Secrets to Unbreakable Confidence and Financial Success (ep 1413)

Are you ready to maximize your confidence and unleash your inner bad bitch (even if you’re a guy)? Today’s interview with certified and self-proclaimed bad bitch Lisa Carmen Wang, and it’s one you do not want to miss if you’re looking to achieve more self-confidence to accomplish your dreams in relationships, career, and life. She dives into her story of self-discovery and how she built unbreakable habits that allowed her to tune out her critics and focus on being her best self.

Lisa’s book, The Bad Bitch Business Bible: 10 Commandments to Break Free of Good Girl Brainwashing and Take Charge of Your Body, Boundaries, and Bank Account, is the guide you need to become the unbreakable bad bitch in your life, career, and finances. You’ll learn some of Lisa’s invaluable life lessons that you can directly apply to your own life today to attain more confidence in yourself. From how you invest in yourself, your skills, your business, and your self-growth to how you exude your own confidence in all your interactions with others, Lisa’s book will help you take stock of your daily mental routines and help you make improvements to your thoughts – which will result in improvements in your life.

In our headline, we talk about a piece from the Wall Street Journal about how to maintain harmony with your significant other by planning the perfect money date.

Plus you won’t want to miss out on Doug’s Olympic-themed trivia!

Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201

Enjoy!

Our Headlines

• Couples Embrace the Least Romantic Date Ever: The Money Date (Wall Street Journal)

Our TikTok Minute

Lisa Carmen Wang

Big thanks to Lisa Carmen Wang for joining us today. To learn more about Lisa, visit BAD BITCH EMPIRE. Grab yourself a copy of the book The Bad Bitch Business Bible: 10 Commandments to Break Free of Good Girl Brainwashing and Take Charge of Your Body, Boundaries, and Bank Account.

Doug’s Trivia

• Which American network was the one to broadcast the first nationally televised Olympics in 1960?

Need life insurance? You could be insured in 20 minutes or less and build your family’s safety net for the future. Use StackingBenjamins.com/HavenLife to calculate how much you need and apply.

• An anonymous Stacker is considering purchasing a house and taking out a mortgage at 7% interest. She wants to know if it makes sense to sell some ETFs in her brokerage account so she can make a larger down payment and reduce the monthly payments, hoping to refinance at a later date when rates come down.

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

• Bad Bitch Empire
• Atomic Habits by James Clear

Join Us Wednesday!

Be sure to tune in on Wednesday when Dr. Julia DiGangi comes down to the basement to talk to us about how to master our emotions.

Written by: Kevin Bailey

Miss our last show? Listen here: A Big Money Lesson From Taylor Swift (ep 1412).

Episode transcript

 It’s a phenomenal morning. And in fact, this is how I think about this morning. Uh, I’ve got Brewed in Kansas City on my mug, but on the back, that’s because it’s a Boulevard Brewing Company mug. I’m already thinking about beer and it’s first thing Monday morning.

Uh, brewing as in beer or not as in.

Yes.

And cafe. Beer, not just for breakfast anymore. And yet they sell coffee

mugs at the brewery.

They do. And look at their, there’s nice thick ones. I really like that. You know what I mean? The really like

the diner coffee mugs where you can hardly get your mouth around the edge of the coffee cup. Cause it’s mostly mug and you get like a shot of coffee

inside it.

The heat stays forever. Now that’s true. Like it just, it just stays warm forever. What are you guys drinking?

Do you need to know what’s in the cup or do you just want to know the outside of it? Cause I’m not prepared to reveal what’s

in the cup. He’s got the same fishing thing. Oh gee, what do you got?

Statue of

Liberty today. Oh, nice. America.

Speaking of being patriotic, most patriotic thing you can do is say thanks to our troops. And we try to do that every Monday and today’s no exception. So gentlemen, raise those glasses, especially that statue of Liberty mug. Let’s get that one done. On behalf of the men and women making podcast of Mom’s Basement and the men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union.

Big shout out to our troops. Let’s all go stack some Benjamins this week, shall we? Thanks,

everybody. Ignition sequence start.

Five, four, three.

Live from Joe’s mom’s basement, it’s the Stacking Benjamins show.

I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and today you’ll learn how to embrace your innate power and achieve your dreams with four time national champion gymnast and serial entrepreneur, Lisa Carmen Wang. In our headlines, how are your date nights? We’ll help your wallet. and maybe your love life. For our TikTok Minute, we’ll see just how magical it is to include your kids in a job interview.

And, if that’s not enough, we’ll throw out the Haven Lifeline to a stacker who wants to know if they should cash out their ETFs to put towards a down payment on a new home. And then, I’ll share some competitive trivia. And now, two guys who put the gold in golden years. It’s Joe and. Oh,

Jo Jo. Jo Jo.

I think I can get down with that. Doug. We help people put the gold in their golden years. If you listen to the stacking, Benjamin show, right? We help build that pile of

gold. Is that what you tell yourself every night? Say even in

the middle, but it doesn’t even need to be in the golden years. Let’s do it earlier than that.

Hey everybody. Let’s talk about Retire Early for the Win podcast. I’m Joe Saul Sehy, Average Joe Money on Twitter. Across the card table from me It’s the man, the myth, the podcasting legend Wow, that’s a big eye roll from Doug.

Yeah, I’m just thinking you already introduced me. Like why? Why are you giving me all these accolades again?

It’s another

introduction for you. Nice. I just want to know how many times Joe I just caught it. How many times you’ve said Average Joe Money on Twitter? Don’t you have to say Average Joe

Money on X on Twix. You see, I just, yeah, it’s so dumb. I want to start Twix. I saw a video of Elon Musk himself giving a talk and he accidentally called a Twitter in front of a huge audience.

And then he goes, I mean X. And then they all, everybody, it was pretty good. Yeah. So even the guy who’s called Twitter people. Man, we got a great show today. Lisa Carmen Wang has won the, uh, what hasn’t she won? the Olympics. And she’ll talk about that was the one thing she did win, but the world championships, the pan American games, four time us national champion.

Uh, she is coming down to teach us how to be a bad business bitch. Oh, gee. Oh, are you a bad? Yeah. I, I should have, uh, prefaced this that with that. Uh, and I’ll ask Lisa about this. Uh, she kind of embraces that word. So I think she and Nicole Lappin are maybe going to fight over it. TG 13. Yeah, like who owns that word?

But, uh, before that, let’s go talk to you and am I talking to you and Doug about dating? Is that what we’re talking? We’re talking to you guys about date. The last people I want to go to for dating advice might be the two of you. Where are we

going with this?

What am I trying to say? I

think you need to take a breath. Let’s listen to this while you

get your stuff together. Okay, fine. Still can’t believe we’re doing this, O. G. Settle down. What?

It’s simple hygiene, Joe. We’re just telling you to take a shower. Okay, here’s more instructions.

Alright, we’re gonna roll with it anyway.

We’ll fix it in post, as they say. We’ve got O. G. here, we’ve got Doug, we’ve got a great headline, Lisa Carmen Wang. Four time U. S. National Gymnastics Champion coming up, uh, so let’s get going. Hello, darlings. And now

it’s

time Benjamins headlines. All right. This headlines to, uh, says, Hey, this should be a good headline. And then, uh, what was it? A couple hours later, OG writes, this should be a good headline. So apparently you guys both want to talk about dating. I

was

in a different time zone. The important takeaway here is that Doug wins.

Doug did win. The important takeaway is you guys are all thinking money and dating. And by the way, what I love is the title of this piece by Julia Carpenter that you both apparently embrace. Couples embrace the least romantic date ever, the

money date. I just think it’s funny that they changed the title.

Like where I found it and where Doug found it, the titles were different. I don’t know if you shared it directly from the wall street journal or if you were on Flipboard or something like that, but it was, it was interesting that the titles were different. I

actually didn’t even catch that. No, I did it from wall street journal.

It says right there over to the link.

What was the, what was the old headline? Oh, When date night gets between the spreadsheets was what it was called

when that’s definitely what it said when I was like, Hey,

oh, I can have my Excel spreadsheet open while Barry White’s playing while I’m on date night.

That’s a random Tuesday night for Doug.

