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You Have The Ability To Thrive · Suze Orman's Women & Money (And Everyone Smart Enough To Listen)

0:08
Suze: April 12th, 2026. Welcome everybody to the Women in Money
0:13
Suze: podcast and everybody smart enough to listen. Today is Suze School,
0:19
Suze: so get out your little Suze notebooks.
0:22
Suze: And get out some tissues as well, and you'll see
0:26
Suze: why later on in this podcast. All right, a few things, however,
0:31
Suze: that I wanna say before I begin. Number one, don't
0:35
Suze: forget to go to Suze Orman.com and sign up for
0:39
Suze: the live webinar on April 23rd.
0:43
Suze: Fabulous. I want you all to be there. And by
0:47
Suze: the way, while you are there, why not check out
0:51
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0:57
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1:02
Suze: you
1:02
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1:07
Suze: and they're gonna give you your money back. You are
1:10
Suze: not if all you have is identity theft protection. I
1:15
Suze: created a program that was all about scam protection so
1:20
Suze: that when you lose money online, guess what?
1:26
Suze: They will replace it. This is with Nord. They will
1:29
Suze: replace it up to $100,000. And yes, there's also identity
1:34
Suze: theft protection in it, cyber protect. It's all in there,
1:38
Suze: but the main reason that you want to buy it
1:40
Suze: is for scam protection. Got that, everybody? Next, let's just
1:47
Suze: talk about the market here for a little bit. Things
1:50
Suze: are calming down. They just are, all right.
1:55
Suze: We'll see what happens. Oil has come down. Certain things
1:59
Suze: have been doing absolutely great, by the way. Semi's SMH,
2:03
Suze: which I asked all of you to buy a long
2:05
Suze: time ago, it has been skyrocketing. QQQs are doing OK.
2:10
Suze: There are things that are doing OK.
2:12
Suze: There are things that are not, but if you are
2:15
Suze: invested properly, you will be just fine. And when I
2:19
Suze: say properly, you don't have all of your money in
2:22
Suze: one or two or three seriously speculative stocks. Now, earlier yesterday,
2:30
Suze: yesterday morning actually, I got an email from a friend
2:33
Suze: who I haven't heard from in a long time, and
2:36
Suze: I said, how are you? And she said, well, I'd
2:38
Suze: be a whole lot better if the stock market would
2:40
Suze: go back up.
2:42
Suze: And I wrote her back and I said, Are you
2:45
Suze: kidding me?
2:47
Suze: Do you remember all the way back during the dot com,
2:51
Suze: back in 2000, right in there? Do you remember when
2:55
Suze: Amazon went from $100 a share down to $5?
3:00
Suze: It declined approximately 97% and became one of the greatest
3:07
Suze: stocks of all time. Can you imagine if you sold
3:12
Suze: back then, can you even begin to imagine? But it
3:15
Suze: wasn't just Amazon, it was Apple. Apple has gone up
3:19
Suze: and down and up and down. Do you remember in 2008, 2009,
3:23
Suze: it went down 60%.
3:28
Suze: Do you remember that? And people were calling and saying,
3:31
Suze: just sell, just sell. I need to get out, I
3:34
Suze: need to get out. I want you to write this
3:37
Suze: saying down.
3:39
Suze: You don't make money simply buying great companies. Did you
3:45
Suze: write that down?
3:48
Suze: All right.
3:49
Suze: You make money surviving them.
3:53
Suze: Surviving them.
3:55
Suze: You have to just get through this time, and this
3:59
Suze: time is not easy, trust me, I have some serious
4:03
Suze: losses of gains on the books now. I didn't say
4:07
Suze: losses cause many of the stocks that I bought, I
4:11
Suze: bought at very low prices, they went a whole lot
4:15
Suze: higher than they are now. Some of them are down
4:17
Suze: 100 points.
4:20
Suze: But overall I'm still up money, so haven't I said
4:24
Suze: to all of you, look at what you have, not
4:27
Suze: at what you could have had. My true advice to
4:30
Suze: most of you right now is, can you just stop
4:33
Suze: looking at all. If you know that you have good
4:37
Suze: quality stocks, stocks that people need, that they're gonna be here.
