Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Suze Orman: Take Control of Your Finances Before It’s Too Late!! | Finance | E200

Starting point is 00:00:00 Do you know that over 50% of the people in the United States have less than $400 to their name? That is it. You have to understand that the goal of money is for you to be secure. So all of you should stop and answer that question. Are you secure? And if you are not secure, why not? whatever hand your doubts, whether you were raised by parents who were good to you or abused you, had money, didn't have money, were drug addicts, whatever it may be, there is not an excuse large enough in this world to keep any of you from being who you are meant to be. If you really want to have a lot of money, 30, 40 years from now, you have got to.

Starting point is 00:00:59 What's up, Yap, Bam. It's your host, Halitaha, and you're listening to Yap Young and Profiting Podcasts, the number one education podcast and business podcast across all apps, where we interview the brightest minds in the world and unpack their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life. Thanks for tuning in and get ready to listen, learn, and profit. Susie, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. Thank you, my dear O'Halla. Let's talk money. I am so excited for today. I've been watching you on TV since I was a little girl,

Starting point is 00:01:43 and my parents would always listen to you. And in fact, out of all the people I've had on the show, thank Matthew McConaughey, Deepak Chopra. My mom was by far the most impressed with you when I told her you were coming on the show. She nearly broke down in tears. It was really full circle for her. Super happy to have you on.

Starting point is 00:02:00 I'm glad I could do something for you. Hi, Holla's mama. I love it. And all jokes aside, today is really going to be an instant classic on Young and Profiting podcast because we are joined by one of the top personal finance experts in the world, Susie Orman. Susie is the author of several New York Times bestsellers. She's a two-time Emmy Award winning television host, as well as a host of the super popular

Starting point is 00:02:23 women and money podcast. And on top of all of this, Susie is the co-founder of Secure Save, which helps employers build emergency saving accounts for their employees. And the thing that I love most about Susie is that she gives back. She's helped so many people, for example, she's served as the official personal finance educator for the United States Army and Army Reserve. And she's also been a special advocate for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. On today's episode, we're going to learn how Susie overcame obstacles in her childhood and her young adult life to ultimately become the hands down most recognized financial expert in America.

Starting point is 00:02:59 And then we'll get into some more tactical advice with Susie, namely how to navigate our finances and saving post-pandemic and where to best invest our money right now. And time permitting, we'll also touch on credit card debt, student loans, and the housing market and retirement as well. So Susie, let's get started because we've got a lot to cover. And I do want to spend a decent amount of time on your come-up story because there's so many lessons there for us to unpack. So today you're well known for your voice, your personality, and your strong expertise in finance. You've been a household name for literally decades now.

Starting point is 00:03:32 However, you weren't always this confident or competent with your finances or your voice. So I want to take it back to your childhood. You had a speech impediment in elementary school that left you feeling insecure, and this learning disability impacted your ability to read and haunted you through high school and college. Can you walk us through your early life and the that backs you face with your speech impediment and take us all the way to how you ultimately dropped out of college and traveled cross-country. And you can take your time. I know it's a long story, but I want everybody to hear it. Yeah, it goes way back. It goes way back. I was born in 1951. So I'll let you figure out everybody how old that makes me. It makes me 71 just in case you're

Starting point is 00:04:12 not good with numbers. But way back then, they used to give everybody reading tests to see how smart you were. I grew up on the south side of Chicago and I was given a reading exam and I scored the lowest out of everybody in the class. So there were my best friends, Andy, Mimi and Leslie sitting in the first row, the first three seats because they sat you according to your reading exam scores. So there were my best friends in the first row, the first three seats. And there was little Susie Ormond in the last row in the last seat. And one of the reasons that I couldn't read very well is I did have a speech impediment. So words such as beautiful came out as boobital. I could not pronounce my R's, S's, or T's. And because I couldn't speak very well, I didn't want to read at all.

Starting point is 00:05:14 You know, I was dyslexic. I'm sure I'm still dyslexic to this day. So it was all stacked against me back then. There was no understanding of it whatsoever. So sitting in that last seat in that last role showed everybody how stupid I was. You see, Hala, I knew I was dumb. I knew I would never amount to anything because of that. So why should I even try? So all through grammar school, through high school, even through college, I always knew that I would never be anything really other than probably a waitress. Because my parents didn't have a lot of money. My mother was a secretary, sold Avon on the side. My father was caught in a fire in this little chicken shack that he had.

Starting point is 00:06:05 And he had third degree burns all over his body, gave him emphysema, spent most of his life in the hospital. So the kids, my two brothers and myself, when he was able to open up another little place, we would have to run it for him. So I knew that the only thing that I was good at was waitressing. So all through college, I didn't care about college. My roommate in college was a man by the name of John Belushi. And the reason that he was my roommate, if any of you even know him anymore, he was the Blues Brothers. He was a stable on Saturday Night Live. He was very famous later on.

Starting point is 00:06:48 But my roommate was a woman by the name of Judy Jacqueline, who ended up marrying John Belushi. And because we didn't have the money to live in a dorm at the University of Illinois, they gave us permission to live off campus where three of us, Carol, Judy, and myself shared a one-bedroom apartment for I think it was $120 a month for all of us, and with Judy came John. So I'll let you imagine what my college years were like with John and Judy, but it didn't matter to me because I knew that I would never be more than just a waitress because that's what I did. I worked my way through college, working as a waitress

Starting point is 00:07:36 at Bobby Zadie's Deli's deli during the day, and at night till 2 o'clock in the morning at the Red Lion Inn. And that's all I did. So I don't think I ever got a grade above a C. Four years after going to the University of Illinois, I thought, I don't have a language requirement. I don't have what it takes to do what I need to do to graduate. So I got in a van and this was 1973 now. My girlfriend, Lori and I got into a van that my brother lent me $1,500 to buy. and we headed out to California to find our fortune. We ended up living in the van on the streets for a number of months until I landed a job as a waitress at the Buttercup Bakery.