Is that was a little too saucy for the journal. It might’ve been maybe an editor finally woke up that morning and like we published what

what between the

spreadsheets to tweet the move for pouring over budgets and savings goals. Tiara Bates and her husband Gregory get dressed to the nines.

and head to dinner at a fancy steakhouse. Quote, we’re discussing things but we’re celebrating at the same time, said Bates, a school therapist and real estate agent in Shelby, North Carolina, treating ourselves while still talking about the goals we have in mind. This mix of romance and finance has been dubbed a money date by financial advisors and others in the business of building wealth.

The idea is to carve out time For the sort of conversations couples often dread by making an event to look forward to. Well, you know who embraces this OG? They’re singing off my song sheet. You do. Yes.

That’s why I saw it. I was like, this will really tickle Joe’s feathers.

For people that are new to the show, I strongly…

Speaking

of date night.

I’m sure there are people listening to this on date night right now. Like, let’s snuggle up and listen to a Stacking Benjamins show. But, uh, Cheryl and I, uh, fully embrace this weekly money chat that’s only 20 minutes long. You set a timer. As soon as 20 minutes is done, it’s over, especially money geeks for the money geeks out there.

Your spouse often doesn’t want to have this conversation. What, what, what question we get over and over, OG, we get, how do I

get my Significant other to be interested

in. And I’ll say this, the number one way to get your spouse excited about this is to stop boring the f out of them. Right? Just don’t,

just

stop.

Cause I know, you know, the second that I say, Hey, you want to hear something cool? Cheryl immediately rolls her eyes cause she knows it’s going to be a money thing. She’s like, uh, no, no, uh, hard pass. Do not

want to hear something cool. And she runs out of the room screaming.

Yes, please, please don’t. So we agreed it would be 20 minutes.

And then what’s neat is when we hit the 20 minute mark and things are going really well after a few of them, like Cheryl wants to continue, I try to make sure that, nope, we’re, we’re, we’re done. Keep it fun. Don’t get sucked into the path of, Oh, she’s really into it. So now we’ll go an hour and a half. Now I’ll bring out the top.

And all we do, all we do on the MoneyDatoG is we look at last week’s expenses, talk through those, and then we talk about what we’re going to spend money on the next week. We don’t even have the big chats. We save that for a couple of times a year. We just have the little chats and I find the big chats happen organically if the little things occur.

And I think

you also pair it with some sort of, uh, food, right? I mean, you, you turn this into, you know, breakfast or dinner.

Ours is a little more downscale though. We don’t get dressed to the nines. Whipped cream. Yeah. We go to either IHOP and have pancakes. Not kidding. Our money dates at IHOP or we’ll have it over wine in our dining room with some music playing.

I did like

an article where they said, you know, they get all dressed up and go to a fancy steakhouse. Let’s talk about ways we’re wasting money.

On a 400 dinner.

That’s right. Are you kidding me? We’ll get the, we’ll get the most expensive wine. You know, one of the

things that I liked Aaron Sky Kelly talked about, uh, was that just last week?

A couple of weeks ago. A couple of weeks ago was when you sit down to have these talks, don’t use it as an opportunity to point out how your spouse is doing something wrong with your money. Is that, you know, I think she talked, I mean, that was sort of a, the way I paraphrase it or the way I interpreted it.

But a lot of people will have that talk or go to therapy and they’re hoping that the therapist will agree with them that they’re right and that their spouse is wrong. And you can have that same wrong approach with this. date night between the spreadsheets where you’re really hoping to talk through something and hope that your spouse understands why them spending money on whatever they value is incorrect.

That’s going to backfire on you. Oh,

every time, every, every time. I like how they talk about halfway through this piece, the art and science of the money date, turning financial planning into a date might sound like a mismatch. But science backs up the premise. It’s a form of temptation bundling. What that means is you’re pairing a less exciting task.

What are they talking about? Budgets, less exciting

tasks. Come on now. Huh? What? There is one?

Doing my taxes. That’s

amazing. With a more exciting reward. So take the less exciting thing, pair it with a more exciting reward. Research suggests can actually help people change their habits, said Scott Rick, Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of

Michigan.

Oh, I like how you emphasize the V on University of Michigan, just stealing it right away from the Buckeyes.

You guys, you guys also proud of the fact that I didn’t even say that I threw up in my mouth during that too. I’m very proud of myself.

You didn’t say from that school up North?

That horrible school in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

That horrible school in that beautiful city. Yeah. But I do agree with that. Oh, gee, I mean, I think about atomic habits, right? And when we had James Clear on and James Clear talking about you want something to become a habit, pair it with something that already is a habit, attach it on. And before you know it, the habit is habits, they’re

tied together.

And financial planning is, you know, you were talking about the big things, right? When we think about the big things of planning and, but the reality is, is that it’s the collection of all the little things. It’s making sure that your bills are paid on time. It’s making sure that your credit score is where it should be.

It’s making sure that you’re, uh, not paying too much interest on, on your consumer debt and trying to pay that stuff off. It’s making sure that you have interest on your savings and checking account. It wasn’t a thing for 15 years. And now people are waking up to recognize, Hey, I’ve got my emergency fund sitting at Bank of America at 0.

01 percent and the money market fund at the, in the brokerage accounts paying five and a half, you know, it’s those things that happen in between the big discussions of I think I want to retire in 20 years or I think we want to send the kids to college and we want to pay for this part of it. It’s all the little decisions that happen that kind of move you to the, to the big goal.

And if you’re not having a format for having those little, little decisions or those little discussions to stay on track, then you’re just hoping that you’re pointed in the right direction once every five or six years when you actually sit down and go, I should probably look at my 401k and rebalance this.

It’s been a decade. Yeah. If you turn this into just a little tiny thing, instead of this big, huge thing in your head, it doesn’t, the blocks don’t come like they will. The longer you put it off, the worse that gets, which is funny because we avoid money often OG to avoid stress. And yet the longer we avoid it, the more stressful it becomes.

And it’s this ongoing, like, building wave of chaos that’s coming your way that you can see in slow motion, right? It’s like, you knew the first month that you didn’t pay off your credit cards, you know what I mean? Like, think about cash flow, or you think about inflation, or whatever, and you go, Well, there was a month when, you know, I didn’t do it.

And instead of addressing it right then and going, Okay, I’ve got to get ahead of this right now, It was like, Oh, I’ll just kind of bury my head in the sand for the next 36 months. And that’s how you wake up and you go, like how, holy crap, how did I end up with 40 grand in credit card debt? Well, you know, what’s that phrase?

You know, I went bankrupt very slowly at first and then very quickly at the end. You know, it’s like, that’s how it happens, right? It’s like, I was very slow. It was a slow burn of that issue, let’s say. And then all of a sudden it’s like, and boom, now I have 40 grand of debt. Like what do I do

with that? But I think we can also take the flip side of that, which is that you got to give yourself a little grace too.

It took a long time to get where you are. You’re not going to get there overnight. This isn’t going to be one money meeting or two money meetings since and taking it just a little bit at a time, you’ll find yourself with these, you know, let’s quote the Mr. Ramsey with the baby steps. You’ll find yourself back on track, but your brain’s got to get there first.

Well, and that’s kind of my point with all of it to begin with. If you look at that big goal of, you know, if you’re 35 and you say, you know, I think I want to be financially independent when I’m 65, I’ve got 30 years and you sit down and you do the math and you go, and I only need 4 million. And then you look in your brokerage account or your 401k and you’re like, and I’ve got 61, 000 today or I’ve

got 61,

I’ll never make it.

And you just kind of go, Oh, gross, right? It’s not about the 4 million or the 60, 000 or the 60. It’s about the fact that tomorrow. You need to enroll in your 401k and contribute up to the match. It’s that you have to make sure that your cash is in a place that’s going to earn interest. It’s, you know, it’s these little things that you can do week to week, you know, or meeting to meeting one task, just.

point it in the right direction and just begin rowing. That’s all that you have to do.

Love to hear about all of your money dates. How do you make money dates fun? What is the thing that you do? If you are following us on Spotify, we’ll post a poll. If you’re in our basement Facebook group, we’ll also chat about it there.

Um, or just send me a note, joestackingbenjamins. com. We’d love to include, uh, later at the end of a future show, exactly what all you do for date nights. It’s time for our TikTok minute though, time when we shine a light on a TikTok creator who’s either doing something brilliant or, air quotes, you think this is brilliant.

Yes. It’s totally genius. I can feel it. As we’re recording.

I think I know this one, so I

am going to say brilliant. This is one of the few TikToks that has come from OG. It was a

TikTok though? Or did I

send it from… YouTube. I think you sent it from TikTok. I have it as a TikTok, so

who knows? I just played right into his hand.

