Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Jennifer Barrett, Chief Education Officer at Acorns App, talks about her eye-opening new book, "Think Like a Breadwinner"

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Jennifer Barrett, Chief Education Officer at Acorns App, talks about her eye-opening new book, "Think Like a Breadwinner" · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

0:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to Money Making Conversations. It's the show that she
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Speaker 1: has the secrets of success experience firsthand by marketing and
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Speaker 1: Brandon expert Rashan McDonald. I will know he's giving me
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Speaker 1: advice on many occasions. In the case you didn't notice,
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Speaker 1: hear from my man, Rashan McDonald money Making Conversations. Here
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Speaker 1: we come. Welcome to Money Making Conversation. I'm your host
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Speaker 1: with Sean McDonald. It's time to stop reading other people's
0:35
Speaker 1: success stories and start writing your own. I say that
0:37
Speaker 1: when I started all of my episodes. I always tell
0:40
Speaker 1: people to leave with their gifts, their passions, and don't
0:42
Speaker 1: let their age, friends, family, or coworkers stop them from
0:45
Speaker 1: planning or living their dreams. The book we're going to
0:48
Speaker 1: talk about today really really aligned to sept with that statement.
0:51
Speaker 1: My interviews provide the consumer and business owner access to
0:54
Speaker 1: celebrity CEOs, entrepreneurs, and what I like to call industry
0:58
Speaker 1: decision makers. My next guest is Jennifer Barrett. She's the
1:01
Speaker 1: chief education officer at Acorns, a financial wellness app with
1:05
Speaker 1: more than nine point five million users. She's a contributor
1:08
Speaker 1: for Forbes, and she has also written about money for
1:11
Speaker 1: publications such as New York Times, to Washington Post, Worth
1:15
Speaker 1: Money and News, with where she was a staff writer
1:18
Speaker 1: and editor. She's on the show to talk about her
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Speaker 1: new book, Think Like a bread Winner, Think Like a
1:23
Speaker 1: bread Winner. Of the book everyone can learn from I did,
1:26
Speaker 1: and but it's geared towards women because, according to Jennifer,
1:30
Speaker 1: women that have been culturally conditioned not to think like
1:32
Speaker 1: bread winners. This book truly is about being financially independent.
1:36
Speaker 1: Please working to money making conversation. I'm gonna call a
1:38
Speaker 1: good friend because before this interview we're just talking and talking.
1:41
Speaker 1: They're talking, Jennifer Barrett. How are you doing, Jennifer. I'm
1:44
Speaker 1: doing great. Thanks so much for having me. I was,
1:47
Speaker 1: you know, Jennifer, Uh, we were just talking and talking,
1:50
Speaker 1: and I just feel really a certain kinship for you.
1:53
Speaker 1: Is that just a natural party of personality? People just
1:55
Speaker 1: really uh gravitate to you. I don't know that's I
1:59
Speaker 1: don't no one's ever asked me that, But thank you
2:03
Speaker 1: for that. I do you know as a journalist for
2:05
Speaker 1: many years, and um, so I think I'm used to
2:09
Speaker 1: I like to make people comfortable. Well you, and I
2:11
Speaker 1: really am genuinely interested in everyone I meet, So I
2:14
Speaker 1: think that that probably comes across and meet me. Well you, you,
2:17
Speaker 1: you definitely are making me comfortable. I read your book,
2:19
Speaker 1: and usually how do I read the book? Always the
2:22
Speaker 1: day of the interview. That's where the questions stay very fresh,
2:26
Speaker 1: very topical. I don't feel like I'm reaching for any information. Plus,
2:29
Speaker 1: I also zero in and what really attracts me to
2:32
Speaker 1: the book. But before we get into the book, I've
2:34
Speaker 1: read your title chief Education Officer at a coin nine
2:38
Speaker 1: point five million users, Please explain to us what exactly
2:42
Speaker 1: is a cons and what exactly is your role as
2:45
Speaker 1: the chief education officer. Sure well, I joined a little
2:49
Speaker 1: over five years ago, almost five and a half actually now.
2:53
Speaker 1: And one of the things that drew me to the
2:54
Speaker 1: company is I had been in financial journalists journalism for
2:59
Speaker 1: years before they and I sort of felt like we
3:01
Speaker 1: had been writing the same headline so often about how
3:04
Speaker 1: little people save and how they're not prepared to cover
3:07
Speaker 1: unexpected expenses, and then we're on the brink of this
3:09
Speaker 1: retirement crisis, and I was beginning to wonder if getting
3:13
Speaker 1: information out alone was enough inspiration information, if that was
3:17
Speaker 1: really enough to change people's behaviors. UM. And then I
3:21
Speaker 1: my team, actually I was a personal finance editor at CNBC,
3:24
Speaker 1: and my team had written a lot about these new
3:26
Speaker 1: fintech apps and one of the things that really attracted
3:29
Speaker 1: me to Acorns was that it was such a simple
3:32
Speaker 1: but brilliant solution to a real barrier for so many
3:35
Speaker 1: Americans when it comes to investing. And that was the
3:39
Speaker 1: feature where we round up your purchases and literally investor
3:43
Speaker 1: spare change. And I think what that does immediately is
3:46
Speaker 1: it removes so much of the fear that we have
3:48
Speaker 1: around investing, so much of these beliefs we have that
3:51
Speaker 1: you have to have a lot of money in order
3:53
Speaker 1: to invest all of these things um. And so that's
3:56
Speaker 1: really what drew me to the company. And then I
3:58
Speaker 1: joined in a senior VP year role, our VP role
4:01
Speaker 1: and Senior VP and then was promoted into the Chief
4:04
Speaker 1: Education Officer role, And that essentially means I spend most
4:08
Speaker 1: of my time thinking about how to promote financial literacy
4:11
Speaker 1: and to better educates not only our users and we
4:14
Speaker 1: have around five million now as you mentioned, but also
4:17
Speaker 1: everyone you know, really thinking about how we can promote
4:21
Speaker 1: financial literacy in this country and just close that gap,
4:25
Speaker 1: close the wealth gap, closed the financial literacy gap, so
4:28
Speaker 1: that everyone has the opportunity to live the life that
4:30
Speaker 1: they wants. Well, we came off for a really strange
4:32
Speaker 1: year in years people standing in line for food and
4:35
Speaker 1: unemployment and a record rate. You had this country shut
4:38
Speaker 1: down for two months, and then we had the highest
4:41
Speaker 1: increase of billionaires in the world and the stock market
4:46
Speaker 1: set records during this summer. Um Nash that crossed over
4:50
Speaker 1: a number and it never crossed over into history. Now,
4:53
Speaker 1: being you the chief education officer at Acorns and Financial
4:57
Speaker 1: fintan App fintech app, explain that to me, I mean,
5:03
Speaker 1: the simplest way to look at it is that the
5:05
Speaker 1: shareholder class got richer and the working class did not.