Starting point is 00:08:28 And I was a waitress from the age of 23 till 30 making $400 a month. So here I am, but all my ideas that I've given. given the people that own this place were fabulous. And now they're expanding from this little tiny place on the corner of Alcatraz, and I even forget the other name in College Avenue, to owning half the block on my ideas. So I'm thinking, I can open up my own restaurant. Look what I did for them.

Starting point is 00:09:05 I can be more than just a waitress, not that there's anything wrong with being a waitress. So I called up my mom and my dad. This is now 1979, 1980, and I asked them for $20,000 to open up my own restaurant. And they said to me, Susie, where are we going to get $20,000? That's more money than we have to our entire name. And I knew that. I knew that. And I felt so bad because every parent or most parents, they want to help their kids. So I apologized to my mom. And the next day I went into work. And a man by the name of Fred Hasbrook, who I'd been waiting on for over seven years, came in and he said, what's wrong, sunshine? You don't look happy. And I told Fred the story. And he looked and he went, oh, he went and sat down with all these

Starting point is 00:10:05 people that I've been waiting on all those years. And about an half hour later, he comes up to the counter where I'm standing. And in front of me, he puts all these checks and crumbled piece of paper that I'm now opening and their commitments and checks totaling $50,000. And with it is a little note written on a, you know, on a napkin that says, This is for people like you to have your dreams come true, to be paid back in 10 years with no interest if you can. He obviously had talked to all those people and they either gave me a commitment and then sent in the check or gave it to me the next day. And it was all the people who wanted to help me. And I was like, oh my God. And I looked at Fred and I said, are these checks going to bounce like all mine do?

Starting point is 00:11:03 And he said, no, Susie. I said, well, what do I do with this kind of money? Fred, I've never seen this kind of money in my life. And he told me to take it down to the local brokerage firm, Merrill Lynch at the time, and open up a money market account. And I said to Fred, Fred, what's a Merrill Lynch and what's a money market account? He told me, I went the next day to Merrill Lynch. and I was brand new, obviously, and there's something in brokerage firms. You should all know this.

Starting point is 00:11:38 I'm sure it's still this way today. That's called the broker of the day. And that's the person that no matter who walks in that door that day, you are their client. And Randy, who, I even forget his last name now, he was the one who greeted me. So I sat down with Randy, told him my story, how I didn't have any money. You know, I had to keep this safe and sound because this was my money for me to open up a restaurant. And Randy said to me, how would you like to make a quick $100 a week?

Starting point is 00:12:15 I said, Randy, are you kidding me? That's more than I make as a waitress. And he said, just sign here on the bottom line. There are all these papers all blank. I signed. I then left. After I left, Randy filled out all the papers to make it look like I was a sophisticated investor. And he qualified me for playing the options market because you are not allowed at a brokerage firm to invest in options, especially buying options, because 90% of the people who buy

Starting point is 00:12:56 options lose all their money. So to be able to do so, you have to qualify and have money that you can lose. Everything that Randy wrote on that paperwork was a lie. To qualify me to be able to buy options. Why did Randy want to do that? Because at that time anyway, options was one of the highest commission ticket items out there. To make a very long story short, within three months, all $50,000 was lost. Now I didn't know what to do. Because the people, Hala, who gave me that money, they didn't have a lot of money. Fred was a salesman who sold little tape recorders. He himself gave me $2,000, which was probably all of his savings account that he had. So I was like, I got to pay these people back. And I thought, I know I can be a broker. They just make you broker.

Starting point is 00:14:07 Because during those three months, when Randy was buying and selling options, I was learning about what he was doing. I was watching Wall Street Week on PBS. I was watching Wall Street Week on PBS. I was buying Barron's Magazine, getting the Wall Street Journal. This was really before computers. And my bedroom, I had tacked up the Wall Street Journal, the stock pages, and the option pages, and I very well started to learn everything you needed to know about options. And I already knew two months into it. We had lost all of the money. So I get dressed to go to Merrill Lynch now for an interview. And I put on my red and white striped sassoon pants, tucked into my white cowboy boots with a blue silk shirt. I thought I looked fabulous.

Starting point is 00:15:03 It was the best outfit I had. It's all I had. I go to Merrill Lynch to apply for a job. Now, there were five brokers that needed to interview you to recommend you to the manager if they should hire you or not. Each one of them freaked out. They had no idea what to do with me. So all of a sudden, I'm immediately in the manager's office. His name was Peter Sanseverro. And Peter looks at me and he says, you know, Susie, I personally believe women belong, barefoot and pregnant. However, and this was because there were no women working at Merrill Lynch at the time as a financial advisor. He had at 105 male brokers, no women, 1980, affirmative action. Took me two seconds to put that together. And he says to me, I have to hire you.

Starting point is 00:16:05 But I want you to know now I am going to fire you in six months. I say to him, how much are you going to pay me to get me pregnant? He says to me $1,500 a month. I knew that $1,500 a month times six was $9,000. It would have taken me two, two and a half years to earn that at the Buttercup Bakery. I loved being a waitress. I didn't want to be a stockbroker. I had to do something to pay these people back, but that's not what I wanted to do.

Starting point is 00:16:43 and before I know it, he hires me. I'm sent away with a book How to Dress for Success. They then tell me to go to Macy's in San Francisco and open up a charge account there and they'll approve it if Macy's just calls them so that I can buy some decent clothes. I charge up $3,000 of clothes.

Starting point is 00:17:09 I am now scared to death because I don't belong with all these fancy, schmancy brokers that are driving Mercedes, BMWs. I was driving in 1980, a 1967 Volvo station wagon. While all of these brokers parked in the parking lot, which was $80 a month, I parked on the streets to get tickets so that I could go to the court and do community service on weekends, because I couldn't afford $80 a month. So here I am now scared to death. And I don't know how I'm going to get through this

Starting point is 00:17:54 because I know I don't belong there. I can feel it. Number one, I'm a lesbian. Number two, I am a woman. Number three, I know absolutely nothing about money. Nothing. So that's when I decided I needed to create a new truth to get me over my greatest fear. So I created a truth that went like this.

