Good Life Project - Success Interrupted [and reimagined] | Sharon Epperson

Episode Date: January 28, 2020

Sharon Epperson is CNBC's senior personal finance correspondent, appears regularly on the syndicated program On the Money and Public Television's Nightly Business Report, as well as NBC's TODAY and NBC Nightly News. Her book, The Big Payoff: 8 Steps Couples Can Take to Make the Most of Their Money-and Live Richly Ever After, was a finalist for the Books for a Better Life Awards. Epperson was the first woman of color to report on the commodities markets, a highly-successful reporter and professor at Columbia when she suffered a brain aneurysm that nearly took her life, then led to a years-long recovery and a new lens on how she wanted to live, work, play, love and make meaning.You can find Sharon Epperson at: Instagram | Website | Twitter-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) 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.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. 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.

So my guest today, Sharon Epperson, grew up in Pittsburgh during a kind of a changing landscape in the 70s and 80s when the city built by steel was rapidly transforming itself and raised by parents who are lifelong educators. She developed this deep sense of curiosity about people and their stories, along with a love of writing and speaking as a way to discover and share them. That led her eventually in high school into the world of journalism, as early as 10th grade actually, where she would then find herself being taken under the wing of a community of black journalists, writers, and correspondents, among others,

who helped not only foster her growing curiosity and shape her skills, but also opened her eyes to what was possible. Graduating eventually from Harvard, then Columbia, she became a correspondent focusing on finance, eventually landing at CNBC and NBC, where she continues to have a really regular air-on presence to this day. But it was something that nobody saw coming, a brain aneurysm in September of 2016 that would lead to immediate life-saving surgery and a years-long recovery that would also profoundly change the course of her life while adding a new devotion beyond work and family and community, which are already so important to her with a kind of a renewed focus on advocacy for wellness, for brain health, aneurysm awareness, and so much

more. Really excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. 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 X. 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. Your family, education was a huge thing. Yes. Tell me more about that. So my father was the dean of the school of social work at the University of Pittsburgh for almost 30 years.

So the University of Pittsburgh and that college community was a really big part of our lives. But he was also civically active in the community with the YMCA and the Urban League. And so serving, you know, serving in the community and serving the city of Pittsburgh and bringing the world to Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh to the world was also important to him. And your mom was also a teacher. My mom was a teacher, a first grade teacher, a kindergarten teacher. So she was very interested in making sure, and it was now as a mom, I realized how special it was to have a first grade teacher as a mom. She was very up on what was going on with the schools and the teachers and the school system. But she made learning at home really fun. When we were younger and you could walk to school, I don't know, those days, if anybody remembers that, you walk to school and you walk home for lunch and you walk back to school,

but she would have colored lunches. So an orange lunch would be orange slices and grilled cheese sandwiches and maybe a little orange juice and maybe a little orange sherbet, which nobody even knows what that is now, but it was great. It was really, really a great place to grow up and to be there with people who were very interested in studies and making sure that we did well in school, but also were a part of the community and were given back to. Yeah.

How did that sense of sort of like civic responsibility show up? I think it showed up in the ways that we were involved in our church. We went to the same church that my mother grew up in, my sister and I attended. It showed up in our involvement as a family with the YMCA and doing things with the YMCA, with my father, who was the board chair for many years in Pittsburgh, and also the national board chair for YMCA USA for many years. So we traveled the world with him as he traveled the world for the Y. And we got to see some interesting places. My mom did much more, but we did as kids a little bit too. And meeting people from all over also. So what was interesting

being in a university community, but also being part of an organization that had international connections, it was important for him to bring people from Kenya or people from Gambia or different places to our, you know, from Hong Kong to our home and for, you know, holidays and things like that. And then for him to go back and also visit those places and bring students also to the university. So it was interesting to grow up that way and to see, in my mother's case, you know, now as a mom, I get it. Being a full-time mom is a full-time job, and you're in the community because you're

just trying to get your kids from here to there and to meet people. But she was also active and has been active as a board member on different educational boards and stuff in the city but having a passion for something outside of your quote profession or occupation I think it really fueled my dad and my mom and now I realize in my career I need that and so I'm finding that now in my life that I really want to have something that it can, there are ways for, to combine them. There are ways to make them that, that one really feeds off the other, but having that, that, that passion for something in terms of, for me, it's advocacy in terms of healthcare

and mental health and brain health and all of that. It's, it's, it's great. Yeah. It's really great. It's so interesting that you say that too, because it sounds like both parents did have a deep passion for their actual vocation, for their career. So it's interesting to hear you say that, yes, and. That's great. That's awesome. It's an aspiration, I think, for everybody. But there's still this idea of, and there's something outside of that that you can devote yourself to and get that similar feeling.

