Farnoosh_Torabi_on_Financial_Samurai_EDITED
00:00:00.000 | Hello, everybody. It's Sam from the Financial Samurai podcast. And this episode I have a
00:00:05.320 | special guest with me, Farnoosh Tarabi, who is the author of A Healthy State of Panic
00:00:11.760 | coming out October 3rd, 2023. Say hello.
00:00:16.120 | Hello, everybody. Sam, I'm such a fan. I loved when you came on So Money, and I'm honored
00:00:22.400 | to meet now, you know, try to repay the favor somehow on your show. I hope I'm as good as
00:00:28.240 | you were on So Money.
00:00:29.600 | No, no, no. Thank you for supporting my book, Buy This, Not That. It was great, and I'm
00:00:35.000 | glad it's over. But how about you? You know, you've been working on this book since for
00:00:39.760 | a while now.
00:00:40.760 | Well, honestly, I say it's the culmination of my 40 plus years being alive and putting
00:00:45.960 | one foot in front of the other. This book is about money, but it's also about so many
00:00:50.780 | things because as you know, when we talk about money, we are talking about life. We are talking
00:00:55.760 | about relationships and work and our relationship to money, how we were raised, our childhoods.
00:01:02.800 | And so, yeah, I'm excited to bring this book to everybody. It's been nine years since I've
00:01:08.960 | published. This is my fourth book, but I've waited, I guess, all this time because I needed
00:01:13.840 | it to sort of unpack the years and the lessons learned. And what I discovered is that, you
00:01:22.800 | know, as I've been podcasting and writing and being in the personal finance space for
00:01:27.480 | a really long time, one of the biggest questions I get is sort of like, "How did you become
00:01:31.640 | you? How did you know how to make certain decisions in your life?" And even on my podcast,
00:01:38.760 | I have a show, an episode I dedicate every week to people asking me questions, and the
00:01:43.760 | questions are not just about money. It's about everything. I think people somehow, for some
00:01:47.160 | reason, trust me with a lot of important questions in their lives, their crossroads. And I think
00:01:53.560 | when I sort of examine my own journey and what has helped navigate me, the truth of
00:02:00.480 | it is that I'm a terrified woman, Sam. I'm a scared woman. And the world's a scary place,
00:02:07.200 | and I accept that. And I have an early education in fear as the daughter of immigrants. And
00:02:14.240 | so I think that the thesis here, as I was developing the book, I was like, "I think
00:02:18.760 | the thesis is that fear is my superpower. How about that? How about them apples?" And
00:02:24.800 | then I just had so many stories to back it up. And not just mine, but people who have
00:02:29.400 | graced the podcast who have perhaps not even unknowingly realized on the show they realized
00:02:35.060 | when we talk about it, like, "Oh my gosh, I did the really hard thing while I was scared.
00:02:40.120 | I was scared and still did the thing." And so unpacking that, exploring that, realizing
00:02:45.240 | that maybe fear was fuel. Maybe fear was the wisdom you needed. It gave you a sense of
00:02:52.440 | who you were at the time and how to make a really aligned, self-aligned decision. And
00:02:57.920 | so, yeah, that was a longer answer probably than you were anticipating, but you'll learn
00:03:03.840 | quickly that I don't give short answers.
00:03:06.080 | >> What are some of the fears or the most common fears that you've discovered or your
00:03:11.360 | own fears that have prevented you but that also have propelled you towards your financial
00:03:16.680 | success, career success, parental success and so forth?
00:03:19.920 | >> Well, fear is abundant and it is a universal feeling, but it is very personal to everyone.
00:03:26.560 | I mean, what I tried to do in the book was not just talk about fear as this monolith,
00:03:31.400 | but to your point, like there are many different types of fears. We don't demystify it. We
00:03:35.880 | say it's just this thing and we should ignore it. We should be fearless. But I think if
00:03:40.280 | you really examine it, there are these specific types of fears. And like I said, there are
00:03:46.960 | many, many, but for the book and how I designed the book was based on what I felt not only
00:03:52.000 | was something that I've experienced in the department of fear, but I think is to some
00:03:56.200 | extent relatable to a lot of people. And so there's the fear of rejection is the opening
00:04:01.320 | chapter in the book. And that's something that I think as young people, as children
00:04:07.320 | especially, that's one of our first acquaintances with fear. We want to be liked, we want to
00:04:12.880 | be popular, we want to be accepted. And then there's the fear of loneliness, which also
00:04:18.160 | in some ways for me at least did source in childhood. But as we know, it is an epidemic
00:04:24.260 | now in adulthood. It is a real, real problem. Then I talk about FOMO because you can't talk
00:04:31.040 | about the current day and modern life without exploring FOMO and the fear of missing out.
00:04:37.880 | There's the fear of exposure, which is a chapter that I almost didn't write. I was afraid of
00:04:45.560 | the chapter, if you believe, I was afraid of writing about this fear because I didn't
00:04:49.680 | want it to be misunderstood. I think I did a good job by the end of it. But this is the
00:04:55.600 | fear of being found out for who you really are in front of an audience that may not be
00:05:03.080 | accepting, that may not be patient, that may not use that information to support you, but
00:05:11.000 | rather to use it against you. And there are many examples that I share in that chapter
00:05:15.960 | and the ones that really for me were exemplary of this is, I mean, I'm Iranian. I was born
00:05:22.800 | there. My parents are both Iranians. I'm 100% Iranian and I was raised, born originally
00:05:28.000 | on the East Coast in Worcester, Massachusetts, where I didn't really share a likeness in
00:05:33.880 | many of my friends, at least not culturally or religiously or any of that. So I got a
00:05:39.520 | little triggered when people are like, "Where are you from?" Because I don't know the motivation
00:05:44.960 | behind that question. And when that fear of being exposed, let's say, for being different
00:05:50.820 | pops up, it rears its head, it's not telling me to hide. It's not telling me to lie. Of
00:05:56.240 | course, it's not telling me to deny him who I am, but it's saying, "Take a minute and
00:06:01.400 | recognize the motivation behind that question, who is asking and why they want to know this
00:06:07.600 | personal information about you." And whether it's about an aspect of your identity or it
00:06:12.400 | is your finances, I think that we owe it to ourselves to hold what is sacred to ourselves.
00:06:22.420 | And until we feel safe and until we feel like we are in a trustworthy community, that we
00:06:28.420 | go there. I mean, this chapter really came about because we live in a world where being
00:06:33.600 | vulnerable is what we think is like the most courageous thing. And I believe that to an
00:06:39.220 | extent, but I think that that narrative has gotten confusing over the years, especially
00:06:44.500 | with social media and reality TV. We feel like we have to talk about all the things.
