Good Life Project - Farnoosh Torabi: Money, Power, Friendship and Freedom.

Episode Date: November 6, 2018

Farnoosh Torabi (http://www.farnoosh.tv/) has been fascinated by how people relate to money, including herself, for as long as she can remember.Her first book, You’re So Money, was a nationally acclaimed tell-all for people searching for financial independence. That led to regular appearances on the Today Show and Good Morning America, writing for magazines like Glamour, Marie Claire and O Magazine, features on the reality series Bank of Mom and Dad, TLC’s REAL SIMPLE. REAL LIFE and a personal finance series, Financially Fit on Yahoo! Torabi’s award-winning podcast, So Money, (https://goo.gl/dbj3hQ) made its debut in January 2015. Along the way, she got married, became a mom and also found herself the primary breadwinner in her family. That made her curious about what happens when women in relationships earn more than men. This question became not only a very personal one, as it affected her relationship with her husband and friends, but it also became the focus of her last book, When She Makes More (https://amzn.to/2pNxGEg).In today's conversation, we explore all of this, along with her early interests and pursuits, the impact of growing up in a family where her parents were first-generation immigrants and so much more.--------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://www.goodlifeproject.com/sparketypes/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, I'm sitting down with my friend Farnoosh Torabi, who has been obsessed with how people relate to money, including herself, pretty much for as long as she can remember. Her first book, You're So Money, was a nationally acclaimed tell-all for people searching for financial independence. That led to appearances all over the media on places like The Today Show, Good Morning America, writing for magazines like Glamour, Marie Claire, O Magazine being featured in reality TV shows like Bank of Mom and Dad, TLC's Real Simple Real Life, and a personal finance series called Financially Fit on Yahoo. Along the way, she got married, she became a mom, and also found herself in this interesting role of the primary breadwinner in her family.

And that made her really curious about what happens when women in a relationship earn more than men. This question became kind of an obsession for her, not only on a personal level, as she wanted to explore how it affected her relationship with her husband and with her friends. It became the focus of her last book, When She Makes More. We dive into this question and also explore the far-reaching corners of her life as the parents of first-generation American family, her upbringing, her relationships, and what led her into this really fascinating path and professional life. Really excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later

required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. You basically from the age of 11 to 14, refuse to be called by your given name. That's a great place to start, Jonathan. Let me just tell you, because I ended up writing college essays about my issues with my birth given name, Farnoosh. Although this had just in the cab here with the lift to get your name before they pick you up, the driver said, Farnoosh, the 11-year-old Farnoosh, would have been so happy to hear that she is perceived as someone who is more or less similar to everybody

else. Because that was really the issue back then with my name was that it was an instant way to be identified as different. And when you are in the age group of 10, 11, 12, it's hard. It's hard to accept that you're different when all you want to be is the same because being the same means you have more friends, you're more liked, you're more accepted. And that wasn't my story. And I'm so grateful for it now, but you can imagine at that age, it was a real struggle. Yeah. Because I know your parents came here from Iran in- 79, yes.

So right around the time where everything was falling apart. Yeah, falling apart in Iran. And my dad had the opportunity to come here and get a PhD for free in physics in Worcester, Massachusetts at Clark University, and just had married my mom in Shiraz, Iran. They had come over to just finish the degree and go back. That was the goal. The goal was not to start a life here in America. But unfortunately, when they were here, fortunately, unfortunately, things started to unravel in Iran. The Iranian, the revolution broke. And clearly that was not a safe place to be anymore, especially for somebody who had just gone through the educational ranks in America.

You're perceived as which was the enemy. Right. So we and then my mom was pregnant with me. And so they really had to switch gears quickly. Right. So so he would have been here on like an educational. Yes. So, right.

And then what helped him stay longer than that was he found a job and one of his professors at his program hooked him up with a job. They granted him a visa, a work visa, which eventually turned into later, turned into citizenship and my mom as well. So my dad would always say growing up, you have no idea how lucky we are, how fortunate, you know, you should feel when you're six, seven, eight, that doesn't really click. Did you, how long into, I don't know if you've even had this conversation with your parents, but I'm most curious when you have like your parents are first generation and not necessarily first generation through intention, at least in the beginning, have you ever talked to them about sort of like when the time came where they realized like, oh, this is for real.

Like this isn't just for the next couple of years or something, but like this is the new normal for. That's such a good question. I feel as though the resistance is still there a little bit. And what I mean by that is they never... This is actually a credit to them. I think that even though they were living in a foreign land, my mother was 19 when she moved here. We're 19 years apart. She's a young mom, didn't have a college degree, didn't speak English, living in a terrifying city. Worcester, Massachusetts was extremely crime-ridden in the 80s. And so yet, despite all that, they were able to find other Iranians within

a radius and congregate and feel very much like they create their little Iran in Worcester, Massachusetts. And since then, they've moved multiple times, always have been able to find a really tight community. And my mom and dad still have thick accents. And I'm sometimes frustrated that I have to correct their grammar. I'm like, you've been here for 30, 40 years, like, come on. But it's partly, it's partly, it's pretty beautiful because what it is, it means that they've been able to, in America, find their own definition of home and not feel like they've had to really assimilate. And even growing up, that's where a lot of my resistance came. I was like, guys, we're here. You know, let's do as they do in Rome. Let's,

you know, let me go to the baby, let me go to the sleepovers. You know, let me go to the prom. Let me do the things that my other friends are doing, go to the movies, walk home from school. And there was always this resistance to be like the Americans. And I never quite appreciated that until, until later in life. And there, I think that when they had my brother, my brother and I are 11 years apart. At that point, for sure, a transition had been made culturally because my name is Farnoosh. My brother's name is Todd. That's different. Does that tell you something about the growth? What about your parents' names? Do they go by their original name? Well, my dad's name is, my dad has like six names. He and his, I suppose, my mom always calls him Farouk. And his middle name is Ahmad. And he took Ahmad and he changed it to Adam when he got his citizenship. And my mom's name is Sheda, which is so pretty. She goes by Sheila in, you know, with her American friends. And actually she's changed her name to Sheila, but her, among their Iranian community, they're still Farrokh and Sheda.

But if they're introducing themselves for the first time to new people, they're Adam and Sheila. Okay. So Adam, Sheila, and Todd. And Farnoosh. Right. I'm so mad. So what happened?

So I, it's funny, the time when they changed their names, they were like, okay, do you want to change your name? It's not that easy, okay, do you want to change your name? It's not that easy when you're in middle school to change your name, really. Somehow they managed to do it more seamlessly than I did. And, you know, honestly, at that point I felt like I need to stick with something and just work with it. Although every time we moved when I was younger, whether it was to the next town over or one time we moved from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, big move. Every time I thought, okay, here's my chance to take on a new identity. So I would think about it on usually the moving ride. Like, okay,

I'm thinking about like, what will my room look like? Will I make friends in the neighborhood? What's going to be my name? And I went through different names. I'll tell you, I was Tina in third grade for like four days. In fact, my basketball team called me Tina. I had a jersey named Tina on the back. Because in kindergarten, I had a – there was a girl in kindergarten who was so – she was the leader. She was the boss lady and had all the little friends who followed her around the schoolyard. And she was perfect. She had bows in her hair and she was beautiful.

