More Money Podcast - 221 How to Be a Value Investor - Danielle Town, New York Times Bestselling Author of Invested

Episode Date: December 18, 2019

I can’t believe we’re already here but this is the last episode of 2019 and Season 9 of the Mo’ Money Podcast! And what better way to end it than with an episode all about value investing with New York Times bestselling author Danielle Town. Although I’ve done a ton of episodes on the podcast on investing, if you’re a long-time listener then you may have found that most of the guests I have on the show tend to say pretty much the same things: keep fees low, diversify and invest in low-cost index funds or index ETFs. Not Danielle! As a value investor following the path of Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger, she has an altogether different strategy for reaching financial indepence. Instead of buying investment products that replicate a broad market index, she believes in investing in just a few stocks strategically, buying low, holding on to them, then eventually selling them when they are priced high to earn a nice profit. There’s obviously quite a bit to know about value investing, and in my opinion, it is an advanced investment strategy that is not easily carried out. That being said, I find it incredibly fascinating and an important strategy to understand when learning about different ways to invest your money. I’m still a huge fan of indexing, but I’m not gonna lie, I’m definitely going to look more into doing some value investing for a small portion of my overall investment portfolio and see how things go. And luckily Danielle’s book breaks the strategy down in a very easy to understand way. For full episode show notes visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/221 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the Mo Money Podcast. This is episode 221 and also the final episode of season nine of the show. This means that, well, after this episode, I will be going on a tiny bit of a hiatus until the new year for the holidays. So season 10 will kick off January 15th, 2020. Oh my gosh. New decade. What? That is... Anyone else kind of panicking about the new year and especially new decade? I get like this every December. I get a little panicky because we're just ending this chapter and starting a new one. And maybe it's because I'm self-employed, but every year I get anxiety around December because there's just a lot of things happening, a lot of expectations, all these things. But what I am really excited about is I have a really

amazing episode to end this season off. I'm so glad I was able to get her on the show. I'm a big fan of her book I am talking about. I have Danielle Towne on the show. She is a New York Times bestselling author of the book Invested, which I highly recommend you grab a copy of. I will also be giving away copies of it for my big book giveaway. So make sure to listen to the end of the show to learn more about that. She is also an investing practice expert who, as a startup and venture capital attorney, knew she should have been doing something with her money but was afraid of numbers and stock markets. So she eventually transformed that fear around money and became a mission-oriented investor who now helps people discover their own transformative power through her newsletter

and courses and podcasts and of course her New York Times bestselling book. And of course, she's also a regular contributor to CNBC, MSNBC, and she also has a TEDx Talk. She's doing a lot. She's doing a lot of amazing things. And in this episode, we are going to dive into the topic of value investing. So I have a lot of guests on the show. I mean, the show has been around for over four years. And we've talked about investing in lots of different forms. I've talked to a lot of variety of investing experts. And if you've been a long listener of the show, you will kind of find a trend. A lot of them basically say the best way for most regular investors like you and me is to practice passive investing or indexing where you basically use a robo-advisor

or do DIY investing, build a portfolio of either index mutual funds or index ETFs. Basically, you buy in investing products that track the movements of a market index. Slow and steady kind of wins the race, basically, is kind of the point. If you want to learn more about that, I've got a ton of episodes about it. But there are so many other strategies out there. That is just kind of one of, lately, the most popular one, I would say, in the kind of investing world. But there's another one called Value Investing, which is made, you know, kind of popular by Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world. And he was a big influence on Danielle

and also her father, who is a New York Times bestselling author himself, Phil Town, and also a very knowledgeable investor himself. And so this book really dives deep into what is value investing and how do you get into it? Obviously, it is different than passive investing. It's considered active investing. And you do have to put more effort and time into it because it is active. So we kind of talk a little bit more about that. But I think it's really interesting just to hear it from the perspective of someone who didn't always have this financial background or didn't have this investing confidence. She was kind of like me, kind of like probably you, maybe, who had no idea what investing really meant. And she overcame that. And now she's teaching other people how to do it. So I think it's really exciting and

it's definitely, I think, a great way to end this season off because it's kind of inspirational. If she can do it, literally anyone can. And that's kind of the whole point of this podcast. No matter what topic I'm talking about in regards to personal finance, anyone can learn this stuff. So before I get to that interview with Danielle, I just have a few words about this episode's sponsor, and then we're going to get right into it. With a possible recession looming in Canada, small business survival rates are more important than ever. By putting the power of AI into the hands of its customers, QuickBooks is a smarter way to do business because they help to connect small businesses and accounting professionals with the technology and ecosystem needed to succeed in today's digitally driven business landscape.

