Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Tiffany Aliche - Educator & Author | How to Get Good With Money

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Tiffany Aliche - Educator & Author | How to Get Good With Money · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  When you're in your mid-twenties, people who look like they have money, even they actually have money.
• 0:04
  When if you are a personality brand, before you get sick of being a personality brand,
• 0:09
  you have to pivot, but it will use just the physical picture of money in, money out. If you're in
• 0:13
  a business, that's called profit and loss. That you need to know the profit and loss of your
• 0:17
  personal life. And if you don't, it can easily get away from you. Your passion is going to pay you
• 0:22
  before the profits will. Money's a tool like a hammer. You can build your financial life with money,
• 0:27
  or you can destroy your financial life and your life in general with money. Don't sacrifice
• 0:31
  what's really important just to keep more score with money. Because what you'll find secretly
• 0:36
  is the better you are, the easier the money gets to me. Money is kind of like an indication of
• 0:41
  maturity. If you watch on TV, it's almost like I'm wealthy because I did the right thing. That means
• 0:47
  if you're not wealthy, then you must have done the wrong things. And it makes you feel bad and so
• 0:51
  people don't want to talk about that. But the truth is that's not true.
• 0:55
  Welcome to success story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The success story podcast is part of the
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  HubSpot podcast network. Now, HubSpot is the resource that you need to tap into if you are an
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  Teat up to wherever you want to start. You know, you go back to high school, college early,
• 2:14
  early early, or you can go a bit later, whatever you want. So, it's all yours. Go for it.
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  Well, hey, hey, hey, Scott. Thank you for having me. My name is Tiffany Elyce, but I'm much
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  better known as the Budget Nista. And I guess the most interesting thing about me is somehow,
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  in the last 10 years, I went from an ex preschool teacher who was $300,000 in debt to a multi-business
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  hype in it that made $10 million last year. And it's graduation. It's thank you.
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  All while teaching financial education to women. And so, yeah, it's been a wild and crazy ride,
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  so I can't wait to share how we got here. Nice. And let's go back to the teacher, the teacher days.
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  So walking through what led you to getting into $300,000 in debt because that's a lot of debt
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  for a teacher. I'm assuming that's not a mortgage. Well, some of it was, but some of it wasn't.
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  So at first, I was actually really good with my money. My father was a CFO, a small nonprofit.
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  And he had just NBA and economics and his bachelor's in finance. So I learned about money at home,
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  be a he and my mom. So I was actually pretty good with my money until my mid 20s. I didn't have a
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  name debt. I did have this little credit card that he slowly paid off every month and full.
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  So I was doing all the things right. I moved out when I graduated college. My sister was my roommate.
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  And so I kept my expenses really low. And then about at about 25, as I said, you know what,
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  I feel like I should buy a house. That's like the next step, right? In adulthood, you should buy
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  a house to be so I said, okay, I'm in my house. And that put me $220,000 in debt. But even that wasn't
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  so bad because it was at least for something reasonable like a house. Then I decided that I was
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  going to go back to school to get my masters in education. And even that's not necessarily so bad,
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  but that left me $52,000 in debt, you know, to add on to the lot at once. And it was like back to
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  back. And then I made the biggest mistake, which is trusting an ear quotes friend who was going to
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  teach me how to invest because I thought that he was wealthy. You know, when you're in your mid 20s,
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  people who look like they have money, even they actually have money, he did not. The only way
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  he had money, obviously, was stealing it from other people. And I was this next victim. And it left
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  me $35,000 in credit card debt. We're previously, I'd never had credit card debt. I used to pay my,
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  you know, it'd be $50 or $100 bill off every single month. So by the time that was 29, I was just
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  about $300,000 in debt and drowning. And then the great recession, the not so great recession hit.
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  And I lost my job like so many people lost their job. So I was 29, the school where I was working,
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  closed down, by then I was a preschool teacher. Then the school where I was working, it was non-profit
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  based. And no one had access money to pay employees, let alone give to nonprofits. And so I had all
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  this debt and none this income. And I just remember thinking like, well, I guess that's it. You know,
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  like life is just going to be hard and moving forward. And I ended up moving back home with my
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  parents and sleeping in my middle school bed. And then I know, especially in 30. That's tough.
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  Yeah. Well, I can't, I can't imagine a tumbling is. It is. It was. Because literally, you know,
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  it was so shameful. I was, I don't want to say shameful, but just I felt ashamed at the time.
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  But I remember like, fleeting my middle school bed because I'm one of five daughters. And Lisa,
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  who's the baby, was still in school. So she had my old high school kind of like apartment. We had
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  like, my parents had like a mother lost sweet in the basement. So I had like a kitchen, a bathroom,
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  living room, and, and bedroom. But Lisa was like, I don't care that your back. This is my room.
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  You're relegated upstairs to the middle school. Yeah, you gave up. You, you moved, you moved,
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  I like, I claimed this territory. But also like, it's because you tried to do everything right too.
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  That's the thing. You tried house at 25 is like damn impressive. Most people don't have a home.
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  They're not buying property at 25. You got a house. You invested in education. Okay. Cool. That,
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  you know, checks, checks the box. And then you got, you got screwed by, by someone. And, and
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  that's the, that's the worst part because that kind of that, like I'm assuming you just by,
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  just hearing what you just said. So they made you, or he made you invest off credit cards. Yeah. Which
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  is like not, that's horrible. And that's huge, super, super, super high interest debt as well.
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  And that they're not as forgiving as like a educational institution would be in terms of your
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  repayment. So that's hard to get out. Okay. So I don't interrupt your story. Keep going.
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  No, it was like, it was terrible. And I just remember thinking, I remember when it was the
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  worst because it was like, the night of me turning back the night before I turned 30. And I
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  just remember thinking like looking up at the ceiling in my middle school bed. And I remember
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  thinking like, Oh my God, the last time I slept in this bed, I think I was like 12. And I had more
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  money at 12. Because at 12, I used to like babysit. I cat sit. I like, I used to deliver newspapers.
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  So I had all these. So I had like, you know, maybe a couple thousand dollars that like, like, I
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  like I saved up and my dad, you know, opened up one of those joint like, you know, accounts for kids.
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  And so every time I made money, he maybe put some away. And so by then, I'm probably maybe
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  had like $1,500, but I didn't have to $1,500 at 29. I had nothing. I had negative 300. That's
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  it. And I remember thinking like, you know, like 12 year old self was wealthier than I am right now.
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  You know, there's a stat, right? There's like a stat that if you have like five cents in your pocket,
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  like your wealthier than something like 75% of the United States, there's some incredible stat
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  like that just because most people aren't dead. Yeah. It was just really humbling. And I got a lot
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  tears were flowing. I was like, my life sucks. I'm supposed to be like 30 and like, you know,
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  living it up. And instead Lisa's living it up in my bedroom. And I'm in the middle school bed,
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  which by then was like my mom's like closet. So she would come in whatever she felt like it. I'm
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  like, I'm in here now. She's like, yeah, but I keep my clothes here now. So it took me like a
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  couple of years, kind of like the shake out the funk of shame. It wasn't till I like spoke to my
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  best friend Linda. And I was like, oh, man, you know, my life sucks every I'm like, I have no
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  money. I don't know what I'm going to do. And I had to move back home. And I don't want to tell anyone.