5:11
Speaker 1: For the most parts, um So people who were more
5:13
Speaker 1: dependent on a paycheck struggle more, and people who were
5:17
Speaker 1: more dependent on their investments, particularly in the stock market,
5:20
Speaker 1: um did quite well because as you mentioned, the stock
5:23
Speaker 1: market has hit record highs. Um Surprisingly, I'm less really
5:27
Speaker 1: given that we were in a recession last year and
5:29
Speaker 1: in a global pandemic um. But that's really the simplest
5:32
Speaker 1: way to look at it, and I think one of
5:34
Speaker 1: the I mean, there are so so much that we
5:36
Speaker 1: can learn from this pandemic, but one of the big
5:38
Speaker 1: lessons there is just the importance of getting in the game,
5:42
Speaker 1: you know, um, and not depending solely on a paycheck,
5:46
Speaker 1: but really starting to use those paychecks to build wealth,
5:49
Speaker 1: even if it's five t fift twenty, you know, fifty
5:53
Speaker 1: dollars a month, really getting in the habit of taking
5:56
Speaker 1: some money and starting to build that wealth so that
5:58
Speaker 1: you're less dependent on paycheck X. And then of course
6:01
Speaker 1: making sure that you're saving some money, you know, especially
6:04
Speaker 1: during good times, because I think what happens in this
6:06
Speaker 1: country is that if you look at the savings rates,
6:09
Speaker 1: when things are good, the savings rate goes down, and
6:11
Speaker 1: it's almost as if we think, like the good days
6:13
Speaker 1: will just keep happening. But that is exactly the time
6:16
Speaker 1: when you want to be putting more money into savings
6:18
Speaker 1: and investing because you know, maybe not a pandemic. I
6:22
Speaker 1: hope we never have to deal with that again, but
6:24
Speaker 1: you know, recessions happen. You know, there are the economy
6:27
Speaker 1: goes in cycles, and so during the good times, you
6:29
Speaker 1: want to be preparing yourself so that you can weather
6:31
Speaker 1: the bad times too. And I think that was a
6:34
Speaker 1: big lesson of this pandemic too well, I think about it.
6:36
Speaker 1: I'm doing a kind of interesting way of getting into
6:40
Speaker 1: your book, because that's what your book is about. If
6:42
Speaker 1: you're if you're running, if you if you're your ears
6:45
Speaker 1: are bleeding talking about the stock market, your ears are
6:47
Speaker 1: bleeding talking about career options and and that diversifying your
6:51
Speaker 1: opportunity to be successful, then that's what this book is
6:54
Speaker 1: all about. This book is about stepping out of your
6:56
Speaker 1: comfort zone into a zone that could create circular financial independence.
7:01
Speaker 1: And it's recently I was I finally sat down, and
7:04
Speaker 1: you know, I've always just given my money to my
7:08
Speaker 1: my my stock investor. He's putting in the way. You know,
7:10
Speaker 1: we have the conservative fund and we have the risky
7:13
Speaker 1: for us to stop stop. I want to invest in
7:16
Speaker 1: uh Amazon, I want to invest in Apple. I want
7:20
Speaker 1: to invest that's excuse me, it's my money. I want
7:22
Speaker 1: to invest in I said, I said, because I'm tired
7:24
Speaker 1: of you guys playing around with my world. So I
7:27
Speaker 1: tried to take control of what I feel, a direction
7:30
Speaker 1: of where I want. I got my Disney stock, I
7:32
Speaker 1: got my black Stone Black black Rock stock, so and
7:36
Speaker 1: I got a little Chevron and so I divers got
7:38
Speaker 1: me a little low uh City bank and Visa some
7:42
Speaker 1: financial financial stock. So so that's really what we're talking
7:46
Speaker 1: about when this book, and it's a book of my awakening,
7:49
Speaker 1: was I came out of the pandanga, I had this
7:51
Speaker 1: many money sitting over there, and I had a guy
7:54
Speaker 1: just telling me what to do. I'm just saying a
7:56
Speaker 1: guy could be a female too, who's helping your stock.
7:59
Speaker 1: And basically that's what I think like a bread winner
8:02
Speaker 1: is all about. We go through life, whether you're male
8:04
Speaker 1: or female. In this particular case is about females. And
8:07
Speaker 1: guess when we settled, we're kind of settled for what
8:10
Speaker 1: we assume is the life we're supposed to lead. And unfortunately,
8:15
Speaker 1: when the curve hits, or the bumping the role hits,
8:19
Speaker 1: the woman is not prepared. And you said that to yourself.
