Afford Anything - Behind-the-Scenes with Paula and Joe

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

#521: If you're a longtime listener, you'll enjoy this candid, behind-the-scenes conversation about entrepreneurship and growth between Paula Pant and former financial advisor and Stacking Benjamins host Joe Saul-Sehy. For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode521 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome. Today's episode is going to be totally different from what we normally do. If you are a long-time listener of this podcast, you're going to enjoy today's episode. If you are new, I would not recommend starting with this one. Today's episode is a behind-the-scenes conversation. We pull back the curtain and take you behind the scenes of creating this podcast. So the conversation that you're about to hear is a casual conversation between myself and former, former, Financial Advisor, Joe Sal Sihae. It was recorded face-to-face in the same room in Boise, Idaho a couple of weeks ago when Joe and I were both there for a creator conference. If you are a longtime listener, and particularly if you enjoy the Ask Paula and Joe episodes, if you're a long-time

listener who loves the banter between myself and Joe, this episode is super inside baseball, which is why if you've already been watching the game following the team know the players, then you're going to enjoy this inside baseball look. This one's for you. If you are a newcomer to the Afford Anything family, I would highly encourage you to check out some of our more, what's the opposite of behind the scenes? In front of the scenes?

I guess that would just be scenes. Check out some of our more topical episodes. Like the most recent episode that we did prior to this one, that was an economic update on exactly. what's going on in the economy right now. If you're a newcomer to this community, start with that one, or start with our interview with Jim Quick, who talks about improving your memory and focus, start with our interview with Jason Tartick from The Bachelorette, who talks about relationships and money. If you're a newcomer, start with one of those, but if you're a longtime listener, then enjoy this

little peek behind the curtain as Joe and I talk through the past, present, and future of personal finance podcasting. Welcome to the Afford Anything Podcast, the show that understands you can afford anything but not everything. Every choice that you make is a trade-off, and that applies to your money, your time, your focus, your energy to any limited resource you need to manage. This is a show about how to optimize those limited resources, and this is a show that creates information in five categories, financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate, and entrepreneurship. It's fire. Fire with you. two eyes. Today, we're going to talk about the letter E. We're going to talk about entrepreneurship.

And with me is former financial planner, Joe Sal C-Hi. What's up, Joe? I don't know which camera to look at. We got multiple cameras. We're in this awesome studio in Boise, Idaho, which we'll get into. And I don't know where to look. Hey, everybody. Before we get into today's episode, I'd like to take a moment to thank the sponsors who allow us to bring you this content at no cost to you. By the way, this is the one and only ad break in the entire show. The holidays are right around the corner and if you're hosting, you're going to need to get prepared. Maybe you need bedding, sheets, linens. Maybe you need servware and cookware. And of course, holiday decor, all the stuff to make your home a great place to host during the holidays.

You can get up to 70% off during Wayfair's Black Friday sale. Wayfair has Can't Miss Black Friday deals all month long. I use Wayfair to get lots of storage type of items for my home, so I got tons of shelving that's the entryway, in the bathroom, very space-saving. I have a daybed from them that's multi-purpose. You can use it as a couch, but you can sleep on it as a bed. It's got shelving. It's got drawers underneath for storage. But you can get whatever it is you want, no matter your style, no matter your budget. Wayfair has something for everyone. Plus they have a loyalty program, 5% back on every item across Wayfair's family of brands. Free shipping, members-only sales,

and more. Terms apply. Don't miss out on early Black Friday deals. Head to Wayfair.com now to Wayfair's Black Friday deals for up to 70% off. That's W-A-F-A-I-R.com. Sale ends December 7th. Fifth Third Bank's commercial payments are fast and efficient, but they're not just fast and efficient. They're also powered by the latest in-payments technology, built to evolve with your business. Fifth Third Bank has the big bank muscle to handle payments for businesses of any size. But they also have the FinTech Hustle that got them named one of a

America's most innovative companies by Fortune Magazine. That's what being a fifth-third better is all about. It's about not being just one thing, but many things for our customers. Big Bank Muscle, FinTech Hust. That's your commercial payments of fifth-third better. This Giving Tuesday, Cam H is counting on your support. Together, we can forge a better path for mental health by creating a future where Canadians can get the help they need when they need it, no matter who or where they are. From November 25th to December 2nd, your donation will be doubled.