And the QuickBooks platform is now smarter than ever, with new features coming like Cashflow Planner, which leverages the power of AI to enable small businesses to predict their daily cashflow over the next 90 days, which was announced at this year's QuickBooks Connect Toronto event. If you're looking for a better way to do your small business accounting, try out QuickBooks yourself with their free 30-day trial by visiting quickbooks.ca. Once again, that's quickbooks.ca. Thank you, Danielle, for joining me on the Mo Money Podcast. Oh, thanks so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. I'm thrilled to be here. I'm thrilled to have you. I devoured your book. I thought it was very interesting. As I mentioned before, I hit the record button. I've done a lot of episodes, had a lot of people talking

about investing on the show, but I haven't really had anyone on the show to talk specifically about the investing strategy, value investing. I don't know why. Maybe it's my own confirmation bias. I keep on having guests on this show talking about passive investing, right? I'll tell you why. It's because it's a lot easier to tell people just to go do passive investing. It's a lot easier to say. And it's a lot easier to hear, too, I think, for people to hear, oh, I can just go buy an index, which means it tracks a whole bunch of stocks all at the same time and you only have to buy one thing and you don't have to really think about what you're buying too much. It's easier to tell people to do that an index. He does not recommend that you buy stocks yourself. And the reason for that is, in my opinion, one of, it's just a complete shortcut. It's, okay, if you're not going to spend the time to actually know what you own, then go be somebody who knows nothing and go do the easiest

thing. And frankly, I love that advice. I'm all about it, guys. But I found out that if I owned stuff that I didn't understand, I immediately became super worried about what was going to happen with the market, what was going to happen with that particular index. And without understanding it, you just get scared. I mean, it's just up and down for no discernible reason. And that's not a good way to live. So I found that for me, for my own peace of mind, I have to understand what I own and why I own it. And as long as I do that,

and it actually is not that much work, then it actually makes my life better. It becomes something that I call a practice. I treat it as a practice in my life to study investing and to study companies. And it's become this way for me to have kind of a 4D view of the world, seeing this investing layer over everything else that has taught me about the world around me. It's taught me about my values. It's taught me about what I want to literally support with my money. And to me, that is a much better way to live than with your head in the sand, ignorantly buying something that you don't know why it's happening or what's happening. Yeah. No, that's definitely something that I kept on thinking about while reading your

book was value investing. It's all about buying something that has good value, but also about your personal values, which has been a topic of conversation, I think, that keeps coming up in the personal finance world, which I think is great. Because like you said, a lot of us are investing. We may not really know what are in those index funds or ETFs. We may not know all the companies listed. We're just kind of following this one strategy, which is fine. But we should be paying more attention to who, like, you know, kind of we're voting with our dollars, who are we supporting? And I think we need to pay way more attention to that. So that's definitely why I was reading. I'm like, hmm, I really am excited to kind of try out, you know, kind of the practice that you kind of laid out in your book. Because I think it's

really interesting how you laid it out kind of so someone can kind of replicate it and kind of go through, you know, the checklist that you've made and all that kind of stuff. I think it's a really interesting practice. Even if someone doesn't want to become a value investor after, I think it's a great thing just to try out and get more familiar with it. Because a lot of the things in value investing, you can apply to other strategies of investing. It's just about becoming more knowledgeable about investing in the end. Exactly. So as you said, my book goes step by step through the process that I went through of learning about investing from knowing absolutely nothing and really wanting nothing to do with it, quite frankly, to

then discovering that it was actually something that could add value to my life and where I could put my money into companies and ideas and goals that I really support and want to have my money supporting. And then the step-by-step to finding really good companies and when to invest in them. And so somebody who reads the book can follow that process quite easily. And by the end of the book, you will know what to do. But it's also just a fun read. I really wanted to write a book that was fun, that made investing sound interesting because it is. And so many investing books are so boring, and I just can't stand to read them. And I've had so many people I've met say to me like,

oh, you know, I have your book on my list, but I just don't really feel like reading an investing book. I'm like, I get it. But I wrote this book to be completely different from any other investing book. So the idea is that you should have a good time reading it and enjoy it. And then if you, you know, whether you start to use the principles or not, I think what you said is exactly right, Jessica. These ideas of finding companies or investments, which could be like, you know, apartment buildings, it could be houses, it could be private companies, it could be investing in startups. These values are the type that can be used to determine a company or I should say an investment

that you understand that has good, and that has strong competitive advantage, and that you get at a good price. Those are the most basic principles that come straight from Charlie Munger, who's Warren Buffett's investing partner. And you can use those principles for absolutely any kind of investment. So it doesn't have to be, you know, I want to go become an expert on public companies. It can be used for any kind of business. I've also had friends who run businesses who have said to me, like, I'm you want it to live up to those principles. So it's a really flexible strategy. And it's one that's just helpful to know about for living your life. And that's the cool part of it. Yeah. So what I really enjoyed of your book, you went through your whole process of going from total beginner to now being a value investor and confident and knowledgeable about what you're doing is clear in the book, there's a big learning curve. And I actually appreciated that because,

like you said, a lot of these investing books that are out there, they do describe lots of things you talk about, but in a way that is sometimes hard to digest. So how were you able to actually, yeah, and you took a year, you know, in this book, that's kind of the timeframe, which I really enjoyed. Because yeah, sometimes it can take a year or two years to really let it to really get it. What were you able to do? Like, when did it click? When did things start to click for you? I think things started to click around, I kind of had two clicks. There was one that was around like month four-ish. And then there was another one that was around month six-ish. So what happened to me is that I, so I'm a startup lawyer by training and I was practicing

