The Get Ready Money Podcast
The Get Ready! Money Podcast with Tony Steuer features insightful conversations with financial experts who are changing the way we think about money. Listen each week to catch up on the latest financial trends and hear practical advice from Tony and his expert guests aimed at demystifying the complexities of finance, so you can build healthy habits that ACTUALLY work.
Each episode will leave you with tips for implementing small changes that can have a big impact on your financial future. Tony’s podcast is perfect for listeners seeking to get ready, be prepared, and transform their financial future.
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The Get Ready Money Podcast
Say Yes, And To Money
On this episode of The Get Ready Money Podcast, I was joined by Joe Saul-Sehy, Katherine Pomerantz and Rhianna Basore to talk about applying the principles of improv to money by saying yes, and to money.
Here’s what we each think we know and then discussed:
- Life is improv.
- Find your voice.
- Everyone wants you to win.
- Leaning into play and joy will always make it better - Rhianna
- Trust ourselves with our money, - Katherine
- Feel the fear and do it anyway - Joe
Joe Saul-Sehy is the creator and co-host of the Stacking Benjamins show and the author of Stacked: Your Super Serious Guide to Modern Money Management. Stacked was called the #1 book on personal finance by CNN for 2023. Stacking Benjamins has been called the top personal finance podcast by Kiplinger and Bankrate, and FastCompany calls the show the "perfect blend of finance and humor." Joe lives in Texarkana, Texas with his spouse Cheryl and cat Cooper.
Katherine Pomerantz is the Founder of The Bookkeeping Artist. Katherine is an actress turned accountant, has capitalized on her artistic background to create the Money Storyteller MethodTM - a mindset and accounting framework that helps business owners master the creative language of money to map out and easily achieve ambitious goals. She believes every idea has the ability to change the world if given the right financial support. She leads an accounting firm & financial education company, and her expertise has been featured by VICE Media, Discover Card, The Penny Hoarder, and the Stacking Benjamins Podcast. She loves yoga, walking dogs, and throwing rad birthday parties.
Rhianna Basore is the innovative founder and CEO of Self Trust Fund, a pioneering platform dedicated to empowering high-achieving women to build confidence and achieve financial success. With a background in both business and creative psychology, Rhianna integrates these disciplines to offer a comprehensive approach to personal and financial development.
At Self Trust Fund, Rhianna combines her expertise in financial planning with a deep understanding of self-trust principles. Her work focuses on helping clients align their financial decisions with their personal values, fostering a sense of self-efficacy and long-term prosperity. Rhianna’s methodology emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and strategic financial management, guiding individuals towards a more empowered and fulfilling financial future. Rhianna is recognized for her ability to simplify complex financial concepts and make them accessible to a broad audience. Her professional credentials include being an award-winning director, international actor and professional writer with over twenty years of experience on stage and screen.
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The Get Ready Money Podcast and its guests do not provide investment advice. All content is for educational purposes. Guest opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Get Ready Money Podcast and Tony Steuer.
Are you looking to get ready, be prepared and transform your financial future? Then you've come to the right place. This is the Get Ready Money Podcast with Tony Stewart, where Tony has insightful conversations with financial experts who are changing the way we think about money. Catch up on the latest financial trends and hear practical advice from Tony and his expert guests so you can build healthy habits that work, Be empowered with tips for implementing small changes that can have a big impact on your financial future. So sit back and get ready to hear from today's guest.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Get Ready Money podcast, changing the way we think about money. I'm pleased to be joined today by Katherine Pomerantz, rihanna Besor and Joe Saul Saul Sihai. In this special episode, we'll be discussing saying yes and to money and the intersection of improv and money. Welcome everyone to the Get Ready Money podcast. Thanks for being here today.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Tony.
Speaker 4:Thanks a ton man, this is going to be fun.
Speaker 2:This is great. I'm looking forward to this conversation. Before we really jump in, let's do a quick round of introductions a little bit about yourself, a quick origin story and why you're passionate about helping people change the way we think about money. Rianna, you want to kick off?
Speaker 3:Sure. Hi everyone. I'm Rianna Basore. I'm a money mindset coach for high-achieving creative women. I started out as a professional creative since God was a child and I found even at the height of my career, I still didn't have the money and portfolio that I wanted to feel that I was at the top of my industry. So I had one of those breakdown, breakthrough moments, discovered what I didn't know, which turned out to be money and finance knowledge, and have since then completely lived debt-free, have invested in my first property in Southern California and have built a thriving coaching business around really becoming a translator of these money business concepts into practical, applicable stories which I know Catherine also works in and metaphors that allow more creative, heart-focused individuals to really live the best principles. So I'm so glad to be in this space. Thank you, tony.
