Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Lessons From Embarrassing Yourself on National Television

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Nicole had a great appearance on Good Morning America… until she made one tiny mistake that she can’t stop thinking about. Nicole talked about this with Entrepreneur Magazine editor-in-chief Jason... Feifer on an episode of their podcast Help Wanted, and it's too good not to share with Money Rehabbers. In this conversation, they dig up their most embarrassing moments and workplace missteps, and decide on a benchmark for when to call out your mistakes, and when to keep them to yourself. Never miss an episode, lesson or embarrassing moment on Help Wanted. Subscribe here: https://link.chtbl.com/85RcT5bT

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 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
Starting point is 00:00:37 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. 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.
Starting point is 00:01:18 I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. So I've been on TV a long time, like a long, long 20 years long time. I've been on TV shows with hundreds of viewers and TV shows with millions of viewers. I would be lying to you if I said I didn't get nervous every now and then, because for sure I do, and let's be real, especially with the bigger ones. I've been going on Good Morning America a lot lately to talk about the most recent MNN happenings, which has been awesome for sure, but what hasn't been so awesome was
Starting point is 00:02:02 my most recent appearance, where I did what I think was maybe the stupidest thing I've ever done on TV. Jason and I talk about it on a recent episode of Help Wanted, which I am about to share with you because I am a sucker for punishment, I guess. But I think it's a valuable lesson because we all make mistakes at work, and conventional wisdom tells us that we should own up to those mistakes. But actually, as Jason and I discuss, it's not always the right move. This conversation really helped me lick my wounds, but also feel better about the whole thing, so I won't freak out as much when it happens
Starting point is 00:02:35 the next time. Although I really hope nothing ever this embarrassing ever, ever happens to me ever again. Anyway, I hope you get a good laugh from this one. This is Help Wanted, the show that tackles all the big work questions you cannot ask anyone else. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. And I'm New York Times bestselling author and money expert, Nicole Lappin. The helpline is open. Okay, Jason, do you want me to tell you an embarrassing story about myself? I mean, you don't have to ask. You could just jump right into it.
Starting point is 00:03:16 It's a recent story. I still feel like my armpits are getting sweaty thinking about it. My palms mostly. Okay, this is good. This is raw. I like raw and embarrassing. So as we're building this network, I've been lucky enough to be asked to go on Good Morning America a few times. And you're really good at it. Very kind of you to say. I have been doing this TV thing for a couple of decades now.
Starting point is 00:03:43 And so, you know, I still get a little nervous. I'm not going to lie, like on some big, big shows like that. That makes me feel better, by the way, that you still do. Oh, really? Yeah. Anyway, keep going. Keep going. I like this. Okay. So I went on Good Morning America to talk about the debt ceiling and did the segment like there was a lot of facts, figures, breaking down of the thing. It went fine. Like the main part of the segment was fine. When they thanked me for coming, which is like the most basic part of this.
Starting point is 00:04:18 Right, the outro at the very end of the segment where they're just like, thanks for coming on the show, Nicole. Thanks for coming. I don't know how this has never happened to me before but i said what the fuck did i say morgan is here because she was also there so she's uh she witnessed this whole thing unfold or i said like morgan our executive producer extraordinary i said like you, or thanks for coming too.
Starting point is 00:04:47 Like, thank you for coming by. What did I say? Not quite. Not quite. I said something terrible. Like, to analogous, to, I said something like, akin to what you would say at the airport when somebody's like, have a good flight. And you're like, you too.
Starting point is 00:05:02 Like, they're not going on a flight. And it was mortifying for me. I was completely mortified. What did I say, Morgan? So what you said was, and just to take a step back, because I think it makes a little bit more sense thinking about how the segment started as well. The two hosts, when the segment started, was like, hi, friend. And Nicole back to them was like hi friend so she had already sort of set up this like call and response situation and so what happened at the end was terrible was that one of the hosts said it's always great to have you here. And Nicole said, you too. No, I think I was like,
Starting point is 00:05:48 it's always great to have you here. Or then I was like, I think I trailed off because I stopped myself. And I... You're right. It could have just been a, it's always great to have you. Yeah, something like that.