Starting point is 00:18:23 I am young, powerful, and successful producing at least $10,000 a month. Now, I was 30 years of age, not so young. powerful. I don't think so. I couldn't have been more powerless if I tried. Successful, no way. And producing and making $10,000 a month, are you kidding me? But I said at least. Because I decided if the powers that be wanted me to make more than $10,000 a month, why limit myself? I said it silently to myself 25 times a day, looking in the mirror before I went to bed at night. When I woke up on the way to Merrill Lynch, I screamed it out loud 25 times. I wrote it 25 times. And I did that every single day. I wish I had kept that journal that I wrote in.

Starting point is 00:19:26 I did that every day for six months before you knew it. I was making far more than $10,000 a month. month. However, while I'm working for Merrill Lynch, I'm realizing that what my broker did was illegal. There's a know-your-customer rule which states you cannot invest somebody's money inappropriately for them. If they can't afford to lose it, you have to keep it safe and sound. I go in to Peter's office and I say, Peter, you have a crook that's working for you. Peter says to me, Susie, that crook makes us a lot of money. You go and you sit in your little cubicle and don't you say a word. I'm sitting in this tiny little cubicle watching Randy in this glass office as one client after another goes in there. And I'm thinking to myself,

Starting point is 00:20:30 you know, Susie Orman, the people that gave you that money said you didn't have to pay them back. I had 10 years to do so if I could. But what if it was my mom or my dad or how even your mom or your grandmother or whatever? And that was everything that they had to their name. So it would have been easy for me to say nothing. but it would not have been right. So the head of operations was also gay. And I was talking to him about what happened.

Starting point is 00:21:12 And he said to me, Susie, I'll be leaving at 5 o'clock today. You can go into my office and on the left hand side there's a drawer. Why don't you open it and look in there? my secretary knows that you have permission to come in my office and then he leaves and I'm like what the heck is this man talking about but we had this affinity back then because even though the gay liberation movement was out there it was still very difficult to be gay it's starting to be very difficult again everybody to be anything other than what the majority now is feeling like is, quote, normal. That is another story and another podcast. So I go in there and I open this

Starting point is 00:22:06 drawer and you can tell that there's little stickers on the top of all these files. And the front was we'll win, will win, will win, will win. In the back is, we'll lose, we'll lose, we'll lose. And I opened up the ones that said, we'll lose. And I go, what is? What is? We'll lose. We'll lose. And I go, what is he going to lose? And they were all lawsuits against Merrill Lynch, many against Randy as well. And it was from the same lawyer. Everyone that was will lose was from the same lawyer. And I'm going, he's telling me to call this lawyer. And the lawyer's phone number was in every single file. I call the lawyer, tell him the story. He says, I'll take it on contingency, which means whatever I win, he gets 30%.

Starting point is 00:23:06 But if we lose, I don't have to pay him anything. Again, to make a long story short, I sue Merrill Lynch while I'm working for them. What I did not know is because I sued them, they could not fire me. It took two years for that lawsuit to come to court. Within those two years, number one, Randy was fired and I became their number six producing broker. So now all of a sudden, I'm very valuable to them. Peter is out. A new manager is in. I meet with him. And he says, Susie, it's obvious what happened here. We would like to settle with you. He gave me all the money back, all $50,000 plus 18% interest, plus he paid the contingency to the lawyer so that I could give

Starting point is 00:24:10 all the people back their money. 18% was because back then in the 80s, money money market accounts were paying 21, 22%. Everything was off the roof. A mortgage was 16% back then. So it was the normal interest rate in money market accounts. So I was able to pay everybody back. Now, I expected when Fred got his money back plus 18% interest, I would have heard from him. It's now 1982, 83, and I don't hear from him. In 1984, I finally get an email, not an email, a letter from him that says to me, Susie, words don't come as easily to me as they once did. Fred had had a stroke and he had just learned again how to speak and how to write. And he said to me in this letter, who could ever invest in a porcelain blue eye countergirl

Starting point is 00:25:16 and watch her become one of the more successful financial advisors to be? Because I was doing very well by this time. And I had already left Merrill Lynch. I was now at Prudential Bayes as a vice president for them. And I had gained the reputation as the nation's expert in a certain type of an investment. and I was on radio shows and everything like that. A year or two later, Fred died.

Starting point is 00:25:47 His family called me to let me know. And I was talking to his son and I said, is there any way I can help? And he said, yeah, my mom doesn't know what to do. She's at a loss. So I was able to help Fred's wife and make sure everything was okay. That is how I started in the financial arena.

Starting point is 00:26:13 That is why to this day, I am the advocate for those who don't have money. I am the advocate for those who want to be more so they can have more. I am the advocate so that they understand they are not to ever be taken by a financial advisor, but they need to know what is right, what is wrong. And that is how I became who I am to this day. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. At YAP, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence.

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Starting point is 00:27:42 right now with Indeed. And listeners of the show will get a $75-sponsored job credit to get your job's more visibility at Indeed.com slash profiting. Just go to Indeed.com slash profiting right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash profiting. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, indeed, is all you need. Happy New Year, Yap, gang. I just love the unique energy of the new year. It's all about fresh starts. And fresh starts not only feel possible, but also feel encouraged. And if you've been thinking about starting a business, this is your sign. There's no better time than right now. 2026 can be the year that you build something that is truly yours, the year where you take control

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Starting point is 00:29:43 by your side. Wow. This is so inspiring young improfitters. At 30 years old, Susie made a career change. She dominated her field. She is one of the most well-known and looked at people in the finance world. She's positively impacted millions of people. And so many of you listening, you are 30 years old or you're in your 30s. A lot of you guys are scared to make a career change. And I hope this inspires you to realize that it's never too late to get started on your dream life. And so, Susie, you talked about affirmations and how you kind of changed the way that you thought. I would love to understand, 29, 30 years old, when you got that idea to actually start your own business.

