Think you’re being lied to at work? You probably are. From boardrooms to bank accounts, this episode pulls no punches.
We’re stacking double the wisdom on this special Memorial Day episode, as Joe Saul-Sehy interviews two powerhouse guests: Bonnie Hammer, former vice chair of NBCUniversal and bestselling author, and Dr. Erika Rasure from Beyond Finance. Whether it’s breaking glass ceilings or breaking out of debt, this episode is your roadmap to reclaiming control.
Inside the episode:
- 💼 Bonnie Hammer calls B.S. on the “15 lies women are told at work” — and explains how to rewrite the rules
- 🎬 Behind-the-scenes of Suits and why even hit shows face wild career landmines
- 🧠 How your attitude and teamwork can make or break your climb to the top
- 💬 Dr. Erika Rasure on why 50% of Americans don’t trust themselves with money — and how to start
- 💸 The real emotional blockers behind budgeting, saving, and staying out of the online cart trap
- 🧍♀️ Gender and generational gaps: why confidence with money isn’t equally distributed (but should be)
- 🛠️ Financial “practice weeks” and mindset shifts to get unstuck from shame and paralysis
- ✅ A simple path to get control over your debt without feeling like you’ve failed
Also: Doug delivers his own Memorial Day tribute and trivia, because of course he does.
🎙️ Ready to outsmart bad advice and start building on your own terms? This one’s for you — whether you’re climbing the corporate ladder or clawing your way out of credit card debt (or both).
FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/lies-work-and-money-with-bonnie-hammer-and-dr-erika-rasure-1687
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Monday Mentors: Bonnie Hammer and Dr. Erika Rasure
Big thanks to Bonnie Hammer for joining us today. To learn more about Bonnie, visit Bonnie Hammer | NBCUNIVERSAL MEDIA. Grab yourself a copy of the book 15 Lies Women Are Told at Work: …And the Truth We Need to Succeed
Big thanks to Dr. Erika Hanmer for joining us today. To learn more about Erika and how her team can help you get ahead financially, visit Beyond Finance – The Smart Way to Move Beyond Debt.
Doug’s Trivia
- What was the best-selling Chevy car in 1971?
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).
Other Mentions
- Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
- New Survey Reveals Americans Unprepared for Current Economic Uncertainty – Beyond Finance Newsroom
Join Us Wednesday
Tune in on Wednesday when we’re going to cut your food cost AND get inspired to meal plan better with a guy who’s cut his family’s budget to the bone, Brian Suddith.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: Our Favorite Summer Travel Tips (SB1686)
Episode transcript
bit: [00:00:00] Uh oh. Sounds like somebody’s got a case of the mund.
Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show.
I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and welcome to a special episode of the Stacking Benjamin Show. Today we feature not one, but two mentors dos. First, she was the vice chairwoman of NBC Universal, and she’s here to teach us about the lies we’re told at work. Bonnie Hammer. And then in the second half of this American holiday show with results of a study that shows half of Americans don’t trust themselves, managing finance from beyond finance, Dr.
Erica Rasher. And of course, I’ll split the uprights between these two amazing guests by filling [00:01:00] in some of my heartwarming Memorial Day trivia. And now two guys who are already packed for a picnic in the park. It’s Joe and, oh,
Joe: hey there, stackers. And, and I always struggle with what to say on Memorial Day. Is it Happy Memorial Day? I don’t know. But it is a holiday in the United States. And for that reason, we have a very special episode and I hope you get some time to remember the people that, uh, helped us have the freedom that we so enjoy.
Like we talk about on a lot of Mondays. In fact, on most Mondays, we begin with a salute to our troops. I think we need to salute on a day like today, all of those people, OG who made the sacrifice. So on behalf of the men and women at Navy, federal Credit Union, people making podcast in mom’s basement.
Here’s to a very thoughtful Memorial day, but we are going to think today about a couple [00:02:00] different things as Doug, you so eloquently said in the second half, managing your money. Well, Dr. Erica is the chief financial wellness advisor at Beyond Finance, and she’s been on the show before and just brings this depth and uh, wisdom that I think is great on a holiday episode like today’s.
But we’re gonna kick off today’s show with the Bonnie Hammer. She was the former vice chair of NBC Universal. Some of these shows, guys that she Green Lit, you may have heard of before. I don’t know if you heard of a little show called Suits. I finally finished it, by the way, Doug, I finished the last episode.
Okay, awesome man. Congrats. Watch all 9,000 seasons. It got very up and down at the end, but the last few episodes
Doug: as they all
Joe: do, totally worth it. Yeah.
Doug: Okay.
Joe: Uh, psyche The Sinner, Battlestar Galactica. Mr. The
Doug: Psych I get excited about, like if she’s responsible for psych, that show’s so underrated. She
Joe: also greenlit shows like The Office.
You may have heard of a little [00:03:00] show called The Office, Bonnie Hammer joining us and she’s gonna talk about the lies that were told at work lauded by the New York Times as the queen of cable and hailed as the most powerful woman entertainment by the Hollywood reporter. Bonnie is gonna kick off today’s show, so that’s our special show.
You’re gonna hear from the two of them today, but before we get to them, we’ve got a couple sponsors that make sure our show can keep on keeping on and you don’t have to pay a dime for any of this. Goodness. We’re gonna hear from them. And then Bonnie Hammer, Doug’s trivia, and Dr. Erica Rasher. What a lineup today.
Let’s get moving.
And I am super happy she’s here. She’s the queen of Cable Body. Hammer joins us. How are you?
Bonnie: I’m great. Queen of Cable was a label from a while ago, but I’ll accept it
Joe: I think once the queen of cable, always the queen of cable, and, and as a guy, by the way, who just finished suits and I know I was late to that party and it took me [00:04:00] forever to get through it.
I cried the last three episodes. I have to ask you, was there a series during your career, Bonnie, where you’re like, there’s no way in hell this is gonna ever get made? It went through all kinds of, maybe iterations and then the, the end result was maybe better than anybody could have ever expected.
Bonnie: I’m
Joe: not
Bonnie: saying this because you brought it up, but Suits was in fact one of those series.
Was it really? When I first got the scripts through my development people, it was the time where, uh, Boston Legal was on LA Law was kind of long gone, but it was still resonating in the world. And we read a pretty well written script by Aaron Korsch, but it just felt like the law world was old. So we basically rejected it and we said to Aaron, I.
Do something on Wall Street, do something somewhere else. We can’t do another law show. So it took them a while to come up with another [00:05:00] version of, I don’t even remember what it was called, but similar characters down in Wall Street. And it was boring as hell, like pulling teeth because you couldn’t play the same games on Wall Street as you can with the legal crazies that are going on.
So we said, all right, try it again. So now we’re about a year, year and a half past when we first rejected the show. And we said two changes. One is we want a woman to basically lead this show. You know that alone. We’ll be a change maker if we can get that right, not a token woman. And the other was just give us a dollop of sarcasm or humor.
Don’t make it straight and don’t make it only about the law. Make it more about the characters. He took it to a place that we never expected and when we got back that script, [00:06:00] that was it. We green lit it and we went and it’s amazingly well on USA we, we had it on obviously for nine seasons, and it was the number one show and cable.
It had a lot of pluses, but nowhere near the exposure till Netflix took it on. And the resurgence, you’re not the only one who basically found it. At this later date, my kid watched it for the first time. You know, I would talk about it for years, but he didn’t even watch it till recently. So it’s one of those shows that you know are enduring.
’cause the characters are really interesting. They’re not predictable, they’re imperfect and there’s a nice dollop of sarcasm.
Joe: Boy and, and the strong women in that show, to your point N not just, he didn’t give you one strong woman. I’m thinking of three strong women as leads in that show.
Bonnie: Yeah, we knew Jessica.
We knew that she would have a present. She’s a [00:07:00] beautiful tall woman, Gina. Theres is an amazing human, but Sarah Rafini. You know who played Harvey’s assistant was amazing. And Megan, if you think about her role in all of this before Megan was Megan.
