Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Are Kids a Career-Block?

Episode Date: August 17, 2022

In the second part of her conversation with Nicole, entrepreneur Lisa Bilyeu shares how she and her husband made the decision not to have kids, and how you can make this decision for yourself.

One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that

I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. Chime. Feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Booths are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details.

Hey guys, are you ready for some money rehab? Wall Street has been completely upended by an unlikely player game stop and should i have a 401k because you don't do it no i know you think the whole world revolves around you and your money well it doesn't charge for wasting our time i will take a check. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. Nicole Lappin. We've had a few episodes recently about budgeting for a baby and deciding whether or not a kiddo is something that can fit into your spending plan.

Another consideration that is not to be ignored is whether a kiddo can fit into your spending plan. Another consideration that is not to be ignored is whether a kiddo can fit into your career plan. In yesterday's episode, I talked to entrepreneur Elisa Bilyeu about starting Quest Nutrition and her strategy for setting goals. If you haven't listened to it yet, cue it up. Today, I'm sharing the second part of our conversation where Elisa shares how her and her husband made the decision not to have kids and how you can make this decision for yourself. Here it is. You have spoken publicly, which I am so grateful for, about the conversations that you've had with your husband around having kids. I always say someone has to go first when having hard conversations. Like, with money, I go first.

I'll show you mine if you show me yours. So I know in doing that, you've enabled so many other women to have these important conversations about family planning. So at the present, you don't have kids. You have fur babies. Awesome. You've also given some really helpful tips on the decision making process around having kids. One tip that you've given people is to ask themselves, what does an average Wednesday look like with kids? Why is that an important question? Because let's face it, we can all get emotionally excited about something, right? And so we can lean into all the wonders of something that we're dreaming of. So I know myself, I know I can lean into the beauty of having a child before I have one.

I can sit here right now and can convince myself, oh my God, having a little Tom, my husband's called Tom, having a little Tom running around like with his little ears, like I would melt. I literally would melt. Thinking about the idea of having a daughter that I can impact to have a more positive mindset than I had. Oh my God, that would be so beautiful. Feeling a baby grow inside me was a dream I've always had. And so even convincing myself, oh my God, putting my hand on my belly, can you imagine what that would feel like? So everything I've just said, I know I can convince myself why it's beautiful and why I should have kids. But the truth is the dream thing that we think, whether it's money, whether

it's being an entrepreneur, how many people say to my God, I want a podcast like yours. And you're like, you know how much time I freaking spend on my podcast. If you actually knew how much time and energy this would take, maybe you may think about it a little differently. And so that's what I'm saying with kids is that I want to make sure I actually understand the reality, the reality of having a kid so that I can go into it with my eyes wide open. And for some reason, we do this with business, right? When someone says, oh, I've got a business idea. They're like, all right, well, where's your business plan? Right? It's like, well, I figured out where I'm going to get my money from. I figured out where I'm going to get the time from. Right? You figure it all out, but we don't do it with kids. And so

when I realized, and this may sound crazy to you, but I was brought up in a very traditional Greek family where it didn't even dawn on me I had a choice. It was a decision I could make. It was just assumed. So I just assumed I was going to have children. I met my husband. I told him I wanted four children. Now you flash forward, quest grows at 57,000%. I go from being a housewife to now an entrepreneur. And that idea of challenging myself every day is so exciting to me. So now that I know that, I go, okay, well, what would that change inside me? Like if I had kids, do I have to give this up? And that's where it became, oh, well, what would an average actual day look like?

And so I urge people to do this with no emotion, like with giving yourself grace. You're not judging yourself on anything. It's just giving yourself the space to be real with yourself. And so for me, the first step was understanding what my husband's involvement would be, because I have to actually see the truth of what the Wednesday would look like. So in my head, I can say, well, my husband's going to get up in the middle of the night. I'm going to feel great. I'm going to feel rejuvenated, but I don't know if that's true. So I sat with my husband and I said, babe, I'm not sure now if I actually want children. I know I said I did, but I didn't realize I would thrive of challenging myself in what they call entrepreneurship now. So I actually want to

know what kind of father do you want to be? And what kind of father do you plan to show up as? Now on from day one, the thing my husband always said, literally day one, he said, I will sacrifice anything for the person I love except for my ambition. And he said, the reason being is if someone tried to take away my ambition, I am no longer who I am and I can no longer give to anybody. told you on date one, I'm not going to give up my ambition for my kids because I will start to resent my children. Now, what that means to him is that he's not getting up in the middle of the night from Monday to Friday. He's like, I need my brain power. And if I'm tired, I'm not going to be able to do that. So he said, you can absolutely know I'm not the person that's going to get up in the middle of the night. I'm not going to be changing diapers during the day. And I'm not going to be coming home at seven o'clock or six o'clock in the evening to put my child to bed.

day and I'm not going to be coming home at seven o'clock or six o'clock in the evening to put my child to bed. So I want to be a great father though. So on weekends, if I'm not working, I want to be with them. Amazing. All I can ask for is the truth. Now that truth, I then implemented into my buckets of what an average Wednesday would look like if I gave up my career and was a stay at home wife and what that would look like, what my life would look like if I had up my career and was a stay-at-home wife and what that would look like, what my life would look like if I had kids and didn't give up my career. And I did both. So I just said, okay, you're getting up in the middle of the night, Lisa, then you're going to work. Then you're trying to get home in time for the kids to get home to cook them dinner. And I just laid out, what would that actually look like? And then the third bucket, what would my life look like if I

chose not to have children? And me and my husband kept doing what we were doing. And I was just honest. And the conclusion came to, I didn't want to give up my career. I don't want to be third on my husband's priority list. He does not want to be third on my priority list because I said my kids would move up to the top of my list of priorities. He didn't want that either. And so we just realized the reason why we thought we wanted kids was because we were telling ourselves because of legacy. And then we broke down, what does legacy actually mean to us? We came to that conclusion. We said it is to be remembered. And so to be remembered, can we, because it's still important to have a legacy to us. So now can we, with that same knowing of the

importance of having a legacy, can we create that in different ways? And the answer was yes. The answer was impact theory. And that is why me and my husband have decided to not have children and go in all in on our business, but with utter clarity of knowing why and how we've made that decision. Hold onto your wallets, boys and girls. Money Rehab will be right back. One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at

chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash Chime. Feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bank Corp. Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC.

SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details. Now for some more money rehab. Wow. You said you've dealt with haters with this. I have to ask, do you have haters on the subject of whether or not you're going to have kids? So definitely. Whose business is that? I know. And here's the funny thing. The discussion and language has changed. But when I first

decided it I absolutely had people saying well isn't that selfish of you I'd never actually understood that right because you're like selfish but isn't it selfish to have kids and then not spend time and attention on them and be selfish to then say well my career is more important like I was like I can understand why that's selfish and it really really upset me at first. And what I realized was, is that I needed to be so comfortable in my decision. And I think that that's why it upset me because part of me was like, am I comfortable in this? Am I secure? Like, yeah. Like, um, what, because I was a people pleaser, I was like, Oh, does this mean that people won't like me if I say

out loud that I don't want children? And so I realized all of that was a me thing. It wasn't a them thing. You know, it was a, I had to get comfortable in the decision. I had to be, um, reaffirm why I did it. And I have to know that anyone's opinion probably comes from the way they see things. So it's, it's, that's the narrative. So when someone says, oh my God, that's selfish of you, that's the narrative they have within themselves, that they feel like it's selfish of them. And so I can't take on other people's mindsets and other people's responsibilities of the decisions they've made in their life. And I've just had to work on being comfortable with my own decision. And then I had to get comfortable with knowing that I was going to break my mom's heart.

That was the truth. All she wanted in life from since I was a kid was her saying that she wanted to be a grandmother. And so I had to give her space to have her feelings and not try and persuade her, not shut her down. And I also, also the last piece, I had to give myself the grace to mourn the person I thought I was going to be. Because I think so many of us say we have these dreams, right? And then as we get to them, we're like, oh, maybe this doesn't fit. And then you come up with another dream. But part of you, at least for me, initially tried to shut that thing up. I don't want kids. I didn't want to be a mother in the first place, right? But that was a defense mechanism. That was kind of the thing that was trying to shut that part of my life down and turn away from it. But what I realized is just like anything, it starts to fester. And so what I had to do in my progress of feeling okay with making this decision, feeling fully on board a thousand

percent with I knew this was the right thing for me, was I had to mourn and let go of that person I thought I was going to be. I still want to be called mommy and have to let go of that. I still love the idea of having a baby grow inside of me. I had to let go of that. Yes, that's such an important process. And in my third book, I think I talk about this difference between selfish and selfless. I always wondered why being selfless was a compliment and being selfish was an insult. Because if you look at the definition, by the way, being selfish means taking care of your own needs and desires. Being selfless is not. And so they don't say put your oxygen mask on first before helping others on the plane

just for funsies before you take off. It's totally true. So I say when somebody calls me selfish, I say thank you. Yeah, I love that. And let's face it, like the thing that I, if I'm ever doing a job interview, like if I'm hiring someone, one of the first things I say to them is like, what would life look like? Let's say I gave you $100 million right now. Okay, yes, you go on your vacations, you buy a house, you splash out on your family, blah, blah, blah. Let's just say for argument's sake. Now you've got $80 million left. You wake up on a Wednesday morning. What do you do? Now, the reason why I asked this question is because normally people say, oh, well,

if I've taken care of everyone else, if I've taken care of my finances, my family, everyone that I love, what would I selfishly want to do? And they give you the answer. Now in that answer, what I say to them is when your selfish desire can align with my selfish desire, it is the best business collaboration you will ever have in your life. Why? Because now you're waking up selfishly doing the thing that makes you happy and it happens to benefit my selfish desire and now there's no persuading there's no encouraging there's just knowing that I'm going to show up for myself first you're going to show up for yourself first and now those two things come together can create magic I think that we associate selfish with being evil. And the same with money, by the way. We associate if you've got a lot of money, it means you're evil. But I always think

of that sort of thing as being like a superpower. It's like, no, no, no. Just like a superpower, you can use it for good or you can use it for evil. It all depends on the person that yields the power. For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. I love Lisa's advice to picture what your life looks like on a totally average day and then imagine what it looks like with a kid in the equation. We can all feel warm and fuzzy when picturing our future kid's first birthday. But what do you feel when picturing a one-year-old waking up in the middle of the night on a regular Wednesday? Warm and fuzzy?

Or do you feel warmer and fuzzier when picturing a lifetime achievement award in your hand? I can't make this decision for you, but I can give you the advice to make the decision with both eyes open. The only antidote for regret is action. Money Rehab is a production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Our producers are Morgan Lavoie and Mike Coscarelli. Executive producers are Nikki Etor and Will Pearson. Our mascots are Penny and Mimsy. Huge thanks to OG Money Rehab team,

Michelle Lanz for her development work, Catherine Law for her production and writing magic, and Brandon Dickert for his editing, engineering, and sound design. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all.