00:06:49.060 | I mean, even in our profession, Sam, the number of people who share their revenue streams,
00:06:54.940 | like the actual dollars behind what they make. And I love that transparency, but I think
00:07:01.740 | it should be an individual choice. You should not feel pressured to share all the minutia
00:07:08.080 | of your life because you think that's what's going to win you acceptance. Unfortunately,
00:07:14.140 | not all circles are inviting and warm. And I mean, I was at a conference on stage and
00:07:19.340 | someone said, "How much do you make?" Now, it was a conference about content creation
00:07:25.900 | and we were talking specifically about earning your worth. So, touche to the person in the
00:07:30.300 | audience who asked me that. And I was like, "You should be transparent." She's like,
00:07:33.580 | "Okay, well, how much do you make?" And I'm in front of 100, 200 people. I don't know
00:07:38.540 | who they are. Is this the time and place to be talking about all the money that I have
00:07:44.380 | in my bank account? And I said, "I respect the question. It's not that I don't want to
00:07:51.260 | share it, but I think that if you really want to know because there's something on the line
00:07:55.220 | for you that this information would be helpful to you, let's get a coffee after this." And
00:08:00.660 | so we met downstairs in the Starbucks and I invited others who wanted to come into that
00:08:04.980 | conversation. But I think in that moment, I was scared. Oh, my gosh. The fear could
00:08:10.940 | have just made me blab as fear sometimes does without this recognition of like, "Oh, hey
00:08:17.180 | fear, you're here. What do you want me to do? How can I protect myself in this moment?"
00:08:23.020 | And I protected myself. I'm very proud of that moment. Maybe I couldn't take credit
00:08:26.620 | for it in the moment, but that was definitely how fear showed up for me that day. And not
00:08:31.380 | only just that day, but since that coffee with that one person, we have continued that
00:08:35.940 | dialogue about how much we make, what we earn, what we charge, as I found that it was very
00:08:41.380 | helpful for me to be connected to her too. So there's so many gifts with fear that we
00:08:46.460 | sometimes undermine, overlook, discount. And this book is about rebranding fear because
00:08:54.300 | we all fear things. And I think to be fearless is a strange privilege that you have. I'm
00:09:01.020 | very well aware of risks and the costs and what things cost and how to afford things.
00:09:07.180 | And I don't know. I don't want or need to go and do all the things in the name of fearlessness.
00:09:12.420 | Yeah. I have a good answer for you if someone asks you about how much you make in the future.
00:09:19.060 | You just say, "Well, I make between a dollar and a billion dollars. Somewhere there."
00:09:24.540 | I love that. I'm going to steal that. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. That's great. That's great.
00:09:29.460 | It's a fear. I mean, I've definitely felt a lot of fear doing this podcast, writing
00:09:34.340 | a book, putting my thoughts out there on the internet. And the funny thing is the larger
00:09:39.180 | you grow, the more negativity you attract, also positivity for sure. But even if you
00:09:44.980 | have 1% negativity and you have a large audience, it kind of beats you up a little. So do you
00:09:49.820 | ever have times? So for listeners, you have an amazing podcast. I think you have over
00:09:55.740 | a thousand episodes, So Money podcast. How do you deal with that kind of criticism and
00:10:02.980 | the negativity as you keep on going forward wanting to keep providing value?
00:10:08.860 | It's such a good question and I address this in the book because it comes up quite a bit.
00:10:13.180 | You can imagine, I do put myself out there. So you do have to have a little bit of a thick
00:10:18.260 | skin. And I remember when I was starting out in the online space and I would, for some
00:10:23.780 | reason, don't do this anyway. Don't read the blog comments. I mean, just ... And I used
00:10:27.580 | to work at Yahoo. So you know those weren't the most ... Those weren't high quality, let's
00:10:31.820 | just say.
00:10:32.820 | That's pretty intense.
00:10:35.060 | It was my manager who said, "For every negative review, there's probably five people that
00:10:40.740 | loved what you did and agreed with what you did, but they just didn't write a review because
00:10:45.380 | that's just not the nature of reviews." Yelp, for example, right? It's mostly people who
00:10:51.460 | are upset with the product or the service. But probably exponentially more people were
00:10:57.580 | fine with it, but they just didn't think it would be helpful or wasn't worth their time
00:11:01.700 | to write a review. They weren't triggered to write a review, let's just say.
00:11:04.940 | So I've known that all along, but even still, I do admit that fear shows up a lot in my
00:11:10.460 | work, especially when I take on stances and something that you and I even talked about
00:11:14.220 | on my show about how I believe firmly in female financial independence. I mean, I'm a feminist
00:11:21.420 | and I think we can all agree that women deserve to make as much as men, to earn their value.
00:11:28.460 | Definitely.
00:11:29.460 | I'm preaching to the choir here, I know. But if I believe this, then I can't actually also
00:11:34.400 | say to women, "You should opt out of working forever to raise your children." I think that
00:11:44.980 | that is a risk, right? So many people do it. And I understand you have to take time out
00:11:51.000 | of the workforce and sometimes you just want to take time out of the workforce and you
00:11:53.980 | should do what you want to do. But whenever I am asked, "What do I think about people,"
00:12:01.780 | and this applies to dads too, who have done the math and they realize, "Oh, well, I don't
00:12:05.740 | make childcare as exceeding my income or it's about the same as my income and I should just
00:12:10.900 | stay home." I say, "That is not untrue math, but it also should not be the only thing that
00:12:17.740 | you consider as you do the calculus for whether or not to leave the workforce for an indefinite
00:12:25.060 | period."
00:12:26.060 | "Have a plan," I say, or "Have savings, try to have savings." So I say these things and
00:12:32.580 | of course, I'm sure you'll get some hate mail, sorry, in advance. People are like, "Oh, you're
00:12:38.380 | just so anti-family," or the list goes on. And I have gotten a little bit better at receiving
00:12:48.420 | those criticisms, but what I've also learned is that my response, my fear is that, I fear
00:12:55.780 | of being misunderstood, right? I fear being sort of branded as like this villain. But
00:13:00.580 | what I've learned is that the follow-up to those criticisms and that place of fear, my
00:13:05.060 | job is to protect my reputation and protect my integrity and to clarify because maybe
00:13:12.080 | this person didn't understand and maybe I didn't do a good job of explaining. And so
00:13:16.340 | I say, "Look, it's coming from a good place. It's coming from the place of me wanting to
00:13:21.340 | ensure that all people, particularly women who have been stripped of their financial
00:13:26.380 | freedoms for generations, do what they can to protect those financial freedoms." And
00:13:33.060 | that's it. And so to deny, to say that there is no risk in not working and taking care
00:13:41.420 | of your kids, there's no financial risk, I think is fraught. And that's all I'm saying.
00:13:46.780 | At the end of the day, it's their choice, but you asked me, so there's my opinion. I
00:13:50.900 | will also say that with fear of exposure in that case, I'm exposing my ideas and worrying
00:13:57.300 | about the backlash, I'm very specific and deliberate about where I share those things.