Yeah. It doesn't have to end there. And I think people really are inspired and motivated by people who have something that's outside of that career that they're passionate about, that they're passionate about as well. Yeah. What were you into as a kid? What sort of like was the thing that lit you up? Well, my instrument when I was a kid was a recorder. And I never graduated from that to a flute.

My sister did. She became very good, but I never really. And piano lessons didn't go very, very far. I always loved to write. I must say that some kids, I guess, had the sport. Both my children do sports. I didn't do that as a child. I wasn't great at, at, um, music, although I was in the choir with Billy Porter, Tony Award, Tony Award winner and multiple award winner. Yes. Yes. I was an alto and he was the choir. Um, basically. Why is that not surprising? Yeah, exactly. But I loved telling stories and I

really enjoyed writing. And I had a phenomenal English teacher when I was in high school. And she also ran an elective that she called Journalism 101, the working elective. And she said, you know, this is not going to be one of those where you sit back and you just get the grade. You're going to have to work, but we'll have a good time. And we'll do an advertising campaign and you'll get to write stories for the school paper. And I had her as a freshman. So I was like, wow, that's a big deal. That's the seniors get to write for the paper. And, you know, we'll try a radio show on a cassette tape. We'll try to do one of those. And it was just so inspiring. And then she

said to me one day, she said, I got a flyer from the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation, and they're starting a journalism workshop on Saturdays. And local journalists are going to be teaching you about journalism. Do you think you'd be interested in something like that? And it was at the local community college, and there was free food. And I said, yes, I'll try it. It wasn't too far from home. I did that for 12 Saturdays during the spring of my freshman year, or maybe it was my sophomore year, but I did for three years. And I met all of the local black journalists, not that it seems like, well, were there many? There were, there were really, you know, bylines that I read, faces I saw on TV, voices I heard on the radio. And

they fueled me to want to become a journalist. I wanted to be them. And I loved, I just loved that workshop. I love the energy that the people brought. Again, going outside of your day-to-day, still fulfilling your passion, but working with kids in the community, some of whom now have their own production companies, some of whom have won Pulitzers, some of whom are dancing and making their New York debut at Alva Ailey this year. We've all done all different types of things, some staying in journalism and some doing totally different professions, but it was just a great, great way to fundamentally learn about communication, about community and about, you know, finding out what career was really going to be the right one for you. Yeah. I mean, I'm curious also, what was it like for you to see not just a role model of people who are doing this thing, but, but a representation, people who look like you.

It was huge. It was huge. You know, they're still my mentors. They're still my friends. And those of us who are in the classes together, we're still colleagues. Oh, that's amazing. And it is amazing.

It really is amazing that we're able to, a couple of years ago, maybe it was just last year, I worked on a production. I've worked a couple times on a production with my best friend who launched her own production company in D.C., was in the journalism workshop for two or three years like I was. And now we're able to, you know, work on a project together, do a conference together. I'm still, until as journalism changes and certain media entities go by the wayside, you know, those people are not there. But some of my mentors were on the air until just a few years ago. So 30 years on the air. So being able to go home and see them every time I came home

or working at CNBC doing a radio spot for KDKA radio and having people who are the anchors that were my mentors when I was in high school. It's just it was just phenomenal. Yeah, that's so amazing. So when you when it comes time for you to leave high school and then go to college, you end up in Harvard to do your undergrad. What were you starting there? Sociology and government. What was behind that choice? People. I love studying people. And my dad was at the School of Social Work. So I guess I saw what's the closest thing to that maybe in the Harvard curriculum. And then my father was very interested in law and he never became a lawyer, but I think he was very interested in, you know, knowing that I knew something about the law and about government.

And he got a lawyer out of the family, not me, my younger sister, but I think he wanted something that was more tangible and I don't, you know, for me to add to it. And I was no, I had no problem with that. But the reason why I was a double major in sociology and government was more, I think he had some influence in me thinking toward maybe doing something in government. But what I did with my, again, with my free time or, you know, kind of as I was doing my professional development, career development while doing my liberal arts studies were internships in television and working for different publications while I was in school. So that really, that was definitely part of my college education. Also working for WCVB in Boston, working on the documentary Eyes on the Prize. I mean, those were just as important as the thesis I did as the senior, the title, which I cannot remember. It's like, as soon as it's turned in and accepted, it's like, it's out of the mind.

It's interesting that you brought up like that was, you know, sort of what your dad wanted potentially also. Curious about the overlay between you figuring out what do I want and also growing up in this family where it seems like you had really loving, really involved, really intelligent parents who also really were next versus going back and forth between what I kind of feel like maybe my parents think is the appropriate path? Yeah. So I still have what my husband sometimes calls, he sometimes says, why are they in your head? Why do you let your parents be in your head? They're always in my head. They're in my head. They're in my spirit.

