More Money Podcast - 242 How to Master the Art of Self-Promotion - Meredith Fineman, Author of Brag Better, Speaker, Media Expert & Founder of FinePoint

Episode Date: May 27, 2020

Brag isn’t a dirty word! Or at least, it shouldn’t be. That’s what Meredith Fineman, author of Brag Better, shares in this episode all about how to master the art of self-promotion. Meredith is the founder of FinePoint, a leadership and professional development company focused on training women on bragging, a systemic issues issue she hopes to eradicate. She is also an entrepreneur, media expert and freelance writer who has written for outlets like the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, FastCompany, and Inc. You see, if you don’t promote yourself and tell others what you’re good at and what you’ve achieved, no one’s going to ask! The advice that your work will speak for itself, unfortunately, isn’t true anymore (and who knows if it ever was true!). In today’s society, if you want to succeed in life and you’re career, you need to brag about yourself. And no, that doesn’t mean being arrogant or boastful in the negative way you may think. It means knowing who you are, what you want, and understand how to get to where you want to go while also lifting others up at the same time. We dive deep into this topic in the second to last week of Season 10 of the podcast, so I hope you really enjoy it as much as I did interviewing Meredith! For full episode show notes visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/242 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the Momoney Podcast. This is episode 242, and I am your host, Jessica Morehouse. Welcome back to the show. So maybe sad news, but happy news for me. I'm wrapping up this season very shortly. We have this week, we've got next week, and then I'm taking a little hiatus until probably late August, September. So I'll talk a little bit more about that in a little bit. But I'm very excited to have this episode as one of my kind of finale episodes. I recorded this a few months back. I mean, I think this was actually maybe recorded back in March, if I'm not mistaken, right when things were getting a little... Yeah. Oh yeah. I just looked it up. March 20th. Things were tense there. Things were crazy, but I was so thrilled and lucky to get Meredith Feynman on

this show to record an episode. But because of the pandemic, she has this amazing book, which we're going to talk about in this episode called Break Better. The release date was pushed, so it will officially be out. So you can buy it June 16th, but that doesn't mean that you cannot buy it now. You can pre-order now because it's only a few weeks from now. So make sure to do that. But yeah, in this episode, we do not talk about the pandemic, even though it was very, very much in our minds during the recording date. We talk about how to break better. How do we talk ourselves up so we can elevate ourselves and reach our different goals, career goals, personal goals, whatever, and how to do it in a not like icky way.

As we kind of talk about in the episode, the term break has such a negative connotation. It means you're arrogant, you're egotistical, you're entitled. It's not a good, no one wants to be called a breaker. That's not a good thing, but we need to maybe change, flip the switch a little bit. We need to kind of change the way we think about that word. Um, because guess what? If you want to get anywhere in life, and this is something that I, I, on my almost 34 years on this planet, now realize, you do have to talk about yourself. You do have to kind of brag about yourself. If you don't tell anyone about your expertise or your skill set or your achievements, no, sorry, newsler, no one's

going to ask. No one's ever going to ask. So you have to kind of tell people. And this is something I think a lot of us have not done for most of our lives. So we have to kind of tell people. And this is something I think a lot of us have not done for most of our lives. So we have to kind of unlearn, relearn some things. And luckily, Meredith is on the show to talk about how we can do this and what are some different ways we can do this now. Also, we're in this new digital age. So what does that actually mean? So you're going to love, love, love this episode, just a little bit more about Meredith before I get going. So she's an entrepreneur, she's a writer, a media expert, and she's also the founder of her own company called Fine Point, which is a leadership and professional development company with a focus on visibility and voice, particularly

for CEOs, founders, and women in positions of power. She speaks and trains nationally on women and bragging, a systemic issue she hopes to eradicate. And she is coming out with her first book called Brag Better, Master the Art of Fearless Self-Promotion, coming out soon, as I mentioned, June 16th. And I'll include a link in the show notes. But yeah, definitely make sure to grab a copy if this is something that you feel like you need to learn a little bit more about. But before I get to this episode with Meredith, I just want to share a few words about this episode's wonderful sponsor. This episode of the Momany Podcast is supported by Bumble. Just because we're all staying safe and staying home right now doesn't mean you can't be social. With over

70 million users, Bumble connects people in 150 countries to find new relationships, friendships, and even professionally network. Developed as a women-first social networking platform in 2014, Bumble's focus is to be a platform that promotes kindness, respect, and equality, and most of all, to help you meet new people. Not only that, it's the first of its kind app that has women make the first move to level the playing field and change the dynamics of dating. The best part? Bumble is absolutely free. So go ahead. What do you have to lose? Download Bumble for free today in the App Store and Google Play or visit Bumble.com to learn more. Once again, that's Bumble.com or download the app through the App Store or Google Play. Welcome, Meredith, to the Mo Money Podcast. I'm so excited

to have you on the show to talk about something that I've had a few guests on the show talk about, not enough, not nearly enough, because this is definitely something I hear from my audience that they would love to get better at, which is, as you put it in your book, bragging better or just talking ourselves up and self-promoting basically, but in a not icky way. I'm really excited to be here. I'm joining remotely in Washington, DC. If you hear a little background noise, it might be my little dog. But yes, I'm Meredith Feynman. I am an entrepreneur, a writer, also a podcast host. And my book, Brag Better, is here to help you hype yourself and talk about yourself and advocate for recognition, whether that is a corporate board seat, an internship, money, all different things.