8:22
Speaker 1: You didn't hit a bump in the row, but you
8:24
Speaker 1: had a what they say a revelation. You know, this
8:30
Speaker 1: is this apartment that you was in was closing in
8:33
Speaker 1: on you, when at one time you thought it was
8:35
Speaker 1: it was all cool. You thought you were said, talk
8:38
Speaker 1: about that initial journey into your revelation, which has led
8:41
Speaker 1: to you be a success story in the financial market
8:44
Speaker 1: but also the right This brilliant book called Think Like
8:47
Speaker 1: a bread Winner. Thank You. Yes, I had my own
8:50
Speaker 1: wake up call, and I think, looking back, I was
8:52
Speaker 1: really fortunate because, um I had a wake up call
8:55
Speaker 1: early in my life, early in my parenthood, and um
9:00
Speaker 1: so I was able to make some changes and get
9:02
Speaker 1: on the right course. And I wasn't faced with, you know,
9:04
Speaker 1: really terrible situation. It was just a situation where my
9:07
Speaker 1: husband and I were in a small, one bedroom apartment
9:10
Speaker 1: with a toddler who was outgrowing his crib, you know,
9:13
Speaker 1: and he was three ft from the bed, and I
9:16
Speaker 1: really hadn't been paying attention to where we were. I
9:18
Speaker 1: was just sort of um comfortable. I was a new mom.
9:21
Speaker 1: I was really focused on our baby. And one night
9:23
Speaker 1: I was up with him and I was pacing back
9:25
Speaker 1: and forth in our bedroom. I think any parent can
9:27
Speaker 1: relate to this, you know, trying to get him back
9:28
Speaker 1: to sleep. And I looked around and it really hit
9:31
Speaker 1: me we're in an unsustainable situation. And you know, all
9:36
Speaker 1: my life, I had wanted kids, you know, I really
9:39
Speaker 1: deeply wanted a second child. We I loved where we
9:42
Speaker 1: lived in Brooklyn. I loved our neighborhood. We had this
9:45
Speaker 1: network and friends, and I didn't want to leave, and
9:48
Speaker 1: we wanted a place of our own. And I realized
9:51
Speaker 1: in that moment that even though I thought I'd been
9:53
Speaker 1: doing a lot right, like I was covering half the bills,
9:55
Speaker 1: I had a little four one K, had a little
9:57
Speaker 1: bit of savings, that I really wasn't making the kinds
10:00
Speaker 1: of money choices that would ensure that we could afford
10:03
Speaker 1: these things that were so important to me. And I
10:07
Speaker 1: asked myself, why had I not been making those those choices,
10:12
Speaker 1: taking that action with my money? And I realized that,
10:14
Speaker 1: deep down, I had been depending on my husband to
10:18
Speaker 1: do all the financial planning for our future because that's
10:21
Speaker 1: how I'd grown up. My dad had been the main
10:23
Speaker 1: or sold breadwinner for most of my childhood, and so
10:26
Speaker 1: I sort of grew up subconsciously expecting to depend on
10:31
Speaker 1: my partner for a lot of that. Um So then
10:33
Speaker 1: I kind of asked myself, you know, after realizing that
10:36
Speaker 1: is sort of why was I thinking that? And then
10:39
Speaker 1: I asked, what if I had been raised instead to
10:42
Speaker 1: be the breadwinner? You know, what if I had grown
10:44
Speaker 1: up believing that I would be fully financially responsible for
10:48
Speaker 1: myself for life and probably a family too, would that
10:52
Speaker 1: change the choices I made with my money? And the
10:54
Speaker 1: answer was a resounding yes. And so then the question was, Okay,
11:00
Speaker 1: what do I do now? And that's really where it started. Well,
11:03
Speaker 1: the interesting thing about it is that that's why I say,
11:06
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not gonna take anyway. This is a
11:08
Speaker 1: brilliant book. But if you're a man, this happens to you.
11:11
Speaker 1: If you are a person who's going through life. You know,
11:15
Speaker 1: here's just let me be an example. I went to
11:18
Speaker 1: went to college, I got my degree in mathematics, my mind,
11:22
Speaker 1: and sociology, and went to work for IBM, and you know,
11:26
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, this is my life, you know, And I
11:28
Speaker 1: eventually quit IBM and started a career as a stand
11:32
Speaker 1: up comedian, which led to a lot of other great
11:34
Speaker 1: things in my life. But I made that decision, you
11:37
Speaker 1: understand what I'm saying, Jennifer. I made that decision, and
11:40
Speaker 1: so this book is about telling you don't be the
11:42
Speaker 1: person with the decision is being made for you. And
11:45
Speaker 1: that's what happens so much in the bread when the
11:48
Speaker 1: conversation that you were talking about, I decided to leave IBM,
11:51
Speaker 1: So it means that I planned not exit. I had
11:54
Speaker 1: some money saved, not with enough money, by the way,
11:57
Speaker 1: but I had some money saved because I planned I
11:59
Speaker 1: was going to be a success and entertainment. So this
12:02
Speaker 1: is about thinking out of the box about yourself and
12:05
Speaker 1: in some words, a lot of people use this word
12:07
Speaker 1: wrong incorrectly selfish, because I think at some point you
12:10
Speaker 1: have to think about yourself. Talk about that whole process
12:13
Speaker 1: of thinking about yourself and outside of the revelation, because
12:17
Speaker 1: you have to be you have to be selfish. Well,
12:20
Speaker 1: you have to take care of yourself, and I don't.