That means every dollar goes twice as far to help build a future where no one's seeking help is left behind. Donate today at camh.ca.ca. slash giving Tuesday. Black Friday is here at IKEA and the clock is ticking on savings you won't want to miss. Join IKEA family for free today and unlock deals on everything from holiday must-haves to cozy at-home essentials. the little and big things you need to make this season shine. But don't wait. Like leftovers at midnight, our Black Friday offers won't last. Shop now at IKEA.ca.ca.com. Bring home to life. Cho, this is going to be a short episode, so let's pack this with actionable information first. And I'm just going to tell you what stood out to me from some of the things I've learned in the past

couple of days. One is the importance of internal processes. Have a notion document, have SOPs for everything. Something requires more than three steps or it gets repeated more than three times. It needs an SOP. I've always been resistant to that idea because I want my team to have creative freedom. But without brand guides, style guides, without processes and workflows, everything gets chaotic and it becomes really difficult to grow. So one of the major takeaways that I've learned in the past couple of days is that even for creative content, even for TikTok videos, the production of Instagram videos, even things that should have creative freedom can be better enjoyed inside of a container, inside of some procedural boundaries.

Yeah, I remember I interviewed Don Hahn, who's a Disney producer who did lots of their big movies, Beauty and the Beast. He said that if you don't have this fencing around creative time, nothing ever gets done. And we certainly saw that, you know, over the last couple days, that if you want to get something done, put some fencing around it, put what your end goal is on it, and build your story arc from there. What I also took from that, though, there's two sides to any business. There is the creative side and there is the business side. And really, if you're an entrepreneur, no matter what you do, if you're making donuts or widgets or if you're doing what we do, you're really, Paul, you're wearing two hats. And so I love what you bring up about the

SOPs on the creative side because we think, oh, creative time is just go color outside the lines, right? And it completely is not. There should be this melding of the two because your ultimate goal for you and me is, you know, the way we state it starting the summer on stacking Benjamins is we want to give people confidence by building their competence. And it's like a wheel. Right. The more competent you are, the more confident you are to do the next step, which gives you the confidence then to learn the next competency to take the next step. Certainly that happened for me the last day and a half. Yeah.

Is that I feel so much more competent over the last day and a half. And I'm a person who's afraid of everything. I'm afraid to network. I'm afraid to go meet people. You and I talk about that every conference we go to. Paul's always like, let's go meet people. I'm like, let's go hide in the back. Yeah, yeah.

Joe is the introvert and I'm the extrovert. So when we're here, it's a good pairing, I think. It totally is. I always look over and I see you having like a one-on-one conversation with someone in a corner of the room. Right. And Paula is the queen. waving in for people just listening to the audio. She's waving like the queen in a group of people.

Oh, by the way, for those of you who are listening to this via audio, I highly recommend that you go to YouTube because we are physically in the same room together, which is rare. Joe, you and I never get to record like this. Yeah. Yeah, we unfortunately always. Right, the restraining order and everything. Yeah, exactly. It's just a great visual. I mean, what a beautiful room.

We both use the same. We should give a shout out to the. people have the studio. We use kit for our emails for the Ford Anything and the Stucky Benjamin's emails. And they just built this beautiful studio for us. Which is also interesting because this is another thing, no matter what business you're in, Paula, the thing I got from here, Cody Sanchez on the main stage actually said specifically this, but I've been thinking it since the beginning of the conference, which is there are so many people in business who are all about me, me, me, me, me.

Right. And the whole core of this business, and this studio makes the people at Kit, Nathan Berry in his entire team, makes them zero dollars. Right. It costs them a bunch of money. So why the hell would you do something that cost you a bunch of money? Because if you're going to do business better, it starts with relationships. And you know what?