Joe: Yeah, Donna and Rachel. Just very strong characters. All, all three of them that show for me was quite a roller coaster.
You actually decided on this project 15 lies, women are told at work on a, on a roller coaster.
Bonnie: I kid you not, that wasn’t just for color for the book. Every year, uh, NBCU would take the senior executives and we would do an offsite, and more often than not, we would end up in either LA at the the Universal Park or in Orlando.
We were all kind of sitting around having cocktails and this guy Jimmy Horowitz, who I adore, who heads up all of the deal making for the film side, basically dared me to go on the rollercoaster. I do not [00:08:00] like rollercoasters. I have a little bit of fear of being upside down and thousands of feet up, but I’m also not good about dares.
You dare me and you better believe I’m gonna, I don’t know what it is, but some people crazy things that shrink would love. So I, I did it. I was petrified. They give out pictures, by the way, when you get off of it. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. Like spinning and you’re upside down. I looked completely freaked out. My hair was up in the air and I was so red in the cheeks.
It was crazy. But the truth was, when I was upside down in this thing, I realized I was one of the few chicks. That was on this ride. Mm. It was all filled with guys laughing and screaming and smiling, and granted, I know a lot of people, not just women, a lot of people fear [00:09:00] these rides, but I realized one of the main reasons had nothing to do with the fear.
It had to do with really being afraid. Mixing work and play and in a sense, not being taken seriously. If you came off a ride the way I looked, you would be a mess for the rest of the cocktail session that was going on. And I think there was a genuine fear of not being taken seriously. So then I just started thinking of all the other cliches, aside from don’t mix work with play that we’ve been led to believe that really get in the way of women succeeding, basically sabotage women and sabotage a lot of people, not just women guys too.
But for me, I was looking at those women and what were the cliches or other pieces of bad advice that we’ve been told that will get in the way of succeeding. And that’s where it started.
Joe: That’s wild. I would think just as a guy, I wouldn’t have any second [00:10:00] thought about getting on the rollercoaster, but I can imagine all the women I’ve worked with, I.
Through the years, uh, many of them would go, yeah, I can’t do that. Like, there’s no way anybody’s gonna take me seriously. You also mentioned you’ve been surprised by this project that there are, and you said this just a minute ago, Bonnie, there’s many men who found that they found this advice relevant as well.
I.
Bonnie: It was shocking to me, to be honest. When I first wrote it. I wanted to do 15 lies. We are told at work, but Simon Schuster being marketers and they wanted it targeted, focused so they can market and promote it. So they felt a book written by a female, uh, should be targeted to females and it would sell better.
But I’ve gotten an incredible amount of feedback from younger guys and older guys, and many fathers. Who wanted not unlike you, many fathers who wanted to give it to their kids, their [00:11:00] sons, because they thought if they could lose the word woman and the title, there was useful advice in it. Oh,
Joe: a hundred percent.
We have these two fine young women who work for us. I told Bonnie Stackers beforehand that I’m getting them this book. My son needs to read this book because these are just, these are the things as a 57-year-old guy who has worked in a lot of different capacities, man, I wish I knew these when I was 25.
Bonnie: What happens is there’s so many advice books out there. How many books are out there that talk about bad advice, you know, things that we’ve been brought up to believe that just can hurt you. And so that was kind of the flip of what I wanted to do. It’s basically a book about bad advice we are given and trying to turn it into the uncommon but common sense we really need.
Joe: Do you know what it reminds me of, Bonnie, you being in the entertainment business? It reminds me of a book that I [00:12:00] read way back when I was in college, which was, uh, Henry Rogers wrote this book from Rogers and Cohen, the PR firm. Uh, he wrote a book called Rogers Rules for Success. And I remember just the level of gravitas and knowledge.
Well, you know what, let’s just dive into some of these. Your very first lie, you become Bonnie the dream killer. This idea of follow your dreams. That, that it should be DOA right now. W why are you killing people’s
Bonnie: dreams, Bonnie? It’s not that I wanna kill people’s dreams. When you think about where do our early dreams come from, you know, my mom is whispering something in my ear about who she thinks I should be when I grow up, or perhaps what she wanted to be and couldn’t be.
That was for me. My mother wanted me to be a lawyer. ’cause all her life she wanted to be a lawyer and she really never made it to college. You know, Russian immigrants come here and she didn’t quite get that far. They’re from fairytales. We read cartoons, superhero movies, perhaps even of course, at [00:13:00] college.
But what do we know about. In that stage of life, that gives us a window into what does that idea profession arena really mean? What does it take, what, what are the people like inside of it? And so basically following those dreams or getting addicted to those dreams is kind of nightmare advice because you are missing out on opportunities that might lead you to something that’s really a true passion or skillset that will create a path for success for you.
I am a big believer that you can find your dream or dream job later in life when you’ve been exposed to enough to understand who you are and whether something is gonna be the right now. It doesn’t mean giving up a passion. I mean, I photo, I. I hated every single one and it just didn’t feel right. [00:14:00] But it doesn’t mean I gave up photography.
I still love it. I still shoot, but the camera’s not my boss. But it did trip me into a profession that did be become a dream job later in life dream. But it took a long time to understand that that’s what fit me better. You know, when you’re a photographer, you’re alone. It’s a soul profession. When you’re in media that has to do with images and imagery and telling stories, bigger stories than a story in a single image, you’re with people and I’m a people person.
Joe: That’s so interesting, just that subtle difference in finding the things that you love in the the new C. How did you, how did you make the jump? You were a photographer one day down at a TV station.
Bonnie: Yes. I started out, I was in a photojournalism major in college and I took a couple jobs after school. The first one I was working in a dark room and a lovely Belgium [00:15:00] photographer’s studio in Boston.
And for eight hours a day I was in the dark with my beautiful, what used to be manicured fingers in chemicals all day long.
Joe: Used to be,
Bonnie: yeah,
Joe: right.
Bonnie: And so my fingers slowly turned yellow, orange, green. That really wasn’t, you know, with my vanity. It didn’t suit me really well. He then I graduated up into his commercial studio.
Then I started taking photographs with him, but I was really handing him stuff. But it was the reality that. Commercial photography didn’t do it for me because it was artificial lights, artificial flowers, artificial everything. And to me, my image of photography was cart song. Mm.
Joe: It was
Bonnie: a decisive moment.
It was catching a, you know, a candid image that told a story.
Joe: Almost like news photography. Much more.
Bonnie: Yeah. In a lot of ways, yes. But even that, the next one was kind of chasing ambulance ambulances, because that’s the only way somebody who [00:16:00] really had no experience getting into photography. And that was basically sensationalism.
Mm-hmm. Didn’t like that either. So I went back to graduate school and as a practicum to graduate. You did this kind of internship? So I was a freelance photographer working on a kitchen. When I say freelance, I was working for free to get credits in a show called Infiniti Factory. And I was youngest production assistant, which was basically running around the studio following.
Kids and a dog. And then one day they fired three production assistants. I don’t remember why. And they just said to me, you want a job?
Joe: That’s funny. ’cause that was my next question when I read that in the book, Bonnie, I’m like, how do three productions, that’s a bad day when you gotta fire three production assistants on the same day.
Bonnie: I have no idea. And I was probably too young and too naive to try to investigate it, whether it was the people running the show that were not particularly [00:17:00] interested or cool or supportive of younger people, or they did something bad, I do not know to this day. And I really, I’ve looked back and said, why didn’t I ask?
But I think I was so hungry and so green. But as the youngest new associate producer, uh, production assistant on the show, everybody is assigned a cast member and there were a whole bunch of kids. But because I was the newest, I was the youngest, I was the most green. I got the dog. So I was basically Winston a sheep dog’s dog keeper, which meant that on a union set where the crew is not gonna pick up poop, I picked up poop and that’s how I started.