12:22
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily and I know some people do say
12:25
Speaker 1: that's being selfish, um, But you really can't take care
12:27
Speaker 1: of anybody else unless you're taking care of yourself, um,
12:30
Speaker 1: And so I don't think of it as being selfish.
12:32
Speaker 1: I think I'm not in a position to really care
12:34
Speaker 1: for my family if I'm not caring for myself, and
12:37
Speaker 1: that that is, you know, both the self care aspect
12:39
Speaker 1: of it, but also financially and really, you know, to
12:42
Speaker 1: your point, what this came down to is like people
12:44
Speaker 1: are in different situations, but what it came down to
12:47
Speaker 1: was that I was depending on someone else to make
12:49
Speaker 1: sure the future that I wanted happens. I was relinquishing
12:53
Speaker 1: that responsibility to someone else, and and I wanted to
12:57
Speaker 1: take back some of that control. I wanted to feel
13:00
Speaker 1: really secure that these things that were so important to
13:02
Speaker 1: me in my life came to pass. And that meant
13:05
Speaker 1: really confronting the underlying beliefs that had, you know, informed
13:09
Speaker 1: the money choices that I've made, and then confronting these
13:12
Speaker 1: these you know, money things in my mind, like am
13:15
Speaker 1: I am I good with money? Can I do this?
13:17
Speaker 1: And I and I am I capable of earning more?
13:19
Speaker 1: All of these kind of fears come up to the
13:21
Speaker 1: surface when you start to say I am going to
13:23
Speaker 1: take financial responsibility for my life. I can do this right,
13:28
Speaker 1: because that gives you such tremendous agency over your life
13:33
Speaker 1: and it is an incredible feeling. And I know that
13:36
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't really get that message when
13:38
Speaker 1: they're growing up. It's not just women, but I do
13:40
Speaker 1: think culturally we are not conditioning women to really think
13:44
Speaker 1: of themselves as wealth builders right, as being real providers
13:48
Speaker 1: and being able to support the lives that they want
13:51
Speaker 1: and to support others lives too, and then really being
13:54
Speaker 1: given the tools to do that. And I think that's
13:57
Speaker 1: true of a lot of Americans. We do a really
13:59
Speaker 1: bad job of educating people about finances in this country.
14:03
Speaker 1: We have a ways to go, but I do think
14:05
Speaker 1: that the message that women get, combined with that lack
14:08
Speaker 1: of education, can do more damage, you know. So I
14:11
Speaker 1: think we have a wider gap to close as women.
14:14
Speaker 1: And if you look really just step back and look
14:16
Speaker 1: at the data points there, women really are lagging men
14:19
Speaker 1: financially by almost any measure, and there's no reason for that.
14:23
Speaker 1: There's really no reason for that anymore. Um So, I
14:26
Speaker 1: it's this book is really about like removing those internal
14:30
Speaker 1: barriers and overcoming the external barriers so that you can
14:33
Speaker 1: reach your wealth building earning potential and have the life
14:37
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Speaker 1: an interesting thing about the book. I want to back
16:37
Speaker 1: up just a little bit, and you're gonna bring race
16:39
Speaker 1: in just a little bit. This is a positive version
16:41
Speaker 1: of life. Well, you know, you have black women and
16:43
Speaker 1: you have white women, and you mentioned something about black women.
16:46
Speaker 1: They were exposed to the the bread winner philosophy for decades.
16:51
Speaker 1: Explain about that, and then why white women have been
16:54
Speaker 1: been conceptualized by the Disney Prince's philosophy of living. Yeah,
17:00
Speaker 1: I think, um, and I talked about this in the preface,
17:02
Speaker 1: so I know that, Um, you know that the bread
17:06
Speaker 1: winning rates are much different depending on UM. You know,
17:10
Speaker 1: different races and different communities. So we know that for example,
17:14
Speaker 1: you know, right now, overall we have had this paradigm
17:18
Speaker 1: shift in the bread winning model. Overall, so in more
17:20
Speaker 1: than forty percent of households with kids under eighteen overall,
17:23
Speaker 1: women are now the main or soul bread winner. But
17:26
Speaker 1: if you look at the Latina community, if you look
17:29
Speaker 1: at the Black community, that has been the case for
17:31
Speaker 1: a long time, UM and the numbers are even higher.
17:34
Speaker 1: But what I'm really talking about in this book is
17:36
Speaker 1: something that's a lot more universal, which is, you know,
17:38
Speaker 1: even if you sort of expect, oh, I may end
17:40
Speaker 1: up kind of taking care of myself and taking care
17:42
Speaker 1: of my family, I don't feel like as a culture
17:45
Speaker 1: we are setting women up for success in that role.