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  And she was like, what Tiffany, have you looked around? She's like, I'm calling you for my mother's
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  couch right now. We're all broke. The recession is like, you know, we're all just barely out of
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  our 20s. Every wish is like, well, one in our 20s, we were all broke. You were the only one that
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  seemed reasonably responsible. But now we're all really broke because the recession has affected
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  us more than almost any other population. This kind of age group. And because we were the first
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  to really start to get into our career. So we were the first to let go to be let go. And so she
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  helped me to realize that although I was going through a hard time, it wasn't just me. And I started
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  to map out what I did now. So that's always like one of the core things like that I do now that I
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  learned from that period is that when things are really hard, I asked myself, what do you know?
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  You know, I was like, well, you know, you grew up learning how to budget, how to save, you know,
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  how to manage credit and debt. So you know those things. So why not you just do what you do now?
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  It's so you hit a wall. And then hopefully then maybe new information will be revealed. So that's
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  what I started to do. I got back to the financial fundamentals of my life. Got out like, you know,
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  like the composition notebook and created a budget for myself and looked at how much unemployment
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  I was getting. One good thing I did with those credit cards is that I hadn't stopped paying my
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  mortgage just yet because when I moved out of my condo that bought when I was 25. I had a tenant.
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  And so, you know, I was able to kind of keep up with the mortgage. And I'm like, okay, your credit
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  scores still really good. Why not roll over these credit cards to credit cards where you don't
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  have to pay interest for the next. I was able to get credit to credit cards. Why didn't have to
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  pay interest for two years because my credit score was so good. So I was like, okay, now when you
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  do pay off these cards, at least all your money will be going to the principal. So you're not
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  battling against interest and principal. So I started to do these these small steps that made
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  a huge difference in my friend's size and take notice. And they were like, well Tiffany, can you
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  show me what you're doing? I'm like, well, I'm not, I'm not doing, you know, I'm not, it's not
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  surgery. I'm not doing anything amazing. If you're thinking that there's a magic wand, I don't
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  have it. And they're like, well, you're doing better than me. So they started to come to me, my
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  friends and then their friends. And before you knew it on weekends, I'd be like, who sang you?
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  It'd be like a stranger that showed up at my house. And like, well, how did you really
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  get it? Helping people get back on their feet financially. And it just really took off from
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  there. And I, a friend of mine told me what my unemployment was running out. And I was like,
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  how know what I'm going to do? And she said, well, why don't you turn that budget and think you do
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  with folks and turn it into a business. And I was like, think you can do that now. I'd gone to
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  school for business. I just hated my internships. And that's why they came a teacher. And I was like,
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  well, I don't have anything else to lose. And so I started the, the budget needs to started with one
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  on ones that sucked because no one had any money. And if they did have any money, I felt bad because
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  of course, they're a budget. They really didn't have any money. So that didn't last longer than a few
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  months. And then I thought, well, how do I go from one on one to one to few? And I found this
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  nonprofit called the United Way that paid me to teach financial education to the community. And
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  that was awesome because I was like, oh, I get to be back in the classroom again. This time with
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  adults, I don't have to have this kind of like moral burden of taking money from people who are
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  struggling because I'm taking money from the nonprofit. They've got plenty. And I get to offer
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  my services per free to the community. And that's when social media just started to come out. So I
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  used social media to get more and more people into class. And it really just like the budget
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  needs to and the business really just grew from that helping one on one and helping, you know,
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  teaching in the classroom again. And so I just found it to be just like such an alignment with
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  the way I wanted to show up. I truly believe that the purpose of life is to live a life of service.
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  But that doesn't mean you have to be broke because I'm not broke.
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  That's amazing. So that's how that's how the whole brand was built out. And obviously,
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  obviously, it's gone through a lot of a lot of versions since then, a lot of iterations since then.
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  So as the budget needs to has grown, what do you for people that don't know you? You have like a
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  sheet. I would leave before we were just riffing on like how like boil and incredible your
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  following is I just join one of your one of your lives and like to like 500 people just like,
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  you know, like getting and getting lit and like Instagram live. Just awesome because I love when
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  you see the communities that are built around people and not everybody even if they have a huge
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  following have like active communities. That's that's incredible. But do you build this up? But
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  so what is the current version of budget needs to what do you do for people outside of just
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  that you have a book podcast you have a whole bunch of stuff going on? I would actually just let
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  me play that I was just working on something called a a synergy map. And I encourage everyone
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  to create a synergy map for their business. And a synergy map really is just you whatever your
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  core deliverable is in the begin in the middle. That's in the middle. So for me, it's financial
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  education for women. And then all of the other ways, all the other iterations of how I do that.
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  You know, so I've got an online school called the Leverature Academy. I've got a podcast called
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  Brown Ambition. I have books like most recent book Get Go With Money is a New York Times bestseller.
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  It just came out. I do speaking engagements. I do spokesperson work with different brands.
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  I do joint ventures. So sometimes people who are like me will come to me and say, hey,
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  Tiffany, I've got this awesome tool resource. Let's partner together and you take 40% I take 60%.
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  You know, I do literally I was looking at the looking at it. I was like, wow,
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  if you have a lot on this list, they do a lot. Yeah, it was like, but it's it's not just me.
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  Like I have like a really great team about 30 people, you know, like 70 or 18 or I think 19,
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  which are full time employees. And so we have all these iterations of like basically what I do
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  is teach financial education and like 20 different ways. You know, and then we monetize it. So,
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  you know, it's got just before we were just talking. I was like, you know, I don't save my lives.
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  Anymore, I used to save my lives, but then it became like a whole thing like I love teaching.
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  So I let going live teaching and you're jumping off. And then if I have to save it,
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  then I have to think about cabs and yeah, I didn't want to do that. But everyone when I go live.
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  So I started going live regularly. Maybe like, I don't know, I'm a month or two ago and maybe
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  on average 50 people would show up and stay. And then it got to 150 and then 200. And now we're at
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  about 450 400 to 500 people. If I were to go live right now without telling anyone I'm going live,
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  we will keep it about an average about 4 to 450 people. That will consistently stay for the whole
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  thing. And my life can last an hour. And what I see in the comments is people will say, please,
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  please save it. And I like on when on for me. And I'm like, oh, another iteration of financial
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  education. I'm going to start a Patreon. Yeah. Yeah. You got all these ideas. And you just keep
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  trying. You're just entrepreneurial as hell. Like you just keep breaking out everywhere.
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  Yes. But we're all see the problem is that most people have what I call a bus business,
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  right? So a bus business is when you have all these great ideas and you sprout your branches too
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  soon. Instead of a tree business where you have like the solid trunk of I deliver this. So I
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  deliver a financial education for women in this particular way. For me, my initial tree trunk
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  were my literature challenges. These were these free online courses that I would launch a new one
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  every January because January is when everyone wants to get on financial track. So it was a free
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  three day course that was live. It was an email course. So every day I would give you one small
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  task to do to get on financial track. And then we would meet up in my private Facebook group
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  when we talk about it. But that was the tree trunk that built the community. And then once my
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  community was solid after a few years, then I was able to branch out to oh and I also do and I
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  also do and I also have a book and I also have a podcast and I also have the online school.
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  But too many people sprout so quickly that you start your growth when you're a bus business.
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  When you're a tree business, think about like one of the most incredible tree businesses out there
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  is Disney, right? So they built their tree trunk with their with their movies, right? So you go
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  to see this Disney movie. It's amazing. Then all of a sudden you go to see a movie and you're like,
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  oh man, I would love to experience that in real life Disney world. Oh man, I love the music for
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  the movie. They have a movie. They have a music arm. Oh man, I would love to be able to watch it
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  day to day. They have TV shows. You know, you see how Disney, oh man, I would love to experience
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  it further. They have merch. And so Disney is the most amazing tree business that you know, you
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  can find because when you think about how long a bush will live, right? So maybe a year.