00:14:02.660 | I do it on the podcast. I do it in books. I do it amongst people that have come to me
00:14:07.300 | with true open-mindedness. I don't go into comments sections and start arguing with people
00:14:15.140 | about it. You know what I mean? I have realized that when the fear of exposure shows up, the
00:14:20.820 | important thing is that you read the room and you become more deliberate about where
00:14:24.140 | you share your information. I know that people who show up for my podcast, as they do on
00:14:29.220 | your show, they're committed. They don't always agree with you, but they are more or less
00:14:34.560 | there to have a quality back and forth. And they're respectful. And I love when people
00:14:43.460 | say, "I didn't totally agree with what you said, but I understand where you're coming
00:14:47.100 | from and here's my side of the story." Beautiful. Same with books. People have paid money to
00:14:52.700 | read my books or they went to the library and checked out the book. There was an effort
00:14:55.900 | in acquiring that book. And so I have to believe that that is an audience member who is more
00:15:03.420 | willing to be patient and open-minded. And so I feel safer to talk about some of these
00:15:08.020 | more triggering things and these more controversial things where I feel like we're not going to
00:15:13.380 | end up in a brawl. There won't be pitchforks. Yeah. Well, for the record, I feel that financial
00:15:21.620 | dependence on someone is kind of the worst feeling. And I absolutely believe a man and
00:15:28.180 | woman should have separate and joint accounts because before you guys met, you guys are
00:15:32.620 | independent adults. And it's kind of weird to depend on one person financially for the
00:15:37.660 | rest of your lives. Bad things happen all the time. The divorce rate is about 50%. And
00:15:42.460 | if you haven't been working for 8, 9, 10 years, raising your child and suddenly you're thrown
00:15:48.260 | back into the workforce, you might be in a little bit of hurt financially. So always
00:15:53.500 | think about yourself, protect yourself, obviously protect your family as well. Thank you for
00:15:57.540 | echoing that. It's really important for men to share that message too. I feel like this
00:16:02.820 | is a conversation that goes on and on and on in women's circles. And it's really important
00:16:07.980 | that everybody recognizes that when mothers and women have financial independence, it's
00:16:14.780 | good for everybody. It's like win for everybody. She wins, her children win, the family unit
00:16:20.340 | wins. And I get it. There are going to be periods of time where you don't work and don't
00:16:23.420 | want to work. But to never say never. I'm never going to go back into the workforce.
00:16:30.300 | I think that's not a safe plan. And too often, I mean, the reason I also say this stuff isn't
00:16:36.500 | just my guesswork. I get so many testimonials from men and women that say, "I wish I had
00:16:43.340 | just maybe saved some money before I decided to stay home or I continue to have a revenue
00:16:50.460 | stream or had a plan to get back into the workforce, continue to have relationships
00:16:54.780 | with colleagues." There's no downside there, folks. As a father of a three and a half year
00:17:00.260 | old daughter, I am definitely excited about raising her and seeing her grow up and mature.
00:17:06.820 | As a mother and as a woman, what are some of the things that us dads or parents should
00:17:13.420 | think about as we raise our daughters to be adults?
00:17:17.180 | Well, one thing that I have learned from my guests on So Money, one of the questions I
00:17:24.340 | often ask them and the women in particular will say, when I ask them, "What's one
00:17:29.100 | thing you wish you had learned about money growing up?" And a lot of my women guests
00:17:33.660 | might say something like, "I wish I was told that personal finance isn't just about
00:17:38.500 | budgeting and saving, that it is also about investing, that entrepreneurship is a viable
00:17:43.780 | path and that there are no limits to what I can do and where I can show up in the financial
00:17:50.460 | world." I think that even if the message at home is positive or neutral about money
00:17:55.700 | with your kids, the culture doesn't do a great job. So you almost have to over-index
00:18:01.140 | at home because the culture still depicts and paints a portrait of a very traditional
00:18:09.420 | model where money is a man's domain and men are the ones who are earning more or
00:18:17.140 | all of the money and more interested or better at investing, which as we know is not even
00:18:23.260 | true. More women are increasingly breadwinners in their families, more women in their 20s
00:18:30.180 | own property than men, they're the same ages, women are actually better investors.
00:18:36.780 | So I think that to the extent that you can repeat these facts to your daughters and sons,
00:18:45.700 | I think is important because the culture is yet, it's slow to recognize that they are
00:18:51.540 | feeding our generation, our next generation with falsehoods and myths that is continuing
00:18:57.380 | to perpetuate this dynamic where women don't feel confident and we wonder why. Women don't
00:19:03.820 | feel confident about money, we wonder why. It's because they're just not invited as
00:19:07.060 | much into these conversations and they're told that this is not their domain whether
00:19:11.640 | it's directly or indirectly they're told this. So I think that's a big one and I
00:19:17.580 | have a boy and a girl, I have a son who's 9 and a daughter who's 6 and it's interesting
00:19:22.500 | to see even this early on their unique relationships to money and when they each get let's say
00:19:31.220 | birthday money or some like tooth fairy money like what each of them instinctively does
00:19:36.420 | with that money.
00:19:37.420 | Yeah, what do they do?
00:19:38.420 | And so my son will immediately want to go to Target and my daughter will save it. I
00:19:44.740 | went into her room the other day because I needed to pay our cleaning team. I was short
00:19:51.260 | like 5 or 10 dollars and she just had a stash of, she's 6, she had a stash of money. I
00:19:57.900 | don't want to say, look, she's a smart cookie but I don't think she's like, "Oh,
00:20:01.700 | I better save my money because I'm going to buy a bike one day." I think she just
00:20:05.280 | puts it away and forgets it because she's just got her hands on a lot of things. But
00:20:11.780 | I think that when you recognize certain inclinations in your kids around money, have that be a
00:20:19.660 | learning moment, a teachable moment or a discussion point. I think that's interesting. I guess
00:20:26.260 | the takeaway is watch your kids. They will tell you what they need to learn. Some kids
00:20:32.020 | need to be more schooled in things like saving whereas others maybe if they're already good
00:20:37.180 | teachers, maybe we should talk to them about conscious spending and investing. It's interesting.
00:20:43.980 | Kids are always full of surprises, right?
00:20:46.380 | Right. I do like what you say about being aware of basically our biases, our blind spots
00:20:54.580 | in terms of parenting and how we treat boys and girls differently if at all and to over
00:21:00.460 | index if we find that we are deficient in one way. I know that when I see my daughter,
00:21:05.780 | I just want to hug her and squeeze her and kiss her. Then when I see my son, I want to
00:21:10.020 | hug him and squeeze him too but we kind of are more rough and tumble a little bit. It's
00:21:15.140 | just a different dynamic but I think if we can treat them equally and approach money
00:21:20.140 | equally and explain why we do the things that we do with our money, I think that can go
00:21:25.740 | a long way.