They're guiding everything I do. My father passed away in 2011, but he's with me every moment. I just spoke to my mom, as I said, before I came here to see you. So we're very close. But I never felt like, you know, there's so much out there now about Tiger Mom and helicopter parenting. I never felt that way. I never felt that I had parents that were like that, that they were involved and they were wanting to guide me in terms of making sure that I did the best I could or had the opportunities that I could. But they didn't force me to do anything.

And I never felt pressure to live up to anything in particular. I would say that being the only black dean for a very long time at the University of Pittsburgh, you know, and being very involved in the community, there are a lot of folks that looked up to my dad and knew who he was and he would be recognized because he wore a suit everywhere he went. But I didn't feel like that was, I felt proud of that. There wasn't something that made me worry that would I ever be able to live up to that or live up to expectations. It inspired me to want to be like that. And the same for my mom, knowing every person for the longest time she'd come to the 10-hour train ride from Pittsburgh to New York to come visit,

she would inevitably have about three different stories of very deep conversations she'd had people about their whole life story. Everyone knows her. Everybody wants to get to know her better and hear what's going on. So that was a strong influence, but it wasn't something that made me, that ever worried me about feeling pressure or living up to or anything. It was more of a motivating, I think, factor. And so that's what I think about now with my children and in this frenzy that we're in and living in New York of making sure that they just

see this is how I did it. But I'm not saying you have to do it this way. I just want to let you know these are the opportunities. But it's hard when there's so many people around you that are really creating that, you know, well, they're going to do this, aren't they? And they're going to apply here, aren't they? And they're going to take this test, aren't they? And they're going to take, and at seven, if you're telling me my child should take this particular extracurricular activity because it looks great on a college resume, I just don't get it. Yeah. I'm in the same boat with you. And I think especially we're in this weird bubble in New York where it's like, you know, there are people who are tracking their kids for college in preschool, which for the life of me, I can't, I just don't understand.

Because what happens if your kid hits 10th grade and realizes, actually, college isn't even for me? Exactly. Exactly. Where is your kid's sense of identity and free will and agency in that whole equation. And having worked now for almost 20 years at CNBC and looking at entrepreneurs and the backgrounds that they have, the lack of a college degree or the Ivy League education, there is no set path for success, at least that, you know, for success in any way. But for the material success that many people look at, there's no set path for that. And I think it's important for people to realize and to also realize what I'm really hoping my kids get from me also is that success is not what you see

in this physical world. You know, success is what you make of it, how you feel about yourself. I want them to feel strong, empowered. I can do anything and I have the support of my family, my friends, my faith to get me there. That's success to me. Yeah. So agree with you. I mean, I think it's just, if you look at people further down the road, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, God willing, right? And you ask them, you know, about their regrets or about the things that truly are valuable to them. You know, yes, we all want to certainly earn enough to be able to baseline, cover ourselves and feel like we're okay. But beyond that, you know, it is, it's the kindness. It's the depth of your relationships, you know.

And it's the gratitude. Yeah. And being humble. Wow. Of realizing this just didn't happen to you. You know, this was given to you. And you earned it. You may have earned it.

You may have worked hard. But a lot of people work hard, you know. So when it happens and when the good graces befall you, you need to be grateful. Yeah. And I'm curious now, so when you're stepping back, when you were in Harvard, were you able to access that lens, that set of values in the culture of sort of like the academic culture and very often the very driven and predefined sort of like notions of success. I'm trying to, I'm trying to recall the, that particular four year period in terms of how I,

how I felt about that. I think I was, I was concerned about getting my first Bs. I was somewhat concerned about, you know, when you're with a cohort where everyone has been the top of their class and everyone has excelled at things, trying to figure out how you continue to excel at something, that was a challenging time. On the other hand, it was really motivating and invigorating, again, to find my niche of other African-American students who had been in the top of their class, who had gotten to Harvard, many of whom were actually first-generation college students, and some who were, there were very few, if any, legacies or anything like that. This was a very new experience for many of us to be in this type of institution. And we would just talk about really interesting things. And we had a Sunday dinner where we'd

always all get together and have conversations. And then we also did the things that kids do in college with parties and all of that. The one thing I remember, even touring the school, which was true, at least the way I approached it, one of the students who did a college tour was like, you may not go out Friday and Saturday night, but you'll go out Friday or Saturday night. For me, I didn't think people at Harvard went out anywhere. So that was fine. But the reality was I really couldn't, you know, it was the, there were Friday or Saturday nights where I had to study, or at least I had to get sleep so that I could study the next on Sunday. So I remember that. And again, I went beyond the Harvard community. So going into, now I can't

remember the area, but going outside of Cambridge and into Boston to go to Blackside to that production company. And, you know, going past all these different neighborhoods that this particular bus route, I remember, would be really fancy and then really not. And then, you know, just being able to see the community that I was living in and not just be in that bubble of being on campus, that was important. I think that was a really good part of my college experience. And then a summer I spent working for the Boston Globe where I had to go into the communities and cover and all of that, that through line really, the through line of being the person who leads with curiosity, who tells the stories of other people, that really started in earnest in 10th grade and it just never stopped. No, it never stopped.