But being in a studio with the lights, cameras, directors, I knew that day this is where I wanted to be.
Joe: I wanna skip ahead for just a moment because in one of your other lies, you, you mentioned the fact that really showing up to a job [00:18:00] like that with a smile is a big, big part of what can make you successful.
Everybody else doesn’t wanna pick up dog poop, Bonnie, but if you do that with a smile, that’s gonna pay dividends,
Bonnie: you know, it’s not just in the work environment. I’m a big believer in attitude and having a positive attitude, just not grunting at grunt work, or you can’t get a yes from someone, or it’s a aary day.
Being positive, being optimistic, you know, having a smile on your face most of the time that’s genuine makes other people want you to be around them. So it just kicks that door open a little bit more. And if you’re in an interview situation and there’s a very serious person who wants to be taken very seriously and is just, has kind of a, a solemn look in their face, and you’re both basically equal, equal background, equal skills, equal number of jobs prior, you come in with [00:19:00] some warmth, with a smile, with an attitude that says I’ll do anything.
You know, just, you know, let in and I will help, I will be there. And we’re have together. It just changes the way people look at you. They want you to be around. Especially if it’s real, if it’s not put on for the interview.
Joe: Sure. Right. Well, yeah. How many times have you hired people where, I don’t know. I got fooled a couple times when I was hiring people where I, I thought, oh, this is gonna be a great team player.
But did you mention, or am I dreaming this, that you said that this, this was the number what you, I mean, you’ve hired a ton of people, Bonnie, this was your number one criteria even before experience was just being able to work with them.
Bonnie: Without doubt. I mean, I’ve been very, very lucky and I, when back at my teams only reason.
I succeeded to. The degree I succeeded is because I had great people working with for and around me. It has nothing to do with me. I hire well. What was important to me is that [00:20:00] people didn’t come in with their own agenda. That people knew how to collaborate, that people were not, it wasn’t about me I, or if something good happened that they took the credit for it, but it was spreading the credit because everything you do in the media business, there’s nothing that singular.
It’s all about teamwork. So for me, it was about building teams. So when I would interview people. So many people would come in trying to be impressed. They wanted to be impressed with what they did, their skillset, their credits, whatever it was. But I listened to see how often they gave other people credit.
How often did they talk about a peer or someone they worked with or a family member with some sign of warmth? And that’s what I would look at. It’s not that I didn’t look at a resume to see if they had some background that fit, but if I were looking at five and one very organically [00:21:00] talked about the other people they worked with as a team.
Done deal
Joe: line number two that we’re told you write is know your worth. We hear this all the time. I’ve been doing this podcast for 15 years. Bonnie, what’s wrong with Know your Worth?
Bonnie: There’s nothing wrong with the conceit of know your worth. We’ve been told over the years that unless you know your own worth, you’re not gonna get anywhere, et cetera.
There’s a big difference between your personal worth. We are born with personal worth. Nobody should and can take that away from you, but on the job, you have to earn your worth. You are not entitled to anything. You have to be there. Get up early, show up, stay late, and make others believe that you are worth molding, helping, developing, promoting, and you have to work at that worth.
It’s not a given that once you kick a door open because you show up and sit at your desk or make a few calls [00:22:00] that you should get promoted, you have to prove that. Raise hand, say.
Learning from it. Enjoying if there’s a task to be done instead of kind of, you know, hiding away. ’cause you hope they ask somebody else, raise your hand and say, I’ll do it. And once you start showing people you are willing to work hard at something, they look at you as, okay, they’re earning this. I want them around because they’re gonna do just about anything.
They will succeed. I’ve been doing a little research ’cause I’m trying to write another op-ed to deal with kids getting out of college right now. Understanding that you have to earn your work worth. And some of the research I’ve been looking into literally is saying I think there were like eight out of 10 different people that were interviewed in corporations are very [00:23:00] leery about hiring a Gen Z person right outta college right now.
Wow. They do not believe they have a work ethic. Their assumption is, number one, they don’t wanna be in the office. They’re gonna fight to, you know, basically work remotely. I’m not a big believer in that because if you’re not in the room, you are never gonna be in the room. And there’s a belief that they just don’t understand starting out in a work world and having to earn that worth.
And so I have a little bit more research to do, but, uh, it’s really interesting that the wrap that some of the Gen Zs are getting right now has to do with just a lack of motivation, a lack of reality that you gotta start somewhere. So just put in the effort and wherever it is, show up, show up with a smile, and do what is asked.
Joe: It isn’t lost on me. How these two first lies that we talked about Bonnie, really go [00:24:00] together. I mean, you’re familiar, I’m sure, with the work of Carol Dweck and this idea of a growth mentality. Yeah. And man, when you show up, well, heck, you even talk about in the book your son working in the mail room, which I laughed ’cause mom, mom wasn’t gonna make him the nepo kid that Winston was the nepo dog.
That got to be exactly right. But, but this idea that, hey, I’m in the mail room, which gets me access into all these different people’s offices. I get to meet the people. I get to interface with the people. Like even though I’m the kid in the mail room, there’s so much I can learn from how this place operates.
Bonnie: Yes. Now I’d be lying if I said that privately and quietly. He didn’t whine.
Jess, what did you think when you took a job in the mail room? But, but he was wise enough to make friends. He was wise enough to basically wander around, drop off the mail, [00:25:00] drop off the boxes. Obviously this is when they still had snail mail, uh, or more of it at least, and get to know people. Ask if he could do something.
He too learned how to raise his hand and say, I’m here. You need somebody to do an errand. I’m around. It worked for him, and in my mind, everyone I know, or whose son or daughter. Had that attitude is doing incredibly well right now. It’s those that just basically assume the world’s gonna be giving to them on a platter just because they went to college, got a decent degree.
Um, it’s not happening, especially in this world right now. When you think about all the restructures that are going on right now, you think about AI taking over so many jobs, you know, companies being closed, restructured, things changing around us. You can’t be that s and if you try different things and try out different opportunities, it’s just [00:26:00] gonna help you grow and be prepared to move in a variety of different directions, not stay on that singular path that you believe will get you somewhere.
Joe: This is the reason why I think it’s also important to be in the office, Bonnie, is you see these things happen around you as well, where if you’re remote, you don’t see all the struggles somebody else is going through and learn at the, you know, from their mistake versus. My own mistake. It’s, it’s absolutely crazy.
You mentioned a few of the stars that you worked with over time who have learned from these things here, with this, this second lie, you really, uh, you point at Kim Kardashian and how Kim Kardashian sometimes. Well, tell us, how does Kim Kardashian play into this second lie,
Bonnie: Kim and her mom. It’s not just Kim.
Chris taught her kids well. She taught them if they want something, they have to work hard at it no matter who they are. The most impressive thing that I’ve seen from Kim, other than obviously showing up, working hard, doing the show, never calling in sick, never doing anything that a [00:27:00] well-known popular influencer and celebrity would do.
Kim had a shot of doing Saturday Night Live. Not that long ago. Kim has not posted that kind of show before where you have to do straight to camera and you have to have a sense of humor, and you’re working with all of these incredibly talented people on the set. She worked her butt off preparing. She had things written and rewritten.
She worked with the writers. She worked with a comic to help her get some, you know, basically timing and tone on the comedy that she was gonna do, which she had never done before. I have never seen somebody work that hard that was so successful already, and. She basically knocked it out of the park when she did the show.
Joe: Yeah. Talk about leaning into it. I mean, I especially liked the, uh, skit she did with the dating game. Like that was so damn funny. It
Bonnie: was unbelievable. And then if you think about her then getting called back for the 50th anniversary [00:28:00] show, she hosted once, she didn’t, wasn’t a personal friend of Lauren, but lo and behold, because she did so well, she got invited back with all of those who’ve been on it for a gazillion years.
