
I think you also have to recognize you’ve made a mistake and then create a system so that doesn’t happen again. And I think that’s an investment policy statement that you create. Like what’s the system? I’m gonna have to make sure that I don’t pull the trigger at the wrong time. I wanna ask about, uh, one area around tariffs.
I think that’s pretty important for a lot of people. Let’s say it’s that time OG to maybe 7, 8, 9 months from now, you think you were thinking about a new car, but now we’re looking at the possibility of higher tariffs in 60, 70, 80 days on the car. Do I pull the trigger early? Do I wait longer? Where do you stand on making that big car purchase right now?
OG: Well, if that’s something that’s on the horizon, I don’t think it’s a bad idea. Although I did just see a commercial, and I don’t remember the car manufacturer, but I did just see a commercial that said, we [00:42:00] are not increasing the MSRP on our vehicles one bit. No matter what happens, that’s their like promise to the consumer.
I think that’s just such a great example of what’s really going on in boardrooms while all of this chaos is going on around here, and we’ve talked about this a lot in the last six or eight months, that I love being an owner of these companies because everyone’s interests are aligned the same. The challenging part of the tariff issue, aside from the fact that it’s insanely stupid, is that it’s, it’s hard to predict like what you have to do.
You know, Walmart a couple weeks ago said, we can’t give you any guidance on second quarter earnings because. We don’t know if this box of avocado is gonna cost us $2 50 cents an avocado or 50 cents an avocado, and it changes by the hour. So we don’t have any idea what to tell you people to help us figure out the math, which is unfair to them.
But what it also tells us, you know, with this car commercial, is that all these people are sitting around, you know, their boardrooms and in their executive offices is going, how do we solve this? So we [00:43:00] make freaking money because all they care about at Walmart, the executives at Walmart is making freaking money for Walmart.
That’s all they care about. And if you’re a little microscopic owner of that company, you have these smart people who are all lined up to do the same thing because they’re in it with you. And so, even though all of your net worth probably isn’t all wrapped up in Walmart or Apple or Google or whatever, all of these people.
All are rowing the boat in the same direction.
Joe: Well, what’s interesting about this too is they know there’s only X amount that they can raise the price and you’ll accept it. They know that if the price goes up too much, it’s gonna smoke them. They’re done.
OG: Yeah. I mean, this is the problem that everybody’s trying to solve, which is how are we going to account for this new thing that may or may not happen, and to what extent do we account for it and how does it affect us and how do we make money and how can we raise prices without consumers being mad?
And how far that, like all these people are just thinking about that. Thousands and thousands and thousands of really smart people are trying to decide [00:44:00] how much of avocado should cost at Walmart right now, and you’re the benefit of that. You don’t have to think about any of this stuff. You just have to go, Hey, they’re trying to make us money, man.
High five guys at Coke trying to make us money. High five guys at Apple trying to make us money high five, and they’re all in it together. This is what’s so awesome about this by being an equity owner, by owning all these companies, is you don’t have to worry about any of this crap now. Maybe you delay your house purchase, or maybe you pull forward a car purchase or whatever, that’s fine, but you’re not sitting there going, oh my gosh, how does Walmart make money today?
Unless you’re sitting in one of those boardrooms, in which case you’re doing that, but maybe some of your money is also invested in these other companies and you’re letting them handle their business, which is why you
Joe: don’t invest heavily in the company you work for.
OG: Well, I mean, sometimes the, you know, obviously you can’t control that, right?
If you’re an executive at Walmart, sure, lots of your compensation is tied up in Walmart stock, but maybe you have some Apple shares and you have some Amazon, and you have some JC Penney or whatever. You know what I mean? They’re smart. People
Joe: are telling them to diversify a portion of their net worth.
They’re trying to do all this too. Absolutely.
OG: All of this [00:45:00] is short-term price fluctuation because of the unknown of future short-term future earnings expectations. That’s stock prices. Stock prices are priced based on how much people, the market. Believe that they’re gonna earn in profit over the next period of time.
It doesn’t have anything to do with what they’re gonna earn over the next 50 years.
Joe: I do like looking at what this individual car company’s saying, the type of car that you’re buying, like, what’s their take, what’s their position? Because we’ve seen all kinds of CEOs of these companies. I saw the CEO EO of United Airlines this morning as we record this, talking about what’s on his mind with, uh, pricing, which by the way, is a lot different than what you’re seeing in the news.