Starting point is 00:30:26 before that you had a pretty limited mindset, right? You thought you could only be a waitress and you had a very unglomerous life. But that one decision of, I want to be an entrepreneur, I think really set everything off because a lot of people who you had served believed in you probably saw what you didn't even see in yourself. And so I'd love to understand what do you think happened that was that spark where you're like, you know what, I'm more than just a waitress. I can do this.

Starting point is 00:30:55 I was desperate. You know, when it comes to money, you usually don't do the right thing until you become desperate. You continue to pay things with a credit card and live far beyond your means, using up any means you can to get what you want, even though you don't need what you want, until the day comes when your credit cards are maxed out, you've borrowed all the money possibly you can from a retirement account. You have no place to go, and you know you can't pay your rent or your mortgage and you are in trouble. When you hit rock bottom, financially speaking, that's when change happens. As long as you have an out of some kind, you refuse to face the truth about your situation. My rock bottom was all these people that believed in me.

Starting point is 00:31:52 They wanted to help me. I needed to pay them back. I couldn't turn my back on them. You know, we turn our backs on ourselves all the times. All the time, we do things that aren't good for us. We eat things that aren't healthy. We spend money we don't have to impress people. We don't even know our life.

Starting point is 00:32:15 We don't save as much for retirement as we should. We always tell ourselves this thing, I could work. I don't have to put money away now. I have years left to do so. I'm 25. I'm 30. What difference does it make right now if I start putting money away? Susie Orman makes all the difference in the world, people.

Starting point is 00:32:34 That will be the biggest mistake. All of you make if you don't start while you are young. So when it comes to ourselves, especially women, women, we give to everybody before we give to ourselves. You will put your family, your friends, your pets, your plants, your employees, your employers, everybody in front of you. You know, women have the ability to give birth. We nourish that which we give birth to. So by nature, whether you've ever done it or not, it is our nature to give. We give more to others than we give to ourselves until we are 50, 60, 70 years of age.

Starting point is 00:33:25 All of a sudden, you're not in the relationship that you thought was the most magnificent thing of your life. And now you have to start all over again. So it is really important that you don't make that mistake. So here I was and I needed to help others give back to others. I wasn't thinking of me. I wasn't thinking about how can Susie Ormond become the world's personal finance expert. Wasn't thinking about that at all. I thought, I'm just going to go back and be a waitress again.

Starting point is 00:34:01 I can settle. I loved that. But I have to make sure that I pay other people back. That was my incentive. What an inspiring story. I love that so much. And I also loved you saying how you did these affirmations and really retrained your mind in terms of your confidence and how you showed up to the world. And I'm sure that really impacted you as well in terms of how well you did and finance. Yeah. And it seems like you obviously fell in love without career. Do you feel like your speech impediment and the fact that you weren't so good at language and reading made you better at finance and math and this kind of stuff? I think it made me better at everything. You know, once I'll never forget that I was sitting on the stage with Oprah. I did the Oprah show for 30-some-odd times over all the years.

Starting point is 00:34:54 And I said, Oprah, before the show started, I said, do you know that I have written more New York Times bestsellers, number one New York Times bestsellers, that books that I've read? And she said, let's not tell anybody that. And I'm like, why not? I want people to know that anything is possible. She said, do me a favor. Let's just not for right now. All right, Susie. I said, okay, whatever.

Starting point is 00:35:22 But because I didn't read, because all I had was my own voice. I didn't have other voices in my head. I didn't have anybody else's ideas that are gotten from books in my head. all I had was my own voice, what I believed in, and how I said things. And because I said things in normal language, I didn't know how to speak finance. I only knew how to speak what they call Susie speak. I only knew how to be me. And throughout my entire career, whether it was at Prudential Bayes or Merrill Lynch,

Starting point is 00:36:07 I only knew how to be me and stand up for myself. And that happened because I had to do that growing up all the time. And that did it. So I will forever believe that whatever hand you're dealt, whatever situation that you're in, whether you were raised by parents who were good to you or abused you, had money, didn't have money, were drug addicts, whatever it may be, there is not an excuse large enough in this world to keep any of you from being who you are meant to be.

Starting point is 00:36:52 Not one excuse. And you have got to believe that everything happens for the best. Even when I was telling you the story, you said, when I said I lost all $50,000, you went, oh, because I lost $50,000, that is who I am to this day. If that hadn't happened, I wouldn't be who I am. I would have opened up a restaurant. So you have to know that everything happens for the best and take it that way. So when one door closes, another one opens. You may think you know what you want to be. You can try it. If it doesn't work out, that's not what you were. meant to be. But there is something out there. All of you are meant to be. But if you do something just to make money, if you do something just to be famous, if you write a book just to be a number

Starting point is 00:37:51 one New York Times bestseller, I got news for you. Your intentions are 10,000 percent wrong. Do things because they will help others. Do things because you love helping others. Do things because you know what you want to do will make this world a better place. That's why you do what you do. Otherwise, it will never work in a million years. Amen to that, Susie. Thank you so much. I love that little rant that you went on.