Starting point is 00:05:58 It could have been that. We have video evidence of it. I'm reluctant to go back and check the tape because it's so cringe worthy. It was not great. Are we going to air this on the show? Should we? The interesting thing is we can air it on social, but we couldn't air it on the podcast
Starting point is 00:06:16 because you can't hear Nicole say that at all. You can. So I get off the segment. I see Morgan. At all. You can. Uh-uh. So I get off the segment.
Starting point is 00:06:24 I see Morgan. She's like the mom, the cool mom, like on the side of the stage in Mean Girls with the camcorder, like cheering me on, like recording the segment, like so like great to see her shining bright face. Like you crushed it. And I'm like, I'm the worst. I can't believe I did that. She was like legitimately confused confused which made me a little bit more comforted I guess but then I was like you weren't even listening it was terrible
Starting point is 00:06:52 everybody hates me I'm gonna like how did I say something so horrible I fucked everything up and she's like I don't even know what you're talking about and I was like you recorded it right like let's listen to it and then we went back and listened to it. And sure enough, she was like, oh, but you. But wait, just so that I can understand this scene here. Do you think that the anchors on Good Morning America heard you? That is where the jury is out. OK, well, then how about this this i know is speculative
Starting point is 00:07:26 but do you think that if the anchors at gma heard you they would have cared or thought it was bad or thought it was funny the mean girl inside my head uh thinks that they would have thought it was terrible and not funny and like escorted me out of the building right like the worst case scenario yeah so like we went back and we checked the tape and indeed i did say something dumb um yeah not great not ideal and so i started panicking morgan artfully skillfully as usual talks me off a ledge it's totally fine i did she's like i believed her she like didn't hear it live but like there was some evidence of like a trailing out weird thing that i said
Starting point is 00:08:10 and so i immediately sprung into like oh my god and by the way the segment that we did was live to tape so in television like it's either live live where it's like there's a little bit of a delay in case somebody swears but it's live live. Or it's taped, in which case then it's edited and then aired later. Or it's live to tape. So it's like as if it was live, but if something crazy happens or if you go over for time, they can edit it out. For instance, they used the wrong cover art of Money Rehab. I saw that going into the segment. It kind of threw me off. And I was like, fuck, we have to make sure that we get them to change that. So stuff like that, they could actually go back and change. and they did. So the big question was,
Starting point is 00:08:48 do I go back in addition to telling them they used the wrong cover art for the show? Do I say, hey, also this terrible, weird, awkward bananas thing that I said, because also the music was coming out. So I couldn't like make fun of myself, which I may have done like that would have felt right if there was like a little bit more time. Should I tell the producer, hey, can you also like, got this little part out at the end? Ah, okay. And so the debate was, do I call attention to the thing that we don't know if anyone else heard? And this, I think I should just interject to tee up the episode that we're hearing, because this is not just an episode of you telling me this story. This is an episode where we are going to interrogate this kind of question, which is what to do
Starting point is 00:09:36 when you have messed up, when you are embarrassed. How do you handle it? When do you call it out? When do you just keep rolling? And here you had this question, which is, you knew you made a mistake. Let us all be clear. It was a mistake. A pretty small mistake, all things considered, but one that you, television professional, don't feel good that you made. And there is an opportunity to do something about it,
Starting point is 00:10:07 but one that just calls more attention to it. And also maybe you're thinking you don't want to be difficult if there's not a reason to be difficult. And so what do you do when you have made a mistake and you know other people might see you and think that person made a mistake? Or as Nicole said at the time, here's some more color. Nicole really was panicking after the segment. And she crushed this description on the debt ceiling and treasury yields and all of these things that are really complicated. And so that's
Starting point is 00:10:38 such a feat. And Nicole is so defeated in the dressing room and she goes, such a stupid head. Wow. This is really just like the Care Bears version of a big screw up here, right? Like it's a small mistake and then you're calling yourself a stupid head? Yeah. What did you do? Morgan initially said, don't say anything. Like don't call more attention to it.
Starting point is 00:11:03 Morgan, is that the reason not to say anything is because you don't want to draw more attention to it? Like, what was your argument? Thank you for asking because it wasn't, that wasn't quite my argument. Okay, good. Misrepresentation. Let's clear it up. Oh, okay.