Speaker 2:Oh, awesome that you're here today. Joe, you want to go next?
Speaker 4:Sure, I'm Joe Salcihai. I'm the co-host and creator of a podcast called the Stacking Benjamin Show, which we call the greatest money show on earth, cause it truly is meant to be a circus a circus of you can do it ideas and a show with a lot of comedy. You know, I think there's enough people have enough shame, uh, in this space they feel bad about stuff that they've done with money. When I was a financial planner my early days, I was one of the top financial advisors. American Express had an advisory division and that later on was called Ameriprise Financial. But in the early days, when it was American Express, I was a PR spokesman for the company. I was on television for them and I was a money disaster because while I was telling everybody else all these genius things to do and it was working I didn't think the laws of the universe applied to me. So I was living two lies. Number one was that you don't have to surround yourself with smart people and a team of great advisors, whether that's financial advisors or anything else in your life. Surround yourself with smart people. I had to learn that. And number two was it doesn't matter how much money you make. If you have horrible money skills, you can still outspend it Like.
Speaker 4:At the time, my first year as a financial planner, I made almost $90,000, which in today's dollars it was 1993. So in today's dollars it'd be like making $200,000. I could have made $250,000. I would have spent more. I would have spent 280. If I made 280, I would have spent 310. I was always just doing back of the envelope math. So I created Stacking Benjamins after selling my business when I turned 40 and really have enjoyed the past 12 years of episodes. We're on episode 1602, 1,602 as we record this.
Speaker 2:That's amazing 1602. I think this is like episode 150 for me. So I've only got you know thousand 500 to go.
Speaker 4:That's a long time though, tony. You know the average. The average length of a podcast is seven episodes, so if you make it past seven, so to make it past a hundred is just absolutely amazing, tony.
Speaker 2:Well, make it past a thousand. Very few people have made it past a thousand, so that's. That's awesome, and I see you've got a guest in the back too.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's my buddy Cooper. He's always my companion here in mom's basement.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome and Catherine.
Speaker 5:Hello, I'm excited to be back. I am Catherine Pomerantz. I am also an actress turned accountant and money coach. I focus specifically on small business owners. So I really want to help entrepreneurs and experts master the creative language of money because, as we all share this viewpoint, money is actually really playful and can be really fun and can really help us understand and make sense of all of our chaos. So I help people have that perspective so that they can easily map out and then measure and then actually achieve their most ambitious business goals.
Speaker 5:So I use the story, my money storyteller method. Building on that artistic background helps people use storytelling tools like the hero's journey, like improv, any of these playful things, so that money can be a teammate on this journey. And so, instead of working so hard for money, we're going to put money to work for you. It's going to work hard on your behalf and that's kind of our inroad. I know everyone on this call and Tony and I when we did our last interview if anyone remembers that we kind of had this wild talk around like, wow, isn't this great? And I was like I know other improv people who should come talk about this with us. So I'm personally just really delighted that we're all in this room. This was a little pet idea of mine and Tony's, and so thanks guys for coming.
Speaker 3:Thanks for the invite to the money party.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for being here. And yeah, you know, catherine, as you mentioned, is during our conversation. That's where the inspiration for this episode came from, because improv really is at the heart of money is you have to be able to adapt, and for me, that's a spirit of improv. Anybody want to just do a quick definition of what improv is for our audience?
Speaker 4:I think there's one part of it that is super important I don't know that I can do the full definition, but I think the key to good improv, because you think that improv is just talking extemporaneously. But there truly are some rules, and I think the rules, though, are situational. You get into a certain situation and you always go with this way of advancing it forward and I'm sure we'll dive into this more of advancing things forward. And for me, as an example I talked about my bad money habits I need to develop a set of on the fly rules, because life is improv. I'm at the grocery store, my debit card's not working because I have no cash. What am I going to do next? So, in improv, you're with a group of people, you're in a situation and you have these rules to help you determine, on the fly, what the best thing is to do next.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and I really like building off of that is not just to do next, like you have an end goal which is one of your favorite quotes, joe's like begin with the end in mind. It's like we need a scene to happen. We need a good, positive, interesting outcome. So, on the fly, I can follow these rules, but I know I'm pushing towards a better. I'm pushing towards somewhere different, hopefully somewhere better, but I'm pushing for somewhere different. I don't want to be in this situation. I want to go to this other situation. I want something new to happen. Right, it's storytelling on the fly.