And it still hasn't stopped. Yeah. It still hasn't stopped. stories every day, you know, I'm touched by somebody and, and it's a story that, you know, that, that I'm eager, that I'm eager to share and eager to learn from. So I enjoy it. I really do enjoy it. Yeah. 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 X. 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 going to 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. You end up going from Harvard to Columbia. Mm-hmm. And then out into the world of, I guess you started out, was Time the first big step out? Time Magazine, yeah. Was that on the writing side? That was on the writing side.

That was on the writing side. But I think my first big step actually was being able to live abroad. I think that really, that really, so from Harvard, I went to Columbia. But in between that, I decided that I wanted to kind of see the world. And I thought, you know, I thought I wanted to be a foreign correspondent, but I wasn't really sure how that would work exactly. So there was a program that Harvard connected me to at the American University in Cairo. And so I lived in Cairo for three months and left two days before the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. And so that has influenced me tremendously, having lived in an Islamic country, learning about Islam from other 20-year-olds who were very much practicing the faith, and then being in New York for 9-11, just being part of the world community, even today, and having just a better understanding, appreciation, and reverence in many ways for another faith.

That was really important. It was also important to try to do journalism in a completely different culture with different restrictions and standards. So the American University had me there as a reporter, trainee-ish, at their journalism center. And I was doing reports for the American Embassy and the American Cultural Center, but I couldn't talk about anything political. What? So, you know, so I did car races and cultural events and just, you know, but it was an opportunity to be on camera, you know, to be on camera in Cairo and also just to learn about culture. And from that, I realized how little I knew about the world around me and how much some of the students there knew about the U.S.

And I said, okay, I need to focus on international affairs. If I'm going to be a foreign correspondent, that's my next, what I need to focus on. So my studies at Columbia, although I did take journalism classes, I did not go to the journalism school per se, but my degree is in international affairs from the School of International Public Affairs. Then the reality struck. So I also am very, not much of a risk taker and I'm pretty practical. And I thought this was a very expensive several years that I've had and the opportunities to be a foreign correspondent while they were there, none of them came with a 401k, none of them came with benefits,

none of them came with a full-time job, you know? Was it, I mean, was it more of like a freelancing? Everyone was freelance. Most of the people who pursued journalism overseas after SIPA seemed to be freelancing. And that just, that just worried me that I didn't, you know, that I didn't have a firm employer. So I, I decided to interview just in the U.S. And when this opportunity came up at Time Magazine, this is before MMJs were created. So now that every millennial that has, that wants to be in this business or Gen Z that wants to be in this business, they need to have, they need to be a multimedia journalist. You need to be an MMJ. That's the way it works.

But then it was like, we have this great new idea. How about you become a correspondent at the Time New York Bureau, and you keep a Hi8 camera in your desk drawer, and when you've got a story, you can pull it out, and you can shoot that story, and then we could use it on our multimedia platform. So it seemed like such a novel idea. Exactly. Exactly. What is that? So a video camera. Yeah. Some type of video, everything that you do now on your phone,

this is something that they thought was really a Marvel idea that I would try to do. And it actually at that time didn't really work. The magazine people were like, if you're in the Bureau, you need to be writing for the magazine and reporting for the magazine. But if you want to work for that multimedia thing, you know, where they do news reports for New York One or for the News Hour, you can work with them. And I did. And so I did both and I loved it. But it gave me an opportunity when I went to a conference with the National Association of Black Journalists to tell NBC that I had worked in television and also was writing for Time Magazine. And they wanted

strong writers, but I think it helped that I had some exposure to video and to television. And that's how I got my job at CNBC. Yeah. It's so interesting also that part of the sort of like the undertone to how you landed even at time was this practical financial sensibility, which then over like years later shows up as like, okay, so this is not just my sensibility about the way that I make decisions and live my life, but this is actually something that I really want to be in front of the camera and on the page making my jam. Yeah, no, it's true. I was so afraid of business news at Time Magazine. I was like, I don't want to cover Wall Street. I'm fine doing politics and social issues. But on the other hand, the questions I had among my colleagues were, why do you always have that TV channel on with those numbers at the

bottom? Why are you always buzzing about Time Warner stock? Do I need to know about that? You don't have a 401k? Have you enrolled in the 401k? Well, I think so, but am I supposed to pick stuff in that? I didn't know anything about it. And so I learned a lot from my colleagues about the initial stages of investing and investing for retirement when they were close to retirement and I was the 20-something in the Bureau. And then I learned again that I learned this in one of my internships that I did in college was with the Wall Street Journal and when they had a Pittsburgh Bureau and my bureau chief said, the way to think about a business story is just follow the money. Every story has a money angle and you just have to find the money angle. And for me, every story is about people. And so you can combine people and the money angle.