Starting point is 00:11:16 Nicole, to me, in the green room after the segment was like, should I talk to the producer, Kevin, about it and ask for them to cut it? And I said no no, because nobody noticed. It was such a little teeny tiny thing that the music was already playing over. I didn't notice. And I had my complete all eyeballs on it. And so I was like, the ask to fix this thing is way bigger than the actual thing itself. It was getting spun in your head out of control. It was this teeny tiny little thing that nobody noticed.
Starting point is 00:11:52 So don't ask them to edit it because it's nothing. And then what did I do? Nicole asked them to cut it out. And they said no, because nobody would notice. They said no. Nicole. I'm such a stupid ass.
Starting point is 00:12:06 Did that make you feel worse than having had not asked in the first place? Yeah. Morgan was right, as usual. And now that it's out, first of all, did angry hordes of people amass outside your home because you said, thanks you too, or whatever it is that you said on Good Morning America? Did anybody notice or care? No. I mean, I always get hate stuff, especially after doing more national shows, but no. Okay. So how do you feel now that it is out in the world? It happened. People saw it. Possibly,
Starting point is 00:12:48 It happened. People saw it. Possibly, possibly a suburban mom in Des Moines, Iowa heard it and said, teehee. Yeah, it's been a couple weeks, I think. What is time? It's been at least a week. And so obviously, like I've had some space from it. It still is something that makes me feel like a not smart head, at least. But yeah, like, I don't really care now. Okay. But it cut really deep at the time. And I was in it ruined my day, basically. But also, which it shouldn't have ruined my day. Like I had like an award thing, then I should have like been able to move on. I was contemplating whether to make fun of myself and then draw more attention to it in a different way by putting it online and being like, haha, I'm such a money experts are just like us. Yeah, yeah. So I was confronted with that as another, like, choose your own adventure option. Sure. So lean right into it. But you didn't do that. I didn't. So then when
Starting point is 00:13:45 we decided to talk about it on this episode, was there a part of you that said, no, let's just not do that. Let us ignore this ever happened. No, this feels right. I feel I feel good about it. All things considered, I should have listened to Morgan and I should have just not brought it up and not gone into like a panic spiral. But I'm okay that it came out. And I'm okay that I didn't call attention to it because that was like a big week for us. We had, you know, I leaned into the actual content of the debt ceiling stuff and breaking that down and like the Webby Awards and all that stuff. Like I focused on the big things without, you know, poking more fun at myself on it.
Starting point is 00:14:26 So I skipped that too, which I'm fine with. But now I'm also fine making fun of myself. As you guys know, I am down to do. I think that the question at the heart of this is what to do when the mistake is made. And in this case, I think that it was very clear. You weren't on the show, Jason. If you were able to step out of the panic attack, what should have happened? Because it wasn't that big of a deal.
Starting point is 00:14:51 People have made incredibly large errors on television. This wasn't one of them. But I am going to counter this. Well, let's like put this on the shelf for a second. And then I'm going to tell a edited version of a story that Nicole, you will remember because it involves me calling you in a panic after I said something. And that was that I was interviewed on this radio show, but it wasn't live. One of the options that you said where they recorded it and they'd like to just air it as it was recorded, but it wasn't
Starting point is 00:15:25 live immediately. It was going to air like in a day or two. And the host had asked me a very sensitive business-related question about entrepreneur or the company. And I am not used to fielding those questions because people generally ask me about entrepreneurs and the stuff that I'm very comfortable talking about. And I really don't speak to that side of the business. I can speak to editorial decisions that we make. But they asked me a question about the business side. It was a sensitive question. And I think that my answer was okay. But afterwards, I just was in a panic about whether I said the right thing and what would happen
Starting point is 00:16:05 if the owner of Entrepreneur heard it. Did I properly represent the brand? Did I say something irresponsible? And I did not know what to do. And I called you. And the advice that you gave me was pretty similar to the advice that Morgan gave you, which is to say that it's fine what you said sounds fine. I mean, I didn't have the recording at the time, but I repeated back to you what I had said. And you're like, I think that it's fine. What you said sounds fine. I mean, I didn't have the recording at the time,
Starting point is 00:16:25 but I like repeated back to you what I had said. And you're like, I think that it's fine. And I, just like you in that moment, did not listen. And I reached out and I asked them to take it out. Oh, I didn't know that part. Oh, oh, maybe I never gave you the follow up. I thought we had like come to terms with that. Interesting.