Speaker 5:I think we're titling this episode yes, and which is like the core improv idea is that whatever somebody throws at you, you say yes and you're going to add to it. And I think that that's just such a great attitude with money is that you cannot control what's going to happen, but you know something will happen. So, rather than be panicked and like scarcity and oh my God, I got to save, I got to save, I got to save, like there's always a new emergency coming, it's like no, let's like yes, this is happening and here's what we're going to do next. Here's what's going to happen next.
Speaker 3:I think it's a great attitude to approach money management, which is why I thought this idea would be so much fun to talk about of driving what you're after, right, because you're also not leading scenes, you're in a team place, you're responding to what you're being given, and that's so much like money and life as well, which is, you know, we have an intention, we have some rules, as Joe talked about, but we really respond to what we're thrown, given where we are in the moment, and so we're staying loose, we're staying open, we're listening really actively. We moment, and so we're staying loose, we're staying open, we're listening really actively, we're taking in a lot of information and then responding from there, and that openness allows us to see new possibilities where maybe we might've felt stuck or cornered or pigeonholed. And so the improv approach to money really just lets us stay in that place of possibility, which invites more ways to allow money to flow freely in our life. So it's such a, it's so held in balance, beautifully said.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that and I think that listening really actively and you know I've had a lot of guests on the show talk about listening as a superpower and as a skill and improv forces you to listen, because if you don't listen you're gonna kill the scene and to me a big part of improv is, I sort of think it like, you know, volleyball, when you're kind of just keeping the ball going in the air, and that's really what improv is and I think sometimes we forget that with money is that, you, it's about just keeping the ball forward and keeping everything moving and cooperating, you know.
Speaker 2:So you know, let's talk about some of the principles We've already gone into yes, and and you know we've started that conversation. It's like why is yes and so powerful to the money conversation?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that oh.
Speaker 3:Joe go ahead, rhea I was just going to say that I think we brushed on it a little bit, which is so often when we come to money, we focus on lack what we don't have, the limitations. But yes, and requires us to accept and receive what is, whatever that $1 situation is that we are currently in, and to look for something bigger, to expand beyond ourself, to embrace new relationships, new avenues, new thoughts, new mindsets, in order to become that more expanded version of ourselves. So often when it comes to money, I think it's really our mind that limits us. The knowledge is out there, the advice, the coaches they're all out there, they're on this call the podcasts, but it's embodying the person who can have that more improved relationship with money. That requires you to expand into that and space and not see yourself as stuck where you are yourself as stuck where you are.
Speaker 5:That reflects Joe's story, right, he was in the room with all the smart people, but look at what it was actually happening behind the scenes.
Speaker 4:So you had a thought too about yes and yeah, I really think that yes and is important in so many ways, but I think specifically on somebody just starting off with their money worries about, there's all these things that I have to know. I have to know all of these things and I see people freak out and they end up doing nothing. What's the right investment to buy? Which is why I think JL Collins book is so important the simple path to wealth. Because he says, I think, to young investors he wrote the book specifically for his daughter just buy the whole market, don't worry about it, get rid of that. But you get to a certain point and you go yes.
Speaker 4:And because it's the simple path to wealth not the optimal path to wealth, not the perfect path to wealth and once you get your feet wet as an investor, now you can yes and onto what's more. I also think it's important when it comes to making money, which is a big part of the factor that I think people don't explore. I found that for me, I thought making money was everything and I didn't need to do the other half. Most money nerds, as you guys know, the people that are probably going to watch this are people that focus on the great money management half, but they don't think about the income piece enough which so often that was me.
Speaker 5:That was me. I starved being artists over here for a long time. I could budget like crazy. Can I make a dollar?
Speaker 4:No, and so often as you are proof of. Well, actually it's funny, catherine. Let's use you as an example. Let's say that you, out of high school, are somebody that just loves math, right. So you have the skill to maybe work to be a math teacher, which is a great profession, to have, not a high paying profession. But let's say, maybe you want to make more money. So you learn how to also be a bookkeeper on the side.