And her name was Tina. Every girl wanted to be Tina. So now I was going to be Tina. And then we moved again and I was Christina and then I was Ashley and Nikki. It was my last attempt to change my name. And that was between freshman and sophomore year of high school, we moved to a town called Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, small town. In my mind, I was Brenda from 90210, who was moving from Michigan to Los Angeles. That for me was sort of, I had a similar sense of what it was going to be like for me. And I said, okay, I'm going to go with Nikki. Because again, Nikki was a girl from my childhood who was very popular and had a lot of friends. And do you see where I'm going with all

of this? And it didn't last long because, and I was really committed to it. But when I got to school, I would not answer to the name because I wasn't used to it. So I'd be like, Nikki, please pass down the papers. And I would just be looking around. So it created a problem. But until the last day of high school, my gym teacher, God bless him, Mr. Zimmerman, who was like 82 years old, still called me Tina. He didn't understand why one day I was Tina.

Or sorry, Nikki. And then I was Farnoosh. And he's like, well, I don't care what you are today. You are the name that I first understood you to be. That's too funny. So how do you, now I'm curious also, like once kids know you by a certain name at that age, how do you walk into school shortly after and say, oh, by the way. Yeah. So usually I would do it. Because kids aren't all that forgiving. They're not. I would lie and be like, well, it was actually my middle name and I was test driving it to be my first name and it didn't

work out. So I'm back to Farnoosh. So Farnoosh Nikki. Yes, absolutely. I became a very good liar. I was really good at lying. So you grow up, I mean, besides being able to step into multiple personalities, what kind of kid were you? I was somebody who really liked to please people. I always, I liked the rewards of school a lot. And I always was a kid that loved to stay busy. I didn't, wasn't the sort of kid that could really stand being in front of the television for six hours, even though sometimes I did because I was a latchkey kid,

and that's how I stayed safe and out of trouble when I was eight. But as I was older and high school in particular, I loved, this is actually the first time in a long time that I'm remembering this, is I would, you know, in high school, before phones and before pilot, you know, one of those Palm Pilots, you had a notebook and you would fill up your schedule with things like your homework assignments. I loved mapping out to the minute my day, from the minute I waked up to the minute I hit the pillow again that night. I would put in things that are like take a shower, eat lunch, because I love checking things off my list. I felt so productive. It was very gratifying. And the littlest things, I wanted to feel like I made the effort. And I think also partly I was trying to avoid what was going on at home. I liked being out of the house at school, doing stuff with school.

I did a lot of theater. I did the yearbook. I did the newspaper. I did all the classes. Because I think what was happening at home, especially when I was between 14 and 18, it was not stable. Like my parents were fighting a lot. We moved to Philadelphia because my dad, who is a PhD in physics, had this bright idea that he was going to pair up with a friend who lived in the Philly area to start a restaurant. And it just became this source of stress for my family. He didn't

give up his job in Massachusetts so that we would have income while he was pursuing this restaurant, which is one of the riskiest things you can try to do. So he was going back and forth between states. My mother went through a spiral of depression and we were living in a cramped apartment because we couldn't afford anything more for the time. And so I just dove deep into school and excelled and just wouldn't come home until really late, not because I was doing bad things, but because I was laying out the school paper. And I didn't even tell my parents that when I got into a prestigious summer camp, they were like, what? Because I just knew what I had to do. I was taking care of myself.

And that was a lot of, I think, the story of my life is I had a young mom who didn't really know how to parent. She did a great job, but you know, she even admits like you sort of raised yourself because I just really wanted to keep you safe. But as far as looking out for you in terms of opportunities and things like that, you were the one who always went after them. And I just didn't want to bother my parents with what was going on in my life. I had too much going on. So, I mean, for you, it sounds like there's a level of maniacal busyness. Was that more an expression of genuine interest or a coping mechanism? Both, for sure. Because even today, I have a lot of interests. The way that I've designed my career, multiple revenue streams, multiple projects going on at the same time,

I'm so happy because of it, really gratified through that kind of pace. But I think that I've flexed that crazy muscle enough growing up where I've just gotten used to having a busy schedule that I don't know anything different. And although I will say, as I'm older now, I appreciate sometimes not having anything to do. I don't feel guilty about it. I think I used to feel guilty if I had too much time on my hands, like I'm not being productive enough, I'm wasting time. But you would like this. I'm finding joy in just the little things, folding my clothes and organizing my closet, going to get coffee with a friend

and talking about stupid stuff, nothing about, you know, that's gonna improve my life, but we just enjoy our company. And so it's come with age, but I think when I was younger, I definitely was a combination of the maniacal busyness and also actually really enjoying. I loved everything I did. I loved school.

I loved theater. I loved the newspaper. I directed plays. I starred in plays. I didn't really care for track and field. I tried it a couple of semesters and I gave it up. And so I'm pretty good at knowing what I'm not good at and diving deep into the stuff that really interests me. Yeah. During that window of time, sort of like knowing, okay, so you're out of the house a lot,

but you're aware of what's going on between your parents, which is really interesting because now the career that you've gotten into, which is business and finance, and especially helping other people understand the psychology and the process and the strategies around money, it sounds like probably the seeds of all of this were laid in that window because you had to have just seen so much of the stress that comes around the conversation. I had an epiphany recently, which is that I hear often on my podcast and through my work and in studies that America is a financially illiterate country. We don't get the education growing up. No one teaches us the ABCs of finance. We need to get financial literacy into the schools. I don't think that's the solution. In fact, I actually think that we

need to give ourselves more credit. We are financially literate more than we think, more than we know. We don't give credit to the fact that when we're growing up, we have experiences, we witness things that may not present themselves as about money, the fact that I saw the struggles that my parents had, financial struggles in my high school years, the fact that I went to a school where 80%, 90% of the kids who had a license were driving German-made vehicles and I was taking the bus, that's financial literacy. I was learning about the real world of money all the time. And that shows up in my life as an adult. My favorite questions that I ask on my podcast, whether I'm interviewing Margaret Cho or Tony Robbins or someone you've never heard of, is tell me about a scene from your childhood where you learned about money and particularly a scene that keeps showing up in your adult life because that left a great impression and it's influenced your

relationship with money or good or bad. So through those stories and my own epiphany, I've come up with this theory that we all become financially literate throughout childhood. It's just not in the way that we think. No one hits us with a textbook that's called financial basics. It's not actually how you learn about money. Who's going to remember compound interest if you learned it at seven? Certainly, if your parents took you to the bank and opened up a savings account for you when you were 13, that's important. I don't think that that's inconsequential, but I think we need to give more credit to these other experiences that don't seem to have anything to do with money. The relationships that you have, the friendships, the trips that you take,