He knew I was going to say it was genius. And then you share with me that he was the one who sent it? Is

this the guy who’s doing the

video interview? Yes, guy is on a video interview. So that’s the setup. And, uh,

well, he’s dressed super nice. Yes. Got the nice backdrop. You know, he’s doing a zoom interview for his new job.

He’s all set and he’s going to introduce the premise of what’s going on during this interview. I

know that you wanted me to send a video, and,

um, you wanted me to include one of my children, and I only have one child, um, her name is Abby, and she’s here, so you wanted some background, like

I dress like this every day, as soon as I get up, I get up at 4 a.

m. Uh, every morning, I go for a run, um, and then I run for about 12 miles, and then I come back, I make sure the house is all clean and tidy, I do all the dishes, and I

wash

Cut!

Shh, Abby. That’s not true, that’s not true. So, I do all the dishes, I make sure the dogs are bathed, that way when my wife gets up, like, everything

is done, so I’m

very diligent in that.

Bye. Uh, no, Abby! That’s You can’t, you can’t lie to

me! They’re gonna see, they’re gonna see this.

So

you asked about my diet. Um, I only eat vegetables. Um, there’s no pizza.

Come on, you eat sugar

all the day! I don’t eat… Egg sandwiches or iced tea, um, total, water, and…

Come on, you,

you! No, no, please, please.

If

I do get an order from the deli, I just get water and like a veggie wrap or something.

You asked how

I met my wife. I was a center fielder for the New York Yankees. And I was playing in one day.

And she’s gone. She finally

walks out. So the whole time she’s got this incredulous look on her face. Yeah, like what? What is this guy? Run 12 miles?

When? I didn’t get it when you first sent me this video. I’m like, okay, wow, this guy’s an overachiever. I’m like, wow, he’s a total overachiever. He does the dishes in the morning and I’m really not getting where she’s coming from.

And halfway through I’m like, Oh,

Oh, slow play on the kid. Yes.

Is that, uh, is that what happens to the OG household? OG runs 12 miles every morning. Oh, I get up at

the crack of 8 20 every day.

Clockwork,

which is why I was able to get our headline submission in three hours before him.

To be fair, your time said did say like 4 AM or something.

Yeah. Maybe it was just, uh, maybe I was in a different time zone at the

time. Yeah. Doug doesn’t sleep. Cause all he’s doing is thinking about the show and making sure the show’s good. Yeah, obviously. That’s all he does. Some people are diligent around here about the show. You know, who else has been thinking about making the show great?

Lisa Carmen Wang. She has the four time U S national champion gymnast. She’s a serial entrepreneur. She coaches women on becoming better entrepreneurs, but for women and men today, she’s going to bring some of her best advice, a voice of resilience. of not letting people push you around about setting boundaries and about being able to get where you want to go.

She has a brand new book out, which has we’re going to have a lot of the B word coming up because her book is called the bad bitch business Bible. Uh, yeah, it’s all right there. But before we get there, Doug, I think you got some trivia for us.

Hey there, stackers! I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. I’m happy to announce that I’ve finally mastered Wordle! Last week, I solved it in three days in a row in just seven guesses! Ha! So easy. If they ever add mental gymnastics to the Summer Olympics, you’re definitely gonna see me competing. The first Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece in 1896 and only included summertime sports.

The Winter Olympics weren’t added to the rotation until 1924, which I assume was also the first year an ice hockey team made it all the way through a game without a fight. Although the Olympics rake in billions in tourism revenue, hosting them costs billions more than they earn. Good to know! I could have lost a fortune!

The 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin were the first to be filmed, with the footage later being cut into a feature film titled Olympia. 24 years later, Americans were able to watch the games from home for the first time ever. Today’s trivia question is which American television network was the one to broadcast the first nationally televised Olympics in 1960?

I’ll be back right after I finish perfecting my back handspring.

Hey there stackers, I’m mentalist and Olympic hopeful, Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. After a lifetime of watching the Olympics, I’m pretty confident I could compete in most events if I put my mind to it, especially curling. You can hold a beer while you’re doing that. Which, as far as I can tell, is just a bunch of people sweeping around a disc while a dude yells at them.

Sounds a lot like making shows in Joe’s mom’s basement if you ask me. Today’s trivia question was, which American network was the one to broadcast the first nationally televised Olympics in 1960? The answer? The 1960 Winter Olympics aired on CBS. The network paid 50, 000 for the privilege and the legendary Walter Cronkite hosted the telecast.

The current broadcaster and

50, 000. What? Well, 50, 000. I mean, think about that today. They paid 50,

0. Yeah, okay, while I finish the rest of this, do your, like, rule of 99 or whatever it is, and I’ll, and I’ll finish the rest of it. The current broadcaster, NBC, owns the right to air the games through 2032 for the low, low price.

of just under eight billion dollars. Right. So does 1960 convert to 8 billion today? Has there been, like, no inflation? And now, here to help you break free of your perfectionist mindset and start earning the money and respect you deserve, it’s Lisa Carmen Wang.

And I’m super happy we have her here with us in the basement. Lisa Carmen Wang is here. How are you?

I’m great, Joe. Excited to be here. Well,

I’m super excited you’re with us. I bet you don’t get a chance to do many basement interviews. I’ve watched you eat cereal on some videos. So, uh, you do have some

fun.

Yes. Yes. My favorite cereal is Lucky Charms.

Because of the fact that… I’m a lucky girl. Yeah, duh. Uh, I got to warn our stackers. We’re going to say the word bitch a lot during this interview. And you address this by the way, Lisa, early on in the project, you say words matter and you’ve chosen that word on purpose.

So let’s go right there. What does the word bitch mean to

you? Well, I’ll start with how bitch has traditionally been used, which is to describe a woman who is cold, aggressive, mean, and the word has been used to, essentially, it actually ends up describing a woman who just knows what she wants. says what she means, doesn’t tolerate disrespect, and calls out bulls t.

So the reclamation of the word b ch is basically the reclamation of a woman’s power to say what she wants and get what she wants unapologetically. And so I define a bad b ch as a woman who takes charge of her body, her boundaries, and her bank account.

You are not somebody who always did that. Like, this is very personal for you because you were not always a bad bitch.

You say though, the first thing that you did was you learned to bet on yourself. Do you remember, remember that moment?

Yeah, the moment was for me, I was a gymnast for almost a decade of my life from nine to 19 and my goal was to go to the 2008 Olympic games. I sacrificed everything for that dream and I ended up.

Missing the Olympics by 0. 25 tenths of a point, which is

my, my stomach just

so close. Yeah. And it was, it was one of those moments where it’s just so painful at complete shattering of my identity because I, I had banked on this for so long. And that same time, when I found out I didn’t make the Olympics, I also got accepted into Yale university and I ended up.

telling Yale that I was not going to go that year because the biggest thing was. In missing the Olympic games, it was one of the biggest losses of my young life at that time. And I realized though, that my identity was not that of a gymnast. It was that of a winner and a fighter. And that was when I really just bet on myself.

I was like, you know what, this is. This is not the way my story ends. This is not the way I end this chapter. And so I ended up going to, I bet on myself to be the best gymnast that I could possibly be for myself. And I ended up going to the Russian Olympic training center, trained there nine hours a day, nine months, came back for my final competition and swept every single gold medal and athlete of the year.

And then I was like, peace. Now I’m out. You always go out on top.

But I want to go back to that moment when you told Yale no, because I want people to know how much Yale meant to you. Yale meant a lot to you, Lisa. I mean, this wasn’t just like, Oh, I got into Yale. Big deal. This was, Yale was your dream school.

You wrote.

Yeah. I’ve, I had two dreams. One was to go to the Olympics and then the other was to go to a great school. Yale was my dream school. And I think it felt like I hadn’t finished. The other chapter, you know, I hadn’t finished that career as an athlete yet. And so I just didn’t want to regret looking back that I hadn’t put everything of myself into it before moving on and embarking into the next dream.

I want to ask about that moment before you didn’t make the Olympics. This is the world championships. I believe you had just amazing at the. Panang games for, I think the third or fourth year in a row. You talk about how you felt this weight, these expectations, and we’ve had guests on lately, Lisa talking about fear and this weight of expectations.