I love what, uh, Veronica Dagger and Company write here. What about a used car? If forecast put you off a new car. She writes, the used market likely won’t provide as much refuge as usual. Uh, inventory was them even before tariffs and supply chain woes several years ago met fewer used cars. People scrambling to buy used cars.
So now those prices [00:46:00] over the short run going up,
OG: yeah, maybe. I was at a car dealership, uh, two of them in the last couple of weeks to get just regular car service. And I noticed a market difference in the last time I was there. They, they have, there’s so many cars on the lots at these two places. That was small sales.
They had a bunch, huh? There were literally trucks lined up down the service drive full of cars. Now these are all new, right? So different. But, uh, yeah, I don’t, I don’t know. I mean, obviously things are gonna be affected by. Short term spikes in demand. Sure. But
Joe: they write, arguably the savviest financial move you can make is not buy one if you can manage it.
But they say even that stands to get costlier. The Yeah, the Doug move here. You don’t wanna do that. Tariffs on auto parts plan for may mean drivers could see higher repair and insurance bills. Which is, which is, I mean, Doug’s justification to himself to buy the very most expensive car I can get right now.
OG: Doug wants to get one of those like rat rods. Yes. And you see Doug Ryan. Ryan. But I need the nine 11. How am I gonna get to work? Actually, I do need a nine 11. Yeah, there’s, there’s no bad example. Yeah. That, that [00:47:00] actually is something I do need. And if anybody has one, I, I would take it off your hands at a very fair price.
But that goes into the decision making around car purchases, in particular, if you don’t shop the insurance ahead of time and you don’t know what that, if you’re gonna buy a used car. We were looking at a used car for William and I said, Hey, take it into the dealership and price out all the stuff that’s gonna, you know, this is gonna go to a 16-year-old.
They don’t know anything about anything like. Tell me everything that needs to get fixed. It’s like, oh, well it’s $4,000 worth of stuff. It’s like, oh hey, well if it’s a nine 11, that’s a pretty good deal. It wasn’t a nine 11, so it was not a, you know what I mean? It doesn’t, it doesn’t make it bad. It’s just, you gotta go into with the knowledge.
It was two of those numbers. It was a 91. Yeah. When it was a 91. Exactly. When you buy a new car, you pay sales tax. Sometimes when you buy used cars, you don’t pay as much of a sales tax or any, you know, that’s, that could be a big number. In Texas, it’s 6.5% or six point a quarter. Buying a brand new car for 50, $60,000 is $2,500 [00:48:00] of taxes paid.
You know, not to mention the depreciation. So I think all of that stuff you have to factor into it. Just like we were talking about with the mortgages. Everything counts in that calculation.
Joe: I’ll link to this piece. Uh, you’ll need a subscription to the Wall Street Journal to read it, but it’s, or Apple News.
Or, or, or to Apple News. Yes. Uh, and thanks to Doug, by the way, for, uh, gifting us with this one. Doug’s like, here’s this topic. Appreciate it. Yeah. Nice work. Uh, let’s meander out on the back porch, Doug. We got, uh, some stackers doing some cool, cool stuff, or a stacker doing something cool. A
Doug: stacker. I, I wanted to talk about super stacker coset who went to Japan and packed one thing, a stacking Benjamin’s T-shirt.
That’s all you need. That’s all she does. That’s all you need. Yeah. And she took pictures of herself in front of some interesting places. Very common place for tourist to go. She went to Hiroshima or Hiroshima. I’m not sure what the correct pronunciation there, but she also, I think you pronounce it like south.
Yeah, Alma. Uh, [00:49:00] but there’s one picture in particular that I’ve, I’ve been trying to Sherlock Holmes this thing because she’s standing in front of a vending machine holding a can of what I can only. Surmise our crab legs. A a can of crab legs. I don’t know. That’s what the picture in the can looks like from a vending machine.
From a vending. And they sell some crazy in Japan through vending machines. So it’s possible, right? Not as good as vending machine sushi,
Joe: but a nice, a nice second.
Doug: Uh, but, uh, thank you Cossette for sending a picture. She chose, I’m sure she has many t-shirts to choose from. Um, sadly she didn’t choose the Doug 2028 T-shirt.
She is wearing the circus, the Stacking Benjamin’s Greatest show on Earth T-shirt.
Joe: Greatest Money Show on Earth. Greatest Money Show. Cool green shirt. Thanks, uh, Cosette for bringing us along with you. And, uh, if you, if, if you can let’s, uh, let’s keep seeing stackers out in the wild, uh, showing off the gear
Doug: base camp of Mount Everest.