00:21:26.740 | Yes. Yeah. It's so good. We could do many multiple episodes on kids and money which
00:21:31.140 | I have. But one of the takeaways I love, one of my favorite experts when it comes to money
00:21:38.540 | and kids is Susan Beacham. She was the first person I profiled for Money Magazine when
00:21:45.460 | I became a writer on staff years ago. She was at the time based in Chicago. She started
00:21:52.740 | a financial literacy company for kids. Now imagine this is like 2000 or like 1999. She
00:22:00.500 | was ahead of it and she took her kids to a McDonald's shareholders meeting in Chicago
00:22:07.100 | and then later took them to McDonald's and kind of explained. This was like kindergartners
00:22:10.860 | I think. But then she developed the Money Savvy Pig which you've probably seen. It's
00:22:15.780 | a piggy bank that's see-through that has four slots, save, spend, donate, invest. When I've
00:22:22.940 | had her on the show and she's like a lifelong friend and I've had her on the show and I
00:22:26.420 | said obviously she has many tips. But the one thing that always stays with me is that
00:22:31.020 | this idea because so many adults grew up with this mentality of financial scarcity, Sam,
00:22:36.100 | like I'll never have enough or I can't afford it or I'll never reach that goal. It starts
00:22:42.500 | young. It starts sometimes at home when a child comes to us and say, "I'd like a bike
00:22:47.580 | or I'd like to go get tennis lessons or I need money for X, Y, or Z." We say to them,
00:22:53.820 | "No, we don't have the money or we can't afford that." And maybe you can but that's
00:23:00.420 | just what you say to think you want to just stop the conversation. But the truth may be
00:23:04.740 | that you have other priorities. So tell them the truth. Tell them the truth. Explain that
00:23:12.020 | I love that you have this goal. At the moment, this is not something that our family can
00:23:18.000 | prioritize and explain. Go deep. Kids are more capable of absorbing this stuff than
00:23:24.340 | we give them credit for. They want reasons. Why, why, why, why, why? They want to know.
00:23:30.140 | And rather than give them a dead end to that desire, that wanting for something, make them
00:23:37.460 | put it on a list. Or if they can't write yet, have them draw it. And what it does is it
00:23:43.980 | when it recognizes the wanting. Because here's the other thing I've had guests on my show
00:23:48.540 | who've talked about patriarchy and women and just how women have for so long been told
00:23:56.260 | it's just not appropriate to want for things. That it's not virtuous to want money, to want
00:24:02.460 | success. And so that starts young too. And when we tell, especially when a girl hears,
00:24:09.260 | "No, it's not right to want that or you can't have that or we can't have that or we can't
00:24:13.420 | afford that." It sort of tells her like, "Maybe that's not appropriate or I shouldn't want
00:24:18.860 | that or I'll never have that." And instead, we want to keep the door open and just let
00:24:24.900 | her and him know that right now this isn't a priority for our family, but let's find
00:24:30.900 | a way to save for it. What can we do? What can you do? What are some chores you can do?
00:24:36.620 | Or what are the holidays that are coming up? I mean, I'm guilty of this too sometimes because
00:24:40.980 | sometimes you just want to shut down the conversation. And kids forget things. Let's not forget that.
00:24:48.620 | They want things all the time. I think recognizing it, respecting their wants, but also recognizing
00:24:54.740 | that in two days' time, they will be on to something else and you're off the hook. Trust
00:25:00.620 | that. Trust that. I've learned that over the years.
00:25:05.540 | How do you juggle the things that you do? So motherhood, you're taking your kids to
00:25:11.100 | camp today. You talked about that and then you've got the podcast and then you've got
00:25:14.700 | the book. You've got to market the book. It seems like a lot of work and it seems overwhelming.
00:25:21.620 | So how do you manage it all and do you manage it all and do you have some tips for people
00:25:25.940 | who are struggling with everything as well?
00:25:28.880 | If you were on Instagram today, you may have noticed I was running to this podcast because
00:25:32.940 | I went for a stroll this morning for some me time. I was like, "Oh, I'm going to go
00:25:37.140 | for a walk into town, return some library books, get a coffee." And then I was like,
00:25:41.420 | "Oh no, 20 minutes till the podcast." And it's about an 18-minute walk from where I
00:25:46.140 | was so I'm starting to power walk. And then I posted that on Instagram. I was like, "This
00:25:53.180 | is also good content." So this is the life, a day in the life of a woman who's rushing
00:25:58.500 | to a podcast. But no, I mean, man, I've been in this industry for 20 years.
00:26:07.140 | So I've learned along the way. I learned very early on the importance of help, asking for
00:26:11.220 | help. I was actually an assistant. My first job was I was assisting a financial expert.
00:26:17.500 | And before that, we maybe called them influencers or experts but this person was a very famous,
00:26:24.900 | well-known at the time, money expert. She had written many books. She was on the Today
00:26:29.260 | Show all the time. She was an editor. And I had the amazing job of being able to witness
00:26:34.180 | all the things that she did, how she did it. She had two kids and was married at the time
00:26:41.140 | and all these amazing accomplishments. And I realized what I was doing for her, right,
00:26:48.100 | to support her. And so when I grew in my career and felt like I had reached a place where
00:26:53.660 | I was, again, really busy like this, like my former boss was and doing all these things,
00:26:58.380 | books and television and all that, I hired someone like me that was my former self I
00:27:04.220 | hired for a period of time. And that was immensely helpful. I think that for me, what I've learned
00:27:09.500 | is that you don't need consistent full-time help all the time. But when your life speeds
00:27:15.900 | up or when you're really pivoting to something big and different, that it's really important
00:27:20.860 | to maybe have a consistent team. And I've never had big teams, people say they've got
00:27:27.100 | 20 people or 11 interns. And that just gives me a lot of anxiety, to be honest, because
00:27:32.180 | I don't like to manage. I don't like to tell people what to do. I don't like to micromanage.
00:27:37.540 | And so that's on me. Maybe other people can do that. I prefer to just maybe have some
00:27:44.540 | freelancers who are contractors who work for me. Again, I did have a full-timer at one
00:27:48.620 | point. Life teaches you a lot about what's worth wasting your time on and what's not.
00:27:54.260 | So I like to think that part of what helps me manage my day these days is just recognizing
00:28:00.620 | all the failures in the past and all the time wasters and what I can do versus what I can't
00:28:07.580 | do, what I like to do versus what I don't like to do. I just hired a virtual assistant
00:28:12.780 | because I realized there's a lot of busy work around a book launch that is important but
00:28:20.900 | can't be done only by me. And so it's important for me to know exactly what I need this person
00:28:27.900 | to do before I hire them. And I waited and people are like, "You don't have an assistant?"