Yeah. So you are the founder of a company called FinePoint, which is a leadership and professional development company. How long did you start that company? How long was it? And why did you want to start a company on that? Yeah. So it's funny. I'm 33. I started my company nine years ago, and I speak a lot about entrepreneurship or women in business or bragging, women in bragging or bragging irrespective of gender. So people ask me like, oh, how'd you come up with the idea for this company, et cetera, et cetera. And I laugh because that was certainly not a consideration. So I was working somewhere I was unhappy and I've always been someone who had side hustles. I was a nightclub promoter in Manhattan in college. I have been

a freelance writer since I was 18 years old. My podcast, It Never Gets Old, is all about the world of secondhand. And I have been selling clothing for 20 years. So I quit this job and I just hustled my way into making money. I remember my first gig was to do social media for a small furniture store, which is to say that Fine Point began about nine years ago. And it was some digital strategy, but then I really ran it as a PR shop, boutique public relations firm. And I did campaigns in technology, consumer lifestyle, business. And I had always built my own brand on the side. So I have been on television and been speaking and writing for so long that I had developed my own personal brand and my own entity. And I became the go-to for individual

representation, which meant that, and as it is today, I represent people. I sort of toe the line between media relations and professional and leadership development, which is to say that I help someone often in a leadership position communicate their message and figure out who they want to be and what it means to be in public. I specialize in women in positions of power, but I don't only work with women because I know what it means and how that's much more complicated to be a woman that chooses to use her voice. So when I was representing people who wanted personal brands like mine, but also media exposure, I started to realize that nobody knew how to talk about themselves. Nobody knew how to brag. And I have been wrestling with the word and the concept,

especially for this book, since 2013. Wow. Yeah. Really speaking to me because I'm like, even though I also have a podcast and am in the public, I even still have a very hard time reminding myself to not feel bad or ashamed about talking about myself because it's something that, I don't know, maybe a lot of us grew up with, but don't be a brager. There's a lot of bad connotations about bragging about yourself or talking about yourself because it sounds selfish or arrogant and all these kinds of things. Oh, yeah. So this is what the entire book is about.

So I will say a few things. One, you're so not alone. It's what I literally do for a living. Two, you're not supposed to know how to do these things, particularly as women. Positive attributes being more associated with passive behaviors, it just not being a practice that we are taught. As a writer, I cared that Brag Better created that language for us to talk positively about professional accomplishment. It doesn't exist. I talk a lot also about what you were taught about using your voice growing up. I think that

deeply informs how you promote yourself now. And one reason why I'm so keen on everyone bragging better, regardless of where you are, if you've never used your voice, quote unquote, or you're someone who has a podcast, is that we need the people that know the stuff to do the talking. So as a media person and a PR person, I realized that we had this really intense inverse relationship between volume and merit. We reward loud. And my audience for this book is not only women. It is a demographic that I call the qualified quiet, people that have done the work but don't know how to talk about it. It is a strength, not a weakness. To some degree, we all are part of the qualified quiet. And client after client would come to me and say, listen, I'd rather put my head down and do the work. But talking about your work is an intrinsic part of

doing work in our economy, a way we recognize things. You have to tell people what you want and what you've done in order to get the recognition that you want, whether that's a raise, whether that's simply acknowledgement or something further. Why do you, because I feel like a lot of people have this idea that some people are just good at this or naturally they're more inclined or just better at talking about themselves. And we've probably all had an experience where it's like, why is that guy or that girl getting all of the praise when I actually did the work? And like, why are some people just like, it seems like naturally good at it from the start. Like they know something that we don't know. Yeah. I think that that's generally a misnomer. I mean, I have trained, it's a learned skillset. So what I tell people

is if you're relating to this, you're listening to this and saying like, oh, these people just know how to do these things. I mean, that's not really the case. So that's why media training exists. That's why PR people exist. Sometimes I think back, I was never in a position where I wasn't told to use my voice. I have a very vocal and confident mother. I think that impacts people. But it's a learned skill set. So if you're like, oh, these people just know how to do these things. Again, I don't think that's true. I think you're looking at a really small sliver of people. You have a couple people screaming and the rest of us having no idea where to start, which is, again, why Brag Better exists. So what I tell people is you're in a position of power. So bragging and promoting and sharing your message is an