Speaker 4:So you take your math and you go yes, and I will be a bookkeeper. Then you decide to become a CPA you yes, and to get your CPA. Then you become the chief financial officer of a company. Next thing you know you're working in mergers and acquisitions. Next thing you know you're Catherine Pomerantz. So you go up and up and up and up. But as you keep saying yes to this unique talent that you have, this thing that you love, you find your income possibilities can get bigger and bigger and bigger just by saying I don't have to do 50 different things. I can take this one skill I love and chain even more skills on top of it and blossom this joy to maybe a bigger paycheck.
Speaker 3:And I think that's a powerful word joy, because we're also blossoming relationships. What you're talking about is expanding your network of connections, and that's a key part of money as well, because the people we spend time with, the people we listen to, the people whose habits we model, become our own.
Speaker 3:So, as baby Catherine is going on her money journey, she is building more informed, more people who are bringing more to the table with their money, knowledge, and that's allowing her to build in those relationships and in that modeling, to make that web, to build that well, that wellbeing right, like whatever we've brought to. Naturally, we need that village mentality to hold space for us as we build those skills.
Speaker 4:Absolutely love that Cause we get power through that. One of my favorite books is a book by a guy named Austin Kleon. It's called steel like an artist. What I love for anybody that hasn't read Steel Like an Artist. It's about take the things around you that you love, add those to your game. Don't rip people off, but pay homage to them. Riff on it to make it your own. Our podcast, stacking Benjamins, is a complete riff on all my favorite podcasts. I just took all my favorite parts, put it together into this weird amalgamation. That really is me, but heck, I'm always happy to tell people exactly where the inspiration came from and all the people I collaborated with to make it. So Ria and I think that community piece really is a hit.
Speaker 5:So I want to hijack the conversation a little bit. If we're picking on baby Catherine, something Tony said really stuck out with me that I think might be another valuable inroad is about that active listening. And this is something that comes up in my work because I talk about money as our teammates. So I literally was like it's a person, let's go talk to our money, let's go communicate with our money. So I would love to hear from you guys. We talked about being an active listener, we talked about being in the moment, okay, but what does that actually look like? If I'm dealing with like dollars and cents and spreadsheets, how do I go listen or talk to my money?
Speaker 3:Well, I think listening always starts in conversation, right Like in my work. I have something I've developed called the money monsters, which are the voices in our head that tell us we don't deserve the money that we're seeking. You'll never make money at that. This is something that Catherine and I are well used to in our starving artist background and it really transcends industry in my experience. But I believe that by tapping into what the money monsters are telling us to stay away from, we can rework that into good advice. It is good advice not to spend all your money on fancy shoes, like I used to do. It's a really good idea to like sock that away in another account instead. So when I go into conversation with my money, I have to welcome my money monster to the table, who may be a naysayer, may have a little bit more of a negative tone than a yes and tone, but is keeping me in integrity for my overall best interest.
Speaker 5:Well that's fine, there's a, it's not just also yes, and isn't there a? But also, isn't there a flip side to that? In um improv x circles, I think, like I. I, I, it's been a while. I've been an accountant longer than I've been an actress.
Speaker 3:Now y'all, I'm sorry it's not, you invented it here.
Speaker 2:Katherine improv principal of katherine pomeroy well, I, I think there is that flip side that you can't deny someone else's reality. Uh, you know that you don't say but that, but is the quickest way? Attend a scene. You know, like if joe came in and joe said you know, hey, I'm the mayor of the city and I want everybody to wear pink every day, keep going, I like this that's a dumb idea we're done.
Speaker 4:That's the end of the scene. Yeah, yeah so.
Speaker 3:Well, and Tony, to jump back into that because I want to set up something that's really different than traditional Western storytelling, which is based in conflict. Improv is based in agreement and so when you come to the table agreeing with your money instead of fighting with your money, that's a transformative relationship. You are coming, as Catherine says, as a teammate. Maybe you see it as a partner. Sometimes I think of money as being a romantic relationship. We need to romance in our life. When we come with that positive, open energy, we can transform the conversation the same way we can interpersonally. And having that improv approach is leading with the positive intrinsically, as opposed to the. I want this, you want that conflict of other styles of Western drama.
Speaker 5:And I think it's interesting to think of that in a money context, because when you're in agreement in an improv scene, there's still conflict in the scene, right, like there's still external things happening, but you and the people that you're doing the scene with are in agreement with each other. So, you know, I'm having this beautiful image of us and, like you know, the the rehearsal space, like it's me, it's my money, it's all of us here, like we all work together, we're on the same team, like we're going to support each other and, yeah, there's conflicts, but that's just making the scene interesting for everybody watching and making interesting for us. And what are we going to respond to next and how are we going to do this next thing? Um, I it's very.