Joe: That’s right. ’cause that’s when the dating game one was. That’s was on the 50th anniversary. Yes. I wanna touch briefly on your third line, which is have friends in high places and you talk about. Really, it’s truth tellers all around you, but I wanna focus on another relationship that really, it made me laugh.
Maybe, maybe Bonnie, at your expense, can you tell us about your relationship early on with Barry Diller? Because this, this just seemed like a
Bonnie: won’t. Yeah, you won’t be the first to laugh at my expense, but that’s okay.
Joe: It seemed like a dirt road to hell. Yeah. The beginning of this relationship,
Bonnie: oh my, Barry basically bought USA and Sci-fi, I think it was in the mid nineties.
It was, you know, kind of in his heyday, once he had been headed up Paramount and all [00:29:00] these other entities. So Major Mogul had been Q-V-C-H-S-N, all of that stuff. He bought us, at the time, I think I was the Vice president of development and original programming at USA. He gets us all together and what ends up happening is he makes me first a general manager of sci-fi.
I used to go to meetings and I was petrified of this man. I would literally, if I could be under the table in these meetings, so petrified, he would ask me a question, and then I started watching some people around me. One guy in particular named Steven, who used sense of humor with Barry and Barry seemed to love it.
So I slowly, over an 18 month period of time, started being able to respond to someone who scared the. What I love about Barry to this day, and he is still a, he’s a mentor and he’s now a friend, was [00:30:00] that Barry is one of these guys that I call a challenging mentor. He is somebody that will test you and push you, and he puts the tough into tough love where he’s going to scrutinize you till you truly learn how to think.
A quick example of what I’m talking about, Barry didn’t let you get away with anything. You had to think out every single thing you did if you were gonna get a yes from Barry to spend a penny no less, millions of dollars. So we were about to green light a show, four sci-fi, uh, with a psychic, and Barry decided that he wasn’t sure about this idea.
So this happened over a long weekend. We did not have cell phones then. So it was on a computer that you had to sit by all weekend long waiting for his exchange. And his question to me was, Bonnie, if psychics are real, why would you put a psychic on a science fiction channel? [00:31:00] And if they’re not real, why the hell are we in business with him?
Okay, Barry, this was back and forth going through conversations and reasoning, and he took that on a weekend. On a weekend on weekend in December. I remember it so clearly, and I finally was about to give in and say, okay, we’re not gonna have John Edward on the show. But then I said, I’m trying one more thing.
So my final argument to him as he’s trying to get me to articulate why I believed it should be on sci-fi, I said, Barry. Whether you or I believe psychics are real, are completely irrelevant because psychics are in the eyes of a beholder. They are not fact, they are not fiction. There’s something, let’s, let’s call it friction because it cannot be proven.
Therefore, it’s perfect for science fiction. He wrote back, [00:32:00] okay, your arguments win. Go. So he forced you to think out anything you were about to do to try to get a yes. No matter what it took till it was clear. Now, if the show had failed, he never would’ve said, I told you so, because he accepted my arguments.
He would’ve said, fine. Good try.
Joe: We were all on board.
Bonnie: Yeah. And so it, it, he taught me so much, even though it scared the hell out of me. And what for me these days is really problematic that the younger kids going through corporate life right now don’t get exposed to challenging mentors. You know, unfortunately, and I’m careful about talking about it, but our world has gotten so woke or overly woke that we’re not allowed to say stuff that will help people grow.
We’re not allowed to critique in the way we were critiqued. Now was [00:33:00] Barry at the time, probably a little too tough. Without doubt, but what he said and how he believed in me and how he knew I was more capable than I believed I even was at certain things. It’s only his pushing that got me there. And we can’t offer that to kids these days because we have to be very careful.
Otherwise, they just run to the HR departments. HR gives you a call saying, now what did you tell him? You told him he was lousy at something. I’m a big believer that challenging mentors, you know, the foils, the tough love teachers, the sparring partners that are in the workplace are so valuable. We should seek them out.
We should absolutely seek them out, and that’s the way we’re going to learn. Because more often than not, they know that we are even more capable than we believe ourselves to be because they watch us and they know when they see, I feel that [00:34:00] Stop believing that they’re being abusive. They’re
Joe: not. They’re trying to help us.
Well, that, that was exactly my next question is that because I’m a hundred percent on board and really young, our young stackers really need to know where the difference is between this challenging mentor, this challenging boss, and a toxic boss. Like where, where do you see that line at then Bonnie?
Bonnie: It’s a very fine line and there’s a definite line.
There should be no tolerance for true abuse or toxic behavior, but you have to basically do your own work and your do own homework to understand who you’re dealing with. Who is this personality that’s trying to teach me? Those who have come before you, who have worked with and for him or her, where do they end up?
Do they remain friends? Do they remain? Is the person still a mentor or a guide to them? It’s taking a look at the big [00:35:00] picture rather than the word that is said in that room. Tough love and tough mentoring can be done in with kindness to, as these days in particular, you can give tough information and advice to people in a kinder way.
Barry was a different generation. I was lucky enough that I had someone earlier in my career back in Boston who was a little softer person than Barry. His name was Michael, who got me ready for Barry. But my styles have always been very, very honest with any and everybody who’s worked with and for me, to the point where they could question me too.
But it was always with. This is what I think you’re not doing right, and this is what I think you need to do and why. And I would give them a period of time to think about it, to work on it, to try it, but it wasn’t done with negativity, it was done with compassion. And I think. [00:36:00] Probably, if not all, most genuinely believed that all I cared about was them, how they performed, how they grew, how they worked with the team so we could all succeed.
It had nothing to do with me trying to control them,
Joe: boy, the betterment of me as the employee, making me a better employee through the tough love versus just being a screamer.
Bonnie: Correct. Yeah.
Joe: I’ve always been attracted that to, I mean, there’s
Bonnie: no need for screaming.
Joe: Sure. But even, you know what’s funny is that, uh, and I know some of this is just tv, but like a Gordon Ramsey where he’s fighting with the restaurant owner, but you know what’s, because he loves the restaurant and he wants to see a succeed, like he’s on their team, and that’s why they’re having this heated discussion of putting some heart behind it.
Bonnie: It’s very true. Literally had a, I took like boxing classes on the weekend. I had a boxing bag that had Diller’s name on it telling me I would go and punch the hell outta this thing and I would show up again on Monday and [00:37:00] I’d be fine.
Joe: And
Bonnie: look at you now.
Joe: It’s Bonnie Hammer. The Hammer, right? Yes. The book is The 15 Lies Women Are Told at Work and The Truth, we Need to Succeed.
As you’ve heard today, stackers. It is blunt, it is straightforward. There are, there’s so many tactical lessons here and we just did stuff from the first, mostly the first two chapters. It’s been out for about the last six days. Bonnie, thank you so much for mentoring our stackers today. I super appreciate your time.
Bonnie: I’m delighted, love talking with you and I.
Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Duggan. On today’s date in 1971, Don McClain recorded the masterpiece song, American Pie, commemorating the day that the music died. McClain writes that she took the Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. So here’s today’s money [00:38:00] question in 1971, if she took the Chevy to the levee, what model Chevy was she most likely driving based on sales at the time?
I’ll be back right after I see if I can write a song about the Pontiac. Aztec, man, I missed that car. Or, or, or wait, is it a truck, a, a minivan? I still don’t know. I don’t think we’ll ever know.
Hey there, stackers. I’m Pontiac Aztec lover and the guy who’s all about modern art. Apparently, Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, the classic Chevy automobile of the 1970s was a staple of the car culture at the time. When Don McClain wrote American Pie back in 1971, he wrote about a Chevy based on sales. Which Chevy was he probably writing about the answer?
A Chevy Chevelle In 1971, GM sold [00:39:00] 464,000 chevelles for an average of $2,872 each, which sounds like a bargain until you realize that’s about $22,250 and 2025. Wait a minute. That’s still a bargain today. Sign me up. And now let’s head back to Joe and our second mentor on this holiday episode of Stacking Benjamins.