uncomfortable skillset and a muscle that you have to train, which is what exists all throughout the book. 10 years of basically case studies and exercises I've done for myself, for my clients, in front of crowds during speeches. But it's way, way harder to have done the actual work, to have spent time learning something in and out. And the bragging part is gravy. So that's way harder. Where I've seen the inverse, where there's a lot of pomp and circumstance, a ton of press, a ton of shiny penny, whatever. And then when push comes to shove, if you don't have the actual foundation, whether that's for a company or a person and their know-how, then that gets dangerous. So you are in a position of power and brag better. I really cared. It wasn't just about a sentiment. It's exercises.

It's like literally telling you what to do and say to begin to do these things because they're scary, because at our core, they highlight deep-seated insecurities or worries that our work and lives don't matter. I mean, like really existential stuff. We don't have to get into that. But you can learn this stuff. It's not rocket science. Yeah. You kind of mentioned something that I found because we're in this new world of social media influencers.

And it seems like it's sort of easier for people to maybe have a voice or build an audience and get themselves out there. But now there's kind of this kind of divide of people that are credible and legitimate and maybe they're trying to find their voice, but they people that are, you know, credible and legitimate, and maybe they're trying to find their voice, but they have that foundation, like you mentioned. And then there's the people that have the loudest voice or know, maybe they were able to learn those skills of putting themselves out there. But, you know, when you really look deep, they don't really have

much to show or they don't have much of a foundation. So it kind of sounds like what you're saying is it's important to really be skilled at what you want to be skilled at and own what you are good at and then figure out, how do I get this out into the world? Yes. On a grand scale, I cared about this book. I hadn't thought about it because I basically wrote an outline very similar to what this book is, though it wasn't ready and the time wasn't ready, like starting in 2013. You know, it's the same idea, very highly developed and different. But I didn't really think about how much on a grand scale, I believe that sharing your knowledge is civic duty,

that we are in a crisis of truth, a crisis of information. And it's very, very dangerous. I don't need to get into political specifics, but it is just time that we have people that know the stuff doing the talking. As much as I would like to be an optimist and say that I think we can get those loud, unqualified people to stop talking and be quiet, I just don't think so. So it's a matter of turning up the dial on the qualified quiet. If you know stuff, we need you to share it. We need your expertise. We need the real facts. Now I'm being very vague. That can be across industry, whether it's science, technology, what have you. But overall, I think it's actual civic duty for especially where we are to share things if you know them. I think that's actually a really great tool too when people are kind of feeling like,

oh, I don't know how to put myself out there. I feel kind of weird about it because I've never done that before. Having that kind of in the back of your head, you're like, it is your civic duty. If you do have that skill set, your experience, and you can help people. If you put your voice out there, what a great motivator or inspiration to actually kind of do something uncomfortable and actually put yourself out there. I absolutely love that. There's like such a bigger purpose. And I really hadn't thought about that as much. Listen, as a PR person, when I was booking my really knowledgeable clients for conferences or with journalists. The person in your industry that is getting the most praise is never the most thoughtful or accomplished or

knowledgeable. It's the person, and that's unfair. And that's just sort of the economy of voice we live in. But yeah, I mean, I'm sorry it's hard to talk about yourself. I know it's hard. I know it's scary. I know it's uncomfortable. That's why brag better exists. But you owe it to society at this point. On a big, big scale, you owe it to society. Yeah. I love that. I love that. So I kind of want to dive a bit deeper because you mentioned there's going to be so... When people take your book, they're going to learn so many actionable things that they can do. Let's kind of dive into some of those. You mentioned the personal brand thing, and I feel like that term's been around for a little while. And some people feel like it's overused. But for me personally, I have felt like once I really understood how to build my

own personal brand similar to you, it did really help me get my voice out there. Do you want to kind of talk about what does that mean for someone who maybe doesn't have plans to own a business, but just wants to be successful in whatever field they are? How can they build a personal brand? What does that mean? Or what does that look like? Yeah. So I won't, I mean, listen, please buy Brag Better, read it on a Kindle, listen to me read it to you over audio. We'll get that hardcover so you can underline some things. I will shout out a couple of things you can do today to start bragging better that don't feel as overwhelming as like, hey, I need to build a personal brand. Let's talk about your bio. It's something I talk about all the time. Bios are an absolutely classic bragging place where people

expect you to tout your accomplishments. The bio is not going to change. I tell people to, uh, look at your bio now, uh, open a Google doc or whatever you use. And everybody needs a long, a short and a two line bio. What does that mean? The long bio is everything, everything, all your jobs, all your awards, all your strengths in one place. Then you do a paragraph version, which is a short bio. And then you do a two-line bio, which can go on social media. And those all need to be really consistent. Put in a calendar reminder every quarter to update your bio. It's way easier to do that than two years later trying to go back and think about it. So like that's one thing you can do today. Second, your email signature. There was an article in The Times where I spoke to a friend, a journalist about my insanely long email signature.