How did you, how did you change that? Because so many of our stackers feel this weight on us, right? As we get into these. Big rooms, these big places, these big dreams that we have. How did you go from someone that feels that to being someone who fights through

it? I think like the weight of expectation, the weight of perfectionism, the weight of not wanting to disappoint others, of fearing the failure and investing so much of yourself that it feels like it can’t fail.

And it’s so scary to do that. And I think. The number one skill that I have gained from gymnastics that I bring with me as an entrepreneur and an investor is the ability to fall and get back up again. When you are as a gymnast, you literally physically fall in front of thousands of people and somehow you have to find the inner strength to put a smile on your face, get back up again and keep going.

That’s when you realize that you are unbreakable, which is the first commandment of my book, A Bad Bitch is Unbreakable. And that is the, the trust in yourself that no matter how many times you fail, no matter how difficult it becomes, the feeling of I can trust myself to get back up again. I think starts to relieve that weight, um, of expectation and perfection.

And it’s just practice, you know, doing it again and again. I know

that your audience is, uh, the women in our audience, but it just, I can’t tell you how many times I had to give myself this mantra over and over, remind myself that I have to just feel the fear and do it anyway. and to break through it. I’m thinking about your decision not to walk away and to go out on top, right?

Which was just a bad ass move, which was so cool. But there’s gotta be times, and I’m thinking about a later chapter in your book when you’re talking about some of these. Gross people that you met in Silicon Valley, mostly it seemed like, to me. Um, um, and these people aren’t just in Silicon Valley, they’re all over the place.

You had the older man who’s the mentor who wants to go get drinks and talk about it more and help you with stuff. You got the guy who’s got the wife and the, uh, two kids out in the suburb who you call the cheater. Who’s really there for one reason. You’ve got just straight out li You’ve got this broke culture that you were involved in.

When do you decide, like you did with gymnastics, that it’s a time to fight? Versus a time like some of these relationships where you’re like, I got to get the f k out of here. So every

woman has encountered all of the uncomfortable situations at work, whether with colleagues or bosses and investors. And it’s a very uncomfortable situation, especially if you are a young woman that’s rising in her career.

And it feels like sometimes these men will use power dynamics, uneven power dynamics to, to get to what they want. The experience of Me Too, again, is something that we, we all have experienced, and I think that as I have grown in my career, it’s just really… Recognizing that, okay, this is out there and I have a responsibility to know what my boundaries are and to be smart about entering into situations, listening to my gut and my intuition and really calling it out if now, when I have a position of authority to do so, when I see it for other women, when it’s for myself, um, and just not putting yourself in situations or circumstances where something could happen.

I think it’s also just really important.

But are there other places which maybe aren’t so filled with creeps, Lisa, where you’re just like, this is a dead end and I need to get the hell out of this, you know? I mean, because you may have seen other gymnasts where you’re like, it just isn’t your thing. It’s time to go.

It’s time to go find your thing. I remember hearing one CEO say in the nineties. saying, you know, I don’t regret letting people go from my company because the way I phrase it to them is you, this clearly is not your thing. Why would you waste your life doing something that’s not your thing when they’re clearly things that you could be blossoming at right now?

They could empower you, could be so good. Like when do you, when do you know that it’s that move?

Oh, like when to leave your current job and go do something. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I started out at a hedge fund when I left college and I immediately knew the moment I walked in I just I knew in my gut that I I was not meant to sit in front of those monitors and help rich people get richer and, you know, trade the stocks.

And I, I just knew I was meant for something more. And so I think I was very in tune with my, my emotions to be quite honest. And I stayed for only two years. And I remember when I told my parents, like, I don’t want to be at this job. And they’re like, well, what, what else would you do? And I said, I have no clue.

I have

no clue. I bet that sits well with parents, Lisa. I’ve got no idea.

Um, I just know I’m smart. I know I can figure it out. I, I feel like I can do my own thing and I’ve always been very driven by impact. I believe that I have skills, the voice, a message. And I think that’s the first battle of all of it is.

Can you believe in yourself? Like, do you believe that you can actually create that impact? Do you believe that you’re meant for something more? And cultivating that belief in yourself is what is going to help you like eventually find the thing that you are really passionate about and give you the courage to take the leap.

You

have 10 commandments. In this project, and there are three areas, body boundaries and bank account. Talk about body because it’s not just your body shape. And maybe, I mean, that’s definitely a piece of it, but it’s being, being comfortable in your own skin. And I, I just want to tell you, we were prepping our team, Lisa, for this discussion, and I was listing your accomplishments to our team as we’re going through everything.

And a member of our team said. Wow, that’s all she’s done. That’s all. Clearly you’ve been successful and clearly that means the drive that you talk about and impact, but you begin this whole project by saying, I’ve spent my whole life thinking I wasn’t enough. That’s a huge sentence. How could somebody who’s done so much have that feeling that I’m just not enough?

Well, it’s

almost ironic because perhaps it’s that feeling that drives you to accomplish a lot. I think there’s a lot of. pressure definitely that came from just knowing how much my parents sacrificed as immigrants coming to the U. S. And I think a lot of immigrant and immigrant children experience that.

I’ve always been very self competitive, like I always just wanted to be better. And what I have worked on a lot now in my adult life is, Learning to be grateful for what I already have versus constantly looking at the next goal, the next thing, the next accomplishment, because I did realize pretty early on in my career after gymnastics, you know, I was getting awards and such and I recognized that there was a disconnect between the external accomplishment and my internal feeling of worthiness.

And I was like, the more I achieve, I actually feel the less worthy. I feel like this is not working. The gap got bigger because when I look in the mirror, I was still me. You know, I’m still that, that little girl that was just trying to get approval from her parents and everyone else. And who was made fun of for being Asian growing up.

And as I stacked up these accomplishments, It felt like people saw that and it was like, maybe they don’t even know the real me. They don’t know that that’s we call it imposter syndrome, but I don’t really like that term, but it was just this feeling of like, do they know the real me? And then at this point, I’m kind of just giving up.

I’m like, you know what? I know the real me. I like the real me and people can. Can misjudge me, however, and I know that’s going to also happen with this book, you know, like on the cover, I’ve had, uh, just the name bad bitch, business Bible, running the bad bitch empire, you know, me with my badass leather and on the cover of the book, I know people will put me in certain boxes and, you know, labels and women also have harsher judgment placed upon them when they are in the media.

So I’ve accepted that. And I’ve actually done a lot of. Yeah. Internal work to be like, I don’t need to attach my value to external validation anymore. And at the end of the day is really about like self love, self worth and self respect.

Betting on yourself. Well, you, you make this strong point that you were caught in this, uh, good girl land.

And by the way. I know that you’re speaking to women and young women. I was this person, Lisa. I was the same exact person. I’m a dude and I was totally stuck in, in, well, I, I just, I’m not going to talk about what I’ve done. I’m not going to talk about who I am. I’m just, my job is to just be quiet and do it.

And maybe if I just do more, people will notice. And you know, as you just do more people, people don’t notice, but this. This good girl thing for you has some really deep roots.

Yeah. Yeah. So good girl brainwashing I define as all of the societal and media messages that train women to be small, silent, subordinate to people, please be overly polite, to be perfectionist, to be afraid of failure, afraid of risk, afraid of betting on themselves.

It is deeply ingrained in our society. Everything from, you know, the earliest Western philosophers defined women as lesser than, incomplete men. When you think about all the media messages that tell women you are not pretty enough, you are not skinny enough, you are not brave enough, you are not experienced enough, you are not, you know, whatever, you are not enough, um, it’s very hard to not have that subconsciously affect you.

As a woman, and I think especially as a woman of color. And so I think just for me, breaking free of that good girl brainwashing has been a very, very long process. And I think there are still times I find myself like, Oh, wow. Why didn’t I stand up for myself that time? You know, why did I allow someone to cross my boundaries?

And it’s still that nice, that good girl that wants to. Like a people pleaser. And so it is a constant thing that I have, you know, going back to what I said about really detangling your value from other people’s validation.

It’s so, so powerful. And by the way, so much more fulfilling when I don’t need you to, you know, there’s that Jerry Maguire, I don’t know if you saw the movie, Jerry Maguire, but Jerry Maguire is like, you complete me.

When it doesn’t take somebody else to complete you, I think, Lisa, your point may be you’re better off that way.

Yeah, that’s why I say a woman steps into her full power not when she is finally given permission to do so, but when she realizes she never needed it in the first place.

It’s such a huge point.