17:49
Speaker 1: So it really doesn't matter where you come from. What
17:51
Speaker 1: I tried to do in this book was take the
17:53
Speaker 1: bread winning lens and apply it to every aspect of
17:56
Speaker 1: your finances. So if you're really thinking like what do
17:59
Speaker 1: I want in my life, and what are the choices
18:02
Speaker 1: I need to make with my money and my career
18:04
Speaker 1: or my job path to support that, and then applying
18:07
Speaker 1: that lens everywhere, you really start to see there's such
18:11
Speaker 1: a dichotomy between the messaging that we're getting as women
18:15
Speaker 1: and what we really want to be doing if we
18:18
Speaker 1: want to be able to truly support ourselves. And that's
18:20
Speaker 1: everything from like credit, where we're being marketed this message
18:24
Speaker 1: of like credit cards or a way to close the
18:25
Speaker 1: gap between this life that we can afford and the
18:28
Speaker 1: things that we want, and that's not really it at
18:31
Speaker 1: all if you're looking at it as a bread runner
18:33
Speaker 1: and in the fullest sense you're thinking, how do I
18:35
Speaker 1: build my credit so that one day I can buy
18:38
Speaker 1: a home? And you're using in that instance, you're leveraging
18:42
Speaker 1: credit to build wealth, because most Americans have most of
18:46
Speaker 1: their wealth tied up in their homes, and if you
18:48
Speaker 1: can't buy a home, that really holds you back. So
18:51
Speaker 1: that's what I'm talking about. It's thinking. It's like, it's
18:54
Speaker 1: not just earning more, it's really thinking more expensively about
18:58
Speaker 1: your capabilities and the possibility it is for your wife. Well,
19:01
Speaker 1: you know the interesting thing about you, But first of
19:03
Speaker 1: all you did there's a fantastic job of laying out
19:06
Speaker 1: the blueprint of what you're trying to convey in this
19:09
Speaker 1: and you do it very special with your interviews. And the
19:12
Speaker 1: the reason I say it's very special with your interviews
19:13
Speaker 1: because you interview people to give examples, because a lot
19:15
Speaker 1: of people, when you read a book like this, they'll
19:17
Speaker 1: say I can't relate or that's not me. Well, well,
19:21
Speaker 1: well i'm sorry. She interview enough of you means that
19:24
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure you're gonna find yourself in this book.
19:27
Speaker 1: Talk about that journey of finding the different people that
19:29
Speaker 1: you interviewed for the book, and did they did, what
19:32
Speaker 1: would their takeaway? Did they learn something from the interview
19:34
Speaker 1: process that you brought to the table from there to
19:37
Speaker 1: the through the interview process you brought to the table
19:39
Speaker 1: for them. Sure, Um, well, I definitely learned something from
19:43
Speaker 1: every single person I interviewed. And I interviewed over a
19:45
Speaker 1: hundred women, and I intentionally try to find women from
19:49
Speaker 1: a whole diverse range of backgrounds from all over the country,
19:52
Speaker 1: in a lot of different fields, making a lot of
19:54
Speaker 1: different incomes, so that we could be pretty representative. So
19:57
Speaker 1: there are single parents, there are single women, there are
19:59
Speaker 1: say insects, you know, heterosexual couples are really pretty wide range. Um,
20:05
Speaker 1: and I learned a lot from them, I really did.
20:08
Speaker 1: I learned a lot in every conversation. Um, And I
20:11
Speaker 1: would like to think that it's it was mutual too,
20:14
Speaker 1: because you know, I'd spend like anywhere from an hour
20:16
Speaker 1: to five hours with each of them, and sometimes I'd
20:19
Speaker 1: come back to them, like during the pandemic, I went
20:21
Speaker 1: back to a lot of them to see how they
20:23
Speaker 1: were doing, how things have changed, and really tried to
20:25
Speaker 1: incorporate that in the book as well. Um. But yeah,
20:29
Speaker 1: I think it's so important to have all these stories
20:31
Speaker 1: because I can only speak from my own experience, right,
20:34
Speaker 1: And look, I'm fortunate. I grew up in a middle class,
20:37
Speaker 1: suburban household. My parents were professors. You know, I had
20:40
Speaker 1: a lot of privilege growing up. And I wanted to
20:42
Speaker 1: make sure that it wasn't just my story that drove
20:45
Speaker 1: the book. I could talk about my own experiences, but
20:47
Speaker 1: I really wanted to bring in a lot of different
20:49
Speaker 1: perspectives too. Well. That was important because again, like you said,
20:53
Speaker 1: you know my perspective, I'd come from inter city, six sisters,
20:56
Speaker 1: two brothers, farmers, and trump driver momb did work. That's
20:59
Speaker 1: a totally different experience. If I just wrote from that experience,
21:02
Speaker 1: and I could be very very global in my approach. Well,
21:06
Speaker 1: this is what you gotta do to be there. But
21:08
Speaker 1: when you brought into the examples, and some of them
21:09
Speaker 1: are very rememberable, I thought they interview when you the
21:14
Speaker 1: lady who was married to the guy who didn't want kids,
21:17
Speaker 1: and then she eventually left film and she had her kids.
21:21
Speaker 1: And that type of independence is happening every day nowadays,
21:24
Speaker 1: where if you try to do that the sixties seven day,
21:27
Speaker 1: people would look down on you. But that level of
21:29
Speaker 1: independence for women allowing them to do what you're asking
21:33
Speaker 1: them to do in this book, to step forward, be yourself.