I'm 56 years old. This has been the key learning of my entire life. Is it the more you have these relationships, the better your business works? Right. You know, somebody left a comment on one of my social posts asking, why do you even go to these? Why, you can learn this information online. And it's because face-to-face is where relationships form. It totally is.

And didn't you feel that during the pandemic? Oh, my goodness, yeah. You know, the pandemic was really a wake-up call because the difference between my pre-pandemic life versus my pandemic life was actually not that different. There's that meme going around at the beginning where it's a face that's like when you figure out that what other people call, quarantine is what you call your normal life. Yeah. And so I was like, oh my goodness, it was such a wake-up call for me because I'd been for years prior to the pandemic in this headspace of, well, we can do everything remotely.

So I would just have days and days of never leaving my apartment, you know, only sending emails. I was on Zoom before Zoom was cool. I assume Zoom is cool now. Maybe it's not. Coolish. Yeah. But I was on Zoom before Zoom was part of the zeitgeist.

And because that was possible, and because everybody else, when I told them, oh, I work from home, people who didn't have that experience really glorified it. Oh, that must be incredible. I would love to do that. And so all of the struggles that I had with it, the feelings of loneliness, I figured were unique to me because all of the people who had never experienced it talked about it as though it must be only upside. And so when the pandemic happened, I realized two things. One was that I needed to be much more proactive about being face to face with people. And the second was that all of the loneliness and the struggles that I felt by virtue of doing remote work. It's so much harder to collaborate, especially creative collaboration with a fully remote team.

And I always thought that those were problems that were unique to me, that I was somehow deficient at managing a remote team. And then when I saw that other people were experiencing those same challenge, That was a big wake-up call. One of the speakers on the main stage yesterday, John, I'm not going to get his last name. Yeah. And John's amazing. John basically was singing off a playbook that I like, which is Austin Cleon's Steal Like an Artist. He was talking about how great people steal like an artist.

But he also talked about how there's no mistaking that throughout history, great people were found in clusters. Right. And so if you want to enter the zeitgeist, thought leadership in any industry, whatever industry you're in, you have to go where the other thought leaders are. Because people think that greatness is built on the back. One person creator, they discovered. It's actually built on the back of some other idea. You and I being in a room together, you're able to throw out an idea, then I throw out an idea, then you throw out an idea. We take this dumb thing and all of a sudden

it becomes brilliant. Right, right. But I... Creative collaboration. And by the way, and we can do that online. And certainly you and I do with our teams. We have a creative media. We have a creative, for stacking benjamins. We have a professional comedian, Lisa Curry, who helps us with the episodes. And it's good, but it does not replace. Right. Face to face. Yeah. It's so powerful being here. And I was very afraid of like any conference I go to. And I speak on main stages. And I'm still afraid. Afraid of being here, afraid of networking. And now I've made so many new friends. I've made so many new contacts. I've got so many more people to collaborate with. Right. You have to go to industry.

conferences. Yeah, absolutely. You can't not go. Yeah, it's an essential cost. So the guy's name, John, his last name is Y-O-U-S-H-A-E-I. For those of you, if you're on YouTube, which I hope you are, because this is really, watch this video on YouTube. So go on YouTube and look up Bob Fosse, 1969 and compare that to Beyonce's video of... The three of them. Yeah, all the single ladies. All the single ladies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the same. Yeah. It is the same. Exactly.

It is a, quote, ripoff. But it's not. Right. Exactly. Because one, it was done with permission, you know, done with. She references and pays homage in interviews to the fact that she did it. Yeah. She's like, I saw this cool thing.

And I thought, we could pay homage and do the same thing. Right. Right. Which is super. Exactly. It's the distinction between copy and paste versus, as John calls it, copy with taste. Right. Right.