law in Boulder, Colorado and loved what I did, loved my work, loved my colleagues. Everything was good, except that I was just working so much that I was getting completely burnt out and exhausted. And like, my hair started falling out and I started not being able to digest food. Like, my stomach just didn't work. And I started taking all these pills and, you know, homeopathic aids. And I went to acupuncture and I was just doing everything just to function because I was just under so much stress and I was so exhausted. And that is not a rare story. I mean, I would say most people I know have some kind of lifestyle along those lines and we just think it's normal. I thought it was normal. And so I went to the doctor when my stomach was having all these problems. And she said, well, I think you might be stressed. I said, no, I don't feel stressed. And I really meant it. I

really meant I did not feel I couldn't even feel what was happening to me. And so my dad, who's an investor, said to me, you know, you may not be able to keep up this job for much longer because of your health. And if you can't, what are you going to do to take care of yourself? And I said, well, I have no idea. So he said, okay, you need to learn the basics of just how to invest. And he had tried to teach me this stuff a few times before when I was younger, but it didn't work. And to answer your question, this is how I started to figure out that I needed to find my own way into investing and into companies and financial statements and all the stuff related to investing. I needed to find a way that worked for me. And I am not a financial type of person. I didn't go into finance. I don't love numbers to this day. I am not super comfortable with

financial statements. That's just who I am. And that's not going to change. So how do I, as somebody who is very smart in many ways, I'm not trying to put myself down, but I'm aware that I have strength and weaknesses. How did I get into this? And I said to my dad, who loves spreadsheets, by the way, and is like a total numbers guy, I need to be able to ask you any questions that I want so that I can just find my own way into this and basically teach it to myself. And to his credit, he said, okay, absolutely. And then we started a podcast together so that we would actually have to talk to each other about it, which worked very well. And so the way that I found that worked for me and was number one, just being me and saying, okay, I'm not going to become somebody different.

I'm not suddenly going to become interested in finance. I'm not suddenly going to start loving watching CNBC and have people yell at each other on my TV. That's not my favorite thing. And yet, I love companies. I love entrepreneurs. I love exciting new products and services and people who are trying to change the world. That was my world, and I love that kind of stuff. So how do I take that interest and turn it into an interest in public company investing or really any kind of investing? And I realized that I can learn the numbers stuff. I'm smart enough. We can all do it. I promise. We can learn that stuff. It's just a matter of sitting down like math class and teaching it to yourself. But the rest of it, we like non-numbers, we non-finance people. We sort of, I call us like

normal people. We actually have skills that the financial people don't have. And we don't know it because they run this side of the world. And we are generally told we're not good enough and we're not smart enough and we need to just pay them money or go buy an index fund because we're not going to be able to do it. That is not true. We have skills around finding great people, around finding managers that are really doing a good job with companies. We have skills around finding companies with wonderful values, with missions and purposes that are doing things that I really want to support with my money, literally. My money, when I invest in a company, when I buy stock in a company, my money literally is supporting what they're doing. So how can I ethically put my money into something that I think is doing bad stuff in

the world? I can't. And if I own an index, then it probably is supporting companies that I don't actually want to support. So with these sort of sides, these sort of softer skills, and then also the skill of starting from zero and learning how to invest all the way to the point of becoming really competent at it is an experience that most experts don't have, which sounds weird. But it's true because they come into it from sort of a higher level than we do. So they skip all the parts where it's scary and it's like up and down and you don't want to be involved with it because they're like excited by that stuff. They love the game and the up and down and I can't stand it. So for us, we actually are able to process the fear and the greed that you naturally go through as an investor by learning it step by step. And that is a massive advantage over these people who

have maybe never experienced a loss. And then when they do, they go nuts and they freak out and people do terrible things to themselves. So we have so many advantages just actually by not being naturally drawn to this practice that gives us the ability to really work through those challenges and do better in the long run. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I think that's one thing that I always find very interesting in lots of the investing books out there. They never really talk about the emotion of it all, but investing is very emotional. And that is a big reason why so many people don't get started. I talk to normal people all the time. I'm a normal average person. I kind of think, you know, I don't come from a business or, you know, financial background. I do this now, but that's

not where I came from. I went to art school. So I feel you, you know? Yeah, totally. I studied religion. Yeah. Yeah. It's like very different backgrounds. So for me, like you, I really related to that and that, yeah, there was a big learning curve. And I, for years, would just write or talk about general personal finance. I'd never dive into investing because it just felt like it was too difficult or too complex. And the people that I would talk about it who didn't know about it didn't make me feel any better about it exactly. And so I really appreciate you kind of talking about going from ground zero to actually learning this. And yes, it is kind of sometimes hard. And you know, there's like sections where you talked about