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  Not as long as a tree. Exactly. Like a little there are trees that live longer than human beings,
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  you know? And so like I'm always conscious of one patience in business. You don't want to move
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  so fast that you're actually starting your own growth. And two, you know, consistency,
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  transparency and kindness. So those are like some of the tenants of what I bring to the table.
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  So as a result, I can start all of these new things as long as it relates back to that tree trunk,
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  which is financial education. And my audience comes along with me. So.
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  one has to reinvent the wheel. We're all in this together learning and growing. And here's my
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  ask, if you love this show, it's made a difference for you, please share it with somebody who needs it.
• 18:36
  Hella friend, host on social, whatever works, it's the best way to keep this thing going strong,
• 18:42
  bring on even better guests and share more life changing wisdom. And you can find us on all the
• 18:47
  spots. So you can go to successstorypodcast.com if you like listening to podcasts. If you like
• 18:52
  video, you can go to YouTube. It's youtube.com slash C slash Scott DeClaire or the newsletter newsletter.
• 19:00
  Dot Scott DeClaire.com just spread the word. I'm eternally grateful for each and every one of you.
• 19:06
  Let's keep learning. Let's keep growing. And let's keep making this world a little bit better
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  together. All right, let's get back to the show. That is the best interpretation definition of
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  not of chasing the shiny object, but in the right way. Because you've just solved for what
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  every entrepreneur always screws up, which is just they launch one thing. And then they're like,
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  oh, I should try that. And oh, I should try that. And then they just like death by a thousand cuts
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  and nothing gets done. And everything screws up. And they're just like maxed out and stressed out.
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  And like just the nothing is like getting the attention to deserve. So this is the best way I've
• 19:42
  ever heard of somebody describing how to build out all these different parts of their business.
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  God asked people to figure out how they do. And they don't really give a solution. They're just like,
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  well, I tried like 10 things and like some of them worked and some of them didn't. But you've
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  done this purposely. You've done this. This is very, very smart. So you built that community first.
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  So that's your tree. That's your tree. You built that community and you brought that community.
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  You leverage that community. And community is not just like social media community. Community is like
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  these are people that have not just had like this like high level cursory view of your content.
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  They've been in your courses. You're talking to them in classes. You're talking to them in a closed
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  off Facebook group. That's really smart. Because not enough people want to not enough people.
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  Because I would say the first five years of this. I didn't make much money because it was community
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  building time. And so on the surface, it looked like, oh, well, it's simply doing that great.
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  But what I was doing was I was laying good roots. So so I for example, so my mentor told me this.
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  And she was saying how this this new up and coming financial person, you know, didn't want to
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  work with her because she said like, oh, well, my social media founds way bigger than you are.
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  Basically, I'm bigger than you now. So on the surface, it looked like that new young financial
• 20:57
  guru had a had a higher tree. And it looked like my mentor, her tree was there. But it wasn't as
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  high as visible, you know, and then the storm comes. AKA the pandemic quarantine.
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  And then the heavy winds knocked down this tree. And my mentor is still there. And she said,
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  Tiffany, because I had deeper roots. And so not enough people do root work. You know, because
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  they're so interested in the fame, but they don't understand that, truthfully, if you want to have
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  a solid business, if you are going for the fame, the fame should always be a function of the
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  fortune. Like how are you using your visibility to then transform it into getting people on board?
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  Because if not, then then what are you doing? Because you're not always going to be known.
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  And that's always going to be seen. So if you're familiar with like on Jay Z, the rapper, right?
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  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, if he's going to be some familiar with Jay Z.
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  Yeah. Yeah.
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  I'm going to get that one up. Right. So like Sean Carter is his real name. So for like 20 years,
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  Jay Z was like number one rapper in the game, right? So and I remember Jay Z thing of himself. He
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  was like, I realized at some point, I needed to be less Jay Z and more Sean Carter.
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  Meaning that like, I could be the hottest guy in the game, newest song out top of the billboard,
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  or I could be the businessman Sean Carter that has built deep roots.
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  So he used Jay Z as a function to create an avenue for Sean Carter to continue to win
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  long after Jay Z is no longer the hottest guy in the game. So you have to be thinking like that.
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  That'll like, if you're just trying to be the next Charlie Demilio and the housing on TikTok,
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  that's cool. But what are you building that when you're no longer the hottest thing that you
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  had this thing behind the scenes where you can be you can be Jay Z for a limited period of time,
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  but you can be Sean Carter forever with longs your life. Very smart. Very, very smart. So,
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  so now, you know, but there's still something to be said for like having a personality attached
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  to a brand because even though you do have a community, you're still Tiffany the budget Nista. So
• 23:13
  Sean Carter is doing something a little bit different. He's even saying like, I want to make it so
• 23:17
  that I don't even have to have Jay Z to make a lot of money. So how are you making your own name?
• 23:25
  How are you how are you making and future proofing your own name? So that's actually a really great
• 23:30
  question, right? Because I thought about that. And here's a key to when if you are a personality brand,
• 23:36
  before you get sick of being a personality brand, you have to pivot. So six years ago, I want to
• 23:42
  say, oh, this budget is the thing is so fun. Then it will like hit me like most of the time. So
• 23:46
  as soon as you get that small little, I was like, it's time to pivot. So I'm still the budget Nista,
• 23:52
  but I created my first, it doesn't need me business. And so that was my online school. And so my
• 23:58
  online school was like, so I said, okay, for the online school, I will use the budget Nista brand
• 24:04
  to leverage to launch it. But the people who are teaching the classes 99% of them are not
• 24:12
  me. So about 50 instructors and I teach maybe one class out of the hundreds that we have. And even
• 24:18
  now, so right now we use my face still to like run ads to so people sign up for the academy. But
• 24:24
  now we are adding other people to be influencers for the literature academy. And by 2022, people
• 24:33
  likely not even know that the literature academy is mine. So I started that pivot five years ago,
• 24:38
  like, and that that literature academy makes millions of dollars a year. But very little let lift
• 24:42
  for me has its own team. So it's like I said, it still leverages budget Nista cash A to get people
• 24:48
  signed up. But we're just on the cusp of finally turning the corner where I'm pulled away. And
• 24:53
  something else I created, I haven't I have a, um, a children's brand that teaches financial
• 24:58
  education and a little girl her name is Molly Moore. And so if you're watching the video,
• 25:02
  so you this is her right here, right? And so it teaches financial education to kids and at the
• 25:08
  only brand, a whole new brand. And nobody cares like these kids don't care about the budget Nista.
• 25:13
  Now she's a character that never gets old, never gets signed doesn't get an attitude. And so
• 25:18
  I've already been offered like, um, production companies have already offered to turn her into a show.