Starting point is 00:38:24 So let's talk about some more practical financial advice. We just talked about how you ended up losing, you know, 50 grand in a money market account when the market turned. And so I think it's a great segue into some practical guidance on today's economic condition. The market recently faced a downturn, right? Inflation is going up. Ukraine and Russia's situation. A lot of people are saying we're going to have a recession before the end of the year. You are the expert, obviously. So you tell me, what do you think the economy is like right now? And what do we have to look forward to in the coming months and years? Yeah, you know, it depends who you are. Because there are many people, probably,

Starting point is 00:39:04 50% of the population in the United States are already in their own recession. They are already in a situation where they cannot afford food, they cannot afford rent, they cannot afford anything. They're going into whatever little retirement account they may have. None of them have emergency savings plans. Do you know that over 50% of the people in the United States have less than $400 to their name. Yikes. That is it. That is all they have. So depending on who you are and your financial situation, will a recession hurt you? Will it not? Will a recession hurt me and KT? It will not. Will anything financially, markets going up, markets going down? Will that hurt me financially? It will not. So no matter what happens out there, I am one of the

Starting point is 00:40:04 100% financially secure. But the question is, are you? You have to understand that the goal of money is for you to be secure. So all of you should stop right here and right now and answer that question. Are you secure? And if you are not secure, why not? And most of you will say, all I have is credit card debt. I have a student loan. I don't know what to do. Right? And so therefore, you want to change your lives. What you have to understand about money, more even important than should you do this, should you do that? What should you do?

Starting point is 00:40:48 Because what I've learned over these past 40 years longer than most of you have been alive, or at least many of you, what I have learned is this, that you and your money are one. You are the one who goes out and earns a paycheck, opens up a business, creates an idea, brings in money for it. You are the one who decides what to do with that money. Do you save it? Do you spend it? Do you reinvest it? What do you do with it? Money cannot do anything without you. So, given that that's true, there is a major law of money that power attracts money, powerlessness repels it. When you are powerless, you repel people. If you think about it, people control money. Didn't I just say, money can't do anything without you. Your $20 or your

Starting point is 00:41:52 credit card cannot get up and go to the store and buy things. You have to do it. When you are powerless in life for whatever reasons. Have you ever noticed you repel people? You just broke up with somebody or they broke up with you. You've gained 30 pounds after you just lost 40 or whatever it may be. If you repel people, therefore you repel money because it is people that will be your customers. It will be people that hire you that promote you decide what to pay you. When you are powerful in life, powerful. You attract people. People control money. So when you are powerful, you attract money. What makes you more powerless than anything else, and that is debt? Debt is bondage. You will never be powerful if you have debt. And I'm not talking about debt such as mortgage debt and things

Starting point is 00:42:56 like that, which is good debt. I'm talking about credit card debt. When you have credit card debt and it's mounting and mounting and interest rates are going up and up, you have rendered yourself powerless and people can feel that everybody. So I often wondered why when I was a financial advisor or seeing clients, why was it that I would give people the most exquisite financial advice? And six months later, they'd come back and they didn't follow it. There's something in every single one of us that prevents us from doing that, which we know we should do when it comes to money. I wrote a book called The Nine Steps to Financial Freedom. I have a course called The Nine Steps to Financial Independence.

Starting point is 00:43:52 Because over all these years, I thought the goal was financial freedom. It is not. That's when I started to learn about multi-millionaires and billionaires, and they were totally dependent on crooked financial advisors, in many cases, not all. And before you knew it, they lost money. Financial independence is when you are not dependent on anybody. You have financial freedom, but you also know exactly what to do with your money, why you should do it, and you know about it. So now you're independent because the last thing you want to do is be dependent upon somebody and render yourself powerless.

Starting point is 00:44:32 So after I started with the book and the course, that book in 1997 went on to be the number one selling book of all books for random, house in Random House's 50-year career. Why? Because it was in that book that I was able to discover working with clients, and then I talked about in the book, what keeps us from doing that, which we know we should do with money? And again, we could do a three-hour podcast here, but the main thing all of you need to know is that fear, shame, and anger are the three internal obstacles to wealth. You have to know that your emotions rule what you do. And since you and your money are one, you have to be very careful. There's so many things to all of this, really. So, given that you have control over your emotions, given that you do what I'm about to tell you to do when it comes to

Starting point is 00:45:41 money or not, then you will seriously prosper. But the main thing I would tell you if you're younger, which most of you are, is rather than being freaked out that these markets are going down, although over this past week or two, the markets have been going up big time. And I'm sure many of you are so happy about that. What is wrong with all of you? At the age of 30, 40, you're not day traders. You're not buying and selling. And if you are, you're making the biggest mistake out there. You are investing for your future. You want your money to compound for you. The longer it's invested and the more that that money makes, the more money you will have. When these markets were going down and down, there were all the things you wanted to buy were on sale. Now, I'm not saying that you should

Starting point is 00:46:40 buy Microsoft or any of those things. Microsoft at the recording of this podcast was down 30% today. It's at $100. Microsoft, these stocks that may be the future again one day are on serious sale. What do you want to do? Buy Microsoft when it's at $3, $400, $500, really everybody? So your goal is to invest in a retirement account. Preferably if you're not making any money, you want a Roth IRA. You want a Roth 401K, a Roth 403B, which are retirement vehicles where you are investing with after-tax money. Can you just forget the tax write off? If you're not making that much money right now, and even if you are, and if you qualify for a Roth,

Starting point is 00:47:35 IRA. Oh my God. You put money in there. You do it every single month. If you don't know what to buy, just do a good exchange traded fund like the Vanguard Standard and Poor's 500, you know, the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund or the Standard & Poor's 500 Index Fund or whatever it may be, get yourself diversification, do it month in and month out. And years from now, oh my God. mistake you will make is waiting until you're older to fund your retirement. Do you want me to give them an example of that? Yeah, I would love that. All right. Of course. Let's just say you're 20. You have 20-year-olds listening to you? Yes. Yeah, all right, 20. And let's just say you open up a Roth IRA and you would do it at any discount brokerage firm out there. I don't care which one you use,

Starting point is 00:48:33 whether it's Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, whatever. And you put just $100 a month, starting at the age of 20, into this account. And let's just say you do that every single year until you are 60. So for 40 years. And let's say over those 40 years, your money earns an average annual rate of return just, let's say, of 12%, because over the past 10 or some years before this year, you could have gotten 14% easily over the past those 10 years. Let's say it's 12% annual average rate of return.