Speaker 5:Again, play is a big, big word for me, uh, right now, and so it's like this is very playful, right, you talked about joy, uh, rihanna, and so I think that, yeah, that image, I think, is just such a useful reframe and I not to give credit to everyone in this room I'm, like you know, I don't talk, I don't hear a lot of like personal finance people nailing that element very well, as how do we make this more fun, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh sorry, joe go for it.
Speaker 4:No, which I mean. You know she's singing off my song. She, obviously that is. That is. That is the number one thing. The temperature is already high enough and if we can lower that temperature and you know if I can profile people that have climbed the second highest peaks on every continent in the world you can open a Roth IRA. You know, my goal is to take these things. We're trying to achieve these money monsters, like Rihanna calls them. My goal is to take these things. We're trying to achieve these money monsters, like Rihanna calls them I love that name and give them a face and go oh, it's not this huge demon that I thought it was. In fact, it's funny, rihanna.
Speaker 4:As you were talking, I was thinking back to when I was a financial planner, and often the thing that I would hear people say is you know, I just don't like to look at it. I don't like to look at it. I don't like to look at my money. And I remember those days where I thought, if I don't look at my debt and this bad spending pattern I have, it'll magically get better, which we know. That just makes the monster worse, and the longer you don't look at it, what's powerful is truly to me the same thing that's powerful when I see great improv.
Speaker 4:These people's ability to seemingly think on their feet is really a product of and this is what fascinates me your brain coming up a solution.
Speaker 4:Just because you ask it in the moment to come up with something out of air, literally in the time you can go three, two, one. The brain comes up with a yes and and an answer that if somebody is really good at improv, just flows and you know if it's really great. You're like how did they come up with that just then? But I found that you know just by laying it out in front of you. Rihanna, to your point, if you just lay out the money monster in front of you, whatever the issue is that you're dealing with, it is amazing how powerful your brain is at coming up with these instantaneous. Well, maybe I should try this, maybe I should look at this and that was just categorizing your expenses and looking through your budget can be such a powerful thing only because you're giving yourself the opportunity to improv off of what's this stuff in front of me and not hiding from what Catherine's talked about, the challenge of the given moment, right, like I think.
Speaker 3:To go back to your point, catherine, I think it's less conflict and improv. It's more like what is the rules of the game, what is the activity we're engaged in? And if I'm engaged in an activity like Joe's talking about, like looking at my profit and loss, I'm looking at my metrics for last quarter or whatever it is, these things that are very confronting it becomes an activity rather than a battle. And when we engage in a shared activity through play exactly right, catherine, yes, I love that. It allows us to transcend what we've done before and to discover new paths. And in discovering new paths, we see new patterns, we see new relationships, we see new possibilities, and that's how we can move into the next place with our money. And that sense of play around given circumstance is exactly what kids do. I want to have a blanket fort, but there needs to be a record player and we need soup and maybe let's also watch cartoons under it. We're just solving problems in a yes and way that's making it better, and we can do that with our money as well.
Speaker 4:So we have to have money. It's always better with soup and a record player, by the way, I mean life is.
Speaker 5:So we've got to have conversations with ourselves, those money monsters which shout out to Rihanna and her money monster work. I, just as a money story person, I'm like oh, she's so good. But then I guess to Joe's point, like then just look at the money to have a to talk to our money. It's as simple as just just look at it, right. And I think that that's a hundred percent right. Cause I think that that's 100 percent right because I see that in my work. I mean that's the number one thing I'm helping people overcome is stop being so avoidant around it. But, tony, we haven't heard from you in ages Like what are your takeaways, dude?
Speaker 2:Oh, I just turned off the podcast. You know it made me think of a couple of different scenes, but it's really a commitment to what you're doing. It makes me think of Stephen Colbert. I don't know if everybody here has watched his monologues, but you can tell he's done improv because when he does something and he has an object, he puts it off to the side. He doesn't just drop it. He's really committed to, if he's got a glass of water, to having that glass of water and then putting it down.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes in our financial lives we don't really have that full commitment when we look at something, and so that always strikes me as really powerful is that a lot of people will talk about things with their money, but they're not really committed to the scene, and improv, to me, always requires full commitment, otherwise the audience doesn't buy into it if you're not buying into it, and I think that's sometimes something that's lacking for people is they don't buy into what they're doing. They're doing it because they hear other people talking about it. Like crypto might be a good example. Hear other people talking about it, you know, like crypto might be a good example. You know other people are buying crypto. Why are you buying crypto?