Joe: All right, in our first half, you just heard Bonnie Hammer helping us make more money and do better at work, but what’s the point of making more money if we don’t do the right stuff with it? And that’s why I’m super happy Dr. Erica’s back. How are you?
Erika: I’m so good. Thanks for having me back. I’m so excited.
Joe: I love this podcast. I, well, thank you. And as you know, we love you and we love Beyond Finance, but let’s dive in. You, you guys sent me a study that you had seen recently that is very disturbing, and let’s just cut to the chase, Dr. Erica. Half of Americans don’t trust [00:40:00] themselves managing finances. That’s not a good number.
Erika: It’s not. It’s not. And when we think about trust, we have to think about it in terms of how important it is to really trust ourselves and the way we make decisions. So we can do the right things to stay on course, but also know when to course correct and know when to do it in a way that feels good to us, that feels confident and knowledgeable and not scary.
And I think that’s where this trust piece comes in, because the less you trust yourself, the more likely you are to act from a place of fear or scarcity and not know what to do or be so overwhelmed with all of your options that you have decision paralysis.
Joe: Well, that’s the thing I used to think, you know, people didn’t trust themself because there wasn’t enough knowledge out there.
Right? So even, even when I was a financial planner, I thought, man, I wish there was more stuff on the internet. Now that I’m on the financial media side, and you know, Dr. Erika, there’s stuff all over the place. There’s so much stuff like why, where should we begin if we’re, [00:41:00] obviously they came to the Stacking Benjamin Show, which is a nice place, but how do I.
Begin to maybe build myself a curriculum to trust myself more and gain some confidence.
Erika: The confidence piece obviously can start with this understanding of some knowledge and getting a basic understanding and, and so many people don’t have that education piece on on lock, but education is just part of it.
You can know all of the right things when it comes to money, but if your emotions are in the way of that, if you are unable to think objectively or, or trust yourself and your emotions aren’t healed or you feel unhealed in some way, that’s definitely going to influence your overall ability to really take whatever you learn and practice it and apply it.
And one of the things that’s interesting is May is also mental health awareness month. Mental health and finances often go hand in hand. Sure. Because money intersects with every aspect of your life. And so I really think that first place to start is getting a good pulse on [00:42:00] what you know and what you don’t know about money, and then also looking at what’s going on when you are thinking about money and how that feels to you and how that has played out in your life.
It’s so much initial reflection to get started down that path of financial transformation.
Joe: What do we do then? Do we just, I mean, do we write it down? Do we. Give it a name. Like where do we start there?
Erika: Oh, one of the greatest things you can do for yourself is, is name your feelings. You know, if you’re feeling anxious about money, say that you’re anxious about money.
If you’re feeling stressed about money, say that you’re feeling stressed about money. And if you’re in debt, say, I am in debt and it makes me feel X, Y, z, or I don’t feel confident. Once you name it, you can tame it. And once you’re there, you can, you know, take those steps to maybe journaling is the method for you.
One of the things I worked with my clients over the years over is so many people have a really hard time with budgeting. And one of the interesting things in, in the survey that we did is 69% of people say, okay, [00:43:00] I’m gonna get better with budgeting. And I think everybody tends to say that, right? But when you are looking at your budgeting and you’re at your spending and.
Consistently overspending and you don’t know why. That’s a place where we don’t need to look at the budgeting ins and outs of dollars so much as we need to look at how you’re feeling when you’re spending that money. And a journal can be a really great way to do that.
Joe: Wow. So beyond the dopamine hit, you know, ’cause initially I feel good, but as you know, better than most because of what you do, Dr.
Erika. ’cause I remember when I was just horrible with money, I would get that dopamine hit and then like probably a lot of people you work with. 20 minutes later I got this huge feeling of guilt, right? Like how, why did I buy this stupid thing and now I’m in a worse situation than I was 20 minutes ago?
Erika: Oh my gosh, absolutely. And I relate so much. You know, um, I have a PhD in personal financial planning. I am really educated in this space, but one of the things I have struggled with and struggled with for so [00:44:00] long was my own ability, ability to budget and stick to a budget because of those dopamine hits.
I know myself well enough to know I tend to be an emotional spender. And so it didn’t matter what emotion it was. If I was feeling a big emotion, I was gonna spend it and I couldn’t get to the budgeting piece, the dollars in and dollars out until I honestly kept a journal in my glove box in my car and forced myself to write about whatever purchases I made to start seeing those patterns within myself to find that accountability, to look at those dopamine heads and to play the tape.
Forward. It’s looking at how you are going to feel when you make that purchase in person. It might feel really good in the moment, but by the time you get out to your car or by the time you hit order on Amazon, you’re already feeling it. That guilt, that shame, and that’s something I struggled with and probably something you struggled with too, is I know better than this.
I, I have this education. Yeah. But that shame can hit anybody. And that’s what’s so important about, you know, one of the things I say all the [00:45:00] time is debt doesn’t discriminate and all of us have financial challenges and people just aren’t alone in this.
Joe: That’s well because my first instinct, and maybe yours too, was to bury it.
You know what, yeah, I’m just gonna do better, Dr. Erica, I’m just gonna do better tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m gonna do better. I’m gonna do better, I’m gonna do better. And to your point, the second that I went, you know what? I need help getting out of this, that’s when help showed up. ’cause I realized the same brain that got me into this problem wasn’t probably the same brain that was gonna get me out of it.
Erika: Absolutely. And I think that is such an important observation to make about yourself. It’s so human to, you know, put things off tomorrow. It’s very scarlet O’Hara. Oh, I’ll think about this tomorrow. But if you can put yourself in the mindset of, you know what? I keep doing the same thing over and over and over, and it keeps making me feel really bad.
Why am I punishing myself? Why am I the person making myself feel this pain? I wouldn’t treat somebody else this way. And so why am I treating myself this way? And when you can find [00:46:00] that place where you can say, all right, I don’t have to do this alone. And it takes so much courage to be able to say that.
But when it comes to money, I think there’s so much pressure there to know everything there is to know about money. And so if you don’t have a particular set of, of skills or set of knowledge, people feel stupid and they feel dumb and they don’t know what to do to get help. And so they freeze. They stay stuck in their shame and they stay stuck in their guilt.
And it really is a huge lift to get to that point to say, I, I do need help. And once you are at that point where you, you can forgive yourself for what you, you don’t know what you know until you know, and allow yourself to get that place of knowledge with the help of other people. You know, we’re not supposed to do life alone and we’re not supposed to do money alone.
Joe: Yeah. It’s wild. A good friend of mine, uh, ya Espinal, who’s an amazing financial educator, she’s like, if you give me a test, give me a test, I’ll ace it. Like I know what the criteria is, but when it comes to money, there never was a [00:47:00] test. There never was a, and yet we’re expected to do the things that Bonnie talked about in the first half of today’s show and then turn around and we’re gonna do great stuff with this money.
But there’s, you know, education is scattered, it’s coming into schools, but it’s not as good as it could be. It’s all over the place. It’s funny with what you do and with what I used to do. I wish more people could have been in these meetings with me to see how everybody’s feeling. The same stuff. Like it’s wild how people would come in like, I don’t know much about this.
I’m like, that’s every person that came into my office. And it is really sad, Dr. Er, to see that over and over and over. Do you, do you find a difference though, between. Men and women, I mean, but you know, Bonnie talked about women are being lied to at work, men are being lied to at work. Is it the way we feel money?
Do you find that there’s any gender speci specificity specific? I can’t say the word. You know what I’m talking about. Do
Erika: specificity. It’s, it’s hard. There you go. There we go. Uh, but yeah, absolutely. You know, um, and even in our study that we, we just did, you know, women do report [00:48:00] lower levels of self-trust, which indicates that there is a confidence gap.