the experiences that you have, there's always a money story behind it or a financial learning lesson. Yeah. Have you ever asked anybody that one question? You know, like tell me about a moment or a story from the past where like money was a part of it. Through all the different people, you've posted so many people now over a period of years. I'm curious, has there ever been one person who doesn't have that story? Yes. And I always think they're lying or maybe they're nervous and or they just haven't, they can't think of a good, they feel like they have, they're under pressure. They want to come up with a great story. And also maybe it's just, there's some, maybe there's still underlying shame or, or concern of being judged or maybe like there, because the moment like you brought that up, I'm like, I wonder how many people actually, there's an immediate story, but telling it is going to feel like they're revealing a family secret. Well, yes. And I feel maybe sometimes I ask it and it seems like a leading question,

like I'm trying to lead you down a path of telling me a bad story or a shameful story. But because, and no, it's absolutely not. I just tell me a story. And I think that's also revealing. If people hear the question and go, oh, I don't really have a story. And I think that's also revealing. If people hear the question and go, oh, I don't really have a story. It could be that because to them, a money story is necessarily a not happy story. It's a bad story. Which tells so much about the human condition these days. Absolutely. And I've had guests, not always, I mean, in some cases who, well, actually a guest actually canceled on me the other day. She asked to be on my podcast, a famous fashion designer.

I was so excited. And I said, yes, absolutely. Her team and I were coming up with dates and she had to cancel at one point because of a family thing and then rescheduled. And then the team asked for the questions ahead of time. And I have a packet, a prep packet. It's not always what I ask, but it's something to, if they ask, I just give it. And they read and they go, oh, she can't do this interview. It's too personal. She's okay talking about her business. I said, well, that's fine. But remember you asked to come

on the show. So I thought maybe you'd already been familiar with how it works. And I thought that was unfortunate because the questions in and of themselves don't require a certain mood. I'm not asking for sad stories. Not a negative or positive frame by default. It's what you bring to it. And if you're just passionate about what you do, you'll be able to hear the question and interpret it in a way that's going to work for you and that's going to still teach what you want to teach. And I thought that was a missed opportunity for them. But nonetheless.

Yeah. I mean, it is so interesting the way we bring our stories. Like money is never money. I mean, it's always a proxy for something else, right? I mean, you have to have seen this so many times. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS

are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is?

You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. We should probably fill in some gaps here because we kind of stopped in your high school years. You end up going to Penn State, studying finance and business

from what I remember. But then you make an interesting pivot. You go to Columbia J School. Yes. What's that about? Well, it was a pivot that I decided to make a few years beforehand. It wasn't like I graduated and go, oh, what am I going to do? Oh, let's do something completely unexpected. I remember I thought I always enjoyed newspaper writing. I loved the idea of being a journalist. I, you know, remember I thought I always enjoyed newspaper writing. I loved the idea of being a journalist. I remember in sixth grade, one of our new projects was to put together a newspaper. I thought that was so fun. I was like, you know, you know, when did

you ever have an experience like that? And when you're young, when your teacher or someone says, we're going to do this. And something inside you just goes, boom, that's it. I've discovered the reason I'm on this planet. And so fast forward to college, I majored in finance because my parents wanted me to major in something that would have an ROI, that I would be able to graduate and get a job and be secure. And so that piece of advice was coming from a good place. But truth be told, I'm not somebody who should ever be doing Excel spreadsheets for Morgan Stanley or any of these places. I'm not that good. I'm okay at math, but my first internship

was at CNBC on the finance sales side. And I remember wanting to be on the other side of the business. I wanted to be the storyteller. I wanted to be on the television. I. And I remember wanting to be on the other side of the business. I wanted to be the storyteller. I wanted to be on the television. I wanted to be, or the producer, like I wanted to be the person who was telling the stories of business and of finance. And so I said, okay, I'm 19 years old. I have two more years in college and I don't want to regret the next 20 years. You know, I want to start trusting my instincts. And this is, you know, a safe risk to take. It's like a safe-ish risk.

I'm not, you know, going to go join the circus. I'm going to apply to journalism schools because it's always something that I've wanted to do. Columbia was always my first choice college. I didn't get in, but I thought maybe I'd have a chance now to get into the journalism school. And so I spent the next two years finishing my finance degree, but pursuing other projects and internships in the media space and in the writing space to be able to present my case. So in the back of your mind, you're like, okay, so I have two years. I want to reverse engineer this. How do I convince the admissions team at these journalism schools that I'm serious,

that I'm not just this confused person who majored in business and now is thinking, well, maybe journalism sounds fun, but that this was always the plan. Right. It's like you're building a body of proof. Yes. Yes. So that summer, I remember doing some research calling, for example, the dean of NYU's journalism school where they had a business and economic reporting program. And turns out he went to Penn State. So I was like, okay rejected NYU. And the second time I got a stern reply back from the dean because I had sounded really interested. And I was. It was the first school that I discovered in my search that seemed to have all the puzzle pieces for me. But ultimately, look, I got into Columbia and it was my first choice. I never thought I would get in. And I thought, well, I have a finance background. I think if I'm going to invest in a school of

journalism, I want to learn all of it. I don't want to just continue the financial journalism route. I want to go to Columbia and be inspired. And if I still come back to financial journalism, great. But I thought, let's see. And also I liked Columbia's program because it was just 10 months versus NYU is close to two years. And I really wanted to get out there and start working. And so I chose Columbia and I'm very happy that I did that. Yeah. So now you get out of Columbia with a master's.

So you have undergrad in finance and business, a master's in journalism. And what year was this around? 2003. Okay. So I went to journalism school the year after 9-11 when nobody wanted to be in New York. No one was scared. And the media is kind of like still kind of crashing and burning. Yes.

Like right around then. Yes. My parents clearly don't want me in New York City at that time. It was a really scary time, but I thought I'm doing this. You know, it's happening. And then I went and I started to work in financial journalism basically right after that. I started in print, worked at Money Magazine. That was really a pivotal experience because I worked. I was a research assistant, the lowest

job you could have there, making the lowest salary you could possibly make there. But I worked for some amazing people. In particular, my editor, she, before anybody had a personal brand, she was a personal brand. She was someone who had a job at the magazine as an editor, but also was an author and a speaker and a radio host. And she was doing a ton of media. She had her own identity outside of the magazine. And I really admired that. I also opened her mail. So I got to see the checks she was rolling in from her speaking fees. And I thought, that's a really good deal she's got going on here for herself. And I really appreciated the way that she had designed her career. And nothing I'd learned in journalism school was really being an entrepreneur within the field of journalism.