You make a great point. We downplay our accomplishments. We criticize our flaws Versus focusing on our strengths. You talk about how that’s systematic in women. I also think though for for all of us I mean Lisa, I spend time thinking about, I don’t have enough hair, I have a very weak chin. Like I don’t see my strengths, I see the flaws and it’s so, it’s so difficult to operate that way.

How did you make the flip to operating the opposite

way? This is the work of one’s life to learn how to look in the mirror and just absolutely love yourself. Your own greatest lover. You know, I just started noticing the negativity in my mind where my automatic thing was to criticize myself to say, like, why you could have done that better.

Why are you late? Why? And it was as if it was like my coaches voice in my head when I was a gymnast, you know, the Russian coaches just yell at you, pick at every tiny little mistake to make you perfect. And so I had that extreme because I had been trained for a decade to look for my flaws. In order to become a better gymnast, it was just learning how to break that pattern was you have to, I mean, it can sound silly, but like, uh, one of the exercises that I have, actually, I’m going to take that back.

It does not sound silly. I just did it.

Even the pros people, even the pros have to continually work on this. Yeah. Yes.

In my book, I talk about the self love letter. It’s the bad bitch love letter that you write to yourself and the exercise that I have my coaching clients do, which is. To stand in front of the mirror naked and to do a body scan and try, like, notice all the negative things you say about yourself.

It is so uncomfortable. The women who do this, like, they tell me they’re, they’re crying, they’re sobbing, they don’t realize, like, how much they hate themselves and, you know, what does this have to do with business? It’s… Everything has to do with business, because if you hate the person that you see in the mirror, how can you actually energetically walk into a room and negotiate and advocate for yourself?

How can you actually attract the right sorts of people, teammates, money into your life if you don’t have a good energetic relationship with

yourself? I want to be clear when I said, I do this too. I never get evaluated like you do. I know there’s people that are going to watch our YouTube video of this, Lisa, they’re going to be evaluating how you look.

They’re not even going to think about the fact about how I look until I said it. You know what I mean? They just don’t. I’ve had, I’ve had so many female colleagues who get comments, female co hosts. that get comments on, on our different brands. And you see the comments that women get all the time that I don’t get.

And so the body piece super important for women, especially I think to get, I think, I think movement and men need it. I know so many young men that need a more positive body self image. I am, I am enough, but Holy crap, the crap you go through that I will never go through are some of the young men that I coach.

I love, by the way, on this note, you’ve got this wonderful, beautiful analogy around Japanese art and taking cracked pottery. Cause I think this real kid, do you mind telling us that story?

The Japanese art of Kintsugi is the art of Taking broken pieces of a vase and putting it back together with gold or silver liqueur to literally highlight the cracks.

And so this is the mindset that I train people on, which is really the idea of being unbreakable. Usually when we’re We’re afraid of failure, we’re perfectionists, high achievers. We’re afraid that if we fall or fail that, well, like, our cracks are going to show. And the idea of Kintsugi, I use this as a metaphor of, in this art, when you literally break it and highlight the cracks, well, you’re actually…

It makes it more beautiful than the original form. And so when we think of perfectionists, it’s like, there’s not a single crack. It’s super just perfect that actually that is not as interesting. That is not as beautiful as something that proudly owns its cracks and even showcases it and, and makes it, amplifies

it.

The cracks make it more beautiful. It reminds me, it’s not the same thing, but it reminds me, Lisa, one of my favorite quotes, and I don’t even remember who said it was, it’s the cracked ones who let in the light for the rest of us, by the way, which is, uh, maybe congruent, but not the same. You had a client named Serena that you talk about in the book.

I believe it was a story where she needed to reset. Can you tell us that story? Cause it’s also, I think, frames a lot of this well.

Yeah. So one of my clients, she was raising money. Many years ago, and she, uh, had commitments from an investor and he kept saying, Oh, the money’s coming. The money’s coming. The money’s coming.

And then she believed him as one would. And every time she asked him about it, he just kept pushing it off, said, it’s coming. Just go ahead and start building. And so she started dipping into her savings to pay her team to pay for tech development. And one day he just. It just became clear that she was not getting the money.

That’s horrible. Yeah. First of all, I always say, like, the money’s, you don’t have the money until the money hits the bank, right? People can say whatever they want. They can even sign papers. But if the money’s not wired, it’s not in your bank. And so she had really put everything on the line. All of her savings.

And so when he didn’t come through for her, she just hit that really low point and thought like, well, what am I going to do? I literally spent all of my savings here. And so that was when we did our exercise of reframing what I call the bad bitch replay in the book. And it’s really about taking one radical self responsibility.

So realizing, okay, this, this has happened to you, but you can’t be a victim. You have to take full responsibility and. What can you do to turn it around? So in empowering her to think about it. Okay, what are her strengths? What are her superpowers that allowed her to get to where she is today? And how can she use those strengths to now get her out of this situation and to become stronger as a result of it?

So she did end up raising Money from aligned angel investors a year later. Um, but it was really just using her powers of community building, collaboration, you know, her tenacity and her grit. And the big lesson from it is that, you know, life throws you a lot of curve balls and you, the worst thing you can do is to say.

Why me? You know, why me? Why did it happen to me? And life’s so unfair. No one’s ever said life was supposed to be fair. And so I think it’s just that reclamation of your power again, which is I, I have the ability to get out of any situation. I can bet on myself and I just need to have the vision of what I want and unapologetically go after that and use the strengths that I have to achieve the reality that I want to create.

We’ve

barely touched on what you talk about in this project, but there are two other areas. I want to ask you one question each about about boundaries, which is a whole huge amount of stuff. We could have a five hour interview about boundaries and about the last part, bank accounts. But I want to ask you one question about each of those.

You talk about established boundaries and about how women specifically. really often have, uh, have a problem because you want to be seen as likable. You want to be seen as a team player, but how do we establish boundaries, but still come across as a good partner? Like don’t mess with me, but I also want to be a giver.

That’s a really tough middle ground, Lisa.

Well, I think there’s a difference between being firm and clear and transparent with what your values are, what you do or do not accept, and yeah, direct in your communication. And I think that a lot of people are afraid of conflict. And so as a result will be passive aggressive or have silent expectations.

And then that actually creates tension or it’s like if something. annoys them, they just shove it under the rug and they’re like, let’s just keep the peace. Let’s just not create any conflict. And the idea of boundaries is, is terrifying because we want people to like us. But when you think about people that you respect the most, it’s, it’s when someone can very clearly state that just doesn’t work for me.

I don’t do things like that. This is how I do them. And. Like when you’re upfront and direct it actually saves a lot of people a lot of time and then you can very quickly move on Decide if it’s a good teammate or not the

older I get The more I I don’t like what you just said I love what you just said and those are the people seriously Those are the people I want to be around don’t waste my time by telling me what you think I want to hear which by the way, you know, once again, you want to be likable You want me to like you you want me to be on your team?

Tell me what you want to do, where you think I’m stepping in it, where you think you might be stepping in it, and man, does that create, that creates such a better, better place for all of us.

Yeah. And there’s a way. So even when you talk about giving someone feedback, there’s a way to be direct about those things without blame, shame, guilt, because boundaries are really for yourself and it’s.

This doesn’t work for me. It’s it’s just a firm. No, right? Like it’s a firm way of saying this is how I do things I don’t think the way it like the moment you start blaming other people and saying like the way you do it is wrong Right finger pointing that is not boundaries. That is just like that’s actually being like mean and judgmental But when you’re saying it this doesn’t work for me And you don’t need to justify why, and you don’t have to make someone else wrong as a result of it.

You can just walk away or decide to do something else.

Which is better for everybody. Last thing I want to cover is bank accounts. And you, you spend a lot of time talking about fairly valuing ourself. Where do we go first when we’re learning to fairly value our self and our worth?

Well, it always goes back to self, yeah.

The first thing that I always ask people is like, evaluate how you invest in yourself. Do you invest in your skills? Do you invest in your business? Do you invest in self growth? That is a very good indicator of how How someone will grow, how someone will handle their money and what their values are. So if there’s a part of you that has difficulty with negotiations, difficulty with asking for money, difficult with investing, first see like, how am I actually investing in myself?

I’d say you, you are your most valuable asset. One of the stories that I share in my book is around this webinar that I took to learn how to create online courses. And this woman was. She created an online course that she was selling for 2, 000 to teach other people how to create online courses. And when she gave the price tag, which was 2, 000, all these people on the free webinar said, Oh, that’s too expensive.