21:36
Speaker 1: You can't be independent, and that's this is all about
21:39
Speaker 1: being independent and not being dependent. Correct totally. And I
21:44
Speaker 1: when I talked about my own story, one of the
21:45
Speaker 1: reasons I think I was so fortunate is that as
21:47
Speaker 1: I started interviewing women, I heard incredible stories. People really
21:52
Speaker 1: opened up and they had suffered some really terrible things,
21:55
Speaker 1: Like one woman had been in an abusive relationship and
21:57
Speaker 1: didn't think she could afford to leave. That was a
21:59
Speaker 1: true stul r. And I heard stories like that, or
22:02
Speaker 1: I had stories of people who really wanted to have kids,
22:04
Speaker 1: didn't find a partner, hadn't saved up the money, and
22:06
Speaker 1: panicked and didn't think they could afford to have a
22:08
Speaker 1: kid financially, and so they gave up something that was
22:10
Speaker 1: incredibly important to them. So I think about, you know,
22:14
Speaker 1: being stuck in a toxic environment, being stuck in an
22:17
Speaker 1: abusive relationship, you know, having to feel like you have
22:20
Speaker 1: to give up something that's so important to you because
22:23
Speaker 1: you didn't financially plan for it, because you don't have savings,
22:26
Speaker 1: because you were so dependent on your partner or your
22:28
Speaker 1: paycheck that you feel like you have no choices. I
22:30
Speaker 1: don't want any woman to be in that situation. I mean,
22:33
Speaker 1: that's what really drives me because as I started doing
22:36
Speaker 1: these interviews, I realized just how lucky I was that
22:40
Speaker 1: I wasn't in that kind of a situation when I
22:42
Speaker 1: have my wake up call. And now I looked back,
22:45
Speaker 1: you know, I talked in the savings chapter about I
22:46
Speaker 1: looked back at some of the experiences I've had in
22:48
Speaker 1: my career. I mean, there I've had some serious sexual
22:51
Speaker 1: harassment experiences early in my career, and I think I
22:55
Speaker 1: put up with some things because I didn't have the savings.
22:58
Speaker 1: And in other cases, I had the safety that my
23:00
Speaker 1: parents or I had savings, and I didn't put up
23:02
Speaker 1: with things like I was able to to walk out
23:05
Speaker 1: of a job after a particularly bad incident because I
23:08
Speaker 1: had my parents, because I had a little bit of savings.
23:10
Speaker 1: Imagine if I hadn't, you know, And that's what I
23:12
Speaker 1: started to think about. It is like, imagine if you
23:14
Speaker 1: are so dependent on your paycheck or a partner that
23:17
Speaker 1: you can't afford to leave. That is a terrible situation.
23:21
Speaker 1: I don't want anyone to ever be in that situation.
23:24
Speaker 1: So that's part of this book too, is really just like,
23:27
Speaker 1: you know, preparing yourself not only to support the life
23:30
Speaker 1: you want, but ensuring you're never stuck in a situation
23:32
Speaker 1: that you don't want. Well, you know. More importantly, I'm
23:36
Speaker 1: talking to Jennifer Barrett. She's the author of this wonderful book,
23:38
Speaker 1: Think Like a Breadwinner, and it's an eye opening for
23:41
Speaker 1: me as a male. It's a book just uh, just
23:43
Speaker 1: geared toward women, a female point of view, a wake
23:45
Speaker 1: up call for women to understand how they should game.
23:49
Speaker 1: Let me just put this way, women in general, start
23:52
Speaker 1: making your decisions for yourself. In other words, stop rolling
23:55
Speaker 1: into what that you feel is. This is what I
23:58
Speaker 1: supposed to do, This is the life I've been supposed
24:00
Speaker 1: to be living and that's what this book does for me.
24:02
Speaker 1: At the beginning of my show, I always talking about
24:04
Speaker 1: leave with your gifts and don't let your age, friends, family,
24:06
Speaker 1: or co workers stop you from planning to living your dreams.
24:09
Speaker 1: And basically that's what this book is telling you. You know,
24:11
Speaker 1: look in the mirror at yourself and be to be
24:14
Speaker 1: dependent on yourself. And we talked about it off air,
24:17
Speaker 1: but when you start talking about marriages, you said, Rishan,
24:20
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just say she talked to me like this, Rashan,
24:22
Speaker 1: because I read it from the book. I felt like
24:23
Speaker 1: she was talking to me. Y'all. Okay, she said, Roshan,
24:26
Speaker 1: fifty percent of the people get married and they know
24:28
Speaker 1: it isn't the divorce, but they don't care. They don't
24:31
Speaker 1: they don't they don't plan for the possibilities that it
24:34
Speaker 1: might end in the divorce. If you were giving that
24:36
Speaker 1: number fifty on anything that you do in the daily life,
24:39
Speaker 1: if you were heard it was fIF percent chance of rain,
24:42
Speaker 1: you will probably take an umbrella. If you heard the
24:44
Speaker 1: temperature we're gonna dropt, chance we're gonna drop on the
24:47
Speaker 1: fart of degree, you would take a coat. But when
24:49
Speaker 1: it comes to marriage, we have such a naive approach
24:53
Speaker 1: to it, like won't happen to me, and when it
24:55
Speaker 1: does happen, there's no preparations. So with that being said,
24:59
Speaker 1: how does one shift from the from the person who's
25:03
Speaker 1: being taken care of to the bread winner? How do
25:06
Speaker 1: how do they make that shift? Yeah? I mean I
25:09
Speaker 1: think it starts with looking at your income and being
25:11
Speaker 1: very realistic about is the income I'm earning supporting the
25:14
Speaker 1: life that I want? And then and I know this
25:17
Speaker 1: is really hard, and because I've interviewed people and so
25:19
Speaker 1: many of our Acorns users are in this position too,
25:21
Speaker 1: because a lot of people feel like they're living paycheck
25:24
Speaker 1: to paycheck and I certainly did when I have my
25:25
Speaker 1: wake up haul and we're thinking we don't have any
25:28
Speaker 1: money to save or invest, like we're barely getting by.
25:30
Speaker 1: But if you don't need to put a lot of
25:32
Speaker 1: money aside, it's just so important to get into the
25:35
Speaker 1: habit of using your paycheck, using each paycheck to be
25:39
Speaker 1: less dependent on your next paycheck. And what I mean
25:42
Speaker 1: by that is using anything you can from that paycheck
25:45
Speaker 1: you get to put into savings, high yield savings to
25:48
Speaker 1: put into the stock market and bonds and start investing
25:52
Speaker 1: that money so it can grow for you. Because that's
25:54
Speaker 1: how you break the chain, right, That's how you break
25:56
Speaker 1: your dependence on every single paycheck, how you break the
25:59
Speaker 1: paycheck to pay check cycle, how you build real wealth.