just not understanding this one thing and just could not is just like this roadblock. You just like, you can't get over it. Or I like how you described it as like, as if there was a fog. I'm like, that's exactly what I used to think. It's like, it's like, there's this fog in front of me and I cannot see the other side, but eventually you can walk through it, but it does kind of take time, patience, and not quitting your kind of own investing practice. What were some things that you did to kind of overcome some of those barriers of just not getting something? Well, so there were a couple of points, as you said earlier, there were a couple of points

that were really turning points. And the first one was just getting into it at all. And that's where information helped me. So I found out that inflation is steadily destroying the value of my savings because I had thought, well, I'll just save money and I'll be, you know, that'll be fine. And I'll sort of figure it out later because retirement felt very far away to me. And so I thought that was honestly like the smartest thing to do. I was kind of a genius. I just hide my money under my mattress and move on. And then I found out that inflation actually lowers the buying power of our money steadily over time. As long as there's inflation, and we've been in very low inflation for quite a few years now, but on average, it's about 3%. So every year,

that means that with me doing nothing wrong, the value of my money is going down by about 3% for me doing nothing wrong. And I had no idea that that was happening. It was like they didn't teach that to me in fifth grade for some reason. So when I found that out, that basically I have to invest just to make 3% a year just to stay even, that is what got me into this. And then I found out that the power of compounding makes it such that the earlier you start, the more money you make in an exponential kind of way. So there's really no time to lose. Another thing that got me through a hard time is really, as I mentioned earlier, paying attention to my emotions. So I was learning. I looked for missions with my companies. That made me really excited about it. And as I moved forward and I was looking at companies, I found companies that I loved that had great missions. At the time, for me, that was Whole Foods because I shopped there and spent a ton of money at Whole Paycheck and found out that they were

public and found out that I could buy them and fell in love with them. So that was really exciting. But I still, to be totally honest, felt not 100% connected to this practice. It still felt something like, okay, this is sort of a finance-y thing that I'm doing. And I actually sat down and literally sat at my dining room table and thought, what is going on inside of me with this? And I realized that I had had this block because my dad was teaching me. And my dad is somebody obviously who handled the money as I grew up. My parents got divorced when I was about 11. And my dad left, basically, and he essentially took the money with him. Our lifestyle changed dramatically. And as I sat there, I remembered that happening. And I had, of course, remembered that happening many times because of all the divorce stuff. But I don't know. It's so funny the way our memories work. I had never thought about it from the point of view of what happened with the money until that moment, until I had started to

really engage with my money for the first time with this investing practice. I had not remembered that that experience had happened. And here's my dad, like teaching me about money. So I didn't feel like I trusted him. And that's what the block was. That's what was stopping me from getting really into it. And that was really, God, it was so painful to go through. I can't even tell you. It hurt physically to, I mean, because I love my dad. And by the way, he, so that did happen. He did leave. And my parents went through a massive war in their divorce, as divorces can tend to be. But then eventually they actually fired both of their lawyers and sat down in a room with a mediator and worked it out. And he, you know, once he realized that he had been affecting our

lifestyles, he came back and made sure that we were taken care of. So I don't want it to sound like my dad, like never came back or anything, but he did. And he feels terrible about that happening. And so because I went through this process of really seeing like, what is it about this money that is causing problems within me? I ended up talking to him about that. We had never talked about it. And we, for the first time, really got through that part. I heard his perspective. I heard some stuff that happened that I had never heard before. And we were able to kind of work through it and connect on a new level. And from there, it was like full on. Like I was all into the investing practice. I didn't feel any more blocks about it. In fact, it had helped me. It had opened up this new part of my relationship

with my dad and my own ability to take care of myself and to connect to my family. And we talked about his parents and my mom's parents and what they did with their money and how that affected them and how they think about money and how that affected me and how I think about money. It's amazing how deep this money stuff goes. And the only way that I've found to engage with it is to engage with it. It will not come up otherwise. And since the book has come out, I've heard from a number of people who have said that they also have been through this experience of once they started their investing practice, it brought up old stuff that they really had to work through. And, you know, that can sound kind of like maybe you don't want to do that.

And I can understand that. But I also think we're here to do better in our lives and we're here to be happier. And if there's stuff holding us back, keeping us away because we're afraid or we have trauma from the past, which frankly, most of us do around money, then let's go for it. Let's work it out and let's make it so that our lives can be better and our children's lives can be better. It can really be a shift that we can make for our families, not just for ourselves. So that was a huge turning point for me.

Yeah, no, I really, really enjoyed that part because I definitely identified with that. I'm sure it sounds like a lot of other people have in that we all have our own issues with money. And I get this from a lot of people I talk to that don't think that they are worthy or can change their financial situation. Probably because, well, my family's always been like this, so that's how I'm going to be or whatever the case. We all have our money issues. And I definitely identified with the whole, you kind of mentioned in the book, you and your father have issues. He specifically talked about his issues with his parents and money and that they never really wanted to be wealthy or there's a negative connotation to wealth. And that is obviously a huge roadblock in building wealth through investing.