I don’t know if I can do it. A lot of people dropped off. But she made a very valid point that if you believe you can get one client. This course will already have paid itself back and my thought process was, well, of course I would get one client, like, so it’s not even 2, 000. It’s like, it’s free. I just, I’m going to do the work.

And so I invested in myself. I invested in that course and I turned that 2, 000 into 250k. So that was an investment in myself that I showed I am good with money. I am good with decision making. I know how to turn money into more money, which gives me confidence also as an investor and as a businesswoman.

I think about that, how amazingly in society, most of us don’t question a college education. It’s just what we do. And yet for some degrees, the ROI is sometimes questionable, you know, or even if the ROI could be good with that degree, we don’t think about it as ROI, so we don’t make sure that we take full advantage of what that university offers.

And yet it’s amazing that you’ve got a 2, 000 course that can teach you specific ROI, exactly what you, what you want. You can get close to somebody who’s done that before and people like, yeah, no, no, can’t do it. It’s amazing

to me. I mean, it doesn’t have the shine of a college degree. It’s like you gotta, and also it’s like, if you get it, you have to do the work.

There’s no excuse. Yeah.

I love the idea though, because what you’re really alluding at is designing your own curriculum, your life curriculum, which I think for your bank account is so important. Uh, the book is called The Bad Bitch Business Bible. It’s 10 Commandments to break Free if Good Girl Brainwashing and take charge of your Body Boundaries and Bank account.

And it’s available everywhere, right?

Yes. . All the, all the places. And you can go to Bad Bitch empire.com to grab extra goodies when you, when you buy the

book. Awesome. Let’s, you know what we’re gonna link to that? We’ll link to the Empire. Lisa, thank you so much for helping our stackers become bad bitches.

I really appreciate it. Awesome. Thanks, Joe. I’m Liz, the Chief Mom Officer, and

when I’m not busy

being the breadwinner of my family of five, I’m stacking Benjamins. You know, G, there is a difference. Being a team player and having people then take advantage of you and not respect your boundaries. Like, there just is a point where you’re like, yeah, this isn’t about team playing anymore.

This is me, uh, just doing everything.

Yeah. There’s obviously a part of kind of dragging the team along and helping everybody else and that sort of thing. But there’s a reason they tell you to put your oxygen mask on first, right? You have to. to make sure that you’re headed in the right direction before you can help anybody else.

Can I just say this was a particularly useful interview for me.

That’s why we’re going to move on.

That’s what we’re going to do. I got to go. That’s why

we’re going to move on. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Hey, let’s throw out David Leiflein. How about that? Tackle, uh, life’s most amazing moments. I, it’s funny, I’ve been talking about the Haven Lifeline for how long and I still can’t think of what that is.

Oh, it’s most important questions or most amazing moments. I like them both. Our friends at Haven Lifeline. What do you value most? Yes, our friends at Haven Life Insurance Agency, oh gee, they put what you value first.

Uh, I’m back to the first thing we were talking about, about something, something steak night, something, something, something, something fancy dinner, something, something, something.

Steak night at the first part of that, uh, just the second part is more pork. All I heard was

Steakhouse. Do you know what I value most, besides the two of you? I value the fact that it is, it is the fall and, uh, it’s autumn time and, uh, PSLs,

baby,

PSLs. This comes from, uh, DJ Eric Smith on TikTok. As I

drive through the Starbucks, I need some caffeine.

I take a look at the menu and what do I see? Pumpkin spice lattes back for the fall. Do I get a venti, grande, trenta, or tall? I love pumpkin spice. Ice on everything. I drink it in my coffee. And the pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pasta. Pumpkin sushi. Pumpkin toilet paper to white ma. Sushi. Oh no, I’ll drink it. Hot or ice.

I like my coffee. Pumpkin spice, . I’m basic af, right? I like my coffee. Pumpkin spiced. It smells good and it tastes nice. I like my coffee. Pumpkin spiced some.

Don’t say it’s overpriced. I like my coffee

pumpkin spiced. It’s a,

as I drive through. Whoa. Uh, turned out the wrong one. Eric Smith on Tik TOK. I like my coffee pumpkin spiced OG.

I bet you

do. How did we get, you were just dying to play that. Like there was no segue. It’s what I

value. How often do we ask what I value? Screw it. I want to play this funny. We never ask what I value. And I saw that this morning and I’m like, that is what I value. So every once in a while, maybe

you should stop being the host of the show.

Let me do it. And then I can ask you, Oh God, that’s what we got to do is a mic takeover. I need to host the show

someday. It’s actually your loved ones in your time. That’s why they may buy quality term life insurance. Actually simple. You go to stackybenjamins. com slash haven life for a free quote, their application.

It’s all simple. It’s online. You get this stuff done so you can move on, get about your day and really lovely customer support. We talked earlier OG about how, you know, there’s this friction and anxiety about addressing your money stuff, much more anxiety if you don’t have your life insurance taken care of.

Absolutely. StackingBenjamins. com. Slash Haven Life. Uh, today we’re going to throw it out the lifeline to an anonymous caller. Uh, hello, anonymous.

Hi, Joe and not a

first time caller. Um, thank you for taking my question. I was wondering, um, so I have this opportunity to purchase 7 percent interest rate. I have to have some cash on hand, so I can’t put a large down, so I’m planning to do a 5 percent down. However, given the interest rate is so high, I’m wondering if I should sell some, um, ETFs that I have in a brokerage account, and, so that I can increase my down payment towards the mortgage.

Would you suggest doing that, or should I just keep… My funds in the brokerage account alone and just suck it up and deal with the high mortgage monthly payments until I can refinance Looking forward to your answer. Thank you so much. Bye.

Oh, thank you for the question. And hopefully, even though you didn’t give us your name, you did give us your email so we can send you a Haven Lifeline.

Hold on. Greatest money show on Earth.

She said it right up at the front. The most important thing she said in that whole question was not a first time caller. She already has

a shirt. Well, she gets another one. I mean, how nice is that for her? It’s very nice. She can, no, it, the whole family, take the family to the Grand Canyon, get a shot of, by the way, did you see the two awesome stackers in the basement wearing the Doug 2024 shirts?

Yeah, that was amazing. It was absolutely fantastic.

And shout out to the Wildey family for doing that one. I really liked that photo.

That was absolutely super. But anyway, so she can do something similar now, Doug. She’s can get, you know, uh, all of them, but OG, let’s get to the question here. Do you go with a higher amount down or the bigger monthly payment?

Well, the phrase

that realtors like to use is you marry the house and you date the rate or something like that. Is that the, is that the phrase basically at some point in time in the future, maybe you can refinance. But I’m really concerned with that, uh, philosophy because it requires a whole bunch of things to go in a different direction than they’re going, right?

Like you, you don’t want to buy a house thinking to yourself, well, at some point in time this will be cheaper. Because it really won’t be. Because, just fast forward, like, let’s say it takes… Three years for the rates to lower or maybe it takes three years for rates lower and for you to be outside of the Where it makes sense to pay all the fees to refinance again Well over that time your taxes are going to increase your property Insurance is going to increase flood insurance are going to create like all those normal expenses associated with owning the house are going to increase So then maybe you refinance your house and you save a few bucks But you end up paying it back in taxes and insurance just because that stuff’s gonna go up every year anyway I really find it hard to justify the idea of, well, I’ll just get this house right now, because at some point in time it’ll be less expensive.

So if you can’t afford it the way it is, then I don’t think that you should purchase it. Don’t bet on the future to

be able to afford it. Maybe she can afford it, but she just wants to lower down payment. Yeah, that’s

kind of what I’m saying is like from a cash flow standpoint, if you’re looking at it from like, I can just keep my lips above water until I get to refinance, I think that’s a really tough situation to be in.

5 percent down seems really light in terms of Equity position and maybe end up paying p m i because of that. So there’s some added costs there potentially. You know, there’s ways around that. Obviously if your, if your banker’s amenable to working with you on that. But every time I hear low down payment numbers, I feel as though it’s.

It’s not the best situation, right? It’s like, Oh, I got this great house opportunity. I, I, yeah, I’ll figure out a way to make it work. I can only put 5 percent out. And if it’s like maybe in her case, she’s thinking about it from the perspective of I’ve got a whole bunch of money in my brokerage account that I don’t want to necessarily.

you know, use as a down payment. So I’m going to take all my cash or just use as little as possible. If from a net worth standpoint, you’re comfortable and this isn’t a stressful thing from a network standpoint, then I think it’s really just the determination of, is it better to pay a 7 percent interest on the mortgage or is it better to leave your money invested?