Starting point is 00:16:45 We did. And then I kept freaking out to terms with that. Interesting. We did. And then I kept freaking out. Yeah, I get it. Clearly now I get it. I felt good when I was on the phone with you and then I got off the phone and then I fell right back into the panic. And I like slow walked into it
Starting point is 00:16:57 in the most embarrassing way where at first I emailed the guy and I was like, hey, I'm just not sure if I answered that question properly. And he responded and said, oh, well, here's the audio of it so you could hear it. And then I responded. I was like, oh, could you maybe, I don't know, is there a way to trim it down or something
Starting point is 00:17:19 like that? And he's like, no, I don't think so. And I said, is there a way to take it out? I should have just said, I should have made a decision. I didn't make a decision. I kind of kept wading into it. But anyway, he ultimately took it out. And I, as soon as he told me that he did that, my wave of panic just disappeared because it was gone. It was over. And I have to say that in my case, I am going to say I made the right decision. And here's the distinction that I'm going to propose to the both of you, and you can
Starting point is 00:17:50 decide whether or not to accept it. Stick around. Help Wanted 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
Starting point is 00:18:29 $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 Bank Corp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A.
Starting point is 00:19:01 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. Me again. I hope you're loving this conversation, and I know you are. Of course you are. Don't forget to subscribe to Help Wanted. The link is in the episode description. Okay, back to me and Jason. Welcome back to Help Wanted. Let's get to it. The distinction about whether or not to try to fix something when you messed up or to call more attention to it or to do something more drastic or whatever it is that these things represent,
Starting point is 00:19:49 because ultimately what we're talking about here is the broader experience of messing up and then trying to figure out how to react to it, is that I think that you have to realistically evaluate the stakes. And a good way to do that is to ask, what is the realistic worst case scenario? And Nicole, in your case, I think that the realistic worst case scenario is that some people heard it and thought that it was funny. And I don't think that it's the kind of thing that anyone at Team GMA would listen to and say, well, we can't have Nicole Lappin back on to make that kind of embarrassment on the air. It wasn't going to impact anything substantive going forward. Whereas mine, the realistic, I think, worst case scenario was that the owner of Entrepreneur heard it and thought it was inappropriate.
Starting point is 00:20:32 And then that impacted my role at Entrepreneur. And I think that it's worth thinking very realistically, what is the worst case scenario here? And then acting accordingly. What do you think? Yeah, but you can't be realistic during those times. Like, it's just like your realistical faculties are broken. They're just like, it's not, you're not in the realm of practical. I, you know, the death spiral was like, they're never gonna invite me back. I have,
Starting point is 00:21:00 you know, so much pressure on this company. Like, we're solidifying these relationships. Like, it's going to ruin the company. We're, like, never going to be able to get out there. Like, I have, you know, people that we have to support. Like, lives and, you know, like, I fucked it all up. You know, there was no, like, reasoning during that time with me. Or, like, frankly, I mean, maybe with you because, you know, it was clear that there could be like a legal ramification but for me I was like there as much as Morgan tried to get me into like a realistic assessment of worst case scenario I wasn't gonna get there but now I can
Starting point is 00:21:41 that's what time does it It gives you some realism. imagined experience, and then ruminating really about how you generally, the way that it works is that you wish that you had the other experience instead. So the counterfactual thinking will be the way in which you said something on TV versus the better way you could have said it, which is a kind of upward counterfactual thinking. We often don't do downward counterfactual thinking, which is to say that we compare what we did against a way in which it could have gone even worse, right? I mean, what could have happened is that they said, Nicole, thanks for coming on the show. And you could have said, fuck you all, right? Like that could have happened. It's unlikely,
Starting point is 00:22:39 but it could have happened. And that would have been worse, right? So what we're doing is we're comparing what we did against the perfect version that we can imagine. And that is really unfair to us because there is a world of possibilities out there and most of them are actually worse than the thing that we actually experienced. And this isn't me talking. This is I had interviewed a couple psychologists about counterfactual thinking because I became interested in it. And they said that's a way to break that cycle is to stop locking yourself into one way in which it could have otherwise happened the better way and to start imagining all the other scenarios so that you
Starting point is 00:23:25 recognize like what you did actually in a broader spectrum of what could have happened. Yeah, it's like this power of negative thinking versus power of positive thinking, which we hear a lot. I think of it too as like this soicism idea that I've talked about on the show before of like imagining what the worst case scenario is too and then figuring out like what would happen if that happened like really playing out your fears and saying like okay well let's say they said something then what would happen like then maybe I would just like laugh it off and be like you know but didn't I like tell you about the debt ceiling like a boss I don't know or would they have said they wouldn't invite me back? Then what would I do?