And then I'm like, that's now what I do. That's what I've done all these years. And I love it. Endlessly fascinating. I love it. Endlessly fascinating. Yeah. And so you started out at NBC.

You were down at the Merc for a chunk of years, which is also different. That was a hard time to try to figure out the money angle in people and how to bring that across on the air. There was plenty behind the scenes on the money angle and people. And it's fascinating to watch how money is trading, how much those markets fuel what's happening in the global market arena and the actual personal money situations of the people making those trades and the judgment or I shouldn't say that the decision making and the amount of decision making that goes into for the personal investments versus what is happening in terms of how they're making the decisions to trade. It's that part was fascinating. But I was I was covering whatever was happening in the world that was making the markets move, which in the end, I realized a lot of it wasn't really what's happening in the world. It's what's happening on this computer and with this algorithm.

And it became a lot more difficult to report how those markets were moving. Well, I shouldn't say difficult, but it was challenging to kind of figure out which element was more of a driving force in a particular moment. It It was again, a practical decision. I went to the New York Mercantile Exchange after I'd had my second child, had a little baby at home and I wanted to kind of know as best I could, what is my schedule going to be like from day to day? Well, at that time it was not a 24 hour market, but the floor was only open a certain number of hours and I was only going to be able to report from the floor of the New York Market Talent Exchange a certain number of hours. And so then I knew, okay, at least I have a starting time and an end time every day, Monday

through Friday, and not on the weekends, that I'll be able to do this. And so again, that my kind of- The practical side. The practical side drove that. And I did it for eight years. And that was eight years of not seeing my daughter and my son in the morning and coming home and, you know, trying to fit in all that time, you know, that I wished I'd have been there after school and done pickup. And now I realize that that's where you actually find out everything. I missed that for many years. But it was a great time to grow in terms of learning the markets, covering the markets, and also having great exposure on CNBC as a person who was covering the commodity markets

at a time that they were truly on fire. Yeah. How unusual was it during that window of time, A, to have a woman on camera covering this, B, to have a woman of color covering this? Well, Maria Bonaromo is, you know, a trailblazer in terms of this. She was the only one that I remember. She had been on the floor at the New York Mercantile Exchange as the first woman reporting from down there. And she really paved the way for women to be in the markets and covering the markets among a sea of men. But I will say

on the commodity floor, I was the only woman of color every day, almost every day for eight years. And it was very challenging. It was heartwarming to find sources that I thought, I don't know if they would ever ask me to dinner at their home. I don't know if we would have ever played together as kids. But they are my right arm, you know, without their intellect and without their intel into the terms of their what's happening in the markets. I wouldn't know what to say because they really and they were very forthcoming and very, very helpful in terms of my reporting. But it was an isolating experience to be down there. One, to be away from my colleagues because I'm on assignment there,

but also to be the only. It wasn't great. It wasn't great. What's the final straw? What's the thing that makes you say after eight years or so, okay, it's time for the next evolution? You know what?

You can plan and plan and plan. Sometimes things just happen. And so I never gave up my personal finance. While I was covering commodities, I wrote a book for couples on personal finance, The Big Payoff. And I also was on pretty regularly on the Today Show talking about personal finance. And when CNBC had an appetite for it, I would do personal finance coverage for CNBC at that time. And for some reason, and I can't, I think it was not for some reason, the big reason, the financial crisis and your viewers are panicked. You know, they kind of want to know what's happened to oil prices, but they kind of want to know how am I actually going to pay my mortgage?

How am I going to, you know, ever retire? How am I? And those were things I'd been covering for a long time already. And I got a call on a Thursday and my boss was like, do you think you could come back to headquarters full time maybe and focus on personal finance? And I'm like, sure, when? And they said, Monday? I said, no problem. No problem. And so they, you know, continue and we continue to cover commodities and cover them well. But I think there's also a very strong appetite and I already had an expertise and a strong interest in covering personal finance. And so I was able to come back and do that. Covering a lot of stuff that was more genuinely sort of like interesting to you as well, which also brings you back into this place, right? Stepping back again to this like through line of it's much more, you know, the trading floor had become really mechanized and computerized. human beings and stories and everyday life and sort of like talking to the fears and the concern of the stories of people who are waking up in the morning saying, what next? What drives me, I think, is knowing that there is a way out. There is a way to financial security, but it's not as simple as picking the right stock. It is a discipline and a this is what's out there. And if you pick, if you choose the right, make the right decisions with all of these things available

to you, you could be, you'll be okay. And some might say, well, okay, but what if I lose my job? But what if I, there are a lot of, what if I get sick and whatever? Well, yeah, those are going to be challenging times. But if you've already had the. But if you already know some of the tools and you've had the discipline of not living paycheck to paycheck, of living below your means, of saving money, all of these things, it makes it easier. It doesn't make it easy, but it makes it easier to go through the challenging times. Yeah. I mean, my sense of the world of intelligent personal finance is that so many people out there looking for the magic bullet, tell me like the one big move that, whereas, you know, like your lens and this is, this has sort of like been your MO for years is, no, it's actually not super complicated. It's, it's waking up on a regular basis and just, it's almost like a daily practice and thinking really long-term.