So that stayed with me. Yeah. I mean, what was it like for you also to see that this person was a woman? Yes, not to mention. In an industry which especially then was known as being massively, heavily male-dominated. And here's somebody who has built a strong reputation, incredible career, respect. Had kids, seemingly having it all. I really admired her and was one of my first real role models that I could say for sure, you know, this was somebody that I admired and really respected. Yeah. Did she take a sort of mentoring role with you or not so much? A little bit. I

was intimidated still at that point. I'm still someone who has a hard time asking for advice or help. I feel as though, not because I see it as like a weakness, but because I don't, I see it as perhaps like being burdensome. You know, I don't want to, I don't, I want to just show up, do the good work, learn from shadowing. I'm a really quick read. And I just, and you know, I think probably it was the energy that I got back from her. She wasn't, she was very busy. And so, but I appreciated the time that I had with her and we stay in touch still. Yeah. So you're So how quickly do you get validated in your mind? All of these choices have been right. The journalism, yes. Journalism still staying

because you went back into Columbia saying, let me just look at the full swath of what this whole career path could be. And if it lands me back in journalism around money and finance and business, awesome. And if not, that's the way I go too. It did. Was that crystal clear? Like this is sort of like the area of focus that you want it to be. And if so, I'm curious, like why? Of all the possible directions you could take this, it seems like you have a really, I mean, going back to high school, drama and theater and general newspaper stuff, like there is a storytelling narrative arc in your life that is embraced and appreciated and exciting, interesting all at the same time. It's otherwise a really boring topic. And like we talked earlier, people avoid it.

And so I'm up for the – I like being up for a challenge. I think that for me that more than like I thought for a while I wanted to work for People Magazine and interview Brad Pitt all day. I think I would rather watch paint dry. I thought that was what I wanted because it was exciting. But I realized that would get really boring for me really quickly. But money is still the sort of thing where it's so complex for me and for everybody else that there's, look, I'm 15 years into this and I'm still figuring things out and we're all figuring things out together. It's a growth area. And I liked that. And I think also it was a way to quickly differentiate myself in the marketplace. If I just became another journalist who covered just general news or politics. Those are important roles. I'm appreciative to people who cover that. But I don't think that it would, I think it would

be harder for me to stand out as a woman as, and you know, I like to stand out. I like, now I do. I like, you know, I like the attention or whatever you call it. I like being recognized for the work that I do. And I think that because I've picked a career, I picked a niche that is not as concentrated as far as women. And at the time I was a young woman when I started out, I think it helped me excel in my career because I was different. Yeah. It's definitely, it's a really unusual space. But I mean, if you look at money also, it is not the easiest entry point for a storyteller because it maybe it's, you know, it's fascinating, it's complex and it's layered, but there's so much emotion built into it. There's

so many triggers built into it where it's like, you know, recently passed Anthony Bourdain, you know, uses food as the entry point for a conversation around like shared humanity and the human condition, which is this super easy, gentle, innocuous. It's almost like this organic, like everything drops away when you sit around the table and you start with like, you know, your local customs and food. Whereas like when you sit down across the table with somebody and let's talk about money. Well, yeah, it's, and it's become, this is a thing too, Jonathan, because I feel like I've learned so much about how to enter the story. In the beginning of my career, it was like, get your nut graph. You know, it was very technical. I was writing about money, usually about 401ks. There's not a lot of emotion there. But as I grew up and as I got more interested in this and started to realize more about the fact

that there's this whole emotional component and it's such a big component of the money story, it's not just the how-to, but it's the how we got here, it's the why, it's the what happened, that I started to take a page out of other people's notebooks, like people like Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey and really great interviewers. Like how do they, I would literally watch these people, not because I wanted to learn how they interviewed about money, but how do they interview people? How do they get people to trust them, to tell them things that they've never told anybody, especially about your money. I think that that's something that I'm really proud of, you know, that I get,

I've heard this. I just heard this in a meeting the other, just this morning, I was at a meeting and the head of talent, she's like, you just have this way, this disarmingness. Like you came into this meeting, no one knew who you were, but we like you. We don't know why. Hopefully, you know, I drugged them all before I got there. They didn't know they were drinking something very. So anyway, I appreciate that. And I work hard at that. But I think also it's something natural in me. I like to think that I just, I'm not this really intimidating person that, especially

when you're talking about money, you have to learn how to really get people to want to tell you stuff. Yeah. And my sense is people, you know, and I'm so curious, right? Because this is what you've been doing for years. My sense is that people are terrified of talking about it, but at the same time, they really, really, really, really want to talk about it because it's like this thing that like, they feel really uncomfortable talking to anybody else about it. Like nobody else wants to talk about it because it's such a taboo subject. And, and yet there are things that they want to ask and the things we want to know and the things we're like, like, this is what happened. Like, am I just a freak? Is this really weird? Is everybody else experiencing this? Is it just like me? How do I compare to everybody else with this? Is it just like me? How do I compare to

everybody else with this? And what do I do about it? And my sense is that there's like so much bottled up around it that on the one hand, you're really cautious about talking about it. But it's like as soon as you release the valve and you realize like, oh, this is a safe place to have that conversation. Yeah. I like how you said safe place. I hope that I create a safe environment for people to share with me. And you're absolutely right. It's like sex or your relationship or other topics that you feel you have to be hush-hush about it or it's rude. Because money, I think, especially we feel as a society, culturally, it's rude to talk

about money. I've heard people say that. People like Jim Cramer, who hosts a wildly popular show on CNBC about money. And when it comes to his money, he don't want to talk about it because he's been raised, he told me, and you can listen to the episode. I'm not saying anything that's a secret, that he was raised to believe, and he kind of still believes it, that talking about your money and your wealth is rude. It's rude. It's inappropriate. If you're wealthy and you talk about your money, it's like showing largesse and in consideration for other

people who don't have as much. And another guest on my show, one of my favorite topics is talking about how to make more money. I love that versus saving. And one guest said, I said to him, why don't you think, why do you think, I mean, I've covered personal finance for so long. Money Magazine for years didn't have a vertical about how to earn more. It was always like save, get out of debt, invest. And he said, because that is classist. And I was like, go on. He's like, well, because it's sort of one of those things where only so many people can earn more or get a side hustle or get a raise. It's just, again, maybe it's rude to talk about how you want to go out there and make more money. It sort of reveals something about yourself, perhaps, too. This is a stigma that if you're interested in making more money, that you have

your goals all screwed up. Like it shouldn't be about the money. You're maybe selfish. You're chasing the money, things like that. And so those, those mentalities, those ideas get, they trickle down and then they impact the way that we live our lives. Yeah. And I mean, I guess the assumption built into that too is that everybody can take the actions that fall under the category of do this to save money, but not everybody can take the action of falling into the category of do this to make more money, which is, I mean, there's a lot to deconstruct under that.