Starting point is 00:49:19 One year, it's up, one year it's down, but over all those years, that's what you've averaged. Do you know 40 years from now you would have $1 million in that account? But you say, Susie, what difference can $100 a month make? That's $1,200 a year. What if I started at $30? That's only $12,000. So I'll put $100 a month starting in at $30. What would you have? 30 years from then? You'd have only $300,000. Those 10 years, cost you $700,000 at just $100 a month. And you think you have time to postpone. Time is the greatest ingredient for any financial independence recipe, bar none. This is so interesting because I thought you were going to say to hold off on stocks and stuff like the SMP 500. And I thought you were going to recommend to put our money in bonds.

Starting point is 00:50:29 You know, now, you obviously are listening to the Women and Money podcast, and the stop heading to that is, and everybody smart enough to listen. So it's really not just for women and money. But the majority of people that listen, because I've had a following for all these years, are women who are 60, 70, 80, and 90 years of age. And you come to a place in your life where you need to keep your money safe and sound. And how do you make money now that you may need in a few years without risking money? That's when, and you still, by the way, no matter what age you are, you still have the ability to do a series I bond right now,

Starting point is 00:51:16 which is paying 9.62% annualized. And you can invest anywhere from $25 all the way up to $10,000, TreasuryDirect.gov. If you don't know about series I bonds, you should all be listening to my podcast. The April 17th version is a masterclass on them. Greatest investment you will ever make bar none, but you have to leave your money in there for at least one year. So for my audience at this point in time,

Starting point is 00:51:48 that's what I would tell them to do for 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds, 40-year-olds, I would be dollar cost averaging into these markets via a retirement account every single month. When months go up, months go down, and no matter what, over time, you will dollar cost average. That means you will average the price of what you're buying with your dollars. So when something goes down, you get to buy more shares. When it goes up, you get to buy less shares, but over time, you watch what happens to your money. Yeah, good advice. And it makes sense because we're not going to pull out our money in, you know, 30, 40 years.

Starting point is 00:52:37 So even if the economy goes down for the next two years, in the next few years it will go up and we get to buy everything on sale, like you said. So it makes total sense. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors. Hello, Yap gang. I know my young and profiting listeners want bigger businesses and a better life. And the New Year is the perfect moment to reset and commit to your growth. But let's be real. You can't build an empire if your finances are all over the place. That's why getting into it QuickBooks is one of the best first moves you can make this year. They've got powerful money management tools built right into their platform and they have them for every stage of your

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Starting point is 00:53:48 That's the upgrade that every profiting entrepreneur needs. Start the New Year's strong, take control of your cash flow. with QuickBooks Money Tools. Learn more at quickbooks.com slash money. Again, that's quickbooks.com slash money. Terms apply. Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments Incorporated, licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. What's up, young and profitors? I remember when I first started Yap, I used to dread missing important calls. I remember I lost a huge potential partnership because the follow-up thread got completely lost in my messy communication system. Well, this year, I'm focused on not missing any opportunities, and that starts

Starting point is 00:54:27 with your business communications. A missed call is money and growth out the door. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled QUO, the smarter way to run your business communications. Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2, and it works right from an app on your phone or computer. The way Quo works is magic for team alignment. Your whole team can handle calls and text from one shared number, and everyone sees the full conversation. It's like having access to a shared email inbox, but on a phone. And also, Quo's AI can even qualify leads or respond after hours, ensuring your business stays responsive even when you finally logged off. It makes doing business so much easier. Make this the year where no opportunity and no customer

Starting point is 00:55:08 slips away. Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash profiting. That's QUO.com slash profiting. Quo. No missed calls, no missed customers. profiteers. I know there's so many people tuning in right now that end their work day wondering why certain tasks take forever, why they're procrastinating certain things, why they don't feel confident in their work, why they feel drained and frustrated and unfulfilled. But here's the thing you need to know. It's not a character flaw that you're feeling this way. It's actually your natural wiring. And here's the thing. When it comes to burnout, it's really about the type of work that you're doing. Some work gives you energy and some work simply drains you. So it's key to understand your six types of working

Starting point is 00:55:57 genius. The working genius assessment or the six types of working genius framework was created by Patrick Lensioni and he is a business influencer and author. And the working genius framework helps you identify what you're actually built for and the work that you're not. Now, let me tell you a story. Before I uncovered my working genius, which is galvanizing and invention, so I like to rally people and I like to invent new things, I used to be really shameful. and had a lot of guilt around the fact that I didn't like enablement, which is one of my working frustrations. So I actually don't like to support people one-on-one. I don't like it when people slow me down.

Starting point is 00:56:30 I don't like handholding. I like to move fast, invent, rally people, inspire. But what I do need to do is ensure that somebody else can fill that enablement role, which I do have, K on my team. So working genius helps you uncover these genius gaps, helps you work better with your team, helps you reduce friction, helps you collaborate better, understand why people are the way that they are. It's helped me restructure my team, put people in the spots that they're going to really excel. And it's also helped me in hiring. Working Genius is absolutely amazing. I'm obsessed with this model.

Starting point is 00:57:00 So if you guys want to take the Working Genius assessment and get 20% off, you can use code profiting. Go to working genius.com. Again, that's working genius.com. Stop guessing. Start working in your genius. So let's talk about saving because as we get to this recession, I think a lot of my young and profiters are relatively successful. You know, they have corporate jobs or entrepreneurs. How much money should they be saving during a recession?

Starting point is 00:57:28 Listen, recession, no recession. You should all have, at least, in my opinion, eight months to one year of a savings account. You lose your job. You get ill. You can't work. We experience 2008, 2009, all over again. We have a pandemic again. But this time, the government is too broke, to force.

Starting point is 00:57:51 finance all of you, and you still have all these bills. How are you going to pay them? Every single person needs, in my opinion, eight to 12 months of expenses that have to be paid, your rent, your phone, your insurance, your car payment, your student loan payment, whatever it may be, you need that. Now, you may find that's a lot of money. But if you just start. Seriously, $500 is better than $100. $1,000 is better than $500. You can do this and you should. Yeah. So one of the reasons why I started this podcast, I actually started it as a side hustle four and a half years ago and then I launched a social media and podcast agency. Two years later, we're five million in revenue, 60 employees around the world. And it's been to my benefit to start a side hustle.

