Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Stop Being Nice

Episode Date: February 16, 2022

Yeah, you heard us. Today we hear from some of Nicole's friends and collaborators about the kind of advice Nicole gives. It’s not… nice, per se. But it is kind. In this episode, Nicole explains the difference. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Well, it doesn't. Charge for wasting our time. I will take a check. Like an old school 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. I am a big believer in feedback, but a particular kind of feedback.

Kind, not nice feedback. Okay, hear me out. Okay, hear me out. I'm notorious for being pretty blunt when I give my loved ones feedback and not necessarily treading lightly or mincing words about it. That might sound not nice, and you'd be right, but it's not mean. It's kind. When you recognize that something that a friend or a colleague is working on could be better, to say something challenging is, in fact, the kinder gesture. It's not the nicer gesture, but it is the kinder one. To just nod and give a half-baked cool isn't really helping anyone. Being a good friend means actually caring enough to pay attention and make each other better.

But you shouldn't take my word for it. Let's hear from some of the people who have received this kind of kind feedback from yours truly. Hello, Jason Pfeiffer here. I don't just have a testimonial about Nicole giving me great feedback. I have the actual feedback and you are going to hear it. So here's the setup. I had made this video for social media that I thought I did a good job on and I thought lots of people would like and it was fun and I brought like a lot of energy to it and I thought I just really nailed it. And I shared it with Nicole. And then we were talking about it on Facebook audio, which is why I have the audio.

And she told me it feels a little bit like you're trying like not too hard, but there's such a fine line, especially on video, to coming across as, like, thirsty. Let us be clear. Nicole is trying not to directly call me thirsty, but she's calling me thirsty. And it's fine. I'm okay with it. Because when I watch Nicole's videos, I don't think that she is coming across as thirsty. So I would like to do what she is doing. And so I'm listening.

is coming across as thirsty. So I would like to do what she is doing. And so I'm listening. And now next, what you hear is that Nicole will, she's going to back up and she's going to give me some compliments because she wants me to feel good about this. And then she's going to criticize me some more. You know, you have this very cool cadence and tenor to your voice that's like inquisitive and quirky and like, but knowing you as a friend, you do that all the time. And I think you punch it up. Again, saying it without saying it, thirsty. She's saying I'm too thirsty.

And I appreciate this advice. I really do. Because I think that one of the assets that I bring to something when I create it is like energy, so much energy. But what Nicole is saying is like, yes, but you have a lot of it naturally already. Too much. You're bringing too much.

And that's good. That's good for me to know. And nobody else was saying it. And I've thought about it while filming every single video since. So, Nicole, thank you for calling me Thursday. For me, I was always relating to kindness and empathy. A lot of people find it hard to connect to it, especially in the business world, because they think of it as soft terms.

But I love it because being kind and being empathetic allows you to expose yourself, be vulnerable, and eventually make better decisions. I know Nicole now for more than 10 years. We met in the Holy Land, Israel. And if there's something that you see in Nicole the first time and instantly as you meet her, it's her ability to be direct, but never to offend you. It's more about helping you see what she sees in you so you can consider doing something about it. In many ways, it's the best version of kindness because it's much easier to say nothing at all.

The first time I was scheduled to go on TV, Nicole and I met for drinks the night before and she asked me, so what's your spiel for tomorrow? And I went on and on about Taboola and her vision and she just stopped me and she said, Adam it's too wordy, it's too much. You have to think bullets, you have to think simple and she pitched it back to me. She said, you help people discover things they may like but never knew existed. It's not about showing annoying ads, it's to me. She said, you help people discover things they may like, but never knew existed. It's not about showing annoying ads, it's about storytelling. And she said, content is not king, it's actually queen.

She was direct. She basically said I was blabbering. And she was so good because she made me better. I love kind, but not nice. Especially as an Israeli, I rather talk about stuff directly all the time and get better. This is true kindness. Hi, this is Sarah Zarell and Nicole has been my best friend for several years. Throughout our friendship, she is a master at giving the kindest advice and is always the most helpful.

Most recently, I had asked her for feedback on my resume, and after thoughtfully looking it over and reading the contents, she pointed out that I had my headshot on my resume and that within that headshot, the way it was cropped, you could see the top of my dress. And the dress that I was wearing in this headshot, though a business dress, did reveal more cleavage than is perhaps appropriate for a work environment. And she suggested that I go ahead and crop the photo in. I honestly hadn't even noticed that there was cleavage in this photo.