And I think a lot of people that come from maybe grew up lower income or middle income have issues like that. I used to definitely think of that. I mean, yeah, I grew up pretty frugally. And so the idea of having more money as an adult is a nice idea, but actually putting that into practice, that's actually a hard thing to kind of digest because you're like, do I deserve it? What does this mean? Will I not relate to people in my community anymore? All that kind of stuff. And it doesn't feel real.

It feels like something other people do, not something that you do because we've never seen it. We've never been around people like that. They sort of seem like other people or maybe they even seem like bad people, people you don't want to be like. And that stuff can really, in a deep way that you don't even recognize, can hold you back. And that's not good. Like, we are the people who should be stepping up and money equals power, right? So we need to have the power. When I say we, I mean like younger people. I'm going to specifically say women. We need to step up

and take our power because nobody's going to give it to us. And this is a way that we can do it from home, on our own, using our own skills and interests. And it's an extraordinarily empowering thing to do. Absolutely. And one thing I found really motivating too in your book is you do, you know, we talked a little bit about values, but also like your why, like why are you doing this in the first place? And I tried out you on your website, have a your number calculator, which I suggest everyone try out. I think that's kind of a great starting point because a lot of people have this hard time of really understanding like, what does it mean to invest or how much can I build? But they're also like, but why? Like,

I don't even know why I'm doing this. And well, typically the reason you invest is so you can become financially independent or have enough for retirement. But most people have no idea what that actually looks like or that means. What is that number? How I know that was kind of a big part of the book, figuring out your number. Do you want to kind of talk a little bit about how you were able to kind of determine that? Because I know for you, it was specifically so you could kind of retire early or maybe not work as much for your health reasons. Yeah. So I was trying to figure out how much I needed so I could retire early.

And I will tell you, the numbers are sobering. It's scary when you start to look at it. I think I'm going to forget now because I will tell you, I don't remember numbers. And that's just, maybe it's a failing of mine, but I actually kind of think it's a benefit because I don't get sucked into all these numbery things that financial people do, which I've really noticed in the last few years. It's been a very interesting observation for me. So other people seem to know exactly how much they've made or lost. And I'm like, I don't really have a clue. So I'm not

attached to it as much. So I don't really have a clue how much I need for full-on retirement. But I do remember, I think it was around like 5 million is what I needed to have in the bank to have, I think, 150,000 a year, something like that. That's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. That doesn't sound like real money. You know, it doesn't sound like real money. That's true. And then if you want to, you can start to build out how you get there. And if you look at how much you can make investing and what this strategy can do, if you do it right, it can get you 15% a year. That's the goal, 15% a year. There are value investors who have made 20%, 25%, 30%, but that's like, you know, a lot. Typically, the market will return 5% to 7%. The market has been going nuts in the last few years. So it's been returning way more than that. But on average, and it will average out at some point, it returns about 5% to 7%. So if we're

looking at 15% a year, and you can find these charts in the book, depending on how much you start with and how much you're willing to put in every year, and it doesn't have to be a lot, it can be a few thousand, you can get to that number pretty quickly. But you have to start now. That's the problem. And also, even if you don't have, let's say, any money to invest with right now, let's say you have student loans or you're trying to buy a house. These are real things that happen to us and that are equally important. I think that starting and I was trying to pay off my student loans when I started. So I didn't have an investing fund. I had some savings. Like I said, I was kind of hiding it under the mattress and that was kind of my emergency fund. But I hadn't really, I had never really thought about investing. So I didn't have any sort of money put aside for retirement or investing in any particular way. It just seemed very like imaginary to me. And so I was trying to pay off my student

loans and I just decided, okay, I actually need to think about this first of all. And I need to, for me, I needed to pay off my loans first because that was just a big emotional block for me. I felt like I couldn't go forward. And different people have different ways of handling debt like that. And some people do both. And that's, I think, probably a very good recommendation to pay down your debt with maybe half your savings and then keep the other side for the investing. Other people need to just go full on, pay off the loans and then move on. And still others just hold the loans. So, you know, you have to think about what's right for you. And I'm sure you give advice

about this, Jessica, much better than I do, because I'm not a personal finance expert. But I just paid off my loans and then went straight to investing. And the way that I did that actually was I took a huge leap was I sold my house and my house had gone up in value so much. And there's another investment that I made, by the way, which turned out really well for me that I was able to pay off my loans and still have a really good amount left over for investing. And that's how I did it. So I did not expect to make such a drastic change in my life at all. It's pretty extraordinary when you start a practice that opens up your life in this way. Things just sort of happen. They sort of like come to you. It's really amazing. And I had felt so closed and very much head down, working as hard as possible and saving money and just doing everything I could. And I just felt like I was treading water and getting nowhere. And then all of a sudden, I, well, first of all, I met a guy who lived in Europe. So that was a big

change. And then, and then, and then I just realized I was so burnt out. I didn't really want to do that job anymore. And so that's when I decided to go all in, sell my house. I moved in with my mom, which is not a typical way of success in life. But I felt like I was the happiest and most successful I'd ever been in my life. And I ended up getting married and moved to Switzerland. And that's when I wrote the book. Whoa, that is a big change. plan this stuff. So yeah, there's just something about really like having a different view that sort of takes you out of that. This is my life and there's no other options viewpoint. And for some reason, investing does that not just for me, but for so many people that I've heard from about they start to look at companies and they start to see the opportunities around them and it leads them to a different job or, you know,

it leads them to want to take more time with their kids and they're able to do that because now they have dividend income or something, you know, there's just all sorts of stories. And it's really amazing the way the universe supports you. Yeah. I think it sounds like what you're saying is that for the first time ever, you kind of really just stopped and took a look at what you're doing through your life. Because I totally understand. I remember being in that grind where you're just like working, working, working. You're like, what am I even doing? I don't even know how I got here or what I'm working towards. So taking that time to really reflect and be like, where am I right now? And where do I want to go? And what should I do to get to where I want to go?