4:43
Suze: If you know that you have diversification or whatever it
4:46
Suze: may be and that you're not just all invested in
4:49
Suze: one speculative area, can you just stop looking and maybe
4:54
Suze: come back six months or a year from now, really.
4:58
Suze: Because you will make a mistake in my opinion if
5:01
Suze: you sell right now. Now how do I know that?
5:05
Suze: 'Cause I made a mistake. Not now, but before. And
5:09
Suze: let me tell you about it. All of us have emotions,
5:13
Suze: and that includes me, and I had a serious position
5:17
Suze: in Netflix. Let's just say I had 1,000 shares at
5:21
Suze: the time. I bought it at $200 so that would
5:23
Suze: have been $200,000.
5:26
Suze: And I watched Netflix go from 200 to 300, to
5:30
Suze: $400 to 600 to $700 almost 900 $1,000 like I saw...
5:36
Suze: I'm like going, oh my God, and then it went down,
5:39
Suze: and it finally it's at $200 a share, and now
5:42
Suze: I've had it. I sold, cause I couldn't take it anymore.
5:47
Suze: Then over the next year or two or three it
5:50
Suze: essentially went back up to over $1,000 a share, split
5:56
Suze: 10 for 1, which is why it's now at $103
6:00
Suze: a share, but that would be worth $1,030 a share.
6:04
Suze: I would be up an $800 profit, but no, I
6:09
Suze: couldn't deal with the pressure.
6:11
Suze: I learned a great lesson then. I just did now,
6:16
Suze: to my credit, that was also during the time, seriously,
6:21
Suze: when I had gone through that major operation. I wasn't
6:24
Suze: really thinking straight. I didn't know what my future held,
6:28
Suze: and therefore I made a decision that was not wise.
6:35
Suze: I don't want you to make that same mistake.
6:40
Suze: So again I will repeat.
6:42
Suze: The main lesson of this part of the Suze School,
6:46
Suze: which is you don't just make money buying great companies,
6:52
Suze: you make money surviving them, surviving their ups, their downs,
6:57
Suze: their ins and their outs. A great company is a
7:00
Suze: great company and just put it away five years from now,
7:04
Suze: 10 years from now, 20 years from now. Just think
7:10
Suze: about that.
7:11
Suze: But today for me.
7:14
Suze: It is a very special day.
7:18
Suze: And I'm going to try to get through this with
7:20
Suze: all of you.
7:22
Suze: For those of you who don't know the story, let
7:25
Suze: me just bring you back to July 21, 2020.
7:32
Suze: And I had been having trouble.
7:35
Suze: My right leg really wasn't working properly. It was kind
7:40
Suze: of dragging a little. I couldn't really sign my name
7:44
Suze: in books or whatever. I was having trouble doing just
7:48
Suze: little things.
7:50
Suze: So, we decide, OK, let's go and get an MRI
7:55
Suze: and July 21st happens to be KT's birthday.
8:00
Suze: And we were convinced since it was her birthday that
8:04
Suze: there was absolutely no way that we were going to
8:08
Suze: get bad news, so she stayed in the car. I
8:12
Suze: went in for my MRI. Everybody was always so happy
8:15
Suze: to see me because they like Suze Orman and they
8:19
Suze: like knowing that they're taking care of me.
8:22
Suze: And there I am having an MRI, and in the
8:26
Suze: middle of the MRI, the machine stops.
8:30
Suze: And all of a sudden I hear my doctor, Doctor Sadowitz.
8:35
Suze: His voice come over the loudspeaker. Now his office isn't
8:39
Suze: even near where that MRI place is.
8:43
Suze: And he says, Suze, I need to come in and
8:45
Suze: talk with you. I'm like, OK, now.
8:49
Suze: And he comes in, they, you know, kind of scoop
8:52
Suze: me out, you know, how they move back and forth
8:54
Suze: when you're in an MRI.
8:56
Suze: And he says, we have a problem. You have a tumor.