It's just one that I had slapped in there. And in InDesign, I hadn't zoomed it in. And so this was such a thoughtful catch. And I must admit that once I made the change and removed some cleavage from my resume, I did start getting more interviews. So thanks, Nicole, for giving me the kind advice and not just being quote unquote nice and telling me that it all looks great. Well, hello, Money Rehab listeners. This is producer Mike Coscarelli.

You may have heard my voice on the show a handful of times. I work behind the scenes with Nicole and our other fabulous producer, Morgan Lavoie. So I am very familiar with Nicole's kind but not nice advice strategy, sometimes about my own work performance that's neither here nor there, because that's not what I'm here to talk about. As a single man out and about town in New York City, I get blown off by women all the time, constantly, all the time. And every Tuesday and Thursday, Nicole, myself, and Morgan hop on a Zoom call to record all the tape for that week and also to just discuss what we're going to do in the future for the show, plan guests, show topics, all that stuff. And we have a lot of time to talk and sort of socialize. It's how we've gotten to know each other and gotten really close over the last year or so as the show's been going on. And Nicole has really never beaten around the bush when I come on

and complain about all these girls in New York City that are playing around and blowing me off left and right. So Nicole's the best there is. It's sort of grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me and saying, hey man, look at the situation and stop being a dum-dum. This situation is not good for you. Maybe it's time to get out. Frankly, I love having Nicole around and not only because she's super fun to work with, but also because if it wasn't for her, I would be sending text messages to women with passive aggressive punctuation that I probably shouldn't be using. But because of Nicole, I've avoided being a passive-aggressive little baby. And that's because she's kind, but not nice.

The reason I'm so blunt with my friends is because I've received this kind of feedback and it's really helped me in many meaningful ways. Yes, I don't just give out this kind of feedback. I get it too. And I can trace my stance on that feedback to one moment. Really. Let me set the scene. I was a young reporter working at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. My job was to write scripts about the latest business happenings

based on wire reports that came out every morning. I read them from atop a little crate perched over the roar of a live trading pit so that the camera would actually see my face. Seriously. I was so concerned with following the news writing style I learned in journalism school and coming up with clever puns that the gist of the actual story was sometimes totally lost on me, a fact I didn't even realize until my boss called me out on it. He was a master of the kind, not nice feedback, which he gave me a lot of. He frequently called me into his office to watch my on-air tapes together so that he could critique my work. He made fun of what he called my robot arms and mimicked my awkward anchor cadence at the time. But nothing was as bad as the day he played back

one of my reports. It was an announcement that Gillette was coming out with a new razor. He played back the tape where I said on air, it's a new razor that is sharp enough to whack off the hairs closer to the skin than the previous version. I looked at him quizzically. What's the problem? I was very proud of myself that I used a visual word like whack instead of something obvious like shave or remove. And I told him as much. He started hysterically laughing. What? I thought it was more of a visual image and good writing, I said. Lapin, he said, you're in business news now. You're talking to finance bros. Never say whack off anything. Oh my god. I was mortified. And even now, recalling this story, I'm cringing on the inside. I said something back like, you're totally right. I wasn't thinking. He said,

whether you just made more male fans or not because you tried to be cute and clever with your words, the point is that you weren't thinking. The reason that we're doing this story is that Gillette is a massive publicly traded company. It's rumored that it will be acquired by an even more massive hundred billion dollar, yes, billion dollar consumer products company, Procter & Gamble. New products move stock. And this is a big one. And that's why we're covering the story. I was speechless at the time. I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. I'm keeping the Gillette story for our year-end blooper reel lappin', he said. I forced a smile I'll never forget and went back to work. I nodded, still trying to process what he was saying, and I got up to leave.

It was feedback that I needed to hear, for sure. Although it definitely wasn't what I wanted to hear. For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. Being direct with feedback doesn't mean you have to be mean. When you're giving this kind of feedback, you can make it about you rather than about the person you're talking to and say something like, you know, this doesn't work for me. And then give a recommendation of how to make it better. What makes this kind of feedback kind is making it constructive. So the more specific you can be with your recommendations, the better. 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.