I think so many of us just get caught up in the busyness of life. So it was important to take that time to really figure out what are we doing with our lives? Because then if you hadn't done all of the things that you did, take that time to be, I want to invest, you probably wouldn't be where you are right now, which seems like a much happier place. And I remember sitting there and thinking, so I was in a law firm and the whole point of working your way up in a law firm is to become a partner. And I remember sitting there thinking about the partners in my firm and did I want to have their lives? Because otherwise, what's the point of all this work and dedication? And I realized, God, you know, they don't seem really that happy. And I'm not sure I actually wanted that. And they're wonderful people. And I hope that they're

very happy. But, you know, I didn't see it that much. And I just thought, God, what am I doing? I got to get out of this. Yeah. And it sounds like also another important thing is, and I felt like this too, and I think it's very relatable too, is that you, for the kind of first time, were finally taking responsibility for your current financial situation and also any kind of future decisions, which I think is another big thing that I see with a lot of people. They kind of let things happen to them instead of take ownership of them so they can kind of move forward with some, like actually take control. Because it sounds like your life right now is because you were taking responsibility and took control of your life. That is such a

beautiful insight. And I've actually never thought about it like that. But I'm glad that you said that. You're exactly right. Such a smart thing. Yeah, you're right. I completely went from being passive and felt like a victim all the time to, and not with my work necessarily, but yeah, with the money coming in and what was going to happen in the future, I did not have control. And now I do. Absolutely. And I think it's not just about the mindset of taking control. It's about actually having the skills and the knowledge to be able to confidently and intelligently, so that you won't screw up your future, take that control. I think that makes a huge, huge difference to the way that you feel about yourself and how much power you have over your own life. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, that's the main reason I think I got into personal finances because I realized it was a way to take control

of your life when you feel like you don't have much control. So you have so many great resources on your website, but I also noticed that you have an online course that's closed now. I'm assuming it'll open up again. Do you want to kind of speak to what that is? Because I feel like if someone really gets into your book, they'll want more. Yeah, the course is so exciting. It just came out and yes, we're running it for the first time right now. So it's closed now, but it will be reopened in the future. And you can go and sign up for the waiting list there. It's about pretty much everything we've just been talking about. practice starting from zero, absolute zero, to developing what to look at, when to do it during the day, what's your investing space, what kind of items do you have around you to remind yourself why you're doing this and to help you do it. It gets into the emotions that I talked about, like the stuff I went through with my dad and the divorce. You also have those. I guarantee you we each have money stuff to deal with. And so the

course focuses on that and gets into it to work through those things, which you really have to have an investing practice for a little while before you can get into that. So it gives you the resources to deal with it. And then to look at where you're going in the future and why you're doing this investing thing, because it does tend to take time from other things. We're all super busy. How do you find time to add yet another thing into your life and treating it, you know, in real life, like a real thing that takes time and how to handle it? We just had a live call the other day with everybody in the course. And they said, you know, we're getting some comments and questions from people, partners, people in our lives, friends, parents, about this investing thing with like, you know,

not in the nicest way, like kind of like, what the heck are you doing? And I was so, this sounds bad, but I was so thrilled to hear that because that's what happened to me. I got all kinds of pushback from people. And I actually put that in the course because I thought, you know, if it probably wasn't just me, this probably happens to other people. And it was a real, it's hard to stand up to other people when you're doing something new that you don't totally understand yourself yet. And so it was just such a nice like symbiotic moment of I put that in the course and we're getting to it. And this is what people are dealing with. So I think it's, I've tried to make it very, very real and very practical to develop a really deep practice so that by the end, and I've called

it an investing practice a number of times now on the show, I think of it as a practice, like a yoga practice or a medical practice or any kind of work that you do that you are constantly getting better at and that never has an end. Because when I first started, I thought like, oh, I'll just learn and then I'll learn and then I'll be done learning and I'll know at that point. That's not going to happen. This is a never-ending growth project. And by thinking of it that way, it took the pressure off me. I didn't feel like there was some test that I was going to have to meet at the end of it. Instead, it's just a really lovely way to continue learning. And so this course is set up in over seven weeks, which sounds long, but it's only 15 minutes a day, which is a real

life investing practice. And it's only five days out of seven days. So it's not even every day. And at the end of the seven weeks, anybody who takes the course will come out with a regular, strong, deep, established, you know where you go, you know when you go, you know what it looks like, you know what it is to show up to investing practice. And you will be able to go off on your own and practice without any problems. That's so exciting. It's awesome. Honestly, it's been so fun to see it as people are going through it this first time. So I'm really excited for it to open up again.