00:28:32.220 | I said, "I'm just not sure what I would have this person do yet. I have a vague idea, but
00:28:37.140 | let me get a little bit closer to the demands. And then I want to be able to hit the ground
00:28:41.020 | running with this virtual assistant." And so that's been great for a couple of months
00:28:45.780 | now. And I'm not hiring a publicist this time for the book launch, which might shock people.
00:28:52.980 | I'm leaning on the in-house publishers publicist who's fantastic, Holly. I'm leaning on my
00:28:58.780 | virtual assistant and I'm leaning on my 20 years of working in the media and all the
00:29:03.140 | relationships that I had. And what has helped to get these to transpire, these opportunities
00:29:09.060 | is just starting early. I've learned that. You don't contact a podcaster or any news
00:29:13.940 | outlet or any media outlet no later than I would say two months, three months out because
00:29:20.660 | you don't know other people's timelines and schedules.
00:29:24.140 | I have had a nanny since my kids were born. No longer we don't have full-time childcare
00:29:30.700 | or even part-time childcare anymore. The kids are in school and they have afterschool things.
00:29:35.340 | We both work from home. That's a privilege to be able to not have that commute and to
00:29:40.940 | be accessible to like throw in laundry and pick up your kids. I wouldn't trade that workflow
00:29:48.340 | for anything. I mean, if someone said to me, "We'll pay you millions of dollars and you'll
00:29:55.180 | have to come into New York City every week," I'd say, "Could we throw in a car service?"
00:30:01.860 | And maybe, I don't know. I don't know. I don't think I would do it, Sam. I'm not 25 anymore.
00:30:10.660 | I really don't know how people did it before the pandemic.
00:30:12.940 | No other option.
00:30:14.820 | It wasn't an option and I guess we just didn't know a better life. And of course, our employers
00:30:20.580 | wouldn't have budged either at the time. I don't know. Does that help? Does that fill
00:30:25.660 | in some blanks for you?
00:30:27.020 | Sure. Yeah. Get help.
00:30:28.420 | I cry a lot in the shower. Is that also, does that count? I release a lot of my trauma.
00:30:33.580 | I take power walks. I lift weights.
00:30:38.220 | Oh, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. You run around, lift weights and get those emotions out and
00:30:43.940 | talk to people. I think talking to people is good therapy too. Very good therapy because
00:30:48.220 | we're all going through something and if we can empathize and connect with people who
00:30:51.900 | go through similar things as we do, I think it feels great.
00:30:55.940 | Yes. Oh my gosh. My mother is, well, she and I are only 19 years apart. So she's in her
00:31:05.140 | 60s.
00:31:06.140 | That's a blessing.
00:31:07.140 | I know. Really it is. I mean, she's, it didn't always feel that way. But I think I have really
00:31:13.580 | over the years appreciated our closeness in age. And I love having women friends who are
00:31:20.460 | in their 50s and 60s and 70s. I think that is my advice to everybody is to find an elder
00:31:27.020 | in your life that you can talk to consistently because, and my mother used to do this when
00:31:31.900 | I was little. She, I say in my book, she loves old, old things. You know, she loves old movies.
00:31:40.180 | She loves grandparents. She just loves to be around older people. And I think it's because
00:31:45.940 | she appreciates the wisdom so much. And I appreciate one thing my mother said to me
00:31:51.580 | recently, which is that as you get older, Farnoosh, there are only a few things that
00:31:57.140 | matter in terms of your health, your spirit, your longevity. And she said one is socializing.
00:32:04.320 | My mother's always been a social butterfly. I'm, people think I'm an extrovert and I guess
00:32:09.900 | I, I'm an actress at heart. I get on stage and I will do the part. I will play the role
00:32:17.780 | and I will play it from the heart and the soul. But I think afterwards I'm so exhausted.
00:32:21.900 | That has to mean that I'm not.
00:32:23.380 | I don't know. I mean, you've been on TV, you do the podcast. It's a lot of work.
00:32:28.140 | I'm really great at connecting with people. I've been trained well since a kid. We moved
00:32:32.220 | a lot. I just always was the new girl. So I immediately have to find ways to find connection.
00:32:38.020 | And so that's definitely like one of my superpowers, I think. It was out of necessity, a survival
00:32:42.940 | instinct in me perhaps. And so I do say that that is there, but I love just like being
00:32:47.980 | in my pajamas at home and, and I was supposed to go to a pool party tomorrow and they just
00:32:52.380 | canceled and part of me is a little sad, but I'm like, oh my God, I have the whole day
00:32:56.860 | back. That sounds great. So I got to be more proactive about socializing. And so my mother,
00:33:02.580 | you know, she helps to remind me of those things. It's important. And she's like, you
00:33:05.700 | know, your, your health comes first. And back to parenting. I think it's so important for
00:33:10.980 | parents to put themselves first. It is really, really hard. Not all the time we can do this,
00:33:15.860 | but to at least acknowledge that your feelings matter. Your energy is not an infinite resource.
00:33:23.140 | You have to protect your energy and your time when you're happy. You know, this sounds cliche.
00:33:28.980 | I think the kids are happy and vice versa. They say you're only as happy, you're only
00:33:33.300 | as happy as your saddest kid. Yeah, no, that's true. It's very true. And I think it's very
00:33:38.740 | reciprocal. I think that my kids feed off my energy and vice versa. So you, everybody's
00:33:44.300 | important. The whole, every person in the family deserves equal attention and opportunity.
00:33:50.300 | Yeah. When, when we're down in my household, our saying is we're well for my wife and me,
00:33:57.180 | we're doing the best that we can. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, if we're doing the best that
00:34:00.980 | we can, you can't do better. You can. I mean, I talk about fear of failure in the book and
00:34:06.380 | what it's actually trying to help us recognize is that maybe you have to, one, there's many
00:34:12.540 | things, but maybe it's that you have to redefine your definition of success because you're
00:34:16.420 | after the wrong things and you're feeling failure because this isn't what you were actually
00:34:21.140 | meant to go out and achieve. But as far as parenting, I mean, I always, I feel, I feel
00:34:27.020 | like a failure every day with, I mean, there's a moment at least, you know, where I'm like,
00:34:30.260 | "Oh, I messed that up." Well, you know, that's going to leave a mark. But there's this crazy
00:34:36.020 | story in the book and I've shared this online and I think it resonated, but one time I sent
00:34:40.700 | my kids to the wrong birthday party and left them there for a couple of hours with their
00:34:46.500 | babysitter. And my first thought was, "Oh my God, I'm the worst parent." Second thought
00:34:51.580 | was, "I should do this more often." Because sometimes what I realized that from that experience
00:34:57.100 | is like the kids still had a great time. Nobody was hurt. We did call the venue to follow
00:35:01.920 | up and make sure that we hadn't inadvertently charged this family like extra money for these
00:35:07.100 | two by two rando kids who showed up. Extra pizza.