Starting point is 00:24:06 Would I pitch them more things? Whatever. Like, long story short, it would be okay. Like, would somebody come and take the company away and, like, do all of those things? No. But, like, the realistic worst case scenarios, like, if you keep going down that thread, the answer is always like, you will be okay. And then I find comfort in that. Because there's always something tomorrow, right? Like the world does not end because of a decision. Something's going to happen tomorrow.
Starting point is 00:24:38 So there's something to do, to fix, to adapt to, to adjust to, to create some other new opportunity. Something like a big part of the problem when we are afraid of the consequences of something that happened is that we just kind of imagine the story stopping. You said the thing on GMA and then they didn't invite you back. And that's the end. Curtain down. Right? But like, that's how it happens. Like something.
Starting point is 00:25:01 She was a nice woman. Like something's going to happen tomorrow. That's how it happens. She was a nice woman. Something's going to happen tomorrow. That's true. I think that these skills that are really beneficial in psychology can be really beneficial depending on the time and the place in business, right? There is a time and a place for power of positive thinking, for power of negative thinking, for stoicism, for playing out the worst case like stoicism for playing out the worst case scenario but also playing out the best case scenario right like we always have this negativity
Starting point is 00:25:29 bias especially like when things like this happen and we just imagine um you know the worst case scenario but like what about the best case scenario what if they were like oh my God that was so charming come on every day like how real like you're just like the realest, coolest, most normal, like money expert is just like us. Like that's what we're looking for in this show. Yeah, that's totally right. It's a great point. And that reminds me of this thing that happened back in 2021, which was that, if you remember this, an HBO Max intern, which I guess is now just called Max, which is, can we all agree, the worst branding decision of all time? But back then, HBO Max, an HBO Max intern
Starting point is 00:26:11 accidentally sent a test email to all the subscribers, which meant however many hundreds of thousands or millions of people, I don't know, of people all got this random email from HBO Max that just said, integration test email number one. And that was it. And so that was probably a very bad day for that intern. And HBO Max, whoever over there made this decision, made a really wonderful decision to just make light of it and tweeted out, we mistakenly sent out an empty test email to a portion of our HBO Max mailing list this evening. We apologize for the inconvenience. And as the jokes pile in, because of course people started making jokes on Twitter. Yes, it was the intern. No, really.
Starting point is 00:26:53 And we're helping them through it. Heart emoji. And do you remember what followed that? No. So what followed that was this wonderful outpouring of people on Twitter, So what followed that was this wonderful outpouring of people on Twitter, all sharing the time where they screwed up as an intern. I will read some of them to you. Dear intern, when I was 25, I made a PDF assigning each employee to the Muppet they most reminded me of. I meant to send it to my work friend, but I accidentally sent it to the entire company.
Starting point is 00:27:21 My supervisor and speaker wanted to fire me, but the owners, Bert and Ernie, intervened, which I think is lovely. Dear intern, I was using my desktop calendar to make a monthly note of when I started my menstrual period, but after several months, I realized I was making that note on a calendar I shared with all of my colleagues company-wide. I was 37 years old. Okay, so these aren't just when they were interns. These are just mistakes people made. Dear intern, as a young lawyer, I proofread a legal brief and filed it with the court. I caught a typo and blindly used the global find and replace function. Pro tip, don't do that. My brief argued for the rights of the panties, not the parties, all 50 pages of it. And it keeps
Starting point is 00:27:59 on going. That's amazing. And then that got its own wave of coverage. And the lesson there is that sometimes you mess up and it's a big deal. And sometimes you mess up and everyone else messed up too. And they all relate to it and it's all okay. And I think that a lot of what's going to come next and what direction that's going to go depends upon the actions that are taken immediately after. Yeah. But I guess there's also this idea of really leaning into what the mistake is can backfire. We've seen that a lot on social media. We've, in the last decade, just had this authenticity rise. And like I'm feeling some authenticity fatigue. So that's why I didn't think it was like particularly interesting for me.