Which is funny because I've had, I'm a big Austin Cleom fan. I've had him on stacking Benjamin's. twice. I love his analogy, which is similar, which is remixing, paying homage versus plagiarism, just out and out plagiarism. Right, right. You know, so Nathan Barry today said something that I think is important for this audience to hear. When we talk about entrepreneurship and part of the reason that we're doing this behind the scenes conversation right now is because we really want to encourage those of you who are interested in starting businesses to start a business. But the premise behind starting a business.

This is something that I have never directly articulated, and I thought he said it very, very well. The premise behind starting a business is that you can make money, and making money is a skill. And so this is what Nathan Berry said. I'm paraphrasing, it's not a direct quote, but he said, making money is a skill. You can master it just like you can master playing an instrument or a sport.

Right? And that's something I've never directly articulated that idea, but that is the foundational premise really for why personal finance brands like afford anything and stacking benjamins even exist because the fundamental underlying premise is that making money is a skill and it is a skill that can be learned taught and learned yeah you don't have to be unique right you have to have the ability to learn and I like our first speaker in fact who was in the studio just before we were she's walked out yeah today sherry uh do you have sherry's last name. I don't. But Sherry runs a grilling company and she had a great message about how

failure is the game. About how she was afraid of failing and failing was bad and now she knows that if you're an entrepreneur, failing is a part of it. You know what I thought through that, Paula? What's that? And I think this is a great lesson for not just entrepreneurs, but for all of us. I never learned anything when I was high-fiving myself on the top of a mountain. Like there was zero learning. Don't get me wrong. I love those moments. Those are great moments to celebrate. But all my key learnings in my entire life had been those times. And they felt like crap at the time. They were horrible when I was failing. When things were going really bad, I came back stronger. My business came back stronger. Those are the key times. And failure is a thing that we should not just realize as a part of life, which is what she said on the main stage. I think it's actually something we should look forward to. Right, right. And there's also wisdom and learning from the failure. of others, right?

Agreed. Because failing in real life is expensive tuition. Yes. But if you make something of it, it's tuition that you will make back over time, but it is expensive tuition. So you can reduce your tuition bill by virtue of learning from both the failures and the successes of others. And that's another key about coming to conferences.

Right. Is that every speaker started off with, I mess this up. Yeah. This is the conference speech. Right. I mess this up. Here's how not to mess this up. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, just as I was saying, one of the things I really messed up for years in running afford anything was having a fully remote team in which we never met face to face. You know, I think that was a huge mistake. I think it set us back years. Yeah. The thing that I messed up was Stacky Benjamin's being a podcast. I remember five years ago speaking with our mutual friend Brian Preston, who I think was on Afford Anything, also on stacking Benjamins. Our good friend, Brian said, I'm going to work on my YouTube channel. I'm going to broad. this because we're a financial education company and I said, good for you. I'm going to make a great podcast that I love and you go do this video thing. And what's interesting about that is

people learn so many different ways. And if we truly are a company that is trying to give people confidence and more competence, then we should be meeting our stackers wherever they are. And I realized that much later, when the algorithms had already slowed down, Brian now has, I think, half a million people following the money guys. He also has capability like this. They a wonderful studio in Franklin, Tennessee, and we're getting there. But had I had the thought process more of working from what do people need from me versus this one thing that I'm comfortable with, like sometimes growth is uncomfortable. But being uncomfortable the first time is something that we need to get used to. Right. Yeah. It's not about what you want. It's about how to best

serve. And think about that when is growth not uncomfortable? Right. Exactly. That's something that I tell my team, our North Star is serving our audience and we can't be unmoored from reality, you know, but we fundamentally, like my audience is more important, the afforders, are more important than any sponsor. They're more important than any other stakeholder in this. And that sounds all well and good in theory. But when push comes to shove and I've got a sponsor that's pushing me to do something that I think is just not in the best interests of the afforders, I'll tell the sponsor to go F off. Sorry, we don't need your money. We talked about this Wednesday night and the idea of mentorship, no matter where you're at in your career. A guy I've got mentorship is younger than me.