But we talk to people constantly all day, every day. You want to give people on a silver platter a chance to look at who you are and like commend you or recognize you for it. Now that recognition means something different to everyone. You know, and as you said, like not necessarily starting a business, but you got to lay it out for people. You have to assume that everyone's very lazy, that we're bombarded with information. You just want to make it as simple as possible. And I would say the other action item right now, make sure you own the domain of your name. What does that mean? URL, I have

meredithfeinman.com. I've owned it for a long time. Whatever service, GoDaddy or Google Domains or I want my name, doesn't matter. Please make sure you have your name reserved,.com.co.org.net, whatever you can get. And think about starting a personal website, just even if it's a place for you to put some of your thoughts. One thing also, I think this kind of goes along the lines of like, when you're crafting your bio, how do you know what language do you use?

And I guess also this kind of goes into maybe your LinkedIn profile and your CV, your resume is being really careful what words you use. And I know this was something I feel like I learned a while ago when I did a big deep dive, was like looking for jobs, really trying to switch careers. And I really wanted to make sure, like I wasn't getting any interviews. I'm like, okay, well, it's not me. It's got to be what I put on paper. So I need to change what's on that CV and that resume. And I realized after

doing research, I wasn't using the right language. I definitely kind of looked a little bit passive, a little bit unsure, not confident. And that was kind of coming about. When I switched things, I definitely got a lot more interviews. Do you want to come talk a little bit about how should we be talking about ourselves while writing that stuff down? Totally. So the other piece of me is that I'm a writer. And we don't have... One reason why I cared so much that Brag Better come to life was that we don't have a vocabulary And we don't have – one reason why I cared so much that brag better come to life was that we don't have a vocabulary. We don't have the words for this stuff and I want to create them. I mean, brag is not a pleasant word. I use it to be somewhat subversive and get people's attention.

But also, it's basically one of the few we have. So if you look at the definition of brag, it means to talk about oneself boastfully, which gives us nothing. If you look into boastful, that means to talk about oneself with excessive pride. So what does that tell us? It tells us it's completely subjective. It's okay to talk about yourself with excessive pride. Sorry, dude. I mean, if you're qualified and you're listening to this and I give you the go ahead, a lot of people are like, well, what if people think that I'm a jerk or people think that I'm obnoxious? One, people are going to have whatever thoughts they have. I've been called every name in the book, like fine. Just do it behind my back so I don't have to hear it. But also, it's a lot easier to take a shot at someone

who's decided to put themselves out there. So linguistically, stuff matters. And I have this in the bio section. I also wrote a piece for Harvard Business Review, which you can link in the show notes about some of these linguistic things you need to do in bios, but active voice, not passive voice. So that's really important. I think it's so important, particularly for women too. Do not use your last name, not your first name. Not only is it too casual, but it also doesn't like, it doesn't take the gender out of it. Like, I don't know exactly how I'm trying to say this, but you need to use your last name, not your first name. Um, like I always tell people, what would you think about what a mediocre dude would do?

But honestly, 100%, I used to be part of this group of women and we were all, you know, ran our own businesses or worked at startups. And we had lots of conversations about, like, I think we all need to basically ask ourselves, what would a white, confident guy do? And it's helpful in some circumstances when you're like, I don't know what to do. It's like, what would this guy do? Yeah. And so, you know, no passive voice. Use your last name, not your first name. I want to see every award, anything in there. People expect you to brag in a bio. That's what a bio is for, and I don't think a bio is going anywhere. And then also, so this depends, but I don't want cutesy references in your bio. I think it's a chance for you to be

deeply professional. It's funny. Sometimes, though, I need to check on my current bio, have my dog Bean in my bio because I use her in a lot of my materials and conversations and stuff. But if it's not intrinsic to your work, I don't want to hear about your gardening hobby. Like it's not, this is a place to like knock them dead with your professional work. And so I would, I would cut out, cut out any of that. I think that's really important. Yeah. No, I always find that weird when I see in someone's bio where it's like, you know, all these professional things that they're like, and I like to go, you know, running. I'm like, okay. Like, I don't care. Well, I think that sometimes, I think that sometimes... I mean,

listen, you're stuck. You get a lot of competing information here. And my personal professional opinion, having done this with a lot of people and having helped people promote themselves and seeing how we recognize things, I think it just switches people's... It's just the personal and the professional. You got to toe that line really carefully. I mean, I think that with social media and all of that, at some point we're sort of broadcasting our lives and the line between personal and professional is very blurry. However, the bio is strictly professional. It really is. And I don't see that's changing. That's just an original brag spot, like your resume. Those are two places where bragging is expected wholeheartedly, and I just don't see that changing. Yeah, absolutely. I want to kind of talk,