00:35:10.540 | Yeah. And I realized this, it was a soccer venue. I was like, "This place has birthday
00:35:15.740 | parties around the clock on Saturdays and Sundays. I live down the street. Like if I
00:35:19.380 | ever need just peace and quiet, I'm dropping my kids off with some gifts and they're going
00:35:23.660 | to go hang out with some random birthday kid." It's a joke, but not really. But the real
00:35:29.460 | takeaway there is that sometimes failing is the point because the thing that really just
00:35:35.540 | transpired from all of that was laughter and recognizing that life is just so crazy sometimes
00:35:42.380 | and as long as the kids are okay, nothing else matters.
00:35:45.420 | Right. Right. Now when we talk about failure, but I'd love to get your definition of success
00:35:51.980 | and how do you know whether you're successful or not? How do you measure that as a podcaster,
00:35:57.020 | author, mother, someone who is focused on their finances? What does success mean to
00:36:02.780 | you? I think that a really key part of what I
00:36:07.860 | have believed my success to be and is, is sustainability. I had to learn this, Sam. I
00:36:18.300 | felt like in my younger career, in my younger life, it was all about the wins. I want to
00:36:24.620 | accumulate success, a win here, a win there, do this, that, do that, and these one and
00:36:31.500 | dones and I wanted to collect all these trophies. But true success is when you do something
00:36:37.700 | and of course you love it and you feel aligned in this and it was like, "Okay, this is
00:36:43.020 | like I'm happy obviously," but that you can continue to do this for a long time.
00:36:48.980 | That it doesn't escape you. It doesn't, you don't get tired of it. It doesn't tire
00:36:54.260 | you out. And for me, like the podcast, it's been about nine years. What? I've been writing
00:37:00.660 | books for, this is my fourth book, 16 years. So I think the common thread there is that
00:37:05.900 | when you feel success, a huge part of that is knowing that this is the kind of success
00:37:11.580 | you can experience for a long time.
00:37:14.660 | Your lifestyle.
00:37:16.100 | It becomes, it starts to define you in like the best way. I still love the trophies. I
00:37:22.460 | still love like these little opportunities or these little public displays of success.
00:37:29.180 | I used to think like as long as other people see me as successful, that's success, right?
00:37:33.920 | As long as my parents are proud or as long as I'm hitting these sort of, these wins
00:37:38.340 | that the public, like getting on television, having a TV show, been there, done that. But
00:37:45.220 | and those were successful moments, but the true successes for me are the ones that keep
00:37:51.820 | ricocheting and coming back and are sustainable. Because then I feel like this was meant for
00:37:57.100 | me. This is actually working for me.
00:38:01.060 | Yeah, I like that because we know about One Hit Wonders in the music industry and great,
00:38:08.300 | great songs. And then I always wonder to myself, okay, you have the musical talent, the voice,
00:38:14.220 | the creativity. What happened? Why did you disappear? What happened?
00:38:17.700 | What happened? And everyone's got their own narrative. I think that at the end of the
00:38:23.380 | day, if you want to put one foot in front of the other and feel like life's working
00:38:27.980 | out, you have to commit to a narrative that works for you. I think it's very easy to look
00:38:33.940 | at maybe, let's go back to the singer who didn't get a record deal or didn't have
00:38:38.100 | more than one hit. That was still a cool thing that they did. And maybe the narrative there,
00:38:44.820 | I would, because otherwise I'd be like, "Oh, I'm not successful. I'm not as good
00:38:49.980 | as all these other artists." Guess what? You got to do the thing. You probably learned
00:38:55.260 | a lot and that will inform you in your next step in life. And there's no shame in that.
00:39:01.260 | There should not be any regret in that. It should not make you feel less than. The good
00:39:05.660 | news is your life now has opened up for other successes and other things to pursue. When
00:39:11.900 | a TV show that I would do wouldn't get renewed, been there many times. I had talked about
00:39:18.220 | one hit wonders. For me, it's like one hit non-wonders. These were just shows that ... I
00:39:22.100 | mean, look, I was like, "Not everyone gets to do a TV show." So that in and of itself
00:39:26.780 | is spectacular. I'm going to focus on what's cool and unique about these opportunities
00:39:31.900 | and a lot of shows I would say to myself, it's a lot of conditioning. It's like furnish.
00:39:37.620 | Some shows record and then they never air. So at least I got to air my shows. There's
00:39:43.100 | always like an at least, at least, at least. And when they wouldn't get renewed, of course
00:39:47.420 | it was crushing because you work so hard and it's just disappointing. But in my book I
00:39:53.700 | write about when my show Follow the Leader on CNBC did not get renewed, I realized that
00:39:59.300 | I gave it my best. And for some things to endure, a lot of stars have to align. I'm
00:40:06.980 | a star, but not all the stars came with me. You know what I mean? I showed up and did
00:40:11.620 | the work, but the network gave us a crummy time slot. They didn't really market the show.
00:40:16.900 | The viewers were expecting more drama, which didn't feel authentic to what we were filming.
00:40:21.700 | So they didn't get it. And so, okay, it's not made for television, but it was cool.
00:40:28.180 | I still, you can't take those experiences away from me. And do you know what? When I
00:40:32.140 | got the call that they weren't renewing the show, I said, "All right, I'm going to pivot.
00:40:37.860 | I'm going to find another success. I'm going to find something else to do that is more
00:40:41.240 | within my control that will feel like a win." And it was having our daughter. Because the
00:40:45.540 | truth is while filming a show, traveling, all that stress, there's no baby making during
00:40:52.660 | those weeks. There's no baby raising. I did not see my husband or my son for weeks at
00:41:00.180 | a time. And so I didn't feel like it was a responsible time to get pregnant again or
00:41:05.780 | attempt to get pregnant again. And so when that door closed, and I talk about this in
00:41:10.500 | my fear of endings chapter, when a door closes, that fear of maybe never experiencing that
00:41:17.860 | again is normal. But the opportunity that this fear wants you to identify is where is
00:41:24.420 | the next door? What is the door that maybe has been open, but you've been too afraid
00:41:30.900 | to walk through it? And I was afraid of trying to get pregnant, but then I was like, "You
00:41:34.780 | know what? No more. I'm going to do this." And our daughter was born the following year.
00:41:41.700 | Why were you afraid of getting pregnant?