Starting point is 00:58:49 And I always talk about helping people earn more money. That is my goal is to help all of my listeners earn more money because I feel like that's the best way to have financial freedom. You can save all you want, but I feel like it's more impactful, in my opinion, to try to earn as much money as you can. And so I thought you might like this. This guy's coming up on my show. His name is Alex Hermose.

Starting point is 00:59:11 You may have heard of him. He's really starting to bubble up right now. And he talks about investing in the SMME 500. And what his point is, is to invest in skill, right, that will enable you to get a second job or enable you to make more money in this part of your life, you're 20 to 50 years old, where you really need to earn your money so you can save for the future. Because when you're older, you know, hopefully you're not working as hard, right? So I'd love to hear your insight on investing in education right now and getting new skills so you can actually make more money. I don't have a problem with that. However, you cannot be 100% just spending what you earn. If you spend what you earn and you do not have where you are investing in a retirement account. Now, I'm not saying you got to put a lot of money in there, but you have to put something in there, something in an emergency account. You are going to find yourself in trouble. And the reason is this, may you all be protected. protected forever against a car accident, an illness, being shot on the streets, being someplace

Starting point is 01:00:25 that you shouldn't have been, even though it's where you walked every day and something happens. Things happen in life, everybody. I'm going to get, for the next 20 years, the ability to do an S&Me fund. I'm going to put everything into educating myself, making sure that I'm the greatest that can be. I'm the most educated. I have the most skills. You should do that. But on the other hand, you also have to prepare in case something goes wrong. Something goes wrong. You get older and they tell you you're a woman, you have breast cancer in your 30s and 40s. You get MS. You get COVID. And COVID comes back and it's now long hauled COVID. and you can't work. We have always lived in a time where you have to be laser focused to succeed.

Starting point is 01:01:26 But the biggest mistake you will make, in my opinion, is to just go for you and making more and making more. I don't have a problem with that. But you have to do something with the more that you're making that is also safe and sound in case something. goes wrong. You have to have a plan A and a plan B. I love that advice. It's great advice. Let's say you're 30 years old, which is probably the average age of all my listeners. You're 30 years old. You've been working at corporate for seven years. You have $100,000 saved. You've got a 401k from your employer. You've got $100,000 in cash right now in the bank. What would you suggest that we do with that? Yeah, it depends on their situation. do they own a home? Do they have any credit card debt? What was the goal of that $100,000?

Starting point is 01:02:25 Was that goal there so that you can quit your corporate job to start another entity? And that is the $100,000 that's going to get you buy for the year or two that you need to start up something that you really, really want to do because maybe you don't want the corporate job anymore. Maybe you don't want to have to suck up to people that aren't as smart as you. I can't answer that question unless you tell me what does this person want to do with their life. Let's say they want to continue on with corporate for more years and they just don't know where to put this $100,000. They've saved it. Maybe they took their money out of stocks during COVID because they got scared and now they're sitting on this cash. A lot of people actually have this problem where they're sitting on cash because they don't know where to put it and

Starting point is 01:03:15 they're scared. Yeah. So fear, shame and anger, the three main internal obstacles to wealth. If you invest in the market when you are afraid, you will buy at the wrong time and you will sell at the wrong time. So if you are afraid of this stock market, it does not matter what anybody tells you. This is your money. And what happens? to your money directly affects your life, not a financial advisor's life, not an insurance agent's life, your life. So let's just say you are afraid. Now you have alternatives out there. Right now, I would so be investing in a series I bond. Maximum you can put in $10,000 right now in an individual account, $10,000 in a trust account, $10,000 in a business account. If you're with

Starting point is 01:04:10 a partner, a spouse, whatever, I would be doing the same with them. One of the best investments out there right now bar none. You need to know about them. Next, I would absolutely have an eight-month emergency fund and I would be putting it in any high yielding savings account. Many of them right now are paying 3%. Three percent, three and a half percent. So why not put the money somewhere that you know you're going to have to keep forever safe and sound to get you through no matter what happens and make 3% on it right now and probably even more as interest rates go up. I would not be telling you to go and buy a treasury note where you would lock in the money right now for five or 10 years. If you want a little higher interest rate than what

Starting point is 01:05:07 savings accounts can give you, then you could buy a three, six month, nine month, one year treasury, probably average about four or some percent on that, not having to pay state income tax on it. But I would probably also wait because I think you're going to see interest rates on treasuries start to come down here now. Because when the dollar gets weaker, which it's doing right now, the stock market goes up, but interest rates then start to come down. So I would wait just a little bit for that, but there will come a time again when you could probably get 5.5% on a 10-year treasury, but I would be doing a treasury ladder. Now, obviously, I don't have enough time right now to tell you exactly what to do, but really, on the Women and Money

Starting point is 01:05:55 podcast, I do tell you exactly what to do. How to ladder treasuries, what you should do and what you shouldn't do. Remember, most of the advice is geared towards older, but you'll be able to to decipher it what makes sense for you or not. Also, you do have exposure in your 401k plan. For what? For the stock market? So it's not like you're not putting money in there every single month. So you have that exposure. Just continue to do that. The question is, do you have a 401k or a Roth 401k? because you very well may want a Roth 401K. Again, forget the tax write off. Because if you ever leave that job, then you can do an IRA rollover with it from a Roth 401K

Starting point is 01:06:48 to a Roth IRA. Let it sit there for five years. Obviously, you pay taxes on that conversion. So maybe you do it little by little. And then in a few years, five years, you can have actually. to all that money that you converted and paid taxes on without any penalties whatsoever. So that may be a way to give you access to the money that was in your 401k down the road for you to do something else with. Just saying.