And rather than, you know, I don't want to talk about this eventuality. It's too scary. I don't want to talk about this eventuality. It's too scary. So let me just ignore it. It's like, no, just like open the conversation about all the possibilities of life, good and bad, right? And just make decisions based on what if the good happens, but also

what if the things I don't want to happen, happen. And let me just start now planning for those eventualities rather than if one of those bad things happens that day, which is not the best time to start. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. I get asked all the time about what should I be investing in? That question, what should I be investing in? I don't really have an answer to, because frankly, according to my employment contract, and I do very much appreciate my employer, I can't invest in individual stocks. So I don't really have, I can't tell you what's in my portfolio in that regard, but I can tell you what my strategy is to make sure that I'm invested and that I'm investing with an eye toward making sure that I'm able to keep a good chunk of that

money and not have a lot of it go to the government or all of it go to Uncle Sam about, you know, how I can make sure that the money is growing and it's not just stuck in the savings account. And also how I can make sure, and this is the part that so many people do not pay attention to at all, how I can make sure that money is protected if something happens to me and I do lose my job because I've gotten sick or I'm not able to make good financial decisions

because I'm incapacitated for a minute. That is so important also because you don't want to have those challenging times once you've built up that discipline and you've built up some savings and you have to just be taken away because you've been through this hard time. Yeah. So you're building an amazing career, married, raising a family, moving through the 2000s, the 2010s, and then we get to December 2016. And we were just talking about those things that nobody sees coming, and you end up in this one day, which will forever change things.

Tell me what happens. 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 going to 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. So I was at a stage where living in New York, this is the New York life. You're at the top of your game in your career. They're asking you to anchor for this anchor because they're on maternity leave and fill in for this person because, you know, you're able to do this special assignment. We want to do a pilot, a digital show just based on your kind of reporting.

And we'd like you to go in a couple of days to interview the Treasury Secretary about this. And then trying to keep that all together, right, having a calendar that's going to be jam-packed for the fall, I decide, you know, I got to take care of myself and get to the gym. Let me get this spinach smoothie down. Not always easy, but I did it. And let me get to the gym, work out, and then start my day because I got to prep for this treasury secretary interview. And I have the worst sensation in my head ever, not a migraine, not I'm so tired headache. It really was, it was just the worst feeling I've ever had. And after I got out of this downward facing dog yoga pose, which is supposed to be, I'm in the gym stretching and I'm like

in downward facing dog, my head is, at the time I didn't realize my head has exploded. And I go to my car. I get out of the gym. I go to my car. I got to get out of here. I realized I can't drive because I can't really turn my head. And I talked to my, I text my husband in all caps. You got to come get me.

Something's not right. And he picks me up and takes me home, put my feet up, note to self, should have gone straight to the emergency room. But I came home and I thought, Starbucks, skinny vanilla latte, I'll be fine. Just have a little bit. And my head is pounding. And he said, let work know that you're not coming in today. We're going to take you to the doctor. And I go to see a primary care physician who says,

he just thought, what's the worst case scenario? And he said, you better just go straight to the emergency room. And when I went to the emergency room at the local hospital and they did a CT scan, they found bleeding on my brain. And those are the only words I really remember before I started going in and out of consciousness at that point. I just, I remember him, the emergency room doctor saying, you have bleeding on your brain. And I remember thinking, I've got to call my sister and we've got to let her know. And so I was able to talk to her and tell her what happened and say, don't tell mom. Of course, I just didn't want to worry my mom. When you hear the words bleeding on the brain, does that actually register what

that is or isn't at that time? I knew it was bad, but I didn't know anything about what a brain aneurysm was. I didn't really understand. I think like most people, when I hear that, I think someone's died. You hear brain aneurysm and automatically that person doesn't live from that. But I knew it was a bad situation, but I didn't really, I was, you know, I really wasn't that conscious about what was happening either. I must, I really wasn't. And I, the next kind of image that I have was being prepped for surgery. I had to have brain surgery immediately at another hospital

because I was told that I didn't have time to get into the city. I went to the Bronx to Montefiore Hospital and had the most amazing care. And I remember the doctor who was before me was a young African-American woman. And I said, are you my doctor? And she said, I'm your anesthesiologist. And I just thought, I'm good. I'm going to be okay. And I don't know if I ever saw her now, now looking at the post-op report, because I am that kind of journalist where I've read all the documents. I don't even know how long she was with me. There's so many people who were involved in that surgery and then involved in my recovery and ICU and all that. But I don't remember meeting

my neurosurgeon beforehand or seeing him or anything like that. I had the chief of neurosurgery at the time, Eugene Flam, do my surgery. He was absolutely phenomenal. And he said, you know, afterward, he told me I was probably the 25th hundred type of surgery like that he'd done. You know, so it was something that he, that for a neurosurgeon might have seen somewhat routine, but for someone going through it, it's one of the most important arteries in my brain that had developed a balloon-like sac that exploded. And so they had to go in and they had to clip that to keep it from bleeding. And they had to check and make sure I don't have any of those other, any other ones coming up. And so it was, I learned all this a month after it all happened pretty much because for a month I was in ICU. I was unable to walk for two weeks, unable to sit up fully.