That’d be sweet. Let’s get one [00:50:00] of those pictures.
Joe: There would be, we need that one. Yeah. I will be in Boston. Great, Joe. That sounds great. Why don’t, why don’t you come too? You can come to Boston. I will please
Doug: come to Boston for, I’ll be in Boston. We
Joe: don’t have a home yet. I wanted to have a home by the time we recorded this, but St.
Stacker’s in the Boston area. May 20th. May 20th. We will have details to come, but we’re gonna do a meetup, stacker meetup in the Boston area of May 20th. My daughter is graduating from uh, Brandeis on the 19th. And so hopefully Autumn can come along as well. Uh, she was there at our last meetup. Actually, both my twins were at the last meetup that we had in Boston, so can’t wait to see Boston area stackers again on May 20th.
All right, that’s gonna do it. We’ve got a lot of people to thank, but especially Lorraine Lee. We will continue this conversation in the basement Facebook group. We’ll continue it on Spotify where we always have some fun. And, uh, let’s [00:51:00] also continue it on the 2 0 1, which is our newsletter, stacking benjamins.com/ 2 0 1.
All right, Doug, what’s our big three things on our to list today?
Doug: Well, Joe first take some advice from Lorraine Lee, not focusing on your career brand. Others are, and they might not be drawing the conclusions you are hoping for. So take charge with some simple tactics. Second, making big financial moves.
Focus on the big picture and not on current events for most of your long-term moves, and you’ll never make better decisions, but the big lesson. Definitely have Lorraine Lee visit with your mom when she comes to visit you. You should see how mom’s being all nice and making the best snacks ever to suck up to Lorraine.
Okay. I may have planted that seed by sharing a little bit about Lorraine’s background, just so she’d make the brownies with the chocolate chips. Mission accomplished. Chaching. Thanks to Lorraine Lee for joining us today. You’ll find her new book, unforgettable [00:52:00] Presence. That’s P-R-E-S-E-N-C-E, Joe.
Unforgettable presence, get seen, gain influence, and catapult your career wherever books are sold. We’ll also include links in our show [email protected]. There’s no L in presence. This show is the Property of S SP podcast, LLC, copyright 2025. It is created by Joe Saul Sea. Hi, Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends.
You’ll find out about our awesome [email protected], along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. 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, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.[00:53:00]
Joe: I forgot to mention during the show that, uh, Cosette also has agreed to join us on the Stacky Venture Show to talk about that. So if [00:54:00] you’re interested in travel and you wanna hear, uh, travel stories, crystal Hammond and I dive into people’s stories about going to different places, and Cosette has agreed to.
Share with us what she did in Japan.
Doug: Can you ask her? You know, not for nothing like how odor resistant the stacking Benjamin’s t-shirts are. ’cause if that’s all she packed, I wanna know like were people not wanting to sit next to her on the plane ride home? Did it hold up? Yeah. How did it hold? It’s close that she
Joe: doesn’t perspire.
She’s calm under pressure.
Doug: Mm. Yeah. It’s never hot in Japan.
Joe: Hey, I got a question about food. What is something that you make that you’re very proud of? Like you make yourself
Doug: my egg sandwiches that you’re eating right now? I’m eating right now. My God. I’m in it. Like my eyes are rolling back of my head a little bit.
That you’ve been so good bragging about. I mean, I’ll show you at this thing. Look at what I made. Look at that thing. You get the choat rolls or little square choat rolls from Costco. [00:55:00] First thing you do is you put the bacon on the griddle. I. Normal amount, like a dozen pieces, like the whole sheet of, of, uh, bacon slices from Costco.
You put that whole thing on the griddle, get the bacon fat on there. That’s first. Get that off, get it soaking, you know, in the paper towel and get off all that unhealthy fat. The rest of the bacon’s totally healthy, totally a hundred
Joe: percent
Doug: science. And then on one half of the griddle, you crack this, you, you separate the choat roll, you put that face down in the bacon grease, so you’re grilling the bread a little bit and getting it nice and crispy and soaking up all that flavor.
And the other half, you crack your eggs and you get ’em, you know, starting to fry on one side, put some seasoning on top. My choice is a Chilean seasoning that has lots of ingredients in it. I couldn’t name, but it gives it a nons, spicy, but sort of South American vibe and a little bit of pepper and three of it flip ’em.