Starting point is 01:07:21 Perfect. I advise that you guys rewind that part back, take some notes. Also, make sure you check out the Women in Money podcast. It is a great podcast. I've been binge listening. And I'm, I'm in my 30s and I relate to a lot of the stuff that you talk about on that podcast. So one last practical question and then we're going to close it out. I want to talk about student loan debt because we did touch on everything else except for student loan debt. And I know that pretty recently there's been some news in this area. So a lot of people were excited.

Starting point is 01:07:50 They put out their applications on October 14th. Now everything seems to be paused. We don't know which way it's going to go unless you have an opinion. But what do you think people should do about their student loan? at or how they should approach it right now. Do you think Susie Orman doesn't have an opinion on most everything? Of course I do. So they're trying to stop it and they're trying to stop it. And right now, the stoppage is under appeal. Some judge is letting a verdict that was overruling stopping it go to appeal. They're saying that it damages us. You have to have a complaint that says it damages me.

Starting point is 01:08:32 if this goes through. Nobody can prove how it damages them. So this will go through, in my opinion. So all of you should apply. For those of you who already during the pandemic paid off $10,000 or more of your student loan debt, you should reapply just to get $10,000 back because you can, because I think that will happen. So let's make hope, let's all pray that it happens before January when the moratorium goes away. And you may have to start paying again on your student loans, especially if you owe more than $10,000. But I think in the long run, it will pass. And I hope it does. Shame on any politician or anybody out there who doesn't want it to pass. How dare they play politics with the lives of all of these people who are under such student loan debt? It's not even funny. Yeah, especially because

Starting point is 01:09:42 they followed society. They thought, if I go to college, I'll get a good job and then I'll be able to pay this back, but things didn't work out that way. So I totally agree. And you have nothing to lose. So make sure you do apply for that student loan relief. Okay, so let's close this out. Susie, this was such a pleasure. You dropped so much wisdom. So I ask a couple questions at the end of the show and then we do something fun at the end of the year.

Starting point is 01:10:04 The first one is what is one actionable thing our young improfitors can do today to be more profiting tomorrow? Start saving in a retirement account a Roth IRA or a Roth 401K, 403B, or TSP. If you really want to have a lot of money, 30, 40 years from now, you have got to do that. I'm going to take heed to that advice, I promise you. And what is your secret to profiting in life?

Starting point is 01:10:33 You have to know your own thoughts. You have to know what you think and what you feel and how you want to do something. You really want to profit in life. Then make sure that you have self-worth. you know who you are and you have faith in who you are and listen to your gut. If your gut tells you don't do something, don't dare do it. I love that advice. Thank you so much, Susie.

Starting point is 01:11:06 It was such a pleasure. Thank you, girlfriend. Best of luck to you. That was such a great episode and I am so excited that I got such a boss babe legend like Susie Orman on my podcast. And believe it or not, it's actually really hard for me to get powerful women like her to come on the show. But Susie Orman did and I was hype because my mom is obsessed with her. And she is so sharp. We had the goat of personal finance on the show, the greatest ever to do it right here on Young and Profiting podcast. And I have to say,

Starting point is 01:11:46 Susie is a ball of fire. She's got so much energy. She made me feel like I need to get more sleep And like I need a Red Bull Ivy drip to keep up with her. And she's got an inspiring rags to riches story. I think my favorite part of this interview was just learning about her story. I had no idea what she went through to get to where she is and how she kind of got into it later in life. It's so interesting and so inspiring. And I think there's so many lessons to unpack here besides her financial advice. So that's what I'm going to spend time on the outro is just recapping some of my big learning.

Starting point is 01:12:22 in terms of her story. Number one, you are not your past. You have the power to change your identity. Susie went from a college dropout and a person who was terrible at school and not taking seriously and she was a waitress and then she became the most recognized

Starting point is 01:12:41 financial expert in America. Talk about a major transformation. You are not your past young impoferters. You have the capability to change. You do not need to be shackled. by your past. Number two, your greatest weakness is also your greatest strength. Susie had a learning disability and a speech impediment that hindered her reading abilities. But on the flip side, that helped her hone in on the skills she's known for today.

Starting point is 01:13:08 She's an exceptional speaker and she's amazing at numbers and that's how she makes millions now. Number three, you're never too old to learn something new. Susie did a 360 career change at age 30 and then dominated her field within a handful of years. And by the way, young improfters, I pretty much did the same thing. I was in corporate

Starting point is 01:13:29 and I thought I would never get back on a mic and right around the time that I turned 30, I started this podcast. And look where we are now. Number one entrepreneurship podcast across all apps. They call me the podcast princess. I'm dominating my industry. You were never too old.

Starting point is 01:13:44 And in fact, sometimes it's better to approach something new with more wisdom. Number four, being unique is your superpower. Susie was the only female stockbroker at Merrill Lynch when she started. She wasn't hanging seriously. She was made fun of for what she looked like and what she dressed like. But then her differences as an outspoken, strong female figure, made her hard to ignore and she literally became a national phenomenon.

Starting point is 01:14:12 If that's not inspiring, I don't know what is, yeah, fam. I hope you guys feel uplifted and inspired. and like you can run through a brick wall. Thanks for listening to another incredible episode of Young and Profiting Podcast, and if you listened, learned, and profited from this episode, share it with your friends and family, and drop us a five-star review on Apple.

Starting point is 01:14:30 If you want to thank us at Yap Media for putting out this free content, that's the number one way to thank us. If you guys enjoyed this episode and you want to let me know any of your main takeaways, go ahead and direct message me on Instagram or TikTok at Yap with Hala, or you can find me on LinkedIn.

Starting point is 01:14:46 and I'm really hard to miss there. Just search for my name. It's Halataha. Thanks so much to our Yap production team and all your hard work putting on the show. We are crushing the charts right now and your hard work shows. This is your podcast princess.

Starting point is 01:15:00 Halataha signing off.

Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Suze Orman: Take Control of Your Finances Before It’s Too Late!! | Finance | E200

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