And there is like, it's, so it's almost like, well, the first part is the inclusive story. And the second part is the exclusive story. And we want to talk to everybody or at least present, you know, like the story that we're talking to everybody. But there's some big assumptions in there. Huge assumptions. But truthfully, I grew up, I think, believing that your salary was given to you. It wasn't a choice. You picked a career and then those careers had

certain salaries associated with them. Never this conversation about going out there and earning your worth or being entrepreneurial and generating your own salary. So I think that even to this day, I hear from people who, for example, are teachers or government workers and like, well, I can't ask for a raise. I'm a salaried worker. There are brackets. And if I want to, there's a way to go out there and make more of your financial life. And that's where I think I hope to think that I differentiate my positioning, my way that I like to mentor and just work with people on money is like, I really have high expectations of people, higher than I think some other financial experts do. I just feel like people have more capabilities than they're willing to admit to themselves sometimes. People ask me questions all the time on my show. And just today, I was having a conversation with somebody on Instagram, a guy from London who was

contemplating a career switch, and he didn't know if he should do it. He was not making a lot of money. He wanted to change to finance because it was going to be more money. And he was mad at me because I hadn't responded in like a month, he says. And I said, well, actually, listen to episode this. I answered your question. Oh, sorry. So we became, we were chatting and I said, so was it helpful what I asked, what I shared? He goes, well, I basically followed your advice, but before I heard it, I just followed my instinct. And I talked to my professor and I talked to some mentors and they said the same thing. So I think people need to give themselves more credit. I think it helps to validate what you are guessing you should do and hear it from somebody else that you trust,

but trust yourself too. I think that we often have the tools and the resources and the know-how. We're not confident yet in that, maybe because no one's told us, like, you can do it. Yeah. I mean, there's no doubt. And I'm of the same mindset that that mindset plays a huge role in that your beliefs that have been passed down through society, through family, and all these different touch points play a huge role in how you see your potential to earn X or 5X or 10X are the ways to do it. And at the same time, then I'm sure you've also had this conversation. I'm so curious, how you navigate this conversation? Somebody who comes to you and says, well, yes, but right now, my education stopped in high school through, not because I wanted to stop in high school, but because a parent passed or I had just really, really tough circumstances. I had to take care of a brother or sister, whatever it may be. And I have been working basically three minimum wage jobs for the last 20 years because of that.

And I have four other people that are relying on me to keep doing that and to support them. And I believe everything you say. And I want to not have to stop focusing on the savings side. I want to do the work to earn more. But how? How for that person? When that person comes to you, what's that conversation like? It's a long conversation usually. It's not just Instagram exchange. Right, because that's not like do these three things. No, it's not like,

ask your boss for a raise because that requires a lot of, it's a multi-pronged effort there. And it may involve some of those dependents that he's responsible for and having some conversations with them. And it may be something that the family has to effort and not just him. He can't maybe do it alone to make this transition. Is his partner working? If she or he is not, and he wants to make this transition, can this person support it? So it's something that I would want to ask a lot of questions about what's realistic. What has he tried? What has he failed? What does he think is possible? And just try to extract as much as I can from him about what would be realistic. And to also really manage expectations

and say, this is not something that's going to change for you next month, but we can start to make some small steps. And that's what I would like to work with him on. You know, just trying to get him a couple of wins in the next few months that makes him start to feel really positive and have a brighter outlook on things. But I think if, you know, for someone like you described, it would involve understanding the whole family dynamic as well. Yeah. So the bigger context is just a huge part of that conversation, I guess. The biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

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One of the things that, so you've written three books now. So Money, the first one, which sounds like it was almost like in a different part of your life. Like that was pretty early out of school, right? It was, I published that, I got the book deal when I was 26. And then it came out in 2008 when I was 28. Right. And then we go from there. Your second book is more kind of a deeper dive around the psychology of money. I'm fascinated by your most recent book. And also it taps into the zeitgeist in so many different ways. I'm sorry, I'm blanking on the name of it again.

When She Makes More. Okay. So the title is pretty descriptive. Where does this come at her from you? And what are some of the big awakenings and surprises around this topic? It arrived in my brain. I was sitting... Okay, so you actually... I'm going to do this the way you like stories to be told. I'm going to say it in the present tense.

So I'm sitting at a bar waiting for my then fiance,iancee, now-husband to come and join me. It's around 5 o'clock. I'm a little early. I've got my notebook. It's around 2010, and I just finished working at Yahoo, probably doing a video on how to clip coupons. And I'm sitting at the bar drinking a wine, and I'm thinking, okay, I really want to write another book.

I really do. And I really feel that this one should be dedicated to women. I knew that. Don't ask me why, but I just felt that that's a good place to start because, well, I'm a woman and I feel as though my audience increasingly is becoming female. And I'm really passionate about helping women and their money. And the struggle now is what next? So it can't just be a book about women and money. And there are plenty of good books out there that help women with their finances. They've all been written. So what's my contribution? And my 11th grade teacher, Mrs. Perchuk, always said to us, when you're putting pen to paper and you want to write

something important, write what you know. Don't write something where you're putting pen to paper and you want to write something important, write what you know. Don't write something where you're pretending or you have to sort of stretch yourself to bring the reader in. And so I started to reflect on my life. Like what are some big money questions that I'm having in my life that I've yet to tackle? And it was staring right at me. It was, you know, I'm getting married in a few months and my mother won't get off my back about the fact that my husband is not the breadwinner, probably won't be for the foreseeable future, that despite the fact that I've done everything she wanted me to do, and my dad as well, to go out there and get my multiple degrees and ask for the raise, they were very forward about that, Negotiate, Farnoosh. Make sure you max out your 401k. Look, bought a house when I was 26. I did all the right things. And I felt that

nobody was giving me a high five. At least the people who should have been my parents, I felt like there was still some disappointment there because I didn't marry up or I wasn't about to marry up as the saying goes in terms of money. And I said, this is an issue for me. And I don't like that it's an issue for me. Thankfully, it wasn't really impacting my relationship with Tim. He and I obviously knew what was going on, but we didn't, we kind of just tried to brush it off, but it's hard. It's hard. It's still, it sticks. It stays with you all day when you feel like you can't now share things with your mom and

your dad about your life because you're worried about being judged, that they're not going to understand. And so it did impact my relationship with my family. Even to be honest, to this day, it's definitely clammed things up a bit. And so I make more than my husband. I'm the breadwinner. So on my phone, my Blackberry, I think at that point, because I don't think I had an iPhone. I was like, okay, Google search terms, study breadwinning women, America. And I didn't really find a lot of content on this. I found a few studies. I did learn that it's an increasing trend. And then I thought, none of my friends know about

this. And God help me if anyone found out. And that was another awakening. Well, I felt that it would unfairly label us in a way like, oh, I mean, I'll give you, because when I did tell, for example, my college roommate, she was shocked and she kind of looked at me weird, like sideways, like you make more than 10? As if like, but he's a software engineer. I thought they made, I thought software, so how much money? Because normally at that point, like I don't share to my friends, you know, all my revenue streams. They think I'm just this poor freelance writer.