Speaker 1:Oh, I have no idea, but you know, everybody else is buying it.
Speaker 2:So for me, I think commitment is a big part of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's so true. I think it's hard to stay open when we're triggered. There's a real vulnerability that makes that play makes safer than it otherwise would. And I think the rules or the given circumstances of play and improv allow us to be vulnerable to the moment in ways that, as adults navigating our life, we're not, that as adults navigating our life we're not. I'm flashing back on a very early client, a beloved, longtime friend, and she needed to open a business account because she had all of her money in one account and I did the research, I sent her the link. I was like it takes three minutes, click on the link and she never could. It was too vulnerable to step into someone who had that level of control over their business finances. And I think about that level of childlike fear all the time, because we do need to be braver than we think we're capable of to make a new choice. And the play of improv gives us that superhero mask and cape and really lets us lean into the possibilities of those brave moments.
Speaker 5:I think it's also fun because it's pretend, right, improv, it's all pretend and at the end of the day it just drops. And I have actually given that advice to my clients. I'm like I'm going to make you, I'm going to map out like we're going to forecast everything you want for 2025. Right, that's literally what I'm doing all day, every day right now with my business owners, but I always tell them like this is not a goal, I'm not, you're not committing to this, we're not.
Speaker 5:I'm not saying you're going to go do this, let's just it looks like when we build it out, let's just like throw some things around, let's like be a little creative here, and then you're just giving me feedback about what it looks like at the end. See what happens, right. So like I literally give people permission to be like you're not committing to this, just just go play with it and see how it goes. And it goes really fast. They often get a lot of what they want really fast because I give them permission to be like you just pretend, just just make it up, it's fine, like you'll be fine and that's an improv to technique as if act as if it were true.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm thinking about the value of this in in in so many parts of of my life. I remember early on when I was on television, I was scared to death. I was absolutely afraid, and then somebody told me to use these neuro-linguistic programming techniques, which really are improv techniques. As I'm listening to Catherine, you know, talk about the, just the playfulness. I just got on and I pretended I was one of my favorite TV commentators. It was a local commentator in Detroit. I pretended I was him the entire segment and before I knew it it was over and it was really fun and I liked it and then I grew into it and kind of grew into my own voice at the same time. It was the same with the podcast. We pretended that we were these other shows that I liked and so through pretending, we were able to create this thing that ended up becoming our voice. And certainly at the beginning we didn't find our voice.
Speaker 4:But I feel like people like that with with their money, when they're you know, when they're so afraid to open the Roth IRA or or look at their savings account or, heck, even open up the credit card statement, like if you, if you're, pretend you're someone who's brave enough to do that. That's a. That's a great place to to, I think, begin to get ourselves that right mindset you know the thing about mindset? I don't like as much as I like play and pretend. I like that way better. Mindset sounds hard. You know what I mean. It sounds like this big challenge and if I think, oh, I just got to pretend I'm somebody that would open this, okay, I'll open it.
Speaker 5:That makes me think of exactly what you said about, like the book, the Simple Plan to Wealth no-transcript, the upper level strategies and all of the things about investing and taxes and all that stuff. You just have to know. But that stuff can come because you're already in the game, right Like you're. You're learning about it and learning how it applies to you, but you're already committed, as Tony had talked about. So I think that that was such a good. That was a great way to bring it home, Joe.
Speaker 4:Well, but and your point, Catherine, you know, not only is that all makes it easier for you, I think. I think, then, you want to just trust yourself to do one thing.
Speaker 4:You know, if you're going to just make the investment to buy the entire stock market, all I got to do is put this in this account. I just got to do one thing. It's you know, in improv what's interesting is, once you're in the scene, what happens? Your brain just goes. Every time I've done improv, you just go and sometimes it doesn't go that great. You're like, yeah, but that that makes it funnier. And then everybody starts laughing because you kind of messed up the scene and now everybody's got a zig and zag to make up for the thing that you, the wrench you threw in the scene. And so, because it's play and you're not that worried about it, just trusting myself to get in the scene to begin is really the only piece of courage you end up needing. If you treat it like play, that's really cool.
Speaker 5:Can I throw one more question? Get started, yeah, just get started. But based on what you said, do I want to throw one more question to Rihanna about like, okay, so I believe you, I'm going to jump into the scene, I'm going to start playing with my money, but money is a lot more charged than a lot of other things. So while I can go and play with it, when I get that wrench thrown in and I now have to zig and zag, what?