Yeah, no, definitely. So where can people find more information about that and about you? And where can they grab a copy of Invested, the book? Well, you can go to danielletown.com, which will give you links to all of those things. And the course and my newsletter are under resources. And then the book you can get at the course is called mostly invested by the way. And because exactly because, because we are all kind of mostly invested. Like it's okay to not be all the way there yet. It's actually totally normal. And I just really want to emphasize that because we don't hear that from anybody in the financial world. And then the book is called Invested, How I Learned to Master My

Mind, My Fears, and My Money to Achieve Financial Freedom and Live a More a more authentic life with a little help from Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, and my dad. And you can get it on Amazon or any independent bookstore. I always try to support independent bookstores. And wherever books are sold, really, you'll be able to find it. And it's a New York Times bestseller, which was super exciting. I know. Congratulations. That's crazy. Yeah, it was crazy. I was blown away. So thank you to everybody who bought books. It was very exciting. Well, I can't wait to get other people reading this. I think it's really important to learn different strategies and different perspectives of investing because it is quite broad and just to you know like you said it's like it's not you're never done learning so it's important to to keep on learning and reading more and learning new things so i appreciate you taking the time to chat with me on the the podcast thank you so much for having me

and that was episode 221 with danielle town make sure to check her out at danielletown.com that's where you can find more information about her course that we talked about um her newsletter that you may want to sign up to um and of course she has a bunch of great resources and calculators like i mentioned in the episode as well also pick up a copy of her book invested It is a non-dry, boring book and also just a really interesting look and take on how to become a value investor if that's something that you want to just learn more about or get into and don't know where to start. I have a lot of important things to share with you, obviously, because this is the last episode of the season. So do not go away. I just have a few words to share about this episode's sponsor. Cashflow is one of the biggest struggles that

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slash whatever the number of that episode is. Very easy peasy. Or you can just like search, you know, find all of them on my website. Just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash podcast. All of them are there. So as I mentioned, I am kind of freaking out because we're at the end of the year. Oh goodness. I'm excited, but I'm also freaking out because here's something crazy. Okay. This is actually a really big moment for me. So I think it'll be really the first week of January. I think actually January 7th will mark three years of self-employment for myself, which is a big milestone for me, but also officially three

years since I left my corporate job, my last job. I was only at that job for two years, eight months. And the longest job I ever stayed at was my first job after university, my first full-time job after university. And I was there for just under three years, just under three years. And so technically, me being self-employed, running my own business, I have been doing this the longest out of all of my jobs. I don't know. For me, it's pretty cool. It's pretty special considering when I did leave my last job, I really didn't know what I was doing. I did not have a game plan. I really just dove in and I'm like, Oh, okay, well, we better make this work. And three years have gone by and I've made it work. And it's still doesn't really feel real. My husband actually asked me, he's like, when do you feel

like you'll stop feeling like it's not real or that, you know, this isn't, you know, a real business, a real job. Cause sometimes I'm like, this, this can't be real. Like this is too, I don't know, not, it's not easy, but it's like, I'm really enjoying my job and I'm not getting sick of it. I'm not getting that kind of every job I've ever had. Pretty much after a year, I'm like, all right, I'm already getting a little bored. Um, I feel like, I don't know if that feeling will ever go. I don't know if I'll ever feel like so confident and certain in my own business, but, uh, maybe after 10 years, maybe I'll feel a little bit more grounded. But anyways, just thought I'd share that little nugget with you because I thought that was kind of cool. Another really kind of cool personal accomplishment is, so you know, I have my own event series

called the Millennial Money Meetup. I founded it, started the first one in September 2016. And since then, I've done a total of six meetups. I just did my last one. You can listen to the recording on this podcast. And also, you can watch the full video on my YouTube channel. But when I did that first event, well, there's a few kind of copycats out there. And it kind of freaked me out. Like they weren't exactly, well, one was trying to be exactly like me, shut it down. And so I knew I needed to kind of protect myself and my idea and the name. And so I started to work with a lawyer to get it trademarked, the word Millennial Money Meetup. Because, well, this was an event idea I had. I was working with brands and it was really important for me to lock that name down. And two years later, guys, um, yeah, I just got the paperwork, uh, last week and it's official. It's trademarked millennial

money meetup. I own that trademark in Canada for 10 years. Took two years though. Yeah. And you know, some money because I had to work with lawyer to do it. So that was kind of cool to have that, you know, it's like official, like that's, that's real. It's pretty, pretty cool. Another kind of just to share some of my accomplishments probably to make me feel a little less anxious about moving into the new year and starting with a fresh blank slate, so to speak. A lot of people ask me because I get it. Sometimes people just listen to me on the podcast, which is great, or they just read my blog or they just follow me on social media, or sometimes they come to my