So they were confused and also probably internalizing a little bit. This woman, this my friend who was sort of like confused, she had given up her PhD path to marry her husband because it meant just, it was a good decision for her at the time, but then she had opted out of the workforce for a while. So we were in completely different places economically and professionally. And I think maybe she was internalizing a little bit and thinking, but I don't understand this, you know, and she thought we were equals maybe, and now we're not in her mind somewhere like financially. So that's why, Jonathan, because I knew it was going to be another side of it. I knew there was going to

be a lot of confusion and judging. And I was scared for Tim. I didn't want him to be unfairly judged, especially because it's harder for the men sometimes because society still expects men largely to get married and be the bridewinners. Pew did a study a couple years before my book came out that said that definitively, like 67% of Americans believe that it is the man's responsibility primarily to provide for the family, not the woman. So we're facing some headwinds here, and I wanted none of that. But I thought, this is a great idea for a book because this is exactly the sort of debates that we should be having. I want to open up the lines of communication. I want to help marriages. I want to help myself. I want to better my relationship with my parents. I want

a better relationship with my husband. I started just spending the next two years diving deep into this. And I wrote the topic in my book and started to talk to other friends about it. And in secret, usually like meeting at a bar, talking like friends I knew who made more than their boyfriends or husbands. And it's okay, I'll tell you everything, but just don't write my name down. Can you believe it? This was just 2010. And so the book came out in 2014. It was a long haul, but I'm happy I took every necessary step to

write that book. And someone said to me recently, what's something that you've discovered about yourself since the book came out? And I said that I think part of me wasn't being as truthful as I should have been about why I was the breadwinner in my marriage. I think that I, again, wanted to protect our lives and say, well, you know, don't, no one's the bad guy here. Like no one planned for this. I'm just making more because it's how my career was designed and I have revenue streams and my husband has the salary. So there you go. But we do equally important work and there you have it. And then I thought, no, because I thought about not being the breadwinner and it scares me

a little bit. As much as that scares me to be the breadwinner, it's a lot of pressure to provide. You know, it's true. It's not going to make it sound like it's rainbows and apple pie every day being the one who has to pay the bills, but I'm so grateful for the role. I feel myself. I feel me. I feel like this is who I was supposed to be. And it's because of 38 years of hardwiring. I grew up scared about being kidnapped by a man because my mother instilled the fear of God in me because we grew up, again, remember Worcester, Massachusetts, high crime statistics. And the only way she knew how to protect me was to tell me that every stranger was a bad person. And I equated that to usually men. So every time I had a substitute teacher in kindergarten one day, and it was a guy, never seen him before, scared my mind,

out of my mind. I ran out of the classroom, down the hallway, pounding on the glass door of like the neighboring second grade teacher. I was in kindergarten. She came out. What's wrong, Farnoosh? There's a man in our classroom, and he says that our teacher's not here today, and he's here now, and I don't understand. And so she took my hand and walking back to class, I'm sobbing, I'm shaking. And I guess this happened enough where they had to have a parent-teacher conference with my mom and dad. I'm like, is everything okay at home? She's afraid of men. No, everything's okay. We promise. We're not that kind of family. But then also I saw that. So that was one moment of financial literacy in some way, like having a fear of men. That transferred into seeing how sometimes men can control money. So my dad controlled the money in our relationship and it made my mom miserable.

So that experience compounded the experiences I had as a little, little kid. Fast forward to getting married. I wanna be in a place where I run my financial life. I don't wanna hand it over to anybody else, let alone, I love my husband, but I have those fears still in me of being dependent. And for me, the only way to protect myself is to protect my money and be

financially independent. Now I'm not saying like he can't make more than me and I can't make the same, but I want to always feel in control of my financial life. And so it's no coincidence, I think that I arrived in a relationship where I felt like I could practice that. Yeah. I mean, was it about being the breadwinner or was it about earning whatever it was you needed, regardless of how much your partner made, so that you knew that no matter what, you would be completely fine?

I think it's the latter. Because if Tim ended up becoming a startup millionaire, I would be fine with that. And he works in startup. I'd be like, it's so happy for everybody and him especially. I've always said it's something that I wish for him to be the breadwinner for a period of time in our relationship because it's an awesome responsibility. It really comes with a lot of pride and you just feel, I don't know, it's an unmatched feeling, but I would still want to make sure that I had my own stash and that I was protected and that I

could buy whatever I wanted, not ask for permission or check in, you know, things like that. Yeah. So for you, it's really, it's not about being able to sort of like go out into the world and say, I'm the breadwinner. It's about autonomy. It's about whatever perception of security you can sort of like gout and garner for yourself. I mean, it's interesting also because that's one side of the conversation, right? And then we're seeing a very different side of the conversation unfold in a very public way over the last few years in terms of quality. Tell me about sort of like how you, how you experienced those

kind of two sides of the same conversation. A thousand percent. I think that one of the best things I ever read about the Me Too movement and also anything to do with gender wage gap, any, all of these really complex issues and important issues regarding women and money and equality and power. And it's always about, it always has something to do about money. You know, these women,

let's just take an example with like Harvey Weinstein and the Me Too movement. Some of the best stuff that I've read that's come out of that, sort of the epiphanies that women have been having. And I'm so happy we're having these conversations. It's like, think about the women who were the victims. A lot of times they didn't have a lot of money. They wanted to be successful. They were ambitious. They were working in an industry that was male dominated.

They were vulnerable. just those few sentences. You hear that and you're like, okay, you're set up for failure. Because most important, what I hear from that is you don't have the money to walk away. A lot of these women have said, I was victimized. I felt like I didn't have a choice because I needed the job. I needed the job. And I get that. I think that's a real need. I needed the money. I was worried that I was going to be blacklisted from the industry, which they probably would have been. Those are real, real threats. And there was a woman who wrote an article about how when she first entered Hollywood, she wanted to be an actress. And she quickly learned how scary of a proposition that

was. That's scary for her because she was getting harassed and et cetera, all those terrible things we hear about. So she started taking writing classes and started to enter the Writers Guild and started to make some money that way. And so the next time someone tried to mess with her, she could say, screw you. I'm out of here and walk away. Now, it's not that simple. I'm not saying money is going to save every woman who gets harassed or, you know, but it helps, right? To feel like you have the ability, the financial ability to walk away and not, that's no longer a threat. If he's threatening you with not giving you the job, that's okay. You have money. You can get another job. You can make your own money. It's just, I feel like someone said true agency is when a woman is financially independent.