Speaker 5:if I just freeze instead. Right Like? I know I have some answers, but I'd love to hear. I think that would be a really great takeaway too. It's like, okay, we're in it, we're playing, we're yes-anding, but things are going to go wrong. How do we? What do we do that?
Speaker 3:yeah, it's so good because it's interesting. When joe was talking, I think an extension of improv is clowning and it's coming up for me a lot in what joe just said. Which is clown is about interacting with the audience through making mistakes. And so when you lean into what you want in a way of like, is this what you want? No, do you want this? If I do more, if I do it faster, if I do it on my head, do you have what you want?
Speaker 3:And that's about being in relationship with the feedback you're getting from what's around you, from your advisors, from the market, from your bank account, from your client base, whatever it is. And so, rather than receiving judgment and shame because of that feedback, you're leaning into the feedback as positive and good. And so when you're stuck, you can turn to what we call the scene partner, the audience, and say, hey, friend, I'm thinking this, does this work for you? And whatever they give you is positive because you're, yes, anding their feedback. And so I think there's a really fabulous way of embracing the fail in order to get to the transformation.
Speaker 4:I have a story of.
Speaker 4:I have a story actually of this happening to me. So I'm a stutterer and when I get really tired I stutter a lot. Usually. Now when I stutter, I just have these kind of unnatural pauses for a little bit, because I do it in my head and not out loud. But there was one morning I hadn't gotten much sleep. I was worried about a family situation.
Speaker 4:I roll in at the TV station for my segment, I'm on camera and it's my turn to talk and I get halfway through a sentence and, mariana, to your point, I I just shut down, I can't stop stuttering and I can't remember. Then I start freaking out so bad that I have maybe 300, 400,000 people that are watching me and I am unable to complete a sentence. And then I'm freaking out so bad I can't even remember what I was going to say. And then the coolest thing happened, which is everybody wants you to win. Everybody wants you to win, and this is the case, I think, with your money. The people around you want you to win.
Speaker 4:Not only did I find out later from people that watch this segment. It's like were you okay? That just looked like it was. I felt so horrible for you. You know that you were in that situation. But what was really neat, the anchor even said Joe, I think what you're trying to say is this, and once she got me started up, then my engine was running again and I was back out. But the anchor wanted me to win, the people watching wanted me to win, and when you think about it, that it's not conflict, and I love. Going back to the monsters. The monsters just disappeared. I thought the monster in my head was getting bigger and bigger and bigger, as I couldn't make a sentence. Man, when you've got your scene, partners, they all want you to win an improv.
Speaker 3:That's right. And oh, Catherine, please go.
Speaker 5:Oh, I was going to say like that reminded me of the, the, the biggest and only like standing ovation I ever got in my career. I was is the so far so far, so far.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm not on stage as much.
Speaker 3:There's an improv thing.
Speaker 5:I actually do get standing ovations talking about money, so I will say that. But when I was doing, when I was doing uh, you know my performing full time I was, I was. I was in a dance role and I had a brief solo. It was a very fun show. I fell flat on my butt. I biffed it hard. That's the only time and I was. I was a minor role, so it's just a little solo. It was fine, like someone else. That's the only time the entire audience sort of ensured me, because I fell down and I got up and I kept going and I was so shocked I was like thanks, guys, I needed that today. Oh, that one hurt. I remember that so vividly. So, yeah, you're totally right, joe was like the best feedback I ever got from an audience. At the time I completely wiped out, like wow.
Speaker 5:Completely, completely lost it. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Cause you got back up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, it is, and it's also because of empathy. We are social creatures and so when we see someone doing their best and struggling, our heart goes out to them. We want to help them. I do some nonprofit development work and they always say if you want money, ask for advice. Failure, whatever it is, is a great example of them coming to your rescue and really helping you find the better solution.
Speaker 3:I actually had a actor nightmare dream last night. Catherine, and for those who don't know, that's where you dream you're in a play and you don't know your lines. In this case, I didn't even know what play it was. So you spend the whole dream improv-ing a play. You don't even know what it is. Yeah, the level of off the charts. But when you talk to audiences later, it's their favorite shows because you're so alive, you're so present, you're so human and available to them. And that's true out in the money landscape for your relationships, for your clients, for your advisors. All of that clients for your advisors all of that when we let ourself be seen in that unprotected but still strong way. It allows them to see how they can help, and that always makes us better when we accept help when we need it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and people are always eager to help out and the simplest way to get help is just eager to help out, and the simplest way to get help is just a task for help. So I hate to do this, but we have to get ready to close and wrap up. So you know, just to close out real quick, can everybody just share a quick summary of what your number one takeaway or tip is for the people watching and listening today?