You can trace that back to socialization, gender roles, you know, whatever you wanna call it. There’s so many potential root influences there. But women do have a different set of, of emotions and a different set of, you know, confidence and, and self-trust. And so I think women in general, and you talk about your previous guest who’s talking about, you know, how, how to make more money at work or you know, how to ask for a raise and what do we do with that money when we’re done,
bit: right.
Erika: I have worked with so many women over the years who don’t self-advocate for themselves when it comes to money in the workplace. And it’s because. In so many cases, they’re, they’re never taught to, they don’t feel like they are necessarily worthy enough of this, or if they do get a job offer, they don’t want to risk the offer being rescinded because they negotiated or asked for more money.
That, to me, just, it’s such a, a problem. I mean, that’s all down to, but I also think that men and male [00:49:00] relationships, I think money is likely more discussed a little bit more often. And I think for women, it’s not discussed as often. And you know, money as we know, it’s still a taboo topic. It’s getting better, it’s getting better.
But when you have very gender specific differences, there isn’t that opportunity for women to build that self-trust and that confidence maybe as effectively or quickly as men do.
Joe: Yeah. When I hear women, when I’m teaching a class and I hear women tell me, you know, I, I’m just not as good at this, and I hear it much more often from women than men.
My first thought is, you know, nobody’s born good at this. Nobody is. And, and sometimes I think the men suffer as much from overconfidence. Mm-hmm. And then they take risks that maybe they shouldn’t take. I see that more often. Play out with men. I’m like, why are you doing that? Oh, ’cause it’ll turn around.
I’m just gonna be great.
Erika: Yeah. And you know, and I see that too. And I think also from that gender perspective, men do experience a different kind of pressure than women do when it comes [00:50:00] to money. I don’t think these are necessarily things that, that can be ignored. You know, each gender has their own set of obligations or the way they were socialized, whether that be by parents or school or church, whatever that looks like.
There are natural differences there. And so I think men feel a different kind of pressure financially than women do. I think the female pressure versus the, the male pressure, they’re both pressure, but they’re different.
Joe: For men, I found admitting that you’re wrong. Admitting that, you know what? I might need help with this.
Like how often is my wife accused me of not wanting to uh, go ask somebody for directions?
Erika: Yeah. Right. Yeah. It goes back to that old trope, I’m not gonna ask for directions. I can fix this leaky faucet myself. I got it. You know, I
Joe: got this. Just wait till the repair bill’s gonna be really big. After I really mess it up, then I’ll get help.
Yeah, right.
Erika: You know, and you think about perceptions of weakness as well, you know, and I think that’s where a lot of that comes down to is you feel weak and then that leads to guilt or shame, or why didn’t I [00:51:00] pick this up better from my family? Like, why am I the odd man out here?
Joe: What about different generations too?
Do you find things in your study? Things change generationally.
Erika: Oh yeah. You know, things of course, you know, are going to be different generationally, and you look at our silent generation or our baby boomers, they’re much more methodical, a little bit more balanced in terms of both their short term and, and their long-term goals.
It’s our gen Zers who really are engaged with their money, as is the way I would describe it. They’re taking an active role in setting themselves up for success. That’s
bit: cool.
Erika: It it’s cool. And it’s also interesting as compared to baby boomers or, or the silence, they’re a little bit more focused on, on that short term goal as well.
I wouldn’t say they’re less balanced and I, I definitely don’t wanna give the impression that they’re, they’re all about the experiences and spending money on those things, but they are definitely integrating that. I, I think with older generations, I think there was this idea that you work and work and work and work and then you retire and then you can have fun with your money.
I think Gen Z has got it figured out that you can do [00:52:00] all of it. And you can really plan for your future. You can plan for years ahead, but you can also have a little bit of fun with that money, which that kind of approach is probably one of the most breathtaking of them all. It’s, it’s just a general sigh of relief for me to hear that people can’t enjoy money while additionally saving for it.
And then, you know, we’ve got our poor millennials and X kind of stuck in the middle, and I’m an elder millennial. I’m like on the very oldest rung of that. But millennials and Gen Xers, they really still struggle with economic trauma that they’ve experienced throughout their lives and, and also they struggle with, with trust.
And it’s not only the trust of themselves, but also of financial institutions and everything else. That has been a struggle for Gen Xers and, and millennials.
Joe: Well, I look, I mean, Dr. Ika look at a lot of our millennials were just beginning to save and invest during the financial crisis. So I think that’s why I, I mean, just in your formative years, you’re seeing all these banks go under companies going bankrupt people, good people, smart people losing their houses and debt up [00:53:00] to their eyeballs for, you know, losing their jobs.
I think people may have learned some maybe not great messages in their early saving years.
Erika: Absolutely. And when that was going on, I had just kinda really started in, in my career, you know, I was only like three or four years into it. Mm-hmm. That was around the time I was hoping to buy a house. And everything changed.
Underwriting, mortgage, underwriting changed, everything changed. You
Joe: couldn’t just say you made X amount of money, whatever you wanted anymore.
Erika: No, no. You, yeah. No doc loans were no a no thing anymore. And there’s other people, like the younger generations and the people who are 10 years younger than me and they’re watching their parents lose their jobs.
It’s scary and frightening. And so there is this huge amount of distrust that affects that particular generation and, and their ability to do things that other generations couldn’t do. And it’s not because of avocado toast. Right. And avocado toast for the record is delicious. As a millennial,
Joe: Cheryl, my spouse is squarely in, uh, gen X like I am and is completely in love with [00:54:00] avocado toast.
Me. Avocados are fine. Company avocados and toast. I not on my menu, you know, for a lot of millennials. I think it’s interesting going back again, like financial therapy, something you know, way more about than I know. So important to go back and look and why am I thinking about this? Like what are my emotions around it for Gen X.
I think it’s not the financial crisis. I know what the problem is with Gen X, Dr. Erica.
Erika: I’m ready. Tell me.
Joe: Yes. So we grew up with buying all these records and we had this record collection, and then we had to go to cassette tapes. So we had to get rid of that and go to cassettes. Then we had to get rid of the cassettes and go to CDs, and then we had to go to MP threes, and now we have to have a subscription like, you know how many times I bought the same damn song?
A hundred? Yes. Was the whole reason I was in debt was Grand Duran. I mean that,
Erika: would you say you’re hungry like the Wolf? That’s right.
Joe: It’s a theory. Could be a really, really bad one. Yeah,
Erika: I, I like the theory, [00:55:00] you know, and what’s old is new again, right. You know, you go to records and you records. How many years ago did you get your records?
Just by those again, probably.
Joe: I know if I wrote down all that, like just getting through all that. All right. Something that you guys were talking about last month, but something that’s still important in May. Is this idea of financial practice week? Can we talk about financial practice week? I know that it’s already happened in terms of beyond finance talking about it, but I think for our stackers, heck, this week’s a great week to have Financial practice week.
Erika: Yeah, financial practice week. I totally love, one of the things I never had on my bingo card was I would help found a national holiday. So that’s fun for me. That’s a, that’s a win. April is financial literacy month in general. One of the things I think is so important about financial literacy, it’s so important just to have the, the knowledge and, and getting that information, that initial education.
But what I find so much and what I’ve seen over the last 20 years of my career and working with clients or little kiddos, I teach junior achievement. You know, I volunteer [00:56:00] for that. It’s so fun.
Bits and pieces. But where do they get to apply those things? Where do they get to practice that? And so the whole basis of financial practice week was to highlight the need of not only getting the knowledge, but doing something with it when you got it. And sometimes that looks like starting to budget or playing around with some apps, finding the one that works for you.
But it also looks like reflecting on your current status and being like, I don’t know as much as I would like to about money, I’m gonna start Googling. I’m gonna take a look at what Investipedia says about this, or I’m going to phone a friend and say, what do you know about this? And start to be curious and get those answers and start to get okay with, with asking for help and finding that autonomy and that confidence, and being okay with not having to know everything, but also being okay enough to start applying what you do know to get to where you wanna go.