• 25:23
  So I've decided not to that. I want to do it myself. But that is another offshoot where there
• 25:29
  won't be the budget Nista's name will help to started. But it really be Molly Moore that will help
• 25:35
  to continue and flow it through. But so I have businesses behind the scenes like that that no one knows,
• 25:41
  you know, belong to me that I'm building from the ground up. And I use the budget Nista to offer
• 25:46
  some cash A to it. Um, but not to make myself the face of it. Because to your point, I don't want to
• 25:51
  be the budget Nista forever. No, that's, that's the smartest thing I've ever, you're, you're dropping
• 25:55
  like these, but I, I try and go down these paths as other people and they never have good answers
• 25:59
  for it. Cause I know a lot of creators, just their names out there and their money, the money side
• 26:04
  of the name. And even when I think about like, I try and do stuff that isn't just my name because,
• 26:09
  yeah, maybe the podcast is fun. But like, I don't know what am I going to do in 40 years? Like,
• 26:15
  you know, anyway, no, that's really, that's really good. Okay, so we got, got some entrepreneurial
• 26:21
  lessons. Um, so also some, uh, some branding lessons. Um, I want to pull out some finance lessons too.
• 26:28
  I want to talk, I want to talk about what I want to talk about. And we got to talk about it. Okay,
• 26:31
  so, okay, why, why do people have such an issue? Why do have people such an issue talking about
• 26:36
  finance? Why is it something that people are uncomfortable with? Why are people, and I think that's
• 26:40
  actually the reason why so many people struggle because they don't think they talk about it enough.
• 26:45
  What's your take? So my take is that unfortunately, it's, it's been in grain and culture that you
• 26:50
  ought to know, at least in Western culture, that like, money is kind of like an indication of maturity
• 26:58
  that like, once you get to a certain age, you ought to be able to, it's like having a job or
• 27:03
  taking care of yourself physically or your, your, your, your, your physical, um, um, grooming
• 27:11
  that like, this is something that as an adult that you ought to know, and if you don't,
• 27:16
  it's a condemnation of your character if you don't, and that's just not true. You know,
• 27:20
  it's unfortunate that people feel that way, but it's just not true. It's just said, that's what,
• 27:24
  like, if you watch on TV, it's almost like, um, you know, like, I'm wealthy because I did the right
• 27:30
  things. And so what, what does that mean? That means if you're not wealthy, that you must have done
• 27:35
  the wrong things, and it makes you feel bad. And so people don't want to talk about that. But the
• 27:39
  truth is, that's not true. You know, that you can do nothing and be born into wealth. What did you
• 27:45
  do? Except for you were born into parents that have, you know, that have wealth or you can, I mean,
• 27:52
  I know folks who, you know, randomly were like, yeah, I guess I'm getting to this Bitcoin thing
• 27:57
  and they bought some and they're like, oh, I'm rich. I'm like, yeah, that was a lucky guess for you.
• 28:00
  You don't even invest in any other way. You know, that, and, and outside of Bitcoin, you have not
• 28:05
  proven any sort of savvy, you know, so sometimes, but now you're worth your worth the eight figures on
• 28:11
  piss seven figures, eight figures on paper, seven figures on paper. Yes. Yeah. And so it's just like,
• 28:16
  so I just say that that's why to me, I don't teach, um, financial freedom per se, you know,
• 28:23
  I teach something that I like to call financial wholeness because financial freedom is something that
• 28:27
  some people will achieve. Like you said, you mentioned earlier, if you have five cents in your pocket,
• 28:31
  you're richer than like 75% of people in this country. So the vast majority of people are not going
• 28:37
  to get some lump sum and be like, I don't have to work anymore. You know, um, be before like typical
• 28:42
  retirement age, but everyone can achieve financial wholeness. And what that is to me is these 10
• 28:48
  components of your financial life, budgeting, savings, debt, credit, learning to earn, investing,
• 28:55
  insurance, your financial team, your, um, your, um, estate planning, and I'm beginning like the last
• 29:02
  one, estate plan, uh, I'll have to get the last one. Um, but these 10 components of your financial
• 29:07
  life that come together to create like what I call, um, financial wholeness. And if you have that,
• 29:14
  now you have a foundation, that's your root work. Then you can build other things on it. That's
• 29:19
  why I wrote my book, Gaker with money because I wanted to teach people these 10 step by step,
• 29:24
  like things that you can do to create such a strong foundation that no matter what, what hit you
• 29:30
  financially, you'd be okay. I just want to take a second and think of the HubSpot podcast network
• 29:35
  for supporting success story. The HubSpot podcast network has incredible podcasts like the product
• 29:41
  boss hosted by Jacqueline Snyder and Mina Kuhnlo Sithep. If you want to take your physical product
• 29:47
  sales and strategy to the next level to create your dream life, you need to listen to the product
• 29:54
  boss. They sit down for an hour. They do a workshop style podcast. They're going to talk about
• 29:59
  everything that you need to know to up level yourself, social media, marketing if you're
• 30:04
  a consumer package goods. If you have any sort of physical widget, you need to tune into the product
• 30:11
  boss wherever you get your podcasts. Because everybody gets lives the majority of people that
• 30:17
  don't have a handout or there's a small majority of people that make a lot of money, but not
• 30:22
  the majority don't. They live paycheck to paycheck and then they get screwed over with bank fees,
• 30:28
  overdraft fees, interest payments. They can never purchase anything. They can never have any
• 30:33
  equity and anything. It's just this system that is, they always say capitalism is the best
• 30:42
  of the worst, but there's a lot of negatives in a capitalist society. I don't know if any other
• 30:48
  system is going to be any better per se, but it still is difficult. I think there's a lot more,
• 30:53
  I think, is education that would help people just thrive in a system where
• 30:58
  there's so many ways for you to succeed, but there's also so many ways for you to fail.
• 31:03
  What are the main things that people struggle with when it comes to, let's say,
• 31:08
  let's pick an average income. I don't know what the average income in depends on the city,
• 31:12
  but I say 50 to 60,000, I'm assuming would be like a very average income. What are the things that
• 31:17
  people screw up when it comes to spending credit debt, all this stuff? People screw by not having
• 31:23
  the basic foundation, which is a budget. No one wants to hear that, but I'm like, you need it.
• 31:28
  Unless, and even if, let's just say you have the wealth of someone who you feel like you don't
• 31:32
  need a budget, we've heard of like some of the celebrities that have access to millions of
• 31:37
  dollars or entertainment folks that have made millions of dollars in there in their lifetime
• 31:44
  going broke. A budget really is just a physical picture of money in, money out. If you're in a
• 31:50
  business, that's called profit and loss. In fact, you need to know the profit and loss of your personal
• 31:55
  life. If you don't, it can easily get away from you. You're making $2,000 a month, and if you
• 32:03
  continue to spend $2,100 a month, then you're going to eventually go broke. In a way, that's going
• 32:12
  to be really hard to get out of. People make mistakes with the foundational things. Everyone,
• 32:17
  everyone, everyone always asks me, I want to learn how to invest and I always ask you,
• 32:20
  do you have a budget? No. Do you have savings? No. With what money are you going to invest?
• 32:26
  Because what's an obvious question? You're going to get that money because what they're really
• 32:32
  saying is that they're going to pay something late in order to take this money to invest, hoping
• 32:38
  that the investment will pay off, to pay back the thing that they're wanting. You know, one of the
• 32:42
  best things to do is actually, if you found the money in your budget, then you wouldn't have to worry
• 32:48
  about being late. So the function of a budget is this. So you budget, so you have excess money to
• 32:54
  save. You save one for the security, but so you have excess money for your goals and one of those
• 33:02
  goals should be investing. You cannot get to investing without the budget so you can save without
• 33:07
  the savings. So you have money to invest, you know, and one of the greatest ways to get the money
• 33:13
  to invest is to look to see the debt that you owe and pay off the high interest rate debt aggressively.