And that’s just your prognostication about what you think is going to happen in the future. I would rather pay the interest on the house versus take the money out of my stock account. If you take money out of your investment account, you have to pay taxes, which is, you know, some number likely. Uh, which is, you know, in that calculation.

So, I’m looking at this from a couple of different perspectives. I’m assuming that you’ve got enough money in your brokerage account to make a really healthy down payment, like where you should be. You’re not stressed out about the cashflow of the higher mortgage payment, in which case take the higher mortgage payment.

If you’re looking at it from, I can only afford this. If I only put this little bit down and I’d have to zero out my investment accounts, then my, my thinking leans more toward like, what, is it necessary to buy this house then? Right. Then you’re kind of, quite literally mortgaging your, your entire future.

So I don’t know, not enough information to make a educated

decision. Yeah. Well related. That’s the first question that I had, OG, to your point is what is that money there for now? What is it earmarked toward? And if it’s not, I really like doing that because I think that you make better investment decisions when you kind of have an idea of what this is for.

You might not end up spending it for that. But so the question is, let’s say that that money was put aside for an early retirement. Can you still get your retirement goal and put more money down on the house? Can you do that? Like if I do this, if I committed to the house, what goal is going with less?

Because I want to know. And I love that fight because of the fact that now we’re talking about what do we value? Do I value a bigger house today than early retirement? And if the answer is no, well, then you have your answer, right? Then can I do it on the cashflow? If the answer is yes, well, then if I take that money away from retirement, what does that do to retirement?

How much does that push it back? And then what does that, how much more house does that get me? And does that feel good? So I think there’s that whole other, what’s the other goal that we’re missing that we don’t have that I think is really important. So I’m with you more, more info there, but that’s definitely the way I’d think about it.

Yeah. I mean,

ultimately, if you’re looking at moving money from a brokerage account to The equity position on a house. What essentially are you doing? On the balance sheet, you’re moving money from one line item to another. Both sides are assets. There’s no difference to your net worth to pay down the house with your, or to make a larger down payment.

It really goes to cashflow. And to your point, the other thing that it affects is what the other purpose of that money is, because you’re not going to get to retirement and say, your famous line, I’ll just sell off part of this bathroom to, you know, to fund my early retirement. You’re, you know, so from a network standpoint, it’s the same, except you’re, you’re taking away the diversification.

You’re taking away the capital appreciation of Equity positions, which is generally, you know, higher than real estate and certainly higher on average than a single piece of real estate, you know, in terms of diversification and that sort of thing. That’s how I get back to the cash flow component of this.

Like, if this is like, I’m just concerned when I hear people say, like, I want to put down 3 percent of my house or 5 percent of my house. I’m thinking, well, why can’t you do 20 or 25? Well, it’s because I don’t have the money because, you know, I want it now, you know, you know what I mean? Like it kind of feels rushed.

That’s immediately where my mind goes. Maybe not the case for this person. Great to consider though.

Always great to consider. Absolutely. And to your piling on, I don’t think enough people do think about that. Thanks again for the question. We are going to make sure you get a Haven Lifeline, Stacking Benjamins Greatest Money Show on Earth shirt.

Uh, and it sounds like at least the second one. So take the family shot and upload it to the basement and we will share with the world your stacker pride. Yeah. I

don’t think it’s been clearly stated often enough that a requirement of getting the t shirt is posting a photo. and the basement.

It is, it is so fun.

It’s just to see, uh, uh, well, let’s just go into our last segment, uh, last segment of the show, our community calendar. Let’s chat about the community because Kate the Great from our team is going to be on Instagram on Thursday, 5 p. m. Eastern, 4 p. m. Central, 2 p. m. Pacific Mountain. You figure it out. We, we’re

We’re gonna, I don’t know where that came from.

I can’t do math anymore in my head. I got them all

except that one. Yes, there’s something in the middle there for all you people in Denver and, uh, Kate’s going to be doing a giveaway chatting about, uh, well, topics like what we talked about with Lisa Carmen Wang. today about. So she’ll be diving into those and hanging out on Thursday.

By the way, Kate, the great, one of the people sharing her stacking Benjamins love. It was like a hundred degrees and a hundred percent humidity in Tokyo when she was there a couple of weeks ago. And you see, she still, she didn’t put it on. But she showed her shirt with all of that Tokyo, you know, their version of Times Square and all those lights and Stacking Benjamins there, but we’ve had what Daniel oversees with his shirt.

We

had a picture from Ireland. That was pretty cool. Yeah, we’ve had one from a Minnesota Vikings preseason game. That’s right. That’s some good ones. Yeah. And of

course at Camp 5 in Lake Charlevoix. Yes. Good stuff. Anyway, thanks for those. We also, Doug, have done some, uh,

polls. Yeah. I love this. We’re getting into doing polls over on Spotify.

We posted a poll that talked about how our frequent contributors, Len and Lacey, they use Excel to budget. Joe likes some apps. I think right now, what’s the app you’re big into? It’s, um, Monarch. Monarch. I was, yeah, Monarch. Uh, so the question was… Which ones do you use? And a poll closed and we had 20 percent of the people say they don’t budget.

33 percent said Excel and 46. 7 percent say they use budget apps. More people use apps. Yeah. Maybe a future poll is we actually give some options of which apps do you like? If we’ve got almost half of our, our listeners who responded on Spotify anyway, saying they like apps, I’d like to know which apps they’re.

They’re

digging. That’s a good basement topic. Uh, Facebook basement topic, which apps they use, you know, I know Monarch Money is a sponsor of the show, but we are having a lot of fun with that. Going back to Date Nights, OG, that app is just, has such a clean interface. And Cheryl’s got her own login, I’ve got mine, and it just makes it really easy for everybody to follow along.

So if somebody’s not a money geek, that’s a great way to go. I really like Tiller, you know, if you’re into the spreadsheet thing. But a lot of people aren’t money nerds. And if you’re not a money nerd, then Tiller’s gonna be not a fit for you. If you’re not into

that kind of a poll that we might do in the basement, you probably would like the one recently that said, What do you like to put on your twat waffle?

Which, by the way, Doug had not, uh, Doug had, had, had fallen asleep apparently during the interview. And Doug calls me and goes, Hey, Paul in the basement says, uh, has a pull about twat

waffle. Yeah. I’m like, this is the dirtiest thing I’ve ever heard. We got to get this out, get it out of the basement right now.

And

you were concerned by my response. I

was like, have you lost your mind, man? How are you letting this through the

filters? Cause I’m like, that’s so

awesome. So awesome. What do you like? I think the number one answer there was what? Syrup? Yeah, something like that. OG, do you like syrup on your twat waffle?

I’m not playing this game.

Cause he is, see that answer right there proves, proves he’s the twat waffle of this podcast.

If you don’t know what we’re talking about, go back and listen to the hilarious and awesome. She brought it, man. Aaron Sky Kelly a couple of weeks ago.

We’ve also had some great reviews on the podcast.

Uh, do you want to hear one of those Joe? Let’s bring it. Yeah. So, uh, from just a little while ago, uh, Five stars, this podcast is a must listen for everyone looking to become more comfortable with their money situation through meaningful conversations. They don’t listen very closely. Strategy and humor, Joe O.

G., Doug, that’s why I’m reading this one because they called me out. Guests and panelists do a phenomenal job making money fun and easier to talk about. Thank you for building an inclusive community and the education you provide to us all. That was submitted by somebody, Joe S. S. I don’t know who that is, but

I mean, I’m hearing this review

for the first time. That’d be great. And by the way, Joe is very handsome. Yeah, that’s right. Guys. Amazing. I love

watching on YouTube. Cause he’s so cut, his chest is ripped.

I was watching one day and. And then my spouse came in and it was awkward. He took it too far. See, there it goes.

Yeah. All right. Uh, thanks to everybody who left us a review, who hangs out with us. And, uh, for takes part in our community. If you want to know all the ways to interface with us and be a part of our community at stackybenjamins. com slash welcome is our welcome guide. Oh, gee, big plans between now and Wednesday.

No,

nope. Between now and Wednesday. No, no plans. Wow. He’s done this work, work

like Dr. Julia, Dr. Julia DeGangi talking about how our brains work and about how to get our emotions under control. Most of us, uh, Most of us, like Doug, start with emotions first and we let them rule our day and let them rule our investments, but we can turn that frown upside down, Doug.