Starting point is 00:28:55 Because I could have said, let's just pull this part of the clip out and like highlight it. Right. This was like the time I went into Barnes & Noble after Boss Bitch was written and I saw an X on my face on one of the books that I was signing and I was like totally mortified, my initial instinct. And this was like pre-authenticity like blitz. I wanted to buy the book and hide it and make sure nobody saw it. But instead, like I put it on social media and I was like, thank you to this person who did that or whatever. So I could have done, you know, something similar where I just like really tried to be vulnerable and authentic and all that stuff and like share your stories.
Starting point is 00:29:33 But when you said like a stupid thing back to like the person wishing you a good flight or whatever. But I just felt like it was too much. Like, yeah, I think that there's we're at a tipping point of some of that. So a lot of companies can also try to fix mistakes by just like being super, super honest, right? And it has this great effect of like, dear intern and this kind of nice moment. But maybe like there are also, there's a time and a place where you don't need to highlight it. You don't need to hide it, but you also don't need to like underline it. Right. What we're not advocating for here is a world in which everybody's mistake becomes this thing that gets waved around. But I hadn't thought about this until you kind of put these two things side by side.
Starting point is 00:30:13 But in a way, I guess the question that needs to be asked, I think you tell me, the question that needs to be asked is, how do I make this right? And there are a lot of ways to do that. And sometimes, how do I make this right is, I will wave this in the air and other people will appreciate it and they will rally to me. Sometimes, how do I make this right is, I will bury this six feet under the ground and nobody will ever hear about it again. six feet under the ground, and nobody will ever hear about it again. And neither of those are right or wrong. They just are. And so I guess the thing to do is to ask that question and then follow it to whatever its most logical and comfortable conclusion is. What do you think
Starting point is 00:31:00 about that? What struck me about your two stories, also side by side, it reminded me of this psychotherapist, Julia Samuels, who has this really interesting, the way that she implements her research around fight and flight is really interesting, but she makes the point that when we make a mistake and we feel this anxiety, we are just animals under fight or flight. And so we have to do something. That's the way that we're programmed. We have we won't feel better until we do something. And so that seemed to be what both of you guys did. You were like, I feel like I made a mistake and I will not be able to feel better unless I do something. And I saw that with you, Nicole. You were like, I am a dummy. And you
Starting point is 00:31:41 couldn't shake that until you talked to the GMA producer. But I think actually kind of more of the difference than the stakes. I see the big difference between the two of your stories is that Jason, you got what you asked for and Nicole, you didn't. And so you had to make yourself feel better, Nicole, yourself and Jason, you had help with your problem. Nicole, you didn't, you were just out on your own and you had to make yourself feel better, Nicole, yourself. And Jason, you had help with your problem. Nicole, you didn't. You were just out on your own and you had to make yourself feel better. And so what I hear is that it doesn't matter if your mistake is big or small, actually, you're not going to feel better unless you do something about it. And if it's a proper mistake that you need to fix, that will make you feel better. But even if it's a little mistake, you need to do something that'll make yourself feel better. And so maybe it's just asking the
Starting point is 00:32:28 GMA producer to cut it out, or maybe it's just sharing about it on social media. But just doing something that I think is commensurate with actually the mistake is the key. Do you remember what I did to self-soothe ultimately? Alcohol? Close. I had a big cookie. That's a very well-earned cookie. Absolutely. And that's commensurate with the crime. It was a cookie mistake because I'm not a stupid head. No, just a cookie head. Well, Nicole and Morgan, thanks for coming on the show. You too.
Starting point is 00:33:02 Help Wanted is a production of Money News Network. Help Wanted is hosted by me, Jason Pfeiffer. And me, Nicole Lapin. Our executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. If you want some help, email our helpline at helpwanted at moneynewsnetwork.com for the chance to have some of your questions answered on the show. And follow us on Instagram at moneynews and TikTok at moneynewsnetwork for exclusive content and to see our
Starting point is 00:33:25 beautiful faces. Maybe a little dance? Oh, I didn't sign up for that. All right. Well, talk to you soon. you you you

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