• 33:22
  So because if, let's just say you have a credit card and it's costing you 25%.
• 33:28
  So you want to get into the market and I mean, if we erase the last year or so, you know,
• 33:32
  the market genuinely, generally, will be with yielding like seven to 10%. You know, let's just say
• 33:38
  eight percent on average, right? So you're investing in the stock market and you're getting eight
• 33:44
  percent. You have this credit card and it's costing you 25%. You will actually make more money
• 33:50
  paying off the 25% debt. Nobody wants to hear that like that doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense.
• 33:55
  Because if you don't, then you're trying to, you're trying to basically say you're going to make more
• 33:59
  than 25% return on whatever investment you're making, which is like if you have somebody that can
• 34:04
  get that for you, good for you. Yeah. That's the hell I've ever done it do. Yeah. It's what,
• 34:08
  especially a hell of a turn to maintain. Of course, we have seasons where, you know, where we see
• 34:13
  that to be true. But so I always tell people, one, get aggressive with paying off that double digit
• 34:18
  interest rate debt and then chill out when it comes to the debt that is under the double digit
• 34:24
  digit interest rate debt because debt freedom doesn't equal well. I know there's some financial
• 34:28
  folks who will tell you like, tell do anything until you get debt free. I don't believe that because
• 34:33
  if debt freedom equals wealth, yes, it was my nephew's birthday. He doesn't have credit card debt.
• 34:38
  He doesn't have to the loan debt. He doesn't have a mortgage. You know, he doesn't have any debt.
• 34:42
  And he's broke because he turned six yesterday. Right? Because if debt freedom equal well,
• 34:48
  wouldn't these kids all be wealthy? It doesn't. Yeah. And so if all you focus on is debt freedom,
• 34:54
  then you will be a six year old basically with like, yes, I'm debt free, but I don't have any real
• 34:58
  money. So I tell people get aggressive with that double digit debt. If your debt isn't the
• 35:03
  single digits, pay it, but then get aggressive with growing well, get aggressive with getting your
• 35:08
  budget down to a place where you can save, getting your savings to a place where you have at least
• 35:13
  three months, ideally six months, it may be more depending on your industry where you have that
• 35:18
  saved up. Don't save more than that because you're wasting money beyond that and then get aggressive
• 35:22
  with investing because now you can make more and investing than what your debt is actually costing
• 35:28
  you. It's just that simple. That's the loop. For me, I invest in the market, but I'm not,
• 35:32
  you know, I'm not a trader. I'm not a instead where I invest heavily is myself in my business.
• 35:39
  Because I have seen for me that I can put like I just got my business evaluated. And if I make
• 35:47
  some tweaks, there's a potential for me to sell it for nine figures because it does so well.
• 35:55
  But there's just some tweaks then, you know, so you said you're hitting like eight figures already
• 35:59
  right now in revenue. And so about $10 million a year are net profit. So net profit meaning
• 36:06
  what we make gross minus what we're spending to run the company is about 45%, which is great.
• 36:11
  You know, the only thing that's missing, well, it's the only thing, it's not a small thing,
• 36:16
  is that we need to, our customer needs to come in a more organic way. Right now we're really
• 36:23
  good at running ads, but people who buy your business, they're not interested in running ads.
• 36:27
  So we're really beefing up our SEO. So that way, if we can over the next year beef of our SEO,
• 36:32
  people will naturally come into the business. Now someone who wants to buy it says,
• 36:37
  huh, you've got a great business here. You've got 40,000 students. It's making $10 million. You're
• 36:43
  probably more by then. You've got a really great profit margin. And I don't have to worry about where
• 36:47
  am I going to get the new students from because they're coming in and your churn churn is how many
• 36:52
  people leave or how much money you're losing for, I look at churn as how many people are leaving
• 36:56
  monthly. Your churn is really low. So you're losing a small amount of people and then regaining
• 37:02
  naturally so because of SEO, like an amazing amount of people. And so once we get there,
• 37:08
  then we can start looking around and saying, hey, because with the, in the finance space,
• 37:12
  it's really 10 times the multiple usage. So you're looking at 50 to a hundred million dollars,
• 37:16
  potentially, you know. And so that, to me, I'm not going to make that a stock market. You know,
• 37:23
  you know, no, no, that's, that's the Bitcoin money right there. You're not going to get another
• 37:26
  chance at that. Yeah, that's, you know, but for me, business is, is where I heavily invest because
• 37:32
  that's one where I'm willing to put the work into learn. And where honestly, I enjoy the most,
• 37:37
  like, you know, I enjoy being in business. And, and the way it relates to personal finances,
• 37:43
  you can't get there. If you don't have the foundation, that's why I teach the foundation
• 37:47
  work is people think sometimes like, I guess because I used to be a preschool teacher,
• 37:51
  but it's like, oh, you can't get to, to, to 12th grade. If you don't know how to read, you know,
• 37:57
  like you have to lend your letters or shapes your numbers or nobody wants to learn the stuff
• 38:01
  from preschool. But like, how do you get into college without the basics? And so before you can
• 38:06
  play with the big boys and girls, you've got to get the financial foundation down and then grow
• 38:11
  from there. So, so that's it. First of all, great, great advice and a lot of lessons to
• 38:16
  pull out of that. But would you recommend, so say somebody does, you know, somebody does clear
• 38:22
  out their bad debt. So we're talking like 20, 25% debt. And now the options are, okay, so I can
• 38:28
  go invest some money or maybe I can even start my own thing and build a business or a side hustle.
• 38:35
  Do you recommend that people do something more risky earlier on? Is there a point where
• 38:39
  somebody should try and build an income stream for themselves outside of their nine to five,
• 38:43
  or do you just say, because after you're obviously, that's, you know, that's where you're investing
• 38:47
  your money. Or should they just invest in the stock market and, and play it safe? I say you should,
• 38:55
  you should invest where you are willing to do the work. So example, like I, I tried TikTok. I hate
• 39:04
  it. I hate it. How's it? We went to TikTok. I hate TikTok. And I'm like, so I told myself, I'm
• 39:09
  going to do myself a 30-day challenge where I'm going to do at least one TikTok, you know, every day
• 39:14
  for 30 days. I lasted one day's got one day. And I'm like, Tiffany, why are you trying to force
• 39:19
  yourself to do TikTok? Because you know, you have to have a social media presence for most businesses.
• 39:24
  And I'm like, why not instead put your energy where you actually want to do the work because it's
• 39:30
  going to be better, you know, and so it's the same thing when it comes to investing. You want to
• 39:34
  invest your energy where you're willing to do the investment because it's a lot of work to run a
• 39:39
  business, but it's also a lot of work. I have a friend who trades. It's a lot of work to trade.
• 39:43
  So I took her trading class and I started and I was like, this is boring. I hate it. You know,
• 39:49
  and so I thought, well, why am I doing this when I actually really enjoy business? And I can
• 39:57
  multiply my ability to grow wealth because I'm willing to spend the time, the energy and the money
• 40:02
  here. So that's what I said. There's, to me, there's no right or wrong way to invest. If real estate
• 40:07
  is your thing, you love homes, your father was a contractor when you were a kid and you're so good
• 40:12
  at it. And you're like, I'm not interested in the market and I'm not interested in starting a
• 40:15
  business, but I love homes. Then that's where you should put your energy into. You know, so figuring
• 40:21
  out like where you are willing to do the work. And that's what you should invest in because
• 40:25
  that's your passion is going to pay you before the profit. Well,
• 40:30
  really smart. So, okay. So I love that. Okay. So I also want to unpack everything that you're
• 40:37
  teaching over. It's great that you're teaching it. But why don't we do a better job of teaching
• 40:43
  this in school? Why is it? Why is education? You know, I think education is very broken.