So, because you can’t have the messy yolk, you gotta get that yolk good and hard so it doesn’t drip all over you while you’re recording. [00:56:00] Then you just assemble all of that together. Oh, it’ll set you up for the day.
Joe: Yeah. This is the one thing that Doug makes. Doug makes two things that he’s proud of. He makes this where he points to the sandwich.
He makes another one where he points in the toilet and goes, look what I made.
Doug: Oh, Joe, why did we have to do that? No. He doesn’t, this is coming off as such a sophisticated piece.
Joe: It was, I gotta tell you, I made something last week. We, we got a, a red snapper and it was, it was so damn good. It was so good.
I’d never had red snapper before. It was very meaty and it was cool to buy a fish. ’cause like, you know, you got, I dunno about you guys, but I go to Did you buy the whole fish, like head eyeballs and everything? No, I didn’t do that. What’s funny though is that when I was looking at recipes, they showed it that the red snapper that way.
Thank God mine was not that. ’cause I, I’m, I’m not that advanced. I can’t deone my fish yet.
Doug: You don’t need to have a conversation with your meal while you are de-boning it. I can’t do that. So how’s your day going? [00:57:00] I did it Bula not
Joe: as good as mine. I did have, uh, bah base in
Marse
Doug: when we were there. Hold on.
You said you didn’t say the LS in Marse, but you say the Ls in Bula base. Bula base. It’s pronounced Boole base. You’re just making up now, aren’t you?
Joe: Oh my God. Did You’re eating with your mouthful. Anyway. I way to eat. I was very proud of it. ’cause I got done, you know, I don’t know about you guys, but fish kind of intimidates me at the grocery store.
I’m like, I can’t make that. I can’t make that, I can’t make that. So I decided to go out on a lemon, try to make red snapper and, and we dig into it and Cheryl’s a little afraid of it. And next thing you know, she’s like, this is fantastic. This is, this is, it was really, really good. Lightly breaded, some, uh, lemon seasoning.
Just, uh, red snapper. Have you, speaking of foods that you’re proud of, oh gee, I know you’ve been trying to perfect your brisket. How’s that coming?
OG: Well, the last time I did it, it blew [00:58:00] my grill up.
Joe: What
Doug: Maybe don’t use gasoline as a heat source. It
Joe: blew your grill up the last time you made brisket.
Doug: Yeah, I mean, the grill blew up so.
So he’s just, he’s just gonna edit there, Doug. Period. Okay. End of story. Well, there is, I mean, there is the rule that when a man reaches the age of 40, he has to make a choice. You either get really into smoking meats or really into World War ii. You clearly chose
40. It’s, it’s in the, chose the meat route. It’s in the handbook. Yeah. I mean, I don’t make the rules. No, it’s
OG: serviceable. I’m nowhere near my brother’s way better. In fact, when he comes down in a couple weeks, he doesn’t know this yet, but he’ll be making me a brisket. You’re here here first. Yeah. That’s part of the deal.
But, uh, but he does the whole, like lather it in beef tallow and, you know, he’s got the whole, you know, Doug’s done
Joe: that with his
OG: chest before. Yeah. Yes. It’s [00:59:00] irresistible. But, um, no, it’s serviceable. I do pretty good on the grill. Smoking not as good, but I can. You got
Joe: something you’ve made recently you’re pretty proud of?
OG: Uh, I’m a big fan of reverse searing tomahawk. Ribeyes. That’s a pretty, pretty good treat.
Joe: What does reverse searing mean?
OG: You do it backwards, you sear in reverse. I got that. It’s generally reserved for like big chunks of meat that you know, are harder to grill perfectly. Yeah. So you cook it at a lower temperature to the internal temperature that you want.
So you take this big slab of, you know, Brono sours burger like they have from Fred Flintstone. Yeah. And you cook it at 250 degrees for three hours until it’s 120, and then you put it on the grill as opposed to grilling it, trying to get it to 125. Gotcha.
Joe: And the grill is just as hot as you can get it.
OG: Yeah,
Joe: yeah. Locking in all the flavor. [01:00:00]
Doug: Well, that was great. Thanks for bringing that up, Joe.
OG: Yeah, I had a protein drink and a yogurt this morning, so now I’m starving and, um, I can’t do anything about it.
Joe: Want a bite? Oh my goodness. He’s just, he just sits here and eats in front of us. I’m just
Doug: chiseling this bad boy down.
While you guys tell your fun stories about eating the heads off snappers,
Joe: blowing up grills.
Leave a Reply