Joe: Let’s do that this week. Stackers, I [00:57:00] mean, it’s Memorial Day or maybe just after, as you’re listening to this. I just love the idea of, you know, dare yourself to go learn something. Download a new app. I just, you know what, I just did Dr. Erika, I just redownload. I’m gonna make a video about it. That Acorns app did you really?
Just for fun. That’s awesome. Yeah, just a friend was talking about it. I’m like, you know what? I used to use Acorns and I stopped. I’m just gonna download it again and see how it’s changed and, and have some fun, but just, I don’t know this growth mentality, but it sounds like to me what you’re talking about is make it, make it get away from the shame and let’s just play a little bit.
Erika: Yeah. It’s so frustrating and I love that you’re doing acorns again. I, I think now I wanna do acorns again. But you have a different set of eyes on it. You look at it like five, 10 years ago and then you’re looking at it now. It’s totally different set of experiences, but Yeah. But this is the thing with money, and I, I wish people would understand this at the, and I say this from the depths of my soul, money can be so fun.
It really can, but you have to get past the idea that it’s not, that it is a, the bane of your existence, that it is [00:58:00] a, a purely negative thing. At the end of the day, money is a tool. It’s a tool, it’s energy. It is, it’s, it’s what you make it. And if you are consistently stuck in that mindset of money equals madness or money equals pain, money equals never being good enough, it’s going to stay that way for you.
There’s no way, it’s not going to be anything else, or it’s ever going to be anything else than a pain point for you. And so at some point you do have to make that conscious decision. You have to find that readiness in yourself to say, alright, what if, what if money can be fun? What if money can be good?
What if instead of saying, what if it is bad? Let’s play with it a little bit, try some things and, and I don’t think there’s enough emphasis on, on being able to, or being okay with trying things and being curious. You know, I tried every budgeting app there was out there, and I didn’t like one of ’em, and it turned out to be my emotions, but it was the journal that really helped me get that budgeting piece in line.
And so it’s finding those [00:59:00] pieces, like be curious about your emotions, have fun with it, and yeah, like a science
Joe: experiment. Let’s go f it up a little bit, you know?
Erika: Yes, yes. And take that approach to it. And once you start taking that approach and you allow yourself space to make mistakes or have some freedom, that’s where it can get really fun.
Nobody is perfect on this journey. The clients I work with at Beyond Finance, you know, I’ve got clients in there. Who are older or younger, who make six figures, who don’t make six figures. Who are doctors, who are not Doctors have $380,000 in debt, 25,000. It’s, it’s all over the board. But all of those things as as scary as it can be, you know, being in debt.
What a great place to find yourself to rethink and just edit your financial foundation for the future. What, what are you learning from this? And how is this different than anything you’ve ever experienced? And it’s finding the peace amongst the pain, but that piece will make a whole, whole big difference in the way you approach [01:00:00] money going forward.
If you can make peace with the mistakes you made, we are not our mistakes.
Joe: I was super excited, Erica, when I found out that we were going to be partnering together because this is such an important topic that we talked about today, about getting your money together, getting your life together, really going deep on your feelings and really getting beyond the debt.
Tell everybody what beyond Finance is about so we can kind of dive into what this partnership’s about.
Erika: Yeah, so beyond finance, you know, as far as I’m concerned, is one of the, the greatest companies I’ve ever had the pleasure of, of working with. One of the reasons is because they are one of the nation’s leading and largest debt consolidation organizations, but they are so committed and providing just this really incredible, empathetic and really smart way for clients to move beyond debt by truly just helping people lower their monthly payments and reduce that impact of that interest and reach that debt-free life sooner.
What’s nuts to me, you know, right [01:01:00] now the latest statistics are saying that consumer debt is $1.21 trillion,
Joe: duh. And it just keeps going up.
Erika: Keeps going up, and that is the thing that keeps me up at night. I get to work with a thousand or so beyond finance clients a month, and I, I’m always worried about the people who aren’t in those rooms with me because there are so many people burdened by debt.
And instead of them having to wait 20 or 30 years to maybe make it out of their debt with a minimum payment situation, they have the ability to get out in, let’s say four years. I think with the experience, at least from what I’ve observed in my interactions in working one-on-one with beyond finance clients, is it is that life experience that really does bring people to what I call the financial condition of debt.
It is a temporary condition, but it is a condition, nevertheless, that’s often precipitated by things like job loss or the loss of a partner, or whether that’s death or divorce or they lose their health in some way.
Joe: There’s been some big event that happened, some big when, when I was a [01:02:00] financial planner.
That was a hundred percent of the time.
Erika: Yeah. And so when people find themselves in this giant financial condition of debt and they’re still reeling from the life experience that brought them there, that stress, that anxiety, that depression, that uncertainty, I mean, that’s what keeps them up at night.
That’s what causes the sleepless nights and the tummy aches and the headaches beyond finance really offers a, a nice place for people to go who are brave enough to take that option to really explore whether their perceived biggest. Financial failure or adversity can turn into their biggest financial success.
And I think beyond finance really creates a pathway for them to do that by providing them not only the, the financial support and means to do that with their program, but also providing them with that financial wellness, that holistic financial wellness support, which is what I have a direct role in for their emotional and psychological and mental wellbeing.
So they don’t have to go it alone. [01:03:00]
Joe: I wanna dive into tactically just how it works, like how the program kind of works at the beginning, what people can expect. ’cause if somebody’s looking at this, like we said before, people are feeling shame. They feel nervous. You don’t want to tell people about this, you’re, you’re worried about who you bring into the corner.
You’ve also heard a lot about the industry. We’ve had experts from other companies on to talk about, as you know, more than most, Erica, how some of the companies out there doing this, which is why for me it was so important that we found a good partner because the predatory stuff, there’s a place. At the inner ring of hell for people that prey on people that already just have so much adversity in their life.
So for me, when I was in debt, ’cause I just one of stackers, take a second and talk about my story. When Dr. Ike said, you may have four years to go and then you’ve made your situation a ton better, that may feel like a long time. I gotta tell you what happens in real life. ’cause this is what happened to me back in the nineties when I was a money disaster, [01:04:00] when I made the decision that I needed better people in my corner and I had to, I had to get serious about this because as we said earlier, the same mind that got me into this, it wasn’t gonna get me out.
I needed to surround myself with better people. The second that I realized that I was in charge, even though Erica, for me, it was probably about a four year journey. By the end of the first year, by the way, I was doing so much better and then I kind of gamified it in my head and it was really fun. I. But it was wild that within the first month, even though on paper, things looked almost exactly the same, the fact that I had a strategy and I had a team, and we were looking at this holistically now with the creditors, I was like, no, I’m in control.
No, no, no, no. I’m, and I gotta tell you, Dr. Erika, just having that more holistic view that you guys do, that to me is what’s really attractive about beyond finance.
Erika: Yeah. And that is such an important thing to consider that sense of [01:05:00] control when you are dealing with an excessive amount of debt and you’ve got this tremendous amount of shame, and you’re rumbling with the emotions and the finances of it all.
And, and I mentioned earlier, you lose that trust in yourself. You know that confidence starts to go down, and then you don’t feel like you’re in control, and you feel like all these external circumstances are just beating you up. It becomes exhausting. It becomes tiring. And then that’s where some of that decision paralysis comes from.
One of the greatest things people can do for themselves is take control of their control. We are not hopeless, we are not helpless. And sometimes it feels that way, but Dolly Parton has this really great quote, and I, I say it all the time, you know, if you, I think
Joe: she’s got like 90 great quotes, by the way.
Oh,
Erika: she’s amazing. She’s
Joe: incredible.
Erika: But the one I say all the time is, if you want the rainbow, you’ve gotta put up with the rain. You might be weathering a, a massive financial storm, whether that’s debt or otherwise, but you are in control of this. And it’s gonna rain sometimes in life and it’s gonna suck.