• 40:51
  How do we fix this stuff? How do we teach this other? One of the names I was fortunate. And
• 40:56
  then so I worked with my assembly woman. Her name is Angela D. McNeigh. And in 2019, I got the law
• 41:02
  pass called the budget east of law. And it makes financial education mandatory for middle school
• 41:06
  students. So you got a lot passed. Yes. I didn't know that. I thought you were killing me. I was like,
• 41:14
  oh, he did his research. No, I didn't get that. No, no, no. I wasn't killing you up at all. That's
• 41:19
  no. I just think I always think education is broken when it comes to what we're focused on and
• 41:23
  what we teach and financial literacy is just a huge gap. Yes. And so for me, I thought the same.
• 41:29
  And I said, you know what? I used to teach financial education just on my own to my preschoolers.
• 41:34
  Like, you know, because when you're little financial education looks like service, giving,
• 41:40
  it looks like math. It looks like this is a dollar, you know. And so like so I know what age
• 41:47
  appropriate financial education looks like. And so my assembly woman I told her I was just so
• 41:51
  frustrated that like these kids are not learning it. And she said, well, thankfully in New Jersey,
• 41:56
  we're really early adapters for high school students. So there was already a law in place for high
• 42:00
  school students. And I'm like, that's awesome. But it should be sooner. And so I initially
• 42:05
  far for elementary and middle school. And there was a lot of pushback. So they allowed the elementary
• 42:11
  component. But we're going back for element for they allowed the middle school component. But we're
• 42:15
  going to go back for elementary school because I want at least in the state of New Jersey to start
• 42:20
  that as soon as you start kindergarten, you're running about money. So by the time you get to middle
• 42:24
  school, you're like, Oh, okay, I understand a dollar. And I understand savings. I understand,
• 42:29
  you know, I'm giving. And then middle school, oh, I understand where credit is. And then high
• 42:34
  school, oh, I understand what earning is. I understand what profit is and losses. So by the time you
• 42:39
  get to college and you're offered all these credit cards, you're like, Oh, no, no, I learned about
• 42:43
  that. And fifth grade, I know exactly what's happening here. And so if we could make that work in
• 42:47
  New Jersey, it's much harder, obviously, to get a national law passed. But if we can work make
• 42:52
  that work in New Jersey, what happens is oftentimes, and I've gotten this that people will hit me up
• 42:58
  from other states and say, how'd you do it? And I'll share with them, you know, now connect them
• 43:02
  to Angela. So I'm like, you know, because this legislator can then talk to your legislator and
• 43:08
  walk them through what she had to do as far as like the law was concerned. And so, um, yeah, I just
• 43:14
  think I don't know why it's not taught. Well, here's why at first, education was a function of
• 43:18
  creating a working class. Think about it this way. It's almost like the matrix. Remember in the
• 43:22
  matrix, which she realized that like human beings were being bred to be, um, batteries. And so I think
• 43:29
  that all the time that like sometimes the way education is set up is for you to be a battery to
• 43:34
  the bigger system. And I'm like, no, let me be neo. We're breaking out. We're breaking out.
• 43:40
  I love that. I love that. That's so, that's, I love that analogy. That's really smart. So,
• 43:44
  you know, I just thinking about like my experience and I swear to anyone who's listening,
• 43:47
  actually did not meet the cure for that. It's awesome. But so I said, honestly, it's just like,
• 43:53
  it's something I wanted to bring up with you because I thought, yeah, and depending on it,
• 43:56
  most people that dabble in financial education do. But the reason I bring it up is because I'm
• 44:01
  pretty sure like the first time that I ever had exposure to anything financial was like somebody
• 44:04
  pitching me a credit card on a college campus. Yep. That's it. That's about as close as financial
• 44:10
  education came to actual education. But okay, so we got, we got, we got the whole, the whole premise
• 44:17
  of education, I think it comes from you right. This, this is, we're creating people to make them
• 44:21
  hit a standard, but that's it. We don't need to create people that are creating generational wealth.
• 44:28
  We just need to contribute to society. And contribution to society means a month, a month is fine
• 44:34
  for contribution to society. But for the average person, that's a pretty city life. Exactly. If you
• 44:39
  like look at it, look at what's happening now. The other day I went to stop and shop. That's a
• 44:43
  big supermarket chain here in New Jersey in the Northeast. And they, it's, think about whatever
• 44:49
  your biggest supermarket is. That's what stop and shop is. There were two cash years. I mean,
• 44:54
  the longer I was like, what's that unemployment more? The people are making more staying home.
• 45:01
  Then they are at the stop and shop. That's why they don't want you to make so much money.
• 45:07
  Because who will work the stop and shop? And maybe employees should just pay more.
• 45:12
  Exactly. You're out how to do business better. That's a whole other conversation. Exactly.
• 45:15
  You know, but honestly, that's why the reason. And then I went to the wall grains around the corner
• 45:19
  and same thing. I was like, wow. So when people have access to more money, they're like, no,
• 45:25
  I'm not showing up unless you can pay me a livable ways because staying home right now is more of a
• 45:30
  livable, livable age. And even like the way I, I developed a budgetista, I only grow to the capacity
• 45:37
  that we can pay well. You know, like in the beginning, it was really hard. I didn't have much money.
• 45:42
  I remember like the most I could pay, I was like, look, all I could do is $9 an hour.
• 45:48
  But we're transparent with our numbers. Like everybody gets to see our numbers.
• 45:51
  And no matter whether your customers, customer support or the CLL here are numbers.
• 45:55
  Here is for company, our size, we really, you really don't want to have more than 33% of your
• 46:01
  of say your, your, your income going toward payroll because then you get a little shaky as far
• 46:06
  as like how solid your company is. So we're at 33%. And so as we do better, we increase.
• 46:13
  Now what's so great about it is that I don't final traditional rules where it's like,
• 46:18
  oh, you know, once a year, we're like, no, if we're doing better and it's like a consistent
• 46:22
  do better. And it's, it's, I see that this is where we are now. And it's three months later,
• 46:26
  we're increasing. You know, like I've had, I've given, I remember like I call them my lead team.
• 46:32
  I've given $20,000 raises. Like, you know what? You know, we like, we, we've really
• 46:37
  banded together six months since the new year. We have taken the business to the next level.
• 46:42
  So we're going from 60 to 80 now. And they're like, wait, what?
• 46:46
  And they're like, are we allowed to do that? See, I never worked in corporate America other than
• 46:49
  like, you know, one on two internships as a team. It's going to screw someone up who's
• 46:52
  so's worked from the big company. That's not how we do. And I'm like, well, let's check with the
• 46:57
  CFO. Like, do we have our schizek we do? But people don't usually do that. I'm like, well,
• 47:01
  is it illegal? She's like, no, I'm like, well, then let's bump them up. And now on the team,
• 47:07
  the literally there are people on the team that started me three years ago making $9,000 an hour.
• 47:12
  And make six figures now within three years, because I believe that you pay people well.