because you mentioned we got to put ourselves out there. Some people would be like, what does that mean? You mentioned get your domain, maybe have a simple website that just has your bio or some information about you. So people, whether it's Googling you, because people Google people now, you're findable. Does that mean people should have social media? Are we done with the days of your work will speak for itself? You can be totally offline. Everyone has to put themselves out there, try to find writing gigs so they have those media mentions and all that kind of stuff

if they really want to be successful. So that's a lot of the basis of the book is if great work falls in the woods and nobody hears about it, you're not going to get where you want to go. So when I say putting yourself out there, that can mean a lot of different things. For my clients, that meant very public facing or means. I mean, that can mean a lot of different things. For my clients, that meant very public facing or means. I mean, I still have a lot of clients. So that means they want to be on panels or television or write things like that's different. Touting your work can also mean touting your work to your coworkers, to your boss, you know, within your company, in meetings, to a new client. Not all of it is external facing. And that's totally up to you. I'm not saying that everyone needs to try to get on panels in order to get the recognition you want.

If you want to raise, there are certain things you need to communicate to your boss and to your company. So a lot of bragging better is not purely external. And a lot of it is internal, depending on what you want. I mean, everybody has a goal that is singular to them. So when I talk about recognition and being out there, that just might mean contributing more in meetings. That might mean asking to be staffed on bigger projects. That might mean putting yourself and your work out there for a promotion, for a raise. It doesn't have to just be external. It depends on what you want. If you're like, I want to be on TV all the time, that's very different. But it means basically putting your work on display for whatever professional goal you have and for the recognition of the person that needs to see it. Yeah. You just don't want to be that person. And I feel like we've all known this person. It's like, what do they do in the office? What does that person do? You don't want to be that person where people don't understand what your role is and why you're valuable. Everyone has to do this. So like we walk around every day, like in our own heads,

I think that everyone knows all the time. You know, there are people that say to me like, oh, you know, what are you working on? I'm saying like eight years ago, not knowing about Brag Better and I'm like shocked. You have to always be reintroducing yourself to people. We walk around in our heads, like the truth is nobody cares.

Like we are just stuck in our own heads. So you have to communicate that. Like so much of this is based around just communicating the work that you do so people know so that you can get what you want from it. So you can get recognition. And again, when I say recognition, that could mean more money, a bigger job, not just a panel. Like it's a huge wide range of things when I use the umbrella term recognition.

So nobody knows what you do until you tell them. And you have to tell them. And that's really important because we all walk around just in our own heads thinking everyone knows all the work we've done. And particularly in either uncertain times or just the kind of crazy media environment we live in. People just don't know. You got to tell them. Yeah. You mentioned this earlier too that you've probably been called every name in the book and when you put yourself out there, you're kind of putting yourself out there for criticism and some pushback. As someone that maybe isn't familiar with that or have never experienced that, but they want to put themselves out there and all that stuff, what are some tools or what are

some things they could do to combat that or to grow a thicker skin? I've been doing this for a while and I get a lot of flack and it does hit me sometimes hard. So what can people do to not let it derail them? Yeah. First, I want to acknowledge that it's really hard. And there's, I mean, the book goes through all of this, but certainly there's so much about criticism and dealing with being quote unquote out there, whatever that might mean. What I tell everyone is it's really easy to take a shot at someone who's put themselves out there in public. You're standing out there, whether that's creating a great podcast or sharing in a meeting. It's really easy to take a shot at that person. And usually it's coming from someone else's place of insecurity.

They either recognize they can't do that themselves, so it's easier to lash out at you. That doesn't make it easier. I will say I have been out there or in public or whatever you want to say for a long time. Um, and I've grown a thicker skin, but my podcast, uh, is about a year old and, you know, you know, you're doing something right when people disagree with you, by the way, that means that you have gotten past just your close inner circle. It's actually a marker of success. That doesn that you have gotten past just your close inner circle. It's actually a marker of success. That doesn't always make it easier because I was looking through my podcast reviews and there was a lot of nasty stuff about my voice, which seems to be reserved for

women. And it's like sexism and policing women's voices, which we don't need to get into. But that still sucked. And it sucks and it's hard. And it's just important to know where the criticism is coming from and what the sources are. If it's someone who you admire and who you trust, if it's someone who you know loves you and is saying it for a reason, otherwise the rest of it's noise. And yeah, I mean, people have said all sorts of things about me, whether to my face or otherwise for a really long time. I've always been annoying. There was a funny article, I think it was in New York Magazine about being annoying or whatever. I've always been that gunner. I've always been that teacher's pet. I've always been that person doing the most, trying the most,

trying really hard. I'll never be someone that doesn't try hard. I don't know what to tell you. I can't help it. Maybe I just desperately want to be acknowledged and liked, or we don't need to get deep into my psyche. But the point is, this stuff is hard and scary, and you might get blowback, but also that blowback is actually a signifier of success. So I talk in the book about one of my very first articles 100 years ago. I mean, I'm 33. I started freelance writing when I was 18. And I saw a comment that said, I want two minutes of my life back over something I had written.