26:02
Speaker 1: When I'm talking about wealth, I think we have this
26:05
Speaker 1: notion of wealth as being like, I don't know, make
26:07
Speaker 1: mansions and yachts and all these things. I'm not talking
26:10
Speaker 1: about that. I'm talking about having enough money growing in
26:13
Speaker 1: the background of your life by investing it, that you
26:15
Speaker 1: have the money to make choices in your life, that
26:18
Speaker 1: you have the money to you know, to go back
26:20
Speaker 1: to school if you want to go to school, if
26:22
Speaker 1: you want, you have the money to start a business,
26:24
Speaker 1: if you want to you have the money to travel,
26:26
Speaker 1: to buy a home. All of these things. You know,
26:28
Speaker 1: they require more than you're usually making in a paycheck,
26:31
Speaker 1: and so it's so important to get into that happened.
26:33
Speaker 1: I don't think women, especially we are we are not
26:37
Speaker 1: encouraged to be wealth builders. We are not encouraged to
26:40
Speaker 1: say I want to make money, earn money, I want
26:43
Speaker 1: to make a lot of money. You know, we are
26:44
Speaker 1: not encouraged to think that way. Or even to consider
26:47
Speaker 1: that we're good investors when the research actually shows that
26:51
Speaker 1: we're better investors than then often we get good returns,
26:55
Speaker 1: So that it starts with that, and then it starts
26:57
Speaker 1: you know, obviously you don't want credit card debt. You
26:59
Speaker 1: want to be building your credit um you know all
27:01
Speaker 1: of these things, and you want to be really thinking
27:03
Speaker 1: strategically about your job path or your career so that
27:07
Speaker 1: it's not just what am I making now, but what
27:09
Speaker 1: am I going to make next year, five years from now?
27:10
Speaker 1: How do I take the steps now to set myself up,
27:13
Speaker 1: you know, to earn more. I remember listening to Ashcash
27:16
Speaker 1: talking about he was a bank teller and already had
27:18
Speaker 1: dreams of being, you know, a bank manager, of moving
27:21
Speaker 1: into an executive role. He was thinking three steps ahead.
27:23
Speaker 1: And that's how you have to think. Is am I
27:25
Speaker 1: doing the things right now that are going to set
27:27
Speaker 1: me up so that I have the role I want
27:29
Speaker 1: to have in two years, five years down the road? Well,
27:31
Speaker 1: you know, you have to think. If you don't think
27:33
Speaker 1: about the future, and we have a general tendency to
27:36
Speaker 1: think every thirty days, so paycheck to paycheck, and if
27:39
Speaker 1: you think like that, you really don't see to put
27:41
Speaker 1: you a pitfall that can happen. And I think that
27:44
Speaker 1: in the beginning of the books when you you kind
27:46
Speaker 1: of like paycheck paycheck and one day you just woke
27:48
Speaker 1: up and I was thinking like that, right, welcome, you
27:50
Speaker 1: know something just paycheck to paycheck is not gonna work
27:52
Speaker 1: out because uh, we don't one bed room and I'm
27:55
Speaker 1: looking at my baby and my baby growing paycheck to paycheck.
27:58
Speaker 1: And so that that awakening, it made you move forward.
28:01
Speaker 1: With that being said, you know, we have so many barriers.
28:04
Speaker 1: You know, when we think about athletics for women, and
28:07
Speaker 1: there's a there's a title line, have women have equal
28:11
Speaker 1: sports participation in colleges? And right now we hear about
28:15
Speaker 1: situations and soccer trying to tennis and professional sports. But
28:19
Speaker 1: when it comes to academics and I'm talking about the
28:22
Speaker 1: the learned world executives, we know there's a shoulderness the philosophy.
28:27
Speaker 1: They're stopping women from getting equal paid And so that,
28:31
Speaker 1: like you said, you using some uncomfortable situations where you
28:34
Speaker 1: have to leave, and when you think back on certain situations,
28:36
Speaker 1: you took some stuff that you probably shouldn't have taken
28:39
Speaker 1: in job environments, how would that being said, I know
28:43
Speaker 1: it's not gonna happen overnight, and I'm not trying to
28:45
Speaker 1: get you to go there even this conversation, but this
28:47
Speaker 1: book allows me to at least open up the eyes
28:49
Speaker 1: for the reader to say, hey, start thinking about the possibilities,
28:53
Speaker 1: and that really is the basis of this book, the possibilities,
28:57
Speaker 1: and shape those possibilities into opportunities that opportunities turned into goals.
29:02
Speaker 1: Is that a right strategy I'm putting in place about
29:04
Speaker 1: your book? It starts with having a vision for what
29:07
Speaker 1: you want in your future and then thinking about what
29:10
Speaker 1: you can do to get there, um and planning that
29:12
Speaker 1: strategy and taking it step by step. You know, it
29:14
Speaker 1: took me a few years to get on the right track,
29:16
Speaker 1: but that's you know that It starts with asking yourself
29:19
Speaker 1: what do I want in my life? Not what can
29:21
Speaker 1: I forward right now in my life? Not what do
29:23
Speaker 1: other people expect from me in my life? What do
29:26
Speaker 1: I want in my life? And how can I make
29:28
Speaker 1: it happen? And that gives you such a sense of
29:31
Speaker 1: agency when you start taking the steps to make it happen.
29:34
Speaker 1: And the other, you know, the other thing that you
29:36
Speaker 1: pointed out is that look, if we look at the numbers.