Speaker 3:It's so hard to say Tony, because this is a group of brilliant humans and I have a feeling we could fill several hours with this conversation, but I think my biggest takeaway is that leaning into play and joy will always make it better, Whether it's this conversation or money conversations or anything else that's stuck in my life. When I tap into that glee, it really allows what feels stuck to become much looser and more filled with fluidity.
Speaker 5:Yeah, trust will be my takeaway. When Joe said that, I just had this whole heart moment, I'm like, yep, that's what it is. It's trust ourselves, but that money monster, that's positive feedback. Let's reframe that feedback as something we do need and it's not shameful. Trust our money, trust the advice we've been given, trust when we go out and ask how does this apply to me? And trust yourself. I think that that was the through line of this conversation for me. We can be playful when we have that trust. That was the through line of this conversation for me.
Speaker 4:We can be playful when we have that trust. Mine is. I have a mantra that I have had to tell myself a lot, which is because I feel a lot of fear all the time, and it's this great mantra that Nike had before Just Do it. It was feel the fear, but do it anyway, and I can see why they went with.
Speaker 4:just do it because it's cleaner off the tongue, but feel the fear. But do it anyways. Better for me, and the cool thing about viewing your life through play and improv is, the only thing you have to fear is that first action. And if you get in that first action and realize that everybody wants you to win and that the rest of it, your brain, is going to help take care of the rest of it and just trust yourself to go down that path, it's a lot more fun once you break through that little monster.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. For me, it's really that it's based on agreement and listening and really trying to support each other. And I think that's really important is you know that you're not on this journey alone and that there are people who want to help you. So this has been an amazing conversation. You know, let's go around real quick, find out where people can connect with you, learn more about what you're up to. Rihanna, you want to kick that off.
Speaker 3:Sure, the best hub for my financial coaching work is at my website, selftrustfundcom, because we have to build the self-trust to create the trust fund that will allow us to earn our financial freedom. You can also follow me on Instagram at howtomakemoneyyourfriend. It's a great place for our little reels and podcast snippets, as well as any content I'm working on. I'm really leaning into more of a content creation thought leadership space, and that's a great place to find that.
Speaker 5:First, you should your background you're very good at it, just fyi katherine where are you?
Speaker 3:where yeah?
Speaker 5:same thing. You can find me on my website, katherinepomerantzcom. Katherine with a k, pomerantz with a z. Uh, I'm also on linkedin under the same name.
Speaker 4:That's where I hang out, mostly cool, and joe, you'll find our stacking benjamin show every monday, wednesday, friday, wherever finer podcasts are. It's the greatest money show on earth. It's live from mom's half-finished basement. We're always having fun we. We write our scripts with a lot of comedy. We actually have a professional comedian who helps us write our shows. Uh, she's written for comedy central, and so we.
Speaker 4:Our goal is to lower the temperature. The big thing for us, though, is we've created our first product. We have and Catherine knows about this we have created a guide to your workplace benefits. So you know, the average person is going to change jobs every 4.2 years. That fills you full of fear that that thing does. If you don't mess with it, the government will, because you've seen, since I became employed, there was no such thing as a Roth 401k. There was no such thing as an HSA. There's so many new benefits, and they change them all the time, and if the government doesn't mess with it and you don't change jobs, your HR director might decide to either go better, cheaper, whatever it is. So we've got this. Read this before you choose your benefits guide, and it's at stackybenjaminscom slash benefits.
Speaker 2:Fantastic and for everybody watching and listening. As always, there will be links to everyone's websites, the resources mentioned in the show. So thanks everyone for joining today on the podcast. This has been a lot of fun. Appreciate your time and insights.
Speaker 3:Thanks.
Speaker 2:Tony.
Speaker 4:Super fabulous, Tony. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and thank you everyone, as always, for tuning into this episode of the Get Ready Money podcast. If you learned something today to change the way you think about money, please be sure to subscribe and tell a friend. Until next time let's change the way we think about money. Please be sure to subscribe and tell a friend. Until next time let's change the way we think about money. Bye.