And I never forgot it, obviously. Yeah. And I never forgot it. So you need to be really careful over comments. You need to be really careful of what you're looking at, especially if you're what I call squishy or feeling sensitive. You know, because when I saw that podcast review, it sucked. It was like, you know, your voice sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard. And I was like, well, you're giving me a hate listen, which is the same stream. So if I get advertising,

like, please just keep listening because I'll keep getting money. And that part's really hard. Listen, if it were easy and then everyone would put themselves in, it's an act of vulnerability. It's an act of choosing to stand confidently. And also people really don't like confident women, which again, I don't know how much time you have, but I mean, people really don't like confident women, which again, I don't, you know, I don't know how much time you have, but I mean, people really don't like confident women. Sometimes I'm just like, just say you hate women and move on. It's not about my voice. It's not about how I'm saying something like, just say you hate women and move on. But you know, I also want to acknowledge deeply that just scratching the surface of how connected bragging and privilege and who we listen to is. So I am a white woman. I've dealt with sexism in my career, but I haven't had to deal, I'm straight. I haven't

had to deal with homophobia or racism. And that adds several layers. It's extremely difficult. And so a huge part of bragging better is also helping to elevate or passing the mic to people whose voices we don't listen to as much. And that's really important. In the book, I specifically cared about calling an extremely diverse group of voices, ranges of age, race, ability, sexual orientation. All of those sorts of things were really important to me in making sure that I walked the walk of elevating voices that part of bragging better is really figuring out what you can also do to help other people's voices shine. So not just bragging about yourself, but bragging about other people that are awesome that you want to elevate because that's what we should be doing, especially if we have experienced something like sexism or racism or

homophobia or something. We need to help each other. Yeah. And there's enough room for everyone. And we're often made to feel like we're in competition or there's only so much room on the stage, but really passing it forward or, or paying it forward. You know, I struggled with the book in wanting to really acknowledge privilege and voice and who we listen to. And, you know, you know who we listen to, it's white men in power. And so I also have a call to, to men, to white men, to to if you're someone people listen to, again, back to the civic duty thing, you got to pay it forward. You got to reach back and help someone else.

Absolutely. No, I think that's a really important part. It's like, obviously, we as women are people in a minority or, or that don't have a very prominent voice. We need to lift each other up, but we also need the people that are already in positions of power to, to lift us up to. And I know there's a lot of people out there that want to do that and want to help that, which is great. So I mean, to keep on talking about that and remind everybody we need to do that. But yeah, I, I feel the same way. I feel like so many people think that there's a limitation. There's only so much room or so many spots and that's actually

not true at all. There's, there's really room for everybody. And if you have that mindset that no, no, no, it has to be me. And then everyone, you know, below me or, or, or whatever the case, that's not going to help you. Cause as anyone who is in a position of power, who has become successful, um, I'm talking about like the good people out there that are, you know, also helping other people. You realize there's no such thing as a self-made, you know, successful person, self-made millionaire. You need help of other people. No. And for me, in my experience, the most successful people I've met, like household names successful are always the ones that have time to

give you 15 minutes. It's like the mid range successful people that are like, what do you want? Like the really, really successful people, the most successful household name, like psychotically like successful people are always the ones that will give anyone, you know, we'll, we'll look everyone in the eye, will, eye, will be happy to talk to and meet anyone, and also knows that everyone matters. And that's a different topic, but I think that it's something to acknowledge. And I wrote Brag Better because of a lot of different reasons that we've discussed. Please, please buy it. But I got to walk my own talk. But I get questions too because a lot of my work has been around women and bragging. And I'm very clear that up? I was like, no, we need you. We need you to help elevate the voices of women, help elevate the voices of people of color. It's your job to help too. Everyone is in on this together. Yeah. And also it's not like you've been saying, it's not that we want our voices to be louder so theirs have to be quieter or silenced. No, it's making room for every voice.