What is agency? The ability to practice your power of choice and to make decisions for yourself. And I see it as like walking away from dangerous situations. Money is power and money for me, I've seen it in my life and in others' lives, men, women, money is freedom. It can be if you know how to leverage it. Yeah. I guess that's the big if. I mean, we have so many associations. I agree. I mean, I think money earned in a certain way and for certain reasons is incredible. It can buy freedom from and freedom to in a lot of good ways in life. And at the same time, if you earn it purely as a way to heal certain wounds without ever actually understanding the deeper nature of those wounds, you can amass a mountain of wealth and still be as unhappy, as wounded, as struggling as you ever. It's so interesting because I've seen

and experienced both sides of extreme, extreme wealth and poverty. You have experienced it? No, no, no. Oh, you've seen it. Yeah, I've seen it. I've been involved with people who are different ends of the spectrum. And the relationship between that and happiness, it's not just like a straight thing. Like these are the two things, you know, like there's happiness and there's money and there's like a certain thing. And when you, you know, I have seen astonishingly wealthy people who have

like gone out and said, I want my freedom. I want independence. I want autonomy. I want power. Therefore I will accumulate wealth. And they do, more than anybody else on the planet. And they still feel trapped. They still feel powerless. They still feel wounded. And so I think, yes, it's a really important part of the conversation and the equation for so many people. It's not the variable. Right. And there's still stuff that underlies that for so many of us that you can get there and be sitting on. I've seen so many people actually accumulate astonishing wealth and be far less happy because now not only have they reflected on and worked through the dysfunctional part of the motivation to accumulate the wealth, but now they have this wealth, which they feel makes them a target. So now they have the added anxiety of waking up each day and doing everything possible to protect themselves. So it's really interesting. And then on the other side of the

spectrum, I've known people who have very little, they can cover their baseline needs, but they have, you know, like just mesmerizing relationships with family or with kids or with siblings or with friends. They live very simple lives and they're so much more content and fulfilled and happier on a day-to-day basis than the person on the other side of the spectrum. So completely agree. It's a part of the conversation. It's a part of the conversation so many of us, we don't have, and there's nothing wrong with accumulating wealth. And still, there's a lot underneath it that determines happiness and satisfaction with life. I very much agree with everything you said. I think I'm mostly focused on the people who are in the middle, right? Who, back to these women, for example, who were preyed upon and continue to be preyed upon. They're not destitute. They're not super wealthy. They're just trying to make ends meet and very fragile, financially fragile. And so the next job would mean a lot to them. That next

paycheck would make their world go around. And there's this huge threat. So I do agree though. Yeah. There's plenty of people I've interviewed on my podcast who are still broken. You know, you got to put in the work. It's not about obviously accumulating money that's going to save you, but there is a, there is a point to which money can really help get you just the basics and make it get, have you feel that basic sense of security and togetherness and whole. And then from there, it's not about the money. It's really just about the relationships, the connections, the work. Yeah.

And no doubt. I also, I'm not just doing it at all that in especially for somebody where like your chosen industry like that the path to realization and possibility and expression just happens to be like the most conventional path happens to take you through an ecosystem and a culture which is opportunistic and abusive i mean that's brutal it's really scary. It's really why I gave up on that. And I just didn't want to deal with all the competition. I mean, talk about also competitiveness, right? I loved theater. I loved everything to do with acting and performance. But when it came time to really decide if I was going to major in it or pursue it. I just didn't have the stomach for it.

And I had a girlfriend in high school. She and I were both very active in theater and she ended up going to law school and becoming an entertainment lawyer. And I went to journalism school and becoming a journalist. And we met up like 20 years later and she said, you know, I'm so glad I didn't pursue acting. Because now she said her office is outside of a casting agent and, you know, I'm so glad I didn't pursue acting. Because now she said her office is outside of a casting agent. And, you know, she's an entertainment lawyer in-house. And she said, these people who come in who've been trying to break into acting for 15 years. And they're doing another dog food commercial audition. And it's just, you know, I love acting, but not that much.

Yeah, it's a tough business. It's so hard. And credit to everybody who pursues that passion. There's a limit to how much I can stomach. Yeah. So as we sit here today, you also become a parent. So you've got two kids. When you think about the idea of financial literacy and being open and frank about money and life and happiness and with two way to prepare yourself. I was just having a conversation with some moms this morning before I came here who have older children. My kids are 15 months and four years old, and their children were in their teen years or tween years. And one mom said, my son wanted to know how much money his father and I make, and what do I tell him? And I thought I had an answer for her, but then as we talked, clearly like she had tried and it failed. So I said to her, you know, just, I know what you shouldn't say. So don't tell him it's none of his business or, you know,

it's rude or how could you, or go back to your room as some things maybe my parents would have said, but rather really, I encourage her to really explore his curiosity. Like just keep, just keep asking, probing him. Like he's asking you the question and you feel like you have to come up with an answer right away. Don't. Ask him what makes him interested. If I tell you, how will it change things for you? Right. And, and then, you know, depending on the age, if, if, if we're talking about someone who's 13, 14, who could really get it, say, you know what, I really understand that you want to know, and I think when I was your age, I really wanted to know, but, you know, there are just certain things that we will tell you in good time, in due time, and this is just not the time. You know, we want to mostly for you to be concerned with the fact that mom and dad work

hard. We really enjoy our living. We provide in a way that's meaningful to us. We don't have the same life as other people. Other people may seem richer or not as well off, but that should not, like those are important observations, but it's not about the number. It's not about the salary. And I will tell you one day, but, you know, I want you to focus on some other things instead, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then if you feel like you can tell your kid and they're not going to make it, you know, school bus chatter, then tell your kid. You have to sort of know your kid too. That's the other thing. Like, I wouldn't have been the kid that would share that information necessarily in the high school paper, you know, but I was curious and I probably, I think my dad

did tell me at one point, but I might've been graduating from high school college when sort of, you know, just tell your kid at that point, what's the difference. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that I work from home with my wife and- Yeah. What would you do if you're- My daughter is like, you know, bopping in and out all day. And she sees, you know, what we do. She sees what we put out into the world. If she really wanted to, she could run the numbers herself, to be honest.

You know, there's some things she couldn't, but some things she could. If she asked, I think at this point, you know, like we'd sit down with her and say, like, here's the way things work with us. I think more it's like getting to what you were saying. I like the fact that she sees us working really hard and also pursuing things that matter to us and also failing and then coming back from that and then figuring out like navigating ways around it. And I think at this point, you know, if like a detailed money conversation came up, I think she's also, like you said, like, I know her, like, I know she's a very discreet kid. I grew up with the, you know, being told, you know, like,

you don't really talk about money. And I probably still kind of adhere to that. At least, you know, like you don't go saying like publicly, this is what I'm making. This is what I make. What good is it? I mean, I, I'm happy to talk to girlfriends and other people about what they should charge because this is what I've charged. I think that's, especially for women, to be able to kill the gender gap. It's important for us to have that dialogue. Maybe we're not all comfortable just doing it all publicly, but certainly if one-on-one people want to talk about it with me, I'm more than happy to have that coffee. But yeah, I mean, can you imagine if we all went around wearing Post-its that said how much money we make every year? We'd rather- That would be kind of interesting. We'd rather post our 23andMe results on a cloud, public cloud somewhere than tell anybody.