9:01
Suze: And the tumor is blocking almost your entire spinal cord.
9:07
Suze: We don't know how you're walking. We don't know why
9:10
Suze: it hasn't busted, but this is a problem we need
9:13
Suze: to deal with right here and right now.
9:18
Suze: Well, I had the MRI image and I sent it
9:22
Suze: to my friend Ron Walls, who is the CFO of
9:27
Suze: Mass General.
9:29
Suze: And I sent it to him saying, is this serious?
9:33
Suze: Is this true what they're saying? He calls me immediately
9:36
Suze: and he says, Suze, I need you to talk to
9:39
Suze: somebody at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning.
9:44
Suze: So I go, OK, and I call Ron, and he
9:48
Suze: has the head of all neurosurgery, all these doctors, Doctor
9:51
Suze: Nino Chiocca of Mass General Harvard and puts him on
9:57
Suze: the phone with me and he said, Suxe, I need
10:00
Suze: you to listen to me.
10:02
Suze: There are only one or two doctors in this entire
10:06
Suze: world that can do this operation. You can't have somebody
10:11
Suze: in Boca do it. You can't have somebody just anywhere
10:15
Suze: do it. This is very serious, and I need you
10:20
Suze: to come here, and I've picked out the perfect, perfect
10:25
Suze: doctor that I know can do this operation.
10:30
Suze: KT and I didn't question it. We didn't think about it,
10:34
Suze: and we got on a plane, a private plane, that
10:38
Suze: next morning, and that now is July 22nd.
10:42
Suze: And we're on our way to Boston.
10:46
Suze: We get off the plane, we get in the car,
10:50
Suze: immediately take us, and they're waiting on the curb for me.
10:55
Suze: And they have a wheelchair for me, and I go,
10:58
Suze: I can walk. It's like, no, you cannot walk.
11:02
Suze: Any wrong move, your spinal cord, Suze Orman, is going
11:05
Suze: to snap.
11:07
Suze: We get in there and they wheel us in. Now,
11:10
Suze: this is during COVID.
11:13
Suze: And they are not letting anybody into the hospital.
11:18
Suze: And KT is with me, and thank God we were
11:22
Suze: with Ron Walls, head of the whole hospital, and he
11:25
Suze: looks at everybody and says, this woman is coming in
11:29
Suze: and she's not gonna leave Suze's side.
11:33
Suze: So KT was able to come in with me.
11:36
Suze: It was on that day that I met Doctor Mike
11:39
Suze: Groff for the very first time.
11:42
Suze: And I loved him. We talked for an hour and
11:45
Suze: a half. I have it all on my recorder.
11:48
Suze: And I said to him, Well, how dangerous is this operation?
11:53
Suze: And he said, ah, maybe a seven, maybe an eight,
11:56
Suze: not a big deal. So KT and I were kind
11:59
Suze: of relieved. We didn't think much about it.
12:02
Suze: He said, but it's gonna be at 6 o'clock tomorrow morning.
12:06
Suze: We said, fine. So we went to a little hotel.
12:09
Suze: They took us to this place that we were staying
12:11
Suze: that's connected to the hospital, and we had the best dinner.
12:16
Suze: We ate everything that was, uh, probably wasn't good for us,
12:19
Suze: french fries, nachos, delicious, and we were like happy because
12:24
Suze: we thought everything was gonna be just fine.
12:27
Suze: We then show up. They immediately take us in, and
12:31
Suze: Doctor Nino Chiocca comes in, and I'm gonna post pictures
12:34
Suze: of all of these people so you can see them
12:37
Suze: on the Women in Money site just so you know
12:40
Suze: on the community app, and he said, Well, I'm gonna
12:43
Suze: be in there and I'm gonna be watching Mike and
12:46
Suze: I said, OK, and nobody said anything, but everybody was
12:49
Suze: acting a little bit strange.
12:52
Suze: And then the head anesthesiologist comes in.
12:57
Suze: And she's talking to me and she's saying, OK, there's
13:01
Suze: gonna be four or five of us in there, and
13:02
Suze: I'm like, why are there so many anesthesiologists in there?