Yeah. And my friend, Lavi Ajayi, who's in the book, always says your privilege is endless. There's no limit on it. And so what I was saying was, too, I thought about adding a chapter about the privilege part and trying to write it. And I was like, no, instead I'm just going to let interesting people have the stage. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think this is a great way to kind of end things off. I think I'm so excited that you're having this book. I think it's very much needed. I think there's a lot of people listening that are going to grab it because this is, I feel like a topic I've, it's kind of woven into a lot of my episodes, especially, you know, talking about more specifically about personal finance, because that's also something we need

to kind of work on ourselves and, you know, raise each other up and stuff like that. So I really, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'll put this out into the universe, but, you know, asking for recognition and asking for money are, or praise, they're very similar. They're just different currencies. And so, knock on wood, you can hear that. You're not really supposed to touch the table in a podcast. But I would like the second book to be Brag Better with Money because they're so intrinsically tied deeply. I could only touch on some money scenarios in this book. I only had so much time and space and energy, frankly. But yeah, negotiation is a skill that, especially as someone who's a woman, I never had that skill.

And it was years into my career that I didn't even know I was allowed to ask for more. I was just told, be happy that you're even getting hired. Be happy that you have this opportunity, all this kind of stuff. So that's something we need to unlearn and relearn. Absolutely. So I'll put that out there. I mean, again, asking for someone to pay attention to you, whether that is very externally for press or asking someone to give you money, it's the same stuff. As I said, it's just different literal currencies. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me for this show. Where can people get a copy of your book and find out more information about you if

they want to follow you online? Oh, yes. It's plug time. My favorite time. Okay. So you can learn more about me at meredithfeinman.com. That has all my writing, all my speaking. Please book me to speak. And it has all my different projects there. You can learn more about the book at brag-better.com or just Google Brag Better. At this point, I've been writing about it, talking about it for so long. You can buy it wherever you get your books. Listen to me narrate it to you. Get it on your Kindle or iPad or wherever you read from these days. And then please listen to my podcast. It never gets old. It is all about secondhand fashion and the explosion of resale and sustainable fashion.

INGOpodcast.com. I'm on all the social medias at Meredith Feynman. I have a lot of memes on my Instagram because that's the only thing that keeps me sane. So that's where you can find me. Jessica, thank you so much for having me. This was so lovely. Oh, thanks so much. And yeah, thanks again for being here. And that was episode 242 of the Momente podcast with the amazing Meredith Feynman. Make sure to grab a copy of her book, Brague Better,

if you're listening to it in the future. If you're listening right now in real time, May 27th. Pre-order your book. It's June 16th is the release date. Grab your copy. Great summer read to up your skills during this time where we're still all going to just be at home, self-isolating. If you want to learn more about her, make sure to check out her website, meredithfeinman.com. Remember when she talked about get your domain of your name? Makes sense. Her name is Meredith Feynman. When you're going to search her, you're going to go to meredithfeynman.com and you'll find her. It

makes logical sense. And it's exactly why I also have jessicamoorehouse.com as my website, because it's easy to find you. So make sure to do that. That's a very important point that I think everyone, if you don't have it, get the domain name of your name. Just do it. You can also follow her on Twitter and Instagram, also at Meredith Feynman. Make it easy for people to find you. And you can learn more about her book, Brague-Better.com, and more about her company, FinePoint.co. Okay, as always, I have some very important things to share because, again, I'm only going to be here for this week, next week. So do not go away. Just have a few words I want to share about this episode's sponsor, and then I've got some things to share with you. This episode of the Momany Podcast is supported by Bumble. Anyone else bored at home and interested

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in the App Store and Google Play, or visit Bumble.com to learn more. Once again, that's Bumble.com, or download the app through the App Store or Google Play. Okay, first and foremost, I have not really updated that contest page. So if you are a long-term listener or a listener from the beginning of the season, if you go to jessicmorehouse.com slash contest,

you'll see I have a bunch of different contests for all the books that have been featured on this season of the show. I'm going to update that, add some more books. Quite honestly, I think I stopped adding new books because when the whole pandemic kind of kicked off and started, I freaked out. I'm like, oh my God, can I even afford to buy books to give away? So I kind of freaked out. Yeah, everything's going to be fine. I can afford to give away some books. That being said, what I do literally is I buy these books or sometimes I get them for free for the authors, but sometimes I just keep those copies for me and then I buy additional copies to give away because I also want to support these authors that are on my show. But also I manually and physically mail them myself. I sometimes even

pop in a little, you know, note in there to the winner. And, you know, right now we're still in self-isolation. I honestly don't leave the house unless I have to go to the grocery store every two weeks and a few other essential things. So I just don't, I don't feel comfortable quite honestly, uh, going to the post office and mailing a bunch of things right now. Um, so I'm, you know, as things improve, then I'll probably choose some winners and mail off those books right now. I'm just going to update the contest page with some new books and, uh, uh, select winners probably sometime in the summer. So how you can find out, keep in the loop with all these things is of course, getting on my email list, jessicamorehouse.com slash subscribe, get on my email list, stay in the loop right now is normally a weekly newsletter right now. I'm just emailing every two weeks, so I'm not going to bug you that much, but I will of course