I don't know very well. I mean, I talked to him every other week, practically, but a guy named Jordan Harbin. And Jordan, I remember early in my, this quote second career that I'm in, said, you owe nobody anything except your audience, period. Yeah. And that has resonated ever since. So I'm on, I mean, the afforders. Another, by the way, behind the scenes thing, Paula Pant not only coined the word afforders,

she also coined the word stackers a long time ago. A day after, I think it was after a big birthday celebration Paula had. And we were at breakfast, and you were like, you should call them stackers. Thank you. Thank you. I remember the conversation because you at the time were listening to all of these voices in the digital marketing space who were... Build a funnel. Yeah, build a funnel.

Build a funnel. And we had that breakfast. And I was like, screw that. Yeah. Forget all of those get rich quick, build a funnel, conversion optimization, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, those guys are not going to be around in 10 years, right? Do you want to build something where you're going to? maybe going to make a couple of pennies today and you'll have nothing, no, no mission, no legacy,

no purpose, no community, or do you want to build something sustainable, right? And like what you're building, Joe, is a community and they are your community of stackers. What really impressed me during that conversation that morning was much more being true to your brand. And we don't have a funnel brand. Right. Like that's not, if my brand was a funnel brand, then I'd be fine with the funnel. But that's not who we are. Yeah. So we're much more dad jokes and comedy. And let's lighten the temperature so you feel like you can screw it up and you're going to be fine.

As you know, most of the time, go open a Roth IRA, mess it up, and you'll learn from it. You know what? You're not going to die. And so part of that also then goes back to being really careful about who you take advice from, being very discerning about that. I just interviewed David Novak, who is the, he's a former CEO of Young Brands, which is the parent company of KFC Taco Bell Pizza Hut and Habit Burger Grill. He's a grandfather of fourth meal. Yeah.

And he said something that I thought was really important during this interview. It was a long, almost two-hour interview. And one of the things that he talked about was being really discerning about who you take advice from. Because there are a lot of people with opinions, but it takes a lot of skill and wisdom to have cultivated. opinions. There's a distinction between Yoda and anybody who's not Yoda, right? And so you've got a community of stackers who you don't have some like digital marketing funnel. Like I've been very

careful about screening out and eliminating all of those, the voices that are in that space. Because it's an adjacent space and it's there and I just don't like it. And I don't play that game. Like I'm not. Well, I think that's knowing you're North Star. Yeah. You knowing what you're doing and it's fine. It could be good for you, but it's not good for everybody. I mean, that's why I like timelining out your financial plan is because once you know what the goal is, then Paula, this is good, but it's not part of my plan. This can be good, not part of my plan. Like, it's so difficult in a vacuum to decide which way I should go. But once I know what that North Star is, I think it's, I think it's much easier to screen out the voices. But seriously, as you're talking, I'm thinking about

all the times I took bad advice. Yeah. And I went and I did it. Like earlier in my career, my 20s and 30s, I took some, you know, some pretty bad advice. And had I not done that, had it been more discerning. Right. I would have been much further along. Right.

Much more quickly. Right. By the way, the barbecue person that you were talking about. Oh, she's wonderful. So her name is Susie Bullock. Susie Bullock. Look her up. And her barbecue brand is, hey grill, hey.

Which is such a great. name. It is so good. And her being honest about failure and being hilarious about why she goes on a television show and decides to dye her hair the night before. Right. Bops on her hair. Just the nightmare. So she was talking about how when she started her company, she was a stay-at-home mom. So their family, they've got three kids. The family was completely reliant on her husband's income. He was an accountant. He hated his job. To such an extent, I think I can repeat this because she stated it publicly on the main stage on the main stage by the way here's a trigger warning we're about to discuss something triggering this is some emotional trauma right here so if you

don't want to hear how i finish the sentence then fast forward he hated his job to such an extent that one day he was on his way to work and he called her and he said rather than drive to work I just want to drive off of the freeway. Like he was at that point where he would, he was actually having suicidal ideations. That's how much his job was draining from him. And when she heard that... She was crying on the stage, just retelling it.