00:41:43.100 | Well, it was just because I didn't want to be pregnant on a set where I was expected
00:41:49.020 | to be flying around. And it shouldn't have maybe prevented me, but I wasn't getting the
00:41:55.820 | sense that this was the kind of production company that was going to work around my needs,
00:41:59.700 | let's just say. It's still a real ... I mean, I opened the book with "The World's a Scary
00:42:04.860 | Place," Sam. And I like to think that everybody is on my team and will cater to me. But no,
00:42:11.660 | the world doesn't revolve around me. I got to be looking out for myself. And I knew that
00:42:18.060 | my time would come to have another kid one day, God willing, but I just felt like it
00:42:24.380 | wasn't a responsible time to bring another kid in the world if this show were to continue.
00:42:29.220 | And at the time, I was prioritizing that show above family. I'll be completely honest. I
00:42:33.940 | was ... well, not my current family, but the idea of growing my family. I wanted to see
00:42:38.980 | this through. Could I ... here's a little behind the scenes of television work. When
00:42:44.500 | you get the first season and you're a talent or you're a cast member, you have very little
00:42:49.700 | leverage. At least that's been my experience. And I think that's unfortunately more of a
00:42:53.340 | female experience to say, "I'm going to call the shots," or, "I want to get pregnant and
00:42:57.980 | everyone's going to have to film around me. You might get replaced." And so second season,
00:43:03.660 | you get renewed, different story, different story. You can get a bigger budget for things.
00:43:08.860 | Suddenly you're getting wardrobe. Suddenly you're getting some more accommodations. Suddenly
00:43:14.140 | you're saying, "I'm pregnant," and everyone goes, "Okay, we're going to have to start
00:43:17.380 | moving things around and make sure she's comfortable." And so I was saying, "Okay, if we get renewed
00:43:24.140 | and once I know the schedule, maybe then I'll cross that bridge to see if I want to expand
00:43:29.500 | the family." Wow, we're really getting deep here. You just really opened a Pandora's box
00:43:35.020 | for me here. But that's ... those were all the things that were running through my mind
00:43:38.360 | at the time. But yeah, no regrets.
00:43:44.420 | I think this is really important to be aware of because I asked that question, "Why would
00:43:48.060 | you fear getting pregnant?" And anybody who's gone through pregnancy knows that it can be
00:43:52.540 | a very up and down experience. It's not an easy experience. Giving birth itself is not
00:43:57.940 | an easy experience either. And for men, we don't think about it as much because we don't
00:44:04.180 | have to carry the child. We don't have to worry about our hormones changing, our bodies
00:44:08.900 | changing, our energy, having to go pee every 30 minutes, all that stuff. And so I think
00:44:13.900 | it's important for employers to recognize difficulties of familyhood and pregnancy and
00:44:20.220 | also how something like 20% of attempted pregnancies end in miscarriage. And this is also very
00:44:27.380 | important to be aware of. And so it's good to spread the word and spread the knowledge.
00:44:32.020 | Thank you, Sam. I talk about ... my first pregnancy was very difficult. I did have a
00:44:35.500 | miscarriage. I do talk about it in the book. It was gutting. And I think what I learned
00:44:42.620 | coming out of that experience, one of the things, I learned many things, is that you
00:44:47.820 | must, you must recognize your grief and you must be patient with yourself. Society wants
00:44:55.620 | us to move on. And first of all, at the time, nobody was really talking about miscarriages.
00:45:00.180 | Now we do. So I didn't feel like I had a community and I felt really ashamed about it. I felt
00:45:05.020 | like I had done something wrong. I had done something wrong with my body. My body wasn't
00:45:08.380 | working. And I cried a lot. I was really sad. My mother and my best friends would say, "It
00:45:16.340 | wasn't meant to be." And all these things, they try to make you feel better. And it's
00:45:20.540 | like, "I'm just going through a phase. Can I just grieve?" And that was important for
00:45:28.020 | me. So now when I meet a woman or a couple who has gone through it or is going through
00:45:34.780 | it, there's really little I can offer other than just, "Please be patient with yourselves."
00:45:40.900 | And however it's happened, whenever the miscarriage occurs, every unborn child is important to
00:45:48.980 | remember and grieve. And I think we just don't give ourselves enough grace and there's just
00:45:56.420 | too much shame and, well, a misuse of fear around that where we think if we talk about
00:46:03.540 | it, there's the fear of, I don't know, triggering somebody or maybe being misunderstood or,
00:46:10.620 | "Here we go again. Someone's going to tell me something I don't want to hear." But do
00:46:15.220 | you. Do you. And try to the extent that you can not get sucked into all the noise around,
00:46:22.820 | you know, "Well, look, we live in a society that's obsessed with happiness." You know,
00:46:27.980 | raise your hand if you grew up and every time you cried or every time you got sad, someone
00:46:31.820 | said, "Don't cry. Don't be sad. What are you sad for? Why are you crying?" It's like, "Let's
00:46:38.180 | recognize the feelings, people. They're all valid." And that's really just what I'm saying
00:46:43.420 | is that if you're not feeling happy in the moment, it's okay.
00:46:46.660 | I mean, everybody goes through something, folks. So, you know, I think, yeah, be patient.
00:46:52.900 | Just be there for our friends and family. So important. One of the things I really love
00:46:57.460 | about your podcast is that you have a lot of different voices and that's something that
00:47:01.740 | I want to do is get many different voices on Financial Samurai podcast as well. What
00:47:08.500 | are some of the things that we can do more to uplift voices that aren't heard traditionally
00:47:14.740 | in the media or in books or whatever? It just seems like it's a tough world out there. How
00:47:23.420 | do we help others succeed as well?
00:47:25.700 | Well, as a journalist, I've become increasingly deliberate and this didn't just start a couple
00:47:32.820 | of years ago. It's been for majority of my career because I would see like all the people
00:47:39.100 | quoted in the media were largely all the same people over and over and over again. It's
00:47:44.620 | like, oh, this guy again or that man again, that John again. And then people would say,
00:47:50.420 | well, I mean, there just aren't as many women financial experts or there just aren't as
00:47:54.300 | many people of color financial experts. And I'm like, no, they're out there. There's a
00:47:58.380 | lot of them. And it takes like five minutes to do a little bit of searching to maybe find
00:48:06.900 | them because the SEO in Google is not working in their favor because all the other people
00:48:12.780 | are getting all the media and the press. So they do exist. I think that I'm always thrilled
00:48:19.700 | to meet somebody that has a unique perspective in personal finance and without hesitation,
00:48:24.620 | I'm like, please come on, so money. I think that there is no shortage of ideas that should
00:48:30.940 | be spread and perspectives that need to be shared. And I love it. It's one of my favorite
00:48:35.780 | parts of being a podcaster is bringing fresh voices to the forefront and learning from
00:48:41.580 | them. And it is my honor to do this. I don't think of it as my job anymore. I think of
00:48:47.540 | it as like my calling, my honor. Advice to everybody is just ask, ask. You don't know
00:48:53.980 | everybody of course, but ask around who's somebody that I should talk to, who's somebody
00:48:58.220 | that I should put out there, who's someone that I should help promote. They're out there
00:49:03.060 | and they may not be the best self advocates because, you know, again, the world's a scary
00:49:07.580 | place. So be their advocates and be their advocates when they're not in the room, whether
00:49:12.700 | you're at work or you're amongst friends, someone's asking like, who would be good for
00:49:16.980 | this or who would be, you know, I think it's important to talk up your peers, your friends
00:49:23.300 | who are maybe not like everybody else, women, women of color, LGBTQ, disabled Americans.