events and they're like, I don't know anything about you, which is fine. So I get asked a lot, what do you do? And I'm definitely going to make a video for the new year, really breaking down specifically like, what do we do? How do I make my money? But I wanted to kind of share something cool is what I've been doing for the past couple of years is I have this editorial calendar that basically I punch in every time, like any kind of piece of content or speaking engagement or thing that I do to keep track of all the things that I do. Because sometimes I'm like, what am I even doing? And so this year, I want to kind of share that I've put out 20 blog posts, not a lot, but again, I write all the things on my blog. I don't hire out any of that

work. So 20 is not bad. I have put out 41 podcast episodes. I've put out 20 videos. I've held two events like organized and hosted two events. I've also, um, hosted two webinars. I've also hosted two webinars. I've done one Facebook live and I've done 23 speaking engagements. And to top it all off, I have been mentioned in the media or featured in the media 48 times this year. Not bad. My goal was to get 52, which is like one a week, but what can you do? Can't win them all. So that is what in general I do. I'm sure there's probably some more stuff. Oh yeah. I did do a lot of little freelance writing here and there. Not a ton, but a little bit, but I didn't really include that because it was only like two or three articles. But yeah, so that's what I did all year. All of those things, which is a total of apparently 109

pieces of like content that I have personally created, not including those media mentions. So yeah, weird. That's so weird to see it in numbers, but helpful for me in my brain to be like, what did I actually do this year? Cause sometimes do you ever feel like you're like, I don't feel like I did anything. I guarantee if you tracked things, you would actually have the proof that you did quite a bit, which brings me to this final tease. Since, are closing out this year, we're going to start a new one. I have been secretly, and I think I did tease this on maybe the last week's episode or the previous weeks. I can't remember. I'm working on something very exciting that I'm going to launch not the first week. Well, yeah, I'm going to, I guess, launch it the first week. You can sign

up for it the first week of January, but it won't start the first week of January. I know this may not make sense, but it will when it's launched. Basically, I have had this really cool idea probably all the way back since my Rich and Fit days. Do you remember those? Maybe not. Maybe that's, yeah, I don't want to really bring that up because Rich and Fit is no longer

a thing. But anyways, um, I have always wanted to do a, uh, masterclass, maybe the right term. I'm not sure I have to figure out what the right terminology is, but basically it is going to be something that if you want to start this new year off the right way, set some goals, get your financial act together, I'm going to have something for you. And I'm very excited. I'm very, very excited. It is going to be alive. It is not going to be something that's on demand like my investing course, though my investing course is great. Make sure to check it out. And also, plug, it's called Investing Foundations for Canadians. So if you want to learn more about investing foundations, I've got a

course that goes through everything for us Canadians. So check that out on my website or go to jessicamorris.com slash investing foundations. But anyways, I am going to be launching something that will basically kind of, it's kind of like masterclass group coaching, whatever, it's going to be live. It is going to be really exciting.

It is going to be that thing that I think a lot of people have been talking to me about, which I wish you had something to help me get my act together, but maybe they aren't looking for one-on-one financial counseling. And quite honestly, at this moment, I'm not taking on any new financial counseling clients because as much as I love it, I don't have the capacity to take on that many clients per year. I just don't. It's a lot of time. And I don't have a lot of time. So this, I feel like, is going to be a very exciting project and a thing for so many of you to take advantage of and kick off the new year the right way and see some massive results and transformation. Because, yeah. Okay. That's all I'm going to

share right now because I'm building it right now. I don't want to tease too much. To find out when it is launched, because again, I will officially launch it in the new year, make sure to follow me on Twitter or Instagram. Again, the links are on my website, jessicamorehouse.com. Get onto my email list is probably the best way to really get into the know. Just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash subscribe. But yeah, it's going to be really exciting. Also, I should mention that it's not going to... Because I did kind of tease.

It's not on demand. I'm going to open up registration and close it basically very fast. So it is going to be kind of a one-time thing. If it's successful, I may do it again in the future, but it's kind of a limited time situation. So definitely want to keep in the loop with that. So I'm very excited. I'm very excited. I need to stop. Okay. Anyways, that is it for me. I've been yakking your ear off for a while. I'm just going to miss you a lot. Are you going to miss me? I hope so. I wish you the best holiday season ever, no matter how you celebrate it. I hope you have an amazing, wonderful time with friends and family, good food, good mulled wine, and enjoy

this exciting, festive, wintry time. Thanks so much for supporting me, the Mo Money Podcast, listening. Make sure if you listen to this on Apple podcast or iTunes to leave me a review or rating, I'd really appreciate it. Or even better, if you want to let me know what you think, take a screenshot of whatever episode you're listening to share it on Twitter or Instagram or Insta stories or anything like that or IG stories. Apparently Insta stories is not a thing. People don't say that as IG stories. I'm old. What can I say? um please do i'll share it and love you forever and message you and uh yeah it'd be kind of cool okay that is it for me thank you so much

i love you have a great holiday season i'll see you back in uh 2020 crazy crazy this podcast is distributed by the women in media podcast network find out more at women in media.network