Yeah. And when she heard that, it really fueled her to develop another source of income so that the family could rely on this nascent fledgling idea of a business, right? You know, at that point, it was kind of a, she called it a joby. It was more of a hobby than a job. But that really lit the fire under her to be like, I've got to grow this. I've got to make this a viable thing so that I can retire my husband. You know, the idea of if you serve others other than serve yourself, I think now we've talked about that indirectly about three

times, it's always more fulfilling to serve somebody else. You could feel how happy she was when you got to quit his job because of her. Right. Like how great is that for her to be able to serve his goal? But also, how many times in our community have we heard people that either came to your brand or mine because they wanted to quit their job? And to be able to chart your own path and learn and find that fulfillment also is just a, I don't know, it's a powerful, it's been a powerful day and a half. My head seriously hurts in the best way possible. I know I've heard this from stackers before. You've heard it from afforders before. like, I'd love to go to an industry conference. I can't afford it. If at all possible,

you need to find a way. If at all at all possible. And I know for some, I know FinCon that you and I go to, they have scholarships to encourage people to go to that conference. Podcast movement has sponsorships for people. You can apply for those. Find a way to get yourself on a bus to Boise, Idaho, wherever the heck the conference is and go. Yeah, yeah. One thing that we're going to prioritize and afford anything. Not in 2024. So this is like 2025 plans. Is this something you decided in the last couple days?

Oh, no, no. This is something we've been talking about for months already internally. Because I want to ask you that too. Is there anything that we can announce that's going to change? Actually, yes. Yeah, but let's go through this one first. And then we'll do that. We'll call it a day.

One of the things that we're going to prioritize is more in-person events with the afforder community. So workshops, retreats, just face-to-face in-person events, live in-person events. Boston was a blast. Yeah, absolutely. But I think there is such a hunger and such a need for face-to-face connection that I think that's a really important element of serving the community. Well, and I love that idea because through our stacking Benjamin's four meetups this summer, I love the fact that getting like-minded people in the same room. Like, if I could just facilitate that and go off into my own corner as the introvert that I am,

like, I've succeeded. And we saw that in Boston together with our joint meetup, seeing all these people that didn't know each other. And that's great. Right. That is absolutely fantastic. So we were just in Boston like, what, is that two weeks ago? It feels like yesterday and six months ago, all wrapped in a way. Exactly, exactly. We're on the East Coast and now we're in Boise. Yeah. By the way, how do we see each other twice? in a month. Yeah, yeah. I've seen you in Boston and now you're in Boise. We're just hitting all the next we'll go to Billings and Bozeman. That's right. We check all the boxes. Check all the B towns. Yeah. A thing that's going to change for just based on the last couple days, what's something

that your afforders can look forward to? So we have a newsletter for a long time. You've heard me say, oh, subscribe to our show notes. You'll get a synopsis of every episode. But we've never really tried to create a best in class, like absolute top quality newsletter. And partially it's because we've had fragmented attention because we have the VIP list and they get specific updates about real estate. And we have show notes, but that only goes to about one eighth of our total newsletter subscribers, specifically the subset of people who want synopsies of episodes. So we've had all of this fragmented attention where we're creating lots of

copy for like specialized segments of our audience. So we're scrapping all of that. We're done with that. We will still have podcast show notes. But they will be incorporated into a much, much more robust newsletter that goes to everybody that we really put blood, sweat, and tears into. Our two big areas of focus are YouTube and the newsletter. YouTube, we're absolute beginners.

We're learning what we're doing. the implementation gap between what I know needs to improve and the actual improvement is it's a mile. But the newsletter is the other major area of focus. A while ago, we rolled out this newsletter that we called First Principles, all about thinking from First Principles. And we laid out these sections of it. At that time, it was four elements, fire, financial psychology, investing, real estate, and entrepreneurship.

We're adding another I to that fire. So now it's going to be five pillars. Five, yeah, yeah. Fire, yeah. So the other eye is income. If you really want to add more eyes, it's increasing income. Yeah. Financial psychology, income, investing, real estate and entrepreneurship.