00:49:30.860 | I think it's important that we remember that everybody is amazing. And just because maybe
00:49:37.300 | you haven't heard of them doesn't mean that they don't have something spectacular to offer.
00:49:41.500 | In fact, it's just the opposite.
00:49:43.100 | Yeah. No, thanks for that. I see both sides of everything. And it's interesting when I
00:49:48.340 | was doing my book and I was looking for the book blurbs, I intentionally try to look for
00:49:52.860 | different voices for the book blurbs. Because I look at the like a lot of the bestselling
00:49:57.180 | books, it's all the same people. It's very homogenous. So I think it's, yeah, if you
00:50:03.580 | want to help, be intentional to help people that you think are under heard, underrepresented.
00:50:11.300 | Sam, what can we do to reconfigure some of these bestseller lists that seem to just love
00:50:20.820 | the same folks over and over again? You know, it's the same brand of people. I feel like
00:50:26.660 | publishing is so hard to break into. And once you even do that, then to get into this next
00:50:34.780 | breakthrough of being on a bestseller list, it's just, I feel like the odds are always
00:50:39.500 | stacked against anybody who's not named John.
00:50:43.580 | Well, you know, just listeners, just I guess inside baseball, not really, is I think something
00:50:50.300 | like 84% of authors from the big five publishing houses are white. And so which leaves 16%
00:50:58.740 | for all other minorities. And minorities make up a bigger percentage than 16% of the American
00:51:04.060 | population. So the odds are stacked against folks of color. And also the industry is very
00:51:11.620 | white. And so you just have to keep on fighting. And you have to also just recognize those
00:51:17.060 | are the statistics. The one positive thing I think is that the percentages are changing
00:51:23.140 | to be more reflective of the US population and demographics. And if you actually can
00:51:29.060 | break through and be one of the, you know, 14 or 16% who get a book deal, for example,
00:51:34.940 | as a minority, then that's pretty impressive in itself, just for that fact. But there's
00:51:41.620 | a lot of progress to be made. And it's very competitive. So if you're at the top, and
00:51:46.620 | you've already got your network and everything, it's easier to keep on getting ahead. But
00:51:51.380 | you got to keep on fighting to try to break through.
00:51:53.660 | Well said. Yeah, I'm hopeful. I think the industry is definitely, I mean, like I said
00:51:58.660 | earlier, it's been nine years since I published. And even just based on who's editing me in
00:52:05.900 | within the publishing industry, the publisher, like, and the people who are showing up on
00:52:11.900 | that team on the calls, I'm like, oh, my gosh, it's like the UN. The UN is here. You know,
00:52:17.020 | I love it. I love it. Yeah. And here's another thing for listeners
00:52:22.140 | to understand is that there are many, many qualified people of all different types. They
00:52:27.820 | just don't get that opportunity. And I'm just going to say, like, for example, let's say
00:52:33.820 | you're the CEO of some major corporation, and you get paid 50 to $100 million a year.
00:52:39.420 | Yes, they probably do a great job, which is why they got there. But I will guarantee you
00:52:44.060 | that many other people can do just as great of a job, if not better, and make a similar
00:52:50.460 | amount or less. It's just being given the opportunity. And so one of the things that
00:52:54.260 | I like about you, Farnoosh, is that you've gone out there and created your own opportunity.
00:52:59.260 | And I hope more listeners, if they see the gatekeeper, they can try to get through the
00:53:03.860 | gate. But if you can't, for some reason, try to make your own opportunities, because nobody
00:53:08.580 | is stopping you now, thanks to the internet and technology.
00:53:11.860 | Yeah. You've got to go find your people. They're out there. It's a little bit more work, unfortunately.
00:53:18.460 | We've got to make some extra steps. But that's what I love about fear, is that it is equitable.
00:53:23.780 | It is accessible to all of us. We all have this abundant natural resource pumping through
00:53:29.460 | our veins. Rather than see this as an excuse to not go do the thing, or freeze, or doubt
00:53:38.740 | yourself, take a minute and recognize, how did this fear show up? What is it trying to
00:53:44.580 | get me to protect? And how can I do that in a way that is safe and feels good to me? And
00:53:51.580 | every time I've asked fear these questions, my fears these questions, it has led to more
00:53:57.300 | thoughtful responses from me. And it's not always that maybe I get this massive win,
00:54:05.020 | but I do feel much better. I think that there is a world where you can be fearless, but
00:54:09.140 | until you get there, you have to respect your fears. You have to recognize them as valid
00:54:14.140 | emotions and just have a relationship with fear. We're so anti-fear in our culture that
00:54:21.180 | we don't think we can be fearful and courageous. I doubt, I disagree. I think you can be fearful
00:54:26.620 | and brave. I think you can be scared and smart. I think you can be both and. I think we owe
00:54:34.580 | it to ourselves to be more patient with our fears.
00:54:37.380 | Yeah. Well, Farnoosh, this has been a great hour of discussion. We could talk for many,
00:54:43.660 | many more hours, but I've got to send the kids to school as well.
00:54:48.180 | Oh, right, the kids. Oh, man.
00:54:51.340 | But congratulations on your book, A Healthy State of Panic, coming out October 3rd, 2016.
00:54:56.580 | 2023. Where can listeners pick up a copy?
00:55:00.700 | Thank you so much, Sam. Well, if you're listening and you'd like to pre-order, you can go to
00:55:06.380 | ahealthystateofpanic.com where I've listed all of the booksellers. If you do order it
00:55:12.580 | before the pub date, I have a pre-order bonus, which is a three-video course, workbook, and
00:55:21.180 | you also get to read the intro before everybody else. The program is designed to help you
00:55:25.860 | get a head start on the book, to get you a head start on specifically your financial
00:55:30.940 | fears. So if you're into that, the best thing to do is pre-order by October 2nd, and then
00:55:35.980 | you can get it from that same website, ahealthysateofpanic.com. But however you like to read books, this will
00:55:42.300 | be available on audio as well and ebook, of course, and of course the hardcover. I look
00:55:49.220 | forward to hearing all your thoughts on the book. And thank you so much, Sam. This is
00:55:53.700 | a real treat to be with you.
00:55:55.220 | No, thank you so much, Farnoosh. All right, folks, that's it for today's episode. And
00:56:00.940 | if you want to stay in touch, check out financialsamurai.com/news for my newsletter. Take care.