29:40
Speaker 1: Women are lagging men on every financial measure right now.
29:43
Speaker 1: So if you just do the status quo, like, if
29:47
Speaker 1: you just fall into that, that's where you're going to
29:49
Speaker 1: end up. So you have to actually stop and say no, wait,
29:52
Speaker 1: that is not how I wanted to go for me.
29:54
Speaker 1: I don't want to get paid less than the guy
29:56
Speaker 1: down the hall. I don't want that. I don't want
29:58
Speaker 1: to be passed over for promotion. You know, these are
30:01
Speaker 1: very real barriers, and so it's important for us to
30:04
Speaker 1: be aware of them, but then also think about, Okay,
30:07
Speaker 1: what am I going to do so I get that promotion. So,
30:09
Speaker 1: for example, we know there's research out there that shows
30:12
Speaker 1: that women are more likely to pick up what's called
30:13
Speaker 1: office housework or nonpromotable work. We're the ones like organizing
30:17
Speaker 1: the meetings, are cleaning the conference room or whatever it is,
30:19
Speaker 1: and that people are more likely to ask women to
30:22
Speaker 1: do that. That doesn't mean we need to say yes,
30:25
Speaker 1: you know, we can be nice about it, but we
30:28
Speaker 1: don't need to fall into some of these traps. And
30:30
Speaker 1: I think the first step there is awareness, Like if
30:32
Speaker 1: you are aware that this is happening and you say no,
30:35
Speaker 1: wait a second I don't want this to happen to me.
30:38
Speaker 1: Then the question is, Okay, what steps are you going
30:40
Speaker 1: to take so that that doesn't happen to you? Because
30:43
Speaker 1: you want your life to go on a different trajectory.
30:45
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting here twelve years later telling you that
30:47
Speaker 1: is entirely possible. You know, I'm not saying it's always easy,
30:50
Speaker 1: but it is entirely possible to say like mm hmm,
30:53
Speaker 1: Now this is not me. I don't want to be
30:55
Speaker 1: making you know, eighteen cents less or more, you know,
30:57
Speaker 1: than than the white man down the wall. It's just
31:00
Speaker 1: not going to make you know um. But then you
31:03
Speaker 1: have to be aware of that, and then you have
31:04
Speaker 1: to think about, Okay, what do I need to do
31:06
Speaker 1: to make sure I get that promotion? Art I'm gonna
31:08
Speaker 1: track every single thing I'm doing for this company and
31:10
Speaker 1: look at how it's supporting this company. When I come
31:12
Speaker 1: in there and ask for that promotion or that raise,
31:14
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have numbers because numbers don't lie. It takes
31:17
Speaker 1: the emotion out of it. It's really hard to argue
31:20
Speaker 1: with numbers. So a lot of this is the approach.
31:22
Speaker 1: You know, I wanted to say this, you know, we're
31:24
Speaker 1: in that era, you hit that term council culture, and
31:27
Speaker 1: because so many people are finally speaking up, finally saying, look,
31:31
Speaker 1: I deserve to be recognize for my work, for my pain,
31:34
Speaker 1: and I don't want this book to become a victim
31:37
Speaker 1: of that thought process of counseling gold Oh women, it
31:39
Speaker 1: should be satisfied should they should be happy being at home,
31:42
Speaker 1: They should be happy taken care of. Because your book
31:44
Speaker 1: is brilliant. I'm just gonna be honest with you. I've
31:46
Speaker 1: read it and I started reading the game because if
31:48
Speaker 1: we missed our first interview, and I was just so
31:51
Speaker 1: moved by the you know, do not wait till your
31:54
Speaker 1: mid thirties. That's a theme in this book. In the
31:57
Speaker 1: mid thirties, these women are starting to wake up, way
32:00
Speaker 1: up at eighteen, wake up at sixteen, wake up at
32:02
Speaker 1: twenty one, don't wake up in the mid thirties. And
32:05
Speaker 1: then you then that's what happens. You get in that
32:07
Speaker 1: trap because age starts to come in. You go, can
32:10
Speaker 1: I make up? Can I pivot? And sometimes people don't
32:13
Speaker 1: care if you can't pivot, They're gonna pieve it for
32:15
Speaker 1: you and kick you to the curb. And so That's
32:17
Speaker 1: the wonder of this book is that don't let age
32:19
Speaker 1: stop you, don't let allow yourself to wait too late.
32:23
Speaker 1: But more importantly, read books like this and it will
32:26
Speaker 1: focus you early. Give it to your daughter a lot
32:28
Speaker 1: hard to have a sense that she can be independent.
32:30
Speaker 1: It's all ready to have a freedom thought. It's all
32:32
Speaker 1: ready to think about themselves. It's already to focus about,
32:35
Speaker 1: focus on financially and defend in financially Independent. Wonderful book, Jennifer.
32:40
Speaker 1: I really glad we was able to pull this interview
32:42
Speaker 1: off because you are amazing. Thank you, Thank you so much.
32:45
Speaker 1: I appreciate that it's such a good SI good. I'm
32:49
Speaker 1: glad because I had a good time reading you. Maybe
32:51
Speaker 1: smile and I hopefully I made you smile just thinking
32:53
Speaker 1: about some of the fun parts of the book. But again,
32:55
Speaker 1: thank you for coming on Money Making Conversations. All right,
32:58
Speaker 1: thank you. If you want to hear more of views,
33:00
Speaker 1: all seaboard interviews of money making Conversations, please go to
33:02
Speaker 1: mindy Making Conversation dot com. I'm with Sean McDonald. I
33:05
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