And you [01:06:00] might not always know what to do, but you can. At least take control to the point where you can start looking for other people that can help you. And there’s no shame in asking for help, even though that’s what has been told to so many people when it comes to their finances for so long. And it becomes a vicious cycle.
And so if you’re gonna get out of that reign and, and hope for that rainbow, you’ve gotta break the cycle. You’ve got to change your mindset a little bit. You’ve gotta change the way you care for yourself. And you know, if you would extend a, a stranger compassion and kindness, why aren’t you doing it to yourself?
As far as I’m concerned, when it comes to debt, sometimes that looks like picking up the phone and calling beyond finance and saying, I am scared. I have $120,000 in debt. I don’t know what to do. I’m making $1,600 a month in payments. I can’t do anything. I’m not making a dent. I can’t pay my bills. My water’s about to get shut off.
What are my options? That’s where you find your control. That’s where you start to build that trust back in yourself. And it’s not always evident at the beginning. At four years can be a a scary, [01:07:00] rough ride. But boy is it better than that alternative of a 20 or 30.
Joe: Ben, like we started this conversation.
Confidence is everything. Just feeling that confident. When I felt that confidence I was so much better off. Well, I’m super happy you could mentor our stackers today and we could talk about this holistically. ’cause it’s not just about that credit card bill. There’s clearly something going on under the hood and I think that’s so important for people to get more beyond finance.com.
Erika: Yeah, I would send ’em exactly there beyond finance.com. We’ve got a great blog that people can take a look at. The newsroom always has something interesting as well, but we have just a ton of information out there. And like I said, if you are struggling with debt or any sort of financial challenge, ask yourself, what if this doesn’t go wrong?
What if it goes right? Ask for help. Make that phone call, whether it’s to be on finance or to a friend, or listen to another podcast. Do something to where you can start building that confidence and trust back in yourself. Our mental, our emotional, our psychological, it just intersects with everything, money.
And [01:08:00] if we can get one thing to improve, the other will improve too.
Joe: All right, Doug, take it from me. Or what should we have learned today?
Doug: First, take some advice from Bonnie Hammer. Don’t believe the lies at work. Chart your own course and you’ll be much better off. Second, struggling to make ends meet. Lay out the budget, build your emergency fund, and get rolling.
Maybe use a reputable group like Beyond Finance to help you find your way to a brighter future. But the big lesson, don’t let Joe and OG talk you into just one ride in the El Camino down to the park for our picnic, not my first rodeo, gents. This is just two guys who want a designated driver for the afternoon world, not today.
Satan’s.
Thank you to Bonnie Hammer for joining us today. You’ll find Bonnie’s new book, 15 Lies Women Are Told at Work Wherever Books are Sold. And thanks also to de ika Derek De That’s, that’s Dr. [01:09:00] Erica, when you just combine it, Derek.
Joe: I think she’d like that name.
Doug: Okay, we’re gonna run with it. Thanks also to Derek Rasher for joining us head to beyond finance.com.
If you’re struggling with money, she worked so hard to get a doctorate and I just blast right through it. This show is the Property of SP podcasts, LLC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul Sehi. Joe gets some 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 [01:10:00] here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.
Joe: Welcome to the After Show Special Memorial Day after show, since you didn’t hear much from us. Mostly from Dr. Erica and Body Hammer [01:11:00] today. Back last Wednesday we were talking about mom and her potty mouth. Yeah. Referring to how cool Jail Collins was. But did you guys get your mouth washed out with soap?
Doug: Yep. You did, Doug. Yeah. And this was in the seventies when like there was barely any parenting going on in the seventies and early eighties. They were all faxing it in. Now the whole trend is gentle parenting. Look, you had, you got nothing on parenting in the seventies. My parents didn’t know where I was during the Ford Administration.
Go ahead and stick your finger in that light
Joe: socket.
Doug: I mean, you’ll learn your
Joe: lesson.
Doug: Yeah. But uh, but despite all of that complete ambivalence, I got my mouth washed out for saying bd. Did you really? Yes. Wow.
Joe: Yeah. OG had the opposite. His parents were teaching him how to use it correctly. In a sentence.
Look, you little, right? If you’re gonna drop the F-bomb, it needs to, yeah. Needs [01:12:00] to be in a sentence. So, I’m in first grade, my brother is four. Across this field. I lived way out in the country, was Robert Eastman. And Robert was in third grade. So Robert was the kid closest to my age. So I played with Robert all the time.
He was that kid. This is funny, Doug, Nick, my son, comes home from school one day and goes, mom, what is French kissing? Oh yeah. And Cheryl said, you’ve been hanging out with Jack Robel. And, and Nick goes, yeah, how did you know? Because, because Jack and I think, I think Doug, you know the globals Jack was like the youngest of five kids and Jack.
And so Rob, you see some stuff, he, he grew up quickly. Yes. Robert was the youngest of four. I remember going over to Robert’s house to spend the night one night and we watch the pit in the pendulum. I’m in like second grade and I’m horrified watching people that are, that are just gonna die. [01:13:00] Uh, very, very afraid.
But it’s Sunday we we’re getting ready for church and my dad. We’d always put my brother and I in the backseat of the car ahead of time so that they could get ready in peace. And so we’re sitting in our Sunday basket an hour
OG: ahead of time, right? Have a nice breakfast, cup of coffee
Joe: way in the car. They rolled the window down a little bit for you.
OG: Church starts at eight, we leave at nine.
Joe: So my brother and I are sitting in the seat, sitting seat, and I turned to Tony and I said, uh, I said, Robert, Robert just taught me a new word. My brother goes, oh, what is it? And I said, it’s amazing. This is apparently a really good word. And my brother goes, what does it mean?
I said, I have no idea. ’cause I didn’t know. And I said, so when dad comes out to the car, why don’t you call him a, my brother goes, okay, great. Woo. I remember the next part. That’s a Bravo
OG: foxtrot move right there is what that is. That’s a big brother, little brother situation.
Joe: I remember the next part, like it’s slow motion.
My dad opens the door to the [01:14:00] house, comes out, he gets like halfway to the car and I don’t know why some, you know, OG was talking about your spidey sense. All a sudden my spidey sense goes off and I’m like, this might not be the good idea that I thought it was. So I turn to my brother and I go, don’t say it.
Don’t, don’t, don’t say it. And my brother just keeps looking straight ahead. My dad slowly opens up the front door, abort, abort, sticks his head in as he starts to get in the car. And my brother goes, dad, my dad turns back to the two of us. Goes, yeah, my brother just looks straight at him and goes. You’re a oh oh.
And my dad just nods his head, slowly nods his head, pulls his head back out of the car, closes the front door, opens the back door, grabs me by the back of the neck and just dragging me into the house while I’m like, I didn’t say anything. And I got my mouth washed out with soap [01:15:00] because my brother called my dad
Doug: a, now we know where the trend started.
OG: I remember, uh, dropping an F bomb and Alyssa tells this story better than, than I do. But, um, some road rage incident of some kind, I think, and I don’t remember which kid it was. It might have been William. William probably would be the one that would say this. And I think he said something to the effect of like, after I got done in my like.
Diatribe of like all the ways you can use the F word in one sentence, like, da da da da da. William goes, that word sounds fun. I want to use it now. No. Or I can’t wait to use it now. You know, or something like that. You guys have probably heard this, but uh. This is pretty good.
bit: I don’t say the word sucks.
Like this sucks. I don’t. ’cause that was a very bad word in the eighties. And look, I’m sorry to say it now. This is supposed to be a clean show. I’m bringing this filth into it.[01:16:00]
That was a very bad word in the eighties if you said that word in the eighties, it was like, well, good luck with drugs and life in prison.
My dad took us to see the first karate kid at the movie theater and they said, sucks in it. And right when I heard it, I looked at my dad and I go, what kind of trash you bringing us to?
Joe: What
bit: kind of trash?
Joe: Yeah. And now we throw around that word. Oh, sucks is easy. Yeah.
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