We're going to speak to that in our newsletters. We're going to, you know what? Should I just go ahead and I haven't announced this. Yeah. All right. So when it comes to increasing income, we're building out another course. Your first rental property has been our flagship course. We haven't built a new one since we released your first rental property in 2019. So first principle is the newsletter. That's coming. We're putting a lot of attention there. Afford Anything.com slash newsletter to go sign up. It's free. By the way, second best newsletter out there, stacky Benjamin's.com slash 201 is probably the best.

And actually, seriously, that pain you're going through now, you know this. We went through that pain ourselves to create the newsletter that I would want to open. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. We're revamping the first principles newsletter. It's going to be the newsletter that I would want to open. Yes.

The other thing, and speaking to one of the two eyes and fire, income, increasing your income, we're releasing a new course. We're in production right now. I'm not going to tell you the name yet. We haven't. I want to, I'm going to. file a trademark for the name before I say it publicly because it's so good. It's so good. Filing it. As soon as I file the trademark, I will tell you what the name is.

We talk about a lot of stuff. I don't even know the name. Yeah. We talk about everything. I don't know the name. Yeah. But the course is about how to negotiate for anything, including how to negotiate your salary, how to negotiate for a car, how to negotiate when you buy a couch on Facebook marketplace. It's increasing your income by virtue of asking for a raise. It's written from an incredibly professional point of view. I have seen behind the scenes of the course, and you had some incredibly professional help. Yes, I did. Absolutely professional help. It was scripted by a person who taught negotiations at Columbia.

Yeah, little, never heard of it. No idea what that is. Poeunk little school. You know, our big reveal is that it's stacking Benjamin's for the first 13 years of the podcast. We've always just done the podcast. And from time to time, we will have a cohort. We might have a course that's a live course from time to time. We've never truly been a financial education company.

And we are turning the company upside down. We're not going to be a company that is a podcast that's known for that that happens to sometimes be financial education. We'll be a financial education company that helps people through videos, podcasts, but also increasingly other tools. So we're going to have a suite of five off the shelf guides that people can purchase if you just have a set thing that you need. We also are going to have a signature course that we're working on with a professor of education from Arizona State University. We're building that signature course. So if you want to build your own financial plan, you can do that. And then the thing, the only piece of it that our stackers have already seen before,

once a year, people can go through my book stacked through 10 sessions that are 90 minutes each with me in a very small group. And we had a great time doing that. So if on one end, you just feel like, you know what, I just need this problem solved. You get it. If you want to do a course on your own, that'll be our signature product. you get it. But if you truly want the white glove hands-on, I will coach you, we're going to do that once a year. And that's it. That's going to be the stacking Benjamin suite of products.

Wow. That's my big thing. I love the idea of people going through your book chapter by chapter with you. It was so fun. It was so fun. And the wow, the a ha's people got was pretty, pretty powerful. That's incredible. Well, sounds like we got nothing going on, Paula. You know, page 13 of your book, by the way, is the best page. Who's on it? Who's on that page? If you own the book stacked, flip to page 13. It's so great. This has been so fun. Yeah. Big takeaway, and then we'll say goodbye.

For anyone who wants to start a business or who is running a business, know your mission, have a very, very clear mission. Who do you serve? What is the outcome that you want? How do you help them? and make that mission your North Star. That North Star is the litmus test for every decision that you make. I love that. Mine is almost Paula, the same takeaway.

I get every time, this has been a phenomenal conference. You and I go to quite a few conferences. It's been amazing. Mine is, I know that a lot of you out there are afraid of starting the next thing. You're afraid of the next move. You're afraid like I am of going to the conference where you don't know anybody, feel the fear, and do it anyway.

It's okay to feel the fear, but go do it because I'm now on the other side of that fear of just this weekend. And it just reminds me that had I not gotten on that plane and come here with all these people, the wonderful takeaways I've gotten that Paul and I have gone through here would have never happen. So it's okay to feel the fear, but push through and do the thing that you know you need to do. And you know what you need to do. You know it. I mean, you already know it. And you're like, yeah, go do it.