• 47:18
  You might not always be able to in the beginning, but let it not be because you're trying to hold
• 47:21
  on to all the money for yourself. But we pay people really well. We don't have turn around really
• 47:28
  at the Bajanista. We pay people well. We treat people well. We operate from a space of integrity
• 47:33
  and transparency. And as a result, that's why we're able to give so, so much to our audience. That's
• 47:38
  why you see such an amazing community because they feel taken care of because the team has been
• 47:43
  taken care of amazing. So these are just all best best practices for building a business.
• 47:50
  I'm trying to think what else or some other interesting things. We spoke a little bit about
• 47:54
  financial education, entrepreneurial lessons. Let me check my notes and see if anything else
• 47:59
  that I wanted to want to go into. Was there anything else that while I'm looking at this,
• 48:03
  was there anything else that's top of mind for you that financial education,
• 48:10
  how we pay people, employment, anything else that you stop in mind?
• 48:15
  Well, this is not like as much financial education as like the lesson that I've been learning lately
• 48:21
  is to really ask yourself, not so much what do you want, but how do you want? Like how do you want
• 48:29
  to live? Because I have been broke, broke like 30 year old Tiffany, you know, had less money than
• 48:35
  12 year old Tiffany broke. I have been like, you know, just a step above broke preschool teacher,
• 48:40
  Tiffany making, you know, 39,000 dollars a year, but really that's like next to nothing especially
• 48:45
  in New Jersey. I had been somewhere in the middle where my business was making six figures and I
• 48:49
  had been where I am now where my personal network is seven figures of my business makes eight figures
• 48:56
  a year. So I had been not every stage because I have not been, you know, a hundred million dollars,
• 49:01
  but it's kind. So the thing that I have realized and observed is that past a certain amount of money,
• 49:11
  the money doesn't enhance anything. Once I was able like the house that I live in now, my husband
• 49:17
  now were able to participate cash and I was able to in that same year to pay off my parents mortgage
• 49:24
  and we send them money every month. I was able to also pay off my student loan debt. You know,
• 49:29
  we were able to get a rental property and pay for a cash. We were able to purchase our cars and
• 49:34
  paid for a cash. So my husband and I are debt-free like my nephew Roman. Like we have, we're debt-free
• 49:39
  like a toddler, although he's unfodler, debt-free like a big boy, that's what we told him. You're a big
• 49:43
  boy now, debt-free like right now, but the more money that comes in once I got the stability part
• 49:52
  down, the more money that came in, it did not really affect my day-to-day life. You know, so I really
• 49:59
  had to ask myself, what is it, how do I really want to live? So I want, you should be considering
• 50:06
  that now. I want you to assume that you will grow wealth, especially if you're a business owner,
• 50:11
  assume that eventually with time and effort and personal investment that your business is going
• 50:18
  to grow and yet you're going to grow wealth, but how will it meet you? I wanted to meet you
• 50:24
  healthy, happy, whole and wealthy because I myself almost lost sight of that. I just recently came
• 50:30
  back from a six-week hiatus just to recenter and say, Tiffany, where are we headed? Are we just
• 50:35
  working to work and to work and to work? Like where are we headed? I think not enough business
• 50:38
  people talk about that because so many of my friends who have businesses are miserable. You've
• 50:44
  literally left corporate America because you say it was miserable there only to recreate the
• 50:48
  misery in your own business. And so I'm just here to kind of like give you like a forecast for,
• 50:53
  like I am, you know, for those of you who are just starting out, see me as what potentially can be
• 50:59
  in your future and say, how do I want to meet myself there and make sure to keep that in mind
• 51:05
  with how you grow your business? I think that's not set enough because everybody wants to talk about
• 51:09
  profit and loss and money and this and that, but you know, you don't want to have all those things
• 51:13
  and then have a heart attack and then what? You know? And then what? Yeah, no. One of the points
• 51:19
  that I thought was interesting that I want you to just, you know, touch on. You're speaking with
• 51:24
  Lisa Billy and you spoke about money, money just being a mere tool, something you can use to build
• 51:32
  and or destroy. So walk me through what that means and why people have the wrong perception of
• 51:38
  what money is. So when I was a kid, my father used to always remind us that like, you know,
• 51:42
  because he would want money, he'd like, well, money's a tool like a hammer, right? So it's not
• 51:47
  the money itself. The hammer can be used to build a house. A hammer can be used to destroy a house.
• 51:54
  So money is a function in that way as well that you can build your financial life with money,
• 51:59
  you know, or you can destroy your your financial life and your life in general with money,
• 52:03
  you know, by either overdoing it or underdoing it. And so once you understand that it's not money
• 52:09
  itself, it's, it's the how you want your life to go. You might realize, I don't need as much as I
• 52:16
  think. So so vision again, yeah, I don't believe in over sacrifice because it's like, okay, I can make,
• 52:24
  let's just say your business, the difference between your business making $5 million a year and
• 52:28
  say $8 million a year is going to your kids basketball game. You need to mean because it could be
• 52:35
  just that like I could put an extra work and we could get to eight, but is the house paid off? Yes,
• 52:40
  is the car paid off? Yes, braces are paid for, parents are good, siblings are good. So that extra
• 52:47
  three, that three million means what? It doesn't change the score of key hits like you're keeping score
• 52:54
  at what cost it's like, so you don't go to any of your kids basketball games. So you make that extra
• 53:00
  three life doesn't really change, but it does really change because you've lost the opportunity to
• 53:04
  build a connection with your kid in a way that's meaningful. And so that's what I'm wanting that like,
• 53:09
  I want you to assume success, but I want you to plan in advance for how you want it, how you want
• 53:15
  to meet it. I'm always thinking about that like, so before I took my six weeks off, I used to work
• 53:21
  darn years, seven days a week, you know, and like my husband gets off at five and I'm gets home by
• 53:26
  five, 30, but sometimes I would work till like nine, 10 o'clock at night. All these things and I'm like,
• 53:31
  to be why you are rich already, like not just like, you know, I would say by the time I was 37,
• 53:39
  I was maybe like assets like seven, a seven figure, you know, network, right? So meaning like if I
• 53:45
  added up all my assets, including cash, but then yes, you are a millionaire. But now I am a millionaire,
• 53:52
  not just assets, but like capital, a capital millionaire where I can see millions of dollars by
• 53:57
  look at my accounts, right? So what are we, what am I chasing? Everyone is good. No one is starving.
• 54:04
  We're better than not starving. There's there's almost nothing that I can afford that nothing that
• 54:09
  I can't afford that I would really want. I mean, like I can't afford like a private jet or whatever,
• 54:12
  but I don't necessarily want a private jet, you know, but so why am I working till 10 if my
• 54:18
  husband gets off at five? Do I not want a relationship? You know, like a healthy one. So I stopped. I
• 54:24
  said, I don't work past five, 30. I take Wednesday's light, meaning like no phone calls, though
• 54:30
  interviews, no nothing. And I take Fridays off and I don't work the weekends and my business is
• 54:34
  still thriving. But now my relationships are also thriving as well. So I'm just in the beginning now,
• 54:40
  it's not going to look like that. It looks like a lot more work. But I want you to work toward that
• 54:44
  and to keep that in mind. Don't sacrifice what's really important just to keep more score with money
• 54:50
  because what you'll find secretly is the better you are, the easier the money gets to make. Like,
• 54:55
  now that I have like all this time where I'm like not doing as much as I used to, I have these
• 54:59
  amazing ideas now. And I'm like, oh, wow, that's worth a hundred million dollars. That one's worth
• 55:03
  $250,000. That wasn't coming to me before because I was so busy doing I could not be. And so
• 55:10
  you'd be surprised that you don't have to go as hard as you probably think, at least at this stage
• 55:14
  of the game. When you're first starting, certainly like the work is required. But have a point,
• 55:21
  have something in your future where you're saying, this is the, I want to put five years in,
• 55:26
  10 years in, 20 years in. But after I hit that, I'm either going to be okay with where I'm at.