I was able to talk because I love stories. So somehow God still let me have my voice. I don't know if I was making sense with my story sometimes, but I was able to talk. And that was so scary. That was so scary. That was so scary. I was so, to wake up having not been in the hospital since, I guess my daughter was 11 at the time, so 11 years since I'd had my daughter, my youngest, and have so many needles and tubes and monitors and the concern. One of the reasons why I knew it was really bad, I'd called my sister and she would be with me at all times. So coming up from DC, I had expected her to be there. I wanted her to be there, of course. But my best friend from childhood from

Pittsburgh was there too when I woke up. And another one of my dear friends from Pittsburgh who lives here in New York and a couple of my friends from, from New Rochelle too. But this, to see my friend have a, I was like, something must bad must've really happened. Cause she got on a train very quickly and came up here. Um, it was, it was my, my thoughts were from here, how do I parent? How do I get back to my most important, important, not job, not career, not goal, like just my life, what gives life meaning, right? Being a parent, how do I do that? How do I go back to my career? And that probably didn't come for a while. I don't, I think I didn't even, I didn't even think about that for definitely for several weeks. But I remember before I left the hospital saying, I don't think I could go back to that because I can barely. It's tiring to just be awake for a couple hours.

It's tiring to just kind of have the conversation with friends who want to stop by and kind of actually pay attention to what they're saying and register what they're talking about. And that was now thinking back to it, that's really scary that I even had that, I had that severe doubt that I would ever have enough, be strong enough to be able to come back to work. That was really scary. And then, you know, after a month in hospital, coming home and, you know, I think maybe people don't realize when you've had, I think anyone who's had a major illness or major surgery and you, are they home yet? Oh, that's good. They're home. Yeah. But I was home in a downstairs room cause I couldn't climb stairs that thankfully had a bathroom connected to it. That was thankfully right next to the kitchen.

And those three rooms, that was the only place that I inhabited for several more months. And so it's a long journey. But again, the practical side of me, what's my job going to be now? I don't know if it's going to be being a reporter again or going back to CNBC, but to get there or to get anywhere, namely to my number one passion of being a parent and being a wife and a mother and all of that, I need to get into therapy. I need to go to physical therapy. I need to go to cognitive therapy. I need to go to occupational therapy, speech therapy. And so I went to these appointments like it was my job and I treated it like it was my job. And I thought back to all of those colleagues that I've had over the years who were like, yeah, I know I did that.

I have to go to PT. I just don't like to go to PT. Like, no, I went to every, I didn't miss an appointment because it also gave me, having worked my entire career since college, I didn't know how not to have something to do every day. And eventually, I think it took, you know, and the other part that was a really big part of it and continues to be is the neuropsychological therapy. That, you know, a lot of people growing up, I don't think I ever even heard about mental health. People going to a therapist, people seeing a psychologist. Why would you do that? You know, you tell your problems to maybe your family members and someone at church, and that's about it. But being able to talk to someone who has seen brain injury patients, has seen people who have suffered a brain aneurysm as I have and really understand how severe the issue

is and how difficult the recovery is physically cognitively and and and the understanding of it being not a few month ordeal or a year ordeal but a several year perhaps recovery time it's, that's been really, really helpful to be able to have someone who's seen it already and who's talked to people and counseled people and made me feel like I'm not crazy to feel this way. And when I get overly emotional, when I start to ramble, when I'm having a hard time connecting and finding the word and all of that, that's what happens. That's what happens to people with brain injuries. And the thing that's very difficult is you don't see it.

So everyone, you look great. And a fellow survivor said to me once, if someone tells me that one more time, I'm going to just scream. If you knew how I felt today, if you knew how hard it was for me to get here and plaster this smile on my face so that you would think I'm okay, what's going on in my head is, what did they just say? And I'm seeing you in this room of 50 people and everyone's talking at the same time. I can barely focus on what you're saying. And I don't really have the patience to figure it out right now. So I better excuse myself in this situation before I get emotional or ramble or say something that I shouldn't say. It's a long journey.

It's a very, very long journey. I mean, my sense is that also not infrequently when somebody comes to you and says, you look great. Of course, it's not said with malice, but I wonder if also a lot of that is that person wanting to feel good about the situation because to think about the possibility, especially if it's like a friend who's your age, who's lived a similar life where they can see enough of themselves in you, they don't really understand why this is happening. And they're terrified that, well, maybe me. It's much more comforting to be like, oh, well, she's fully recovered.