Well, that was a behind-the-scenes conversation between myself and Joe Saul-Sehi, where we just rift on the past, present, and future of personal finance podcasting. If you're a longtime listener, and particularly if you have any interest in one day having a side hustle or running your own business, I hope that you found some valuable nuggets that you could take away and apply to your own lives. there's one additional thing that I'd like to say, and it's actually a piece of rather sad news. One very important member of the Afford Anything community and a student in your first rental property has passed away. His name was Jonathan Pantages. He recently passed after a long battle with cancer. He is, to the best of my knowledge, the first active student

within our course, your first rental property, who has passed away. And he was also a very, very active member of the Afford- Anything community, a true giver who was constantly answering questions, supporting his fellow peers, just uplifting and educating other people in the community. He was a gem and he was the best of us. and to say that he will be missed is an enormous understatement. In his honor, I am announcing the Jonathan Pantage's Memorial Scholarship. This scholarship, which has a value of $1,300, will cover the enrollment fees for one student for each cohort to join your first rental property.

Any student who has ever been diagnosed with cancer is welcome to apply, and encouraged to apply. We want to ensure that those who have battled cancer are able to access the training, the camaraderie, the support, the accountability that they need in order to reach their financial goals. And we want to make sure that cancer survivors can do so even if they don't necessarily have the funds to enroll in a paid course.

So for every new cohort, we will be offering scholarships available to those who have at any point in their life battled cancer. We will release more details as well as applications when we reopen enrollment for the next cohort, which will be in the fall. Oh, actually, we have the dates. We just had a team meeting last week and we set the dates. The next enrollment window is October 28th. It opens October 28th and runs through November 7th. So October 28th through November 7th is the enrollment window for our next cohort. So it would be sometime in October that we'll release full details around how to apply for the scholarship, the number of scholarships that will give out, selection criteria, etc. But we will have a minimum of one scholarship position for each cohort, if not more.

It will be a totally full ride. It will cover. everything. And for those of you who are wondering, like, well, isn't this a digital? We do have a lot of expenses that are associated with running, something of this level of complexity. We have a full-time course administrator. We have teachers' assistants who all, of course, are paid. There are technology costs. There are production costs for every time that we update the course. So there's, there's quite a bit that goes into it, which is why we have to charge tuition in the first place. but the reason that we get up every day and the reason that we do what we do is because we are inspired by students like Jonathan, who was just truly the best of us, the absolute best.

There's no other way I can describe him. I'm sorry that I'm being so vague. He was the guy who even as he was sick, you know, I would text him to be like, how are you feeling? Asuni would text him. She's our chief sanity officer at Afford anything. She would text him to say, hey, how are you feeling today? You know, how are you feeling this week? Man, and he was, he would just ask us about us. You know, he was like, I'm great, but how are you? He was like that up until the very end. So I hope that his legacy lives on because I know that the word community is overused, particularly in the digital space.

But Jonathan was truly emblematic of what it means to be a contributor to a community in the most sense of that word or those words. Sorry to end this on a downer note. You know what? Let me put it this way. Jonathan was the guy who requested that people only wear bright colors at his memorial service because he didn't want people to show up wearing black and feeling sad. He requested that people show up to his memorial service wearing bright colors because he wanted it to be a cheery, happy event. He wanted it to be a celebration of life and not a grieving over a death.

So, in his honor, in honor of his request, Let's end this on a happy note, shall we? Well, thank you for being part of the Afford- Anything community, truly. You're the reason why we do this. To talk to other members of the Afford-anything community, go to Afford-anything.com slash community. And to stay in touch with us between podcast episodes, subscribe to our newsletter,

which I promise soon will be much better. Afford-anthing.com. So again, those two links, afford anything.com slash community and afford anything.com slash newsletter. Thank you so much for being part of this experience. My name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast. And I'll meet you in the next episode.