announce the winners in that email list. And if you do actually win, I'm just going to email you directly. So don't worry if you don't want to be on my email list. No hard feelings. So that's still happening. Contest is still open. I will close it probably sometime in the summer and draw some winners there. And as I mentioned, so next week, and honestly, it's honestly been what I've been doing for the past five years. So it's not like anything out of the ordinary. I'm going to be closing out this season, the first week of June. It's also going to be my birthday next Thursday, guys. June 4th. Remember it. If you want to send me a nice little tweet or DM, that'd be nice. That'd be nice because I hate, hate my birthday. Can you relate? I feel like a lot of people can relate. When you just get older, I mean, it's not fun. And

especially now, it's not like I can do anything special. Typically, I don't really do a party or anything because I just don't really like doing birthday parties. Um, but I usually like go out to dinner or something with my husband and, uh, you know, this year we're probably going to get a cake and eat it in their living room. Woo. Oh my gosh. That sounds so sad, but what can you do? Like what we're all doing this, like what can you do? Um, but any who off topic had nothing to do with anything. Uh, next week I'm going to be releasing another episode, another interview with a special guest, and then I'm going to be doing another special episode. It is yet to be determined whether it's going to be a solo episode with myself or a special

episode with my husband. He has agreed to do an episode with me, but he said if he does not like it, then I cannot air it. So we're going to try to record it tonight, and I will, well, you'll find out next week. It'll be a nice little surprise. So I'm excited about that. What else we got going on? Oh yes. Important things. Of course, if you were looking for some one-on-one financial counseling help, I am still accepting clients. I will continue to accept clients throughout the summer as well. You probably just won't hear me say that unless you're on my email list because I will not

be putting out episodes during the summer. That being said, because I feel like some people may think it's crazy to go on hiatus during this time because this is when people are really listening to podcasts right now because we're all stuck at home. I probably will pop in throughout the summer. Maybe just do like an episode every couple weeks or episode once a month, whenever I feel like there's something important I want to share, or there's a guest that I can get that I want to share with you. It's all yet to be determined, but you know, make sure whoever you're listening, Spotify, iTunes, or Apple podcasts or wherever

you're like following or subscribed. So you can get those notifications of when I am, uh, putting out new episodes and okay. Two other things that I feel like I have kind of mentioned, but I, this is, this is why I like doing a hiatus of the podcast because it gives me some space and some time to work in some other projects that I've been, uh, just haven't had time to do. Um, one, and this is almost ready. I'm hopeful that it will be ready by the time I speak to you again next week. I've been developing a ton of new budget spreadsheets. Of course, I have my free budget spreadsheet with a video tutorial that goes along with it. It is free. As I mentioned, I think I just mentioned that. Just go to jessicamorales.com slash budget. You can download

it there, but I will soon be opening kind of a little digital shop on my website where I will have a bunch of different spreadsheets for different kind of scenarios. If you're self-employed or you're an employee with a side hustle, stuff like that, that I feel like you can't really find this stuff around. And I've developed these for clients that I work with or for my Fix Your Finances masterclass online course. So I'm like, I should probably just sell these individually because I'm sure people are looking for them and want them. And since I mentioned my class, I have two online courses. If you're not aware of it, um, I have my fix your finances at masterclass. Um, and I also

have my investing foundations for Canadians course. Those are online on my website, Jessica Morales.com slash courses. Um, but I am also going to be finally, finally putting together my, I mean, I've been telling you, I feel like for a year or two, my DIY investing course. It's if you want to be a self-directed investor or just want to learn more about passive investing, this is the course that I've had. It's been on my swear to God. It is, I've been on my corkboard for like, this is the goal to do this for a very long time and I just haven't had

time to do it. So I'm going to dedicate my time during this time, during this crazy weird time that we're all at home and can't go anywhere during the summer to build that course. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I also have a very lofty goal of finally just like hardcore studying and finishing the Canadian securities course. Not that you can take the exam yet, because you can only do them in person because I asked, and there's no online version of the exams, but I'm going to be studying throughout the summer. So that's what I'm going to be doing. That sounds so lame, but what can you do? What can you do? I can't go anywhere besides my back patio. It's times like these. I really wish I lived somewhere where I had like a yard or some land or like, I don't know, just like a mansion. Duh. Who wouldn't? But yeah. So

that's me. That's what's going on right now. Okay. That's really, I think that's it. I'm going to let you go because I can just ramble, ramble. I think I'm lonely. I think I'm lonely a little bit. I'm not going crazy. Everything's just fine. Okay. So I'm going to be back here next week, next Wednesday and then next Thursday. So thanks for listening. I will see you back here, as I just said, next week. Have a good rest of your week. Good weekend. Stay safe. Stay sane. I'm here with you. Don't go crazy. Everything's going to be just fine. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.