She's good. Because then you don't have to go there on a personal level. That's so right. You look so good. Yeah. So then that means I'll be okay. I think that's absolutely true. And I think that what I've appreciated is connecting with people who've been through something, maybe not thinking exactly like this. It may be a medical issue. It may be another type of issue,

but realizing getting to that lowest point, getting to that, I don't know if I'm going to be able to go back to this. And then doing it, it's created a bond for me with people that I never would have expected. And I think would have never expected to find me either. Just to say, this just happened this week. I was speaking at a conference and a woman came up to me and said, I had open heart surgery 18 months ago. Seeing you, hearing you, it's exactly what I've been going through and how I'm trying to deal with it at work and how I'm trying to recover. And she looked fine, but she was crying and I was crying because we know that we're not fine in the way other people may think. And what I appreciate when people say, thank you for sharing your story and this is really important for people to know or this has inspired things that I, you know, looking fine,

the other reason why it's sometimes, it's sometimes it hurts me is that in my field, being on camera and having to, trying to be authentic, but you know, let's be real. In my spare time, when I really be covering oil prices to the, with the passion that I had for eight years, there's a mask. There's a mask that many of my colleagues, I think, have on because you was just, hey, I just got off the phone in between having my latte. And I'm going to tell you what's happening with, you know, the price of oil or gold right now. That's not the way it's going to work. You want to see the professional on the floor.

But that's a mask. And when you say I look fine, you say I still have on that mask. I don't want to wear that mask anymore because that person, that person went away on September 21st, 2016, and a new person came in. And this new person has short hair, still wears makeup, still dresses up for the camera. But it's going to be real about what's happening and is going to share some of why this is important because this is what happened to me. And not with every story. No one wants to hear this saga every time, but I'm telling it because there's a perspective

here. And I think the other thing that I woke up to is a new world. Because September 2016 and then January 2017, it's a new world. And I think that we need to be very objective as journalists. We need to make sure where we're allowed to share a little bit about the perspective of why we're telling you this information. And so in my way of doing that, it's that here's the personal medical challenge I faced. This is why I'm telling you this information about disability insurance, retirement savings, credit card debt, all of those things, because I've gone through something where these are why these things were important. These are why these

tools are important to use. You may think you'll never need them. You may think you'll never need to know. I didn't think anything like this would ever happen to me. I have great blood pressure, cholesterol, everything is, you know, going well, and then it's not. And so what do you do? Yeah. I mean, for you to then be able to marry your own personal experience, a desire to share it in a way that offered your own story, that offered the value that you've derived from it in a way that will be in service of other people, you know, but still also be kind of be true to, like you said,

to this new person who has emerged since December, 2016, in a way that feels integrity, you know, it's gotta be kind of like a process of inquiry and exploration. It's a daily process. And, you know, the daily process for me before, one of the things, again, practical, personal finance advocate, journalist, and just nerd, would be looking at my bank app, which I do have on my phone, and making sure I know where my balance is, and making sure I didn't have any fraud alerts. That might be one of the first things, or emails, you know, because it is a news operation, emails that have come in overnight. That's not the first thing. I try so hard. It's a very hard habit to break, but that is not the first thing that I do now. The first thing I do is pray.

The first thing I do is look at my devotion. The first thing I do is center myself with the gratitude of, thank you for allowing me to wake up, to be here today, to go on with my day, to be here for my kids, to be here with my family. That has to be my first thing every day. That has to be my first thing every day. And when it's not, the day goes so, you know, it inevitably does not go right. But it goes so much better when I've started my day giving thanks for being here. This feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So as we sit here in this

container of the Good Life Project, if I offer up this phrase, to live a good life. What comes up? One of the things that I think about all the time is gratitude. The act of gratitude is transformative. When I think about the grace of being able to be here and being able to talk to people about my story and maybe touch them a little bit, but also give them some information that they can really use and what they can do. It's just wonderful. But we're always so busy, so we never take that time. So for me, the good life is to be present in every moment because it's a great moment. It may not be the one that you'd expect. It may be a challenging moment, but it's a moment. Be present in it.

Appreciate it. Be mindful as you're in that moment about what you're doing and about how you're feeling and about how others may be reacting to it. So that's really important. To be grateful also, as I said. And so to me, the good life would be to be present, to be mindful, to be grateful always. If that guides you, you're not just in the good life, you're in the great life. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it at sparkotype.com. That's S-P-A-R-K-E-T-Y-P-E.com. Or just click the link in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share, share the love. If

there's something that you've heard in this episode that you would love to turn into a conversation, share it with people and have that conversation. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. 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 X. 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 gonna be fun. January 24th. Actual results will vary.