• 55:32
  Or, or I'm, I think that's it. You just have to be okay with where you're at. I think to, like,
• 55:37
  to almost like put a pin in it because if not, then when you hit that point, if you don't have that
• 55:41
  foresight, you're just going to, you're going to work yourself until you die. Yeah. And all for what?
• 55:46
  Like kids that don't know you, you know, spout theft is associated, you know, siblings that like
• 55:52
  haven't seen you in how many years, you know, and I'm just like, I don't, I don't want that. I have to
• 55:56
  look, I look at my life now and I'm like, it's really good and not because of anything financial.
• 56:02
  You know, like, I asked my nephew, what did he want for, for his birthday? And he was like,
• 56:07
  I want a birthday party at your house because every year for their birthday, we decorate the dining room.
• 56:12
  And like, well, literally just like dollar store streamers, he's really into dinosaurs now. So
• 56:18
  everything was green and balloons and that birthday probably cost us $35. And it was the best,
• 56:24
  you know, like it, I didn't have to spend $3,000 in order to rent out the place. And,
• 56:29
  and I thought to myself, this is what the function of wealth is to create space for this.
• 56:36
  Not to buy stuff, but to create space to live the life you actually want to live.
• 56:41
  Amazing advice. Very good advice. Okay. I want to do, I want to do rapid fire, we're coming up on
• 56:47
  an hour now. So I want to some rapid fire question. Most importantly, before, before I pivot,
• 56:51
  I like to ask two things. So what would be one question that I didn't ask you that you would have
• 56:57
  asked yourself about finance, entrepreneurship? Well, maybe is it hard, because it's really hard
• 57:10
  to get to the space? And I would say that it can be that it's a lot of work, but it's rewarding work.
• 57:20
  And oftentimes things are hard because they're meant to prepare you. And that if door one is super
• 57:29
  easy, then you don't really pick up the key that you're going to need for when you get to door 10.
• 57:34
  And so that to to reframe what challenges, like I'm excited by challenges because it means
• 57:40
  that I'm growing, you know, it means that, okay, I'm levelling, I'm literally going from one
• 57:45
  level to the next. And so that's probably the question, like, is it hard? And I would say yes,
• 57:50
  but it's meant to be. And although it gets harder, you get better, you know, and it won't feel as hard
• 57:57
  as you think. Like the things I have to do now are way harder, but I'm way less stressed. And when
• 58:01
  I first started, because I'm like, I did that year three. And I messed that up year four. Oh, I figured
• 58:06
  out your five. And so yeah, that's part of the question. Amazing. That's good. That's very good.
• 58:11
  Okay. And where other other other question is, where do people connect with you? What your
• 58:15
  socials, your website, all that. So my socials are, and this is what I said to
• 58:18
  successful, all you business people, it's the budget needs to everywhere. Don't be the budget
• 58:23
  mama here, the budget queen here, the budget princess on this, but I mean, if you can, it's hard,
• 58:27
  but really try your best. I did, I did the same. I, I, I, I totally get it. It's easy. It's easy
• 58:33
  when you got one name for everything. Yeah. So I'm the budgetist on Instagram. I told you I'm on
• 58:37
  TikTok, but I barely do TikTok Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, um, and the budgetista.com. And if you
• 58:45
  are interested in learning how to achieve financial homeless and 10 simple steps, you can get my new
• 58:50
  book get good with money at get good with money.com. Amazing. All right. Okay. So let's do some
• 58:56
  rapid fire. Okay. So, uh, pick one person in your life that was very impactful. And who was that
• 59:02
  person? What did they teach you? Um, probably the most impactful person, my father, and they
• 59:07
  taught me that, um, with hard work, you can overcome just about anything. Good. Good advice.
• 59:13
  What would be the single biggest challenge you've had in your either personal or professional?
• 59:18
  You pick one your life. Uh, what was that challenge had you overcome it? Um, this challenge in my
• 59:25
  life was, um, getting past the fact that it had that imposter syndrome. Um, and because I,
• 59:35
  I've only done two things, budgetista and preschool teacher. And I still struggle with imposter syndrome
• 59:39
  now. And the way that I have semi gotten past imposter syndrome is to remind myself of all the
• 59:47
  things I've been able to accomplish. And so this is not a one hit wonder, you know, like you've
• 59:52
  got this. This has done what this has done. Well, literally, I was just talking to my coach today.
• 59:55
  And I was like, Oh, I just feel like maybe, maybe it's all a lot. He's like, really? All of this
• 1:00:00
  is locked in. I felt that's how like one coaching and then two, just reminding myself that, um,
• 1:00:08
  that the skills that I bring to the table are just as valuable at the skills as the skills that I
• 1:00:13
  don't bring to the table. I'm a very soft skills person. And sometimes I feel back if I'm not an
• 1:00:18
  engineer and all that stuff. And I can hire out for that. So yeah, that's how imposter syndrome.
• 1:00:23
  So be a coaching. And just reminding myself that like, I am capable and I am able what I don't
• 1:00:27
  know I can learn or I can hire for. Amazing. Um, a podcast or a book you'd recommend people check out
• 1:00:33
  that obviously isn't your own that you've learned from. Um, podcasts. Uh, I would say I really love,
• 1:00:40
  um, um, how I built this guy. And uh, a book that was really good. I read a lot. I read like about
• 1:00:46
  one to two books a week. Um, a book that was really helpful. Most recently was Shudog by Phil Knight.
• 1:00:53
  No light. Yeah. It's a piece of a book. I suggest you get the audible version. Oh, when I tell you,
• 1:00:58
  you will. I'm here. Just double world. First of all, I had that little red book of up and, and
• 1:01:02
  the marketing. I was like, Oh, I got that book. I see on you. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think I have,
• 1:01:06
  I think I have an audible version of Shudog. I love that book. It is such a good book because if
• 1:01:10
  you're an entrepreneur, Phil made, you almost think to yourself, well, this is not going to work.
• 1:01:14
  You have to remind yourself, oh, that's why it's Nike now because he made every conceivable
• 1:01:20
  mistake. And yet here we are. Yes. Yes. Yes. He was like several times like just not able to pay
• 1:01:27
  people or like very close and not to be able to pay you. Yo, the FBI was called. I mean,
• 1:01:32
  I just had to say to you, like, this is Nike. It was so I was I was feeling with anxiety. Like,
• 1:01:35
  it was a mystery. I'm like, Tiffany, this is Nike. It works out. This is Nike. It works out.
• 1:01:39
  Hey, that's so. Read two dogs of you think that you're making messing up police. Read two dog.
• 1:01:44
  That's amazing. All right. If you could tell your 20 year old self one thing, what would it be?
• 1:01:50
  I would tell her that how she is is exactly how she ought to be. She doesn't have to be a little
• 1:01:56
  nerdy, less geeky, less like interested in caring about people that, you know, the how she is is
• 1:02:02
  exactly how she's meant to be. Amazing. And then last question, what does success mean to you?
• 1:02:08
  Success means to live your life on the terms that you decide. Not that's decided for you
• 1:02:16
  externally, family friends, social media, but you choosing how you want your life to go and
• 1:02:21
  actually living your life that way.