Although some entrepreneurs I know they're all about sharing and being transparent about how they make their money. But I think that world is really unique in that it's a world where, at least in tech entrepreneurship, you're not really judged for your failures. It's almost becomes like, you know, failures pivot. Like there's a word which makes it okay.

You know, which is like, okay, but most of the rest of the world is like, no, no, no, you're only as good as your last big win. And we still associate so much of our self-worth with net worth that, especially when you're nine years old and you're asking this question to a nine-year-old brain, if your daughter or your son finds out

that mom makes 50,000 a year, but Cheryl's mom down the street makes 65,000 a year, is my mom less worthy? And so you don't want to create those thought bubbles just yet if you can control it. So focusing more on what prompted this question. Sometimes you might find out that your child is scared because they heard they were at a sleepover and someone's dad lost his job and the family's struggling and maybe they're asking you, what they're really asking you is, are we secure? You know, do we have money?

And it's coming out as, you know, how much do you make? But it could just be that they're nosy and they want to know how much you make. It's like all the kids are making a chart on the bus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's an Excel spreadsheet. Who are we going to hit up more when it comes time for like the fundraising for the class or something like that? There's a teacher involved.

Right. So as we sit here now and you've built like this, like really beautiful career, doing so much of the work that you love, earning what makes you comfortable. Do you feel the way you thought you would feel back then when you projected yourself here? I don't think I ever thought about how I would feel. I know that's a little sad. I didn't think about the feeling. I thought about the life. I thought about the ease and the comfort of the life. I thought about affording myself choices. I worked really hard in my 20s and strategically and saved and all of that good

stuff because I knew as a woman, I also wanted the family and I wanted the happily ever after. And to me, those were two very hard things to have going on at the same time. And it really, I had role models who were doing it both, but it was the struggle, you know, it was hard as work, especially as a woman to be at the forefront of a career and the forefront of parenting and have a strong marriage and have time for yourself. And so to the best of my ability, I worked really hard so that I could arrive in my thirties when I knew I was ready for marriage and ready for family, that I could afford to slow it down if I wanted, change things up if I wanted, but most importantly, be present and not have to answer to somebody else as far as, can I take time off to go to my son's

recital or whatever? You know what I mean? And I saw too many parents have to make those hard choices in the corporate world when I worked. And so I was looking forward to a day where I would be able to, so I guess this is a feeling, feel free, feel like, ah, I can, that I had control, that I was driving the ship more so than I was in my 20s when I was still answering to a boss and still living a bit paycheck to paycheck. But nothing prepares you for the emotional overload of being a parent, right? Everyone says it's like the love you never thought existed. I love my husband, but I love my kids more, let's be honest. I love them differently. I love them. I just can't stop squeezing them. I can't stop hugging them. I keep looking at them. Like, no, every day is like the first day I'm looking at my kids. You know, I notice new things. I notice new quirks. Like, especially at this stage when they're still like, they're different humans week by week.

You know, we noticed that, for example, my son who's just turned four, in the last two months, he's had a vocabulary overflow. But more than words, just the way that he's structuring his sentences and becoming more autonomous and not really asking to do things, just doing them. And that's a source of pride, but also sometimes he does things he shouldn't. And so it's just every day is different. It's exhausting. No one had that sign and I didn't know it was going to be this tiresome. Looking forward to the day where I can get eight hours of sleep, five nights in a row. When my daughter, my daughter's the younger of the two, she was born and was a different sleeper. She was not sleeping through the night. She would sleep during the day, which is not a good time for the parents. So one night, Saturday night, again, not sleeping. I'm delirious. And I'm thinking, there has to be a way, a better way. There has to be a better way.

So I went on the internet and someone had told me something about a night nurse. And I thought maybe that was just if you had a medical condition and that's when the hospital would give you a night nurse. But no, there are women and men out there who will come to your house for 12-hour stretches and just be there for your child in the middle of the night and you can go to sleep. So this was the biggest investment of 2017 between the two of us. I'm like, we might not retire, but we're going to get some sleep now in our thirties. So I hired this wonderful woman who came to our house and we kind of didn't believe it, but yeah, she just would watch. She would be, she sleep trained Colette. And by the time she left, we were in tears. It was again, like, I'm not something I anticipated, but you know,

you asked the question, did you think you would feel the way that you feel? And I think I feel in some ways, yes. In some ways, there's no way to prepare for the way that you're going to feel at this stage in your life. And you just have to hope that you have good people around you. You have some basics nailed down. I'm so grateful for the childcare that we have. I'm so grateful that our home is a place where I can work and parent in the same environment. And my husband can walk to work. That's a huge plus. Someone asked me the day, like, does your husband like his new job? I said, yes, but I think he loves the work conditions even more. He likes the community even better. Because before that he was on the subway to Midtown every day and it was just terrible. It's funny that the first, my earliest exposure to

positive psychology was Jonathan Haidt's book, The Happiness Hypothesis. And in that he identified some research that showed that there were like four things. We habituate to everything in life, positive and negative, except for four things. And among the one thing we never habituate to is a long commute. It always makes us less happy. So let's kind of come full circle here. So as we're hanging out, Good Life Project, if I offer out the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life, it requires being extremely honest with yourself and being able to act on your truths. You know, I would think I was, it's something that for me has come with experience and age and watching others do this, but, and I probably have still some work to do in this area, but

really being able to trust your gut and listen to yourself and know, like really witness the demons too that you grew up with, you know, and be like, okay, that happened to me and I'm going to compartmentalize that. I'm going to recognize that, but I want to actually live a good life that speaks to what I want to do, that speaks to what makes me happy, that I feel is really my truest self. And that's different for everybody. It's a constant, I think, work in progress. It's constantly involves checking in with yourself. And I think, you know, I'll use our marriage as an example. We've been married now six years. We celebrate our anniversary this weekend. And marriage is hard, Jonathan. It is this living, breathing thing. And I think I always thought it was going to be like the first day we met,

right? But it's different. It's different love. It's a different connection. It's deeper connection, but it's also like we spend less time together, so it's less of each other. And I get worried sometimes that maybe we're not going to be strong enough to see this through. You get through those periods in your marriage. But I have found that when I'm able to be really honest with my husband and share and say things that I can't believe I'm saying out loud, Those are the best moments because I feel like that's what helps us to ultimately work things through and get stronger and arrive at most days feeling like this is a good life. You know, a lot of days you're tired and you can't believe it's two in the morning and you're still up.

But it's an example that I use because I think my marriage is very important to me. It's something that I didn't get any kind of rule. My parents never gave me any marriage advice. They gave me a lot of career advice and money advice and negotiating advice. But I feel like I had to learn the hard way how to be in a relationship and relate to someone else intimately. But for me, it's been the greatest source of joy because it's hard work and because I also know, hopefully, that I can't take it for granted. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.

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