So you want to be here with Dr. Julie DiGangi on Wednesday. Until then, man, lots of takeaways today, but what are our top three? Well, Joe,

first, take some advice from Lisa Carmen Wang and be unapologetic about your worth so you can build the wealth you deserve. Second, take a lesson from our headline and have regular money meetings with your twatwaffle.

I mean, your significant other. But make them fun! Save the really big topics for just a few times a year. But the big lesson, make sure to get in a good stretch before you play Wordle. Just last week I pulled a hammy reaching to pick up my phone.

Thanks to Lisa Carmen Wang for joining us today. You can find her book, The Bad Bitch Business Bible, Ten Commandments to Break Free of Good Girl Brainwashing and Take Charge of Your Body, Boundaries, and Bank Account wherever finer books are sold. We’ll also include links to our show notes at stackingbenjamins.

com I think it’s also where you buy books that are huge to fit those titles in. Like they’re like coffee table books that are gonna fit these giant titles on them. The titles don’t get shorter. So much alliteration. They don’t really consider announcers when they, when they make those titles. You know how hard that is?

We’ll go

upstairs and talk to Lisa. Yeah.

This show is the property of SB Podcasts, LLC, copyright 2023 and is created by Joe Saul Sehy. Our producer is Karen Repine. This show was written by Lisa Curry, who’s also the host of the Long Story Long podcast, with help from me, Joe, and Doc G from the Earn Invest podcast.

Kevin Bailey helps us take a deeper dive into all the topics covered on each episode in our newsletter called The 201. You’ll find the 411 on all things money at The 201. Just visit stackingbenjamins. com slash 2 0 1. Wonder how beautiful we all are? Of course you’ll never know if you don’t check out our YouTube version of this show, engineered by Tina Ichenberg.

Then you’ll see once and for all that I’m the best thing going for this podcast. Once we bottle up all this goodness, we ship it to our engineer, the amazing Steve Stewart. Steve helps the rest of our team sound nearly as good as I do right now. Want to chat with friends about the show later? Mom’s friend Gertrude and Kate Youngkin are our social media coordinators, and Gertrude is the room mother in our Facebook group called The Basement.

Say hello when you see us posting online. To join all the basement fun with other stackers type stackingbenjamins. com slash basement Not only should you not take advice from these nerds don’t take advice from people you don’t know This show is for entertainment purposes only before making any financial decisions speak with a real financial advisor I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and we’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamins show.

Guys, it’s a big day here in the basement. If you’re new here, this is the after show, the part of the show that doesn’t exist. We don’t talk about the after show and after what nearly 14 years of after shows, O. G., this is the final after show.

And people think I’m kidding, and, uh…

That’s the one you were

looking for. That’s the one. And I know people are like, what are you talking about? Here’s the deal. O. G., you and I were at a conference called Podcast Movement, and there’s lots of changes happening, but one change has been happening very regularly.

has been that Apple has increasingly, which is where the majority of listeners, not just to this show, but to most podcasts reside, Apple has been changing the algorithm, how they determine podcast rankings. And while frankly, we worry much more about the people that choose to listen to us than about people that don’t choose to listen to us.

We still, our main goal is financial literacy. Making, you know, there’s that stat I quoted, uh, during my book tour that just over half of people say they cry about their money. We think it can be easier, it can be more fun, so we certainly want the message to get out that, uh, we can hopefully help you get on board and realize that you can mess stuff up like OG and I have and you’ll, you’ll still be okay.

What’s frustrating is, is that we’ve seen our ranking go backwards while our audience continues to grow. You’re like, how does that work? Well, Apple has said… that, uh, one of the key components of a good podcast is what’s called a completion rate. And completion rate is exactly what it sounds. People that are going to listen to the end of the show.

Well, we never built our show for completion rate. We built it after shows like the Tonight Show. My parents would watch the Johnny Carson monologue. every night before they went to bed, and then they turned it off. If Apple had been in charge of that game at that point, they would have said Johnny Carson sucks and nobody wants to listen to him because they don’t finish any of the shows.

And that is frankly, what’s happened to us. We used to be in the top 25. And then we accepted that, okay, we’re going to be in the top 75 business podcast. And, uh, lately we’ve moved back to like 80, 85, uh, again, through some other changes that we made, but for a while we were hanging out at like 135. With, frankly, what I think are often more concise shows, more fun shows.

All the while, we’re getting all these awards for best business podcast, best personal finance podcast. Like the math didn’t work. It’s so frustrating. How is it that we’re like getting mentioned all over financial media and we’re ranked 130? It’s because of the damn

algorithm. And it’s a creative piece of our show.

We pride ourselves on doing things that other finance shows don’t do. And not that we’re trying to quote, beat other finance shows. Cause we can definitely use more. There’s very few people listening. Cause we are trying to beat them. Well, let’s be clear. We are trying to kick their ass. But, but if we want to make, you know, we want to help people listen, you’re going to find your people.

But Apple makes it harder and harder because of this one size fits all algorithm. So sitting down with a pretty brilliant guy from, uh, Cumulus who helps us, he’s the editor of Cumulus podcast, John Wardock. He helped all the wall street journal podcasts get started as an example, smart guy in the space.

We worked with him on some solutions and what we decided was Our community calendar, the last segment of the show is now going to become the back porch and we, we will still tell people, Hey, we’re done talking about money then just to give you an idea of how severe the drop off is in our completion rate, our completion rate, according to Apple, at the end of the regular show is about 82 percent of people that started the show get to that point, which is a fantastic completion rate.

By the way, uh, they’re looking for something around the 70, 75 percent rate. Our completion rate at the end of the after show is 62. Thank you. And certainly that 20 percent that monster drop off partly is because we get it. People don’t want to talk about movies or video games or, you know, Oh geez, latest trip.

God, he’s going on vacation all the time. We got to listen to all that drivel. It’s just, it’s horrible. Sure. But, uh, so I get that, but I think it’s also because A lot of people don’t know it exists. I mean, I get emails all the time from people and when I meet people, they’re always like, I didn’t know the after show existed until I listened for like six months.

So while we know it’s not going to go to 82, we still want to have fun. We want to have this segment of the show. It’s going to become the back porch at the end of the show.

And not hidden anymore. So people can talk about it. You can talk about it. You can talk about what happens on the back porch.

It’s a pain in the ass though.

Some shit

happens on the back porch. That shit on the back porch. It sounds like we’re talking about shit

on the back porch. OG,

what are you doing? That could happen. That’s so awkward. We’ve talked about this, OG.

But so frustrating, OG, to have that, uh, you know, that happen.

Yeah, is what it is, is what it is. Times they are changing.

Yeah, I mean, algorithms are running every other part of our technological life. Why would we be surprised that it’s impacting this,

the show? I wish it was just a little, you know, not so one sided, if this were my favorite murder or something where it’s a story and people aren’t finishing the story because they’re bored to tears.

I get it, but I don’t know.

Speaking of which, have you been watching, uh, Only Murders in the Building? Have you watched that show

yet? Cheryl’s way ahead of me. I got halfway through season one and just got distracted, but I heard it’s really good.

First time I watched it, I didn’t like it for the same reason that I told you I didn’t like Marvelous Mrs.

Maisel. Because I’m not a big, like, Broadway stage type. person, like that kind of show and acting. And that’s what Maisel felt like to me. And once I got to like season three, so first time I watched Only Murders in the building, it had that same feel. There were portions that were over the top. And so I bailed on it like after one episode.

And that was a while ago, a year ago plus. And then we were looking for something to watch the other night and Jen had heard good things about it. So we tried it and now I love it. We’re into season two. It’s fantastic.

Pairing Selena Gomez with those two old school comedians. was brilliant.

Right. Well, and sort of a, and I don’t want to call it a subplot, but like the context is they’re making a podcast and they’re making, they make fun of murder podcasts.

They’ve got Tina Fey as like the, what, the mistress, the queen of, of podcasts. And, and her character name sounds a lot like the woman who started sequel. I can’t remember her name right now, but, um,

Not sequel. Started, um, uh, serial. Yeah. Sarah Koenig. Yeah.

Sarah Koenig and Tina Fey’s character name sounds similar to that.

And it’s just, it’s, it’s a fun show.

That’s awesome. I can’t wait to get back into it.