13:07
Suze: And everything again is going smoothly, and now they start
13:11
Suze: to wheel me in.
13:12
Suze: And I say goodbye to KT and she looks at
13:15
Suze: KT just as we're going in, she says, KT I
13:18
Suze: just wanna tell you something. It is very, very possible...
13:23
Suze: that Suze, when she comes out, she will be blind,
13:27
Suze: and KT and I look at each other and we go,
13:30
Suze: what are you talking about?
13:33
Suze: And she said, but let's just see what happens as
13:37
Suze: she's wheeling me down this hall. I'm not under any drugs, anesthesia,
13:42
Suze: anything at this point. Still, she's wheeling me down, and
13:47
Suze: she says, Now you have to listen to me very closely, Suze.
13:51
Suze: When I say wake up, you have to wake up.
13:53
Suze: I said, OK.
13:55
Suze: Now she's screaming at me. She said, Don't say OK.
13:58
Suze: When I say wake up, you have to wake up.
14:01
Suze: Say OK. She made me say that nine or 10
14:05
Suze: times until I was screaming, OK.
14:09
Suze: Then they wheel me into the room, and there's Doctor
14:13
Suze: Groff along with 20 other surgeons.
14:18
Suze: And I'm looking at everybody and I'm like, is this
14:20
Suze: a party?
14:22
Suze: And they were kind of still joking with me a little,
14:25
Suze: but everybody was very lighthearted.
14:29
Suze: All right, 12 hours later.
14:32
Suze: They're finally wheeling me out, they're having me in recovery
14:37
Suze: for quite some time, and then finally, there's KT. I
14:42
Suze: get to see her.
14:44
Suze: And, OK, I mean, I have tubes everywhere, everything, and
14:48
Suze: what ended up happening was that there was a tumor
14:53
Suze: known as a schwannoma tumor that did cut off 99%
14:57
Suze: of my spinal cord.
15:00
Suze: And they were saying, you are a walking miracle. It
15:02
Suze: should have snapped, but it didn't.
15:06
Suze: They took out two of my discs in my neck,
15:09
Suze: put in different ones, whatever they did, and now I'm
15:13
Suze: back in the room, and I'm actually feeling pretty good.
15:18
Suze: I have a lot of drugs in me, everything, but
15:20
Suze: I'm doing pretty well. And the next morning, Ron Walls
15:25
Suze: walks back into our room. We had a private room.
15:29
Suze: And says, I can't believe it. And I'm looking at him.
15:33
Suze: I go, What can't you believe? That you're sitting up, Suze.
15:37
Suze: I said, yeah.
15:39
Suze: And he said, and I can't believe that you're using
15:42
Suze: your arms, cause I was using my arms. I said, yeah.
15:48
Suze: And he said, and I think you're gonna be able
15:51
Suze: to walk. I said, well, yeah.
15:54
Suze: And he said, essentially what he said to us was, Suze,
15:59
Suze: you have to understand.
16:01
Suze: That this surgery was one of two things.
16:06
Suze: It was either a life-ending surgery, worst case.
16:12
Suze: Best case, it was definitely going to be a lifestyle
16:17
Suze: altering surgery.
16:20
Suze: I said, what does that mean?
16:22
Suze: And to put it bluntly, they honestly thought that if
16:27
Suze: I came out alive, that I would be either a
16:30
Suze: quadriplegic or a paraplegic, but I definitely would not have
16:34
Suze: use of my arms, OK.
16:38
Suze: Now, over the next few months,
16:42
Suze: I was on a walker. I got back to the island.
16:45
Suze: Doctor Groff and Nino actually flew to the island
16:51
Suze: and saw me. Nobody still wanted me to do much.
16:55
Suze: I did my best to go on TV cause it
16:57
Suze: was the pandemic, and it took like an hour to
17:00
Suze: put on my, you know, jacket and KT. It was
17:03
Suze: not a good three years for me on any level.
17:07
Suze: But they came to the island, they saw me, and
17:10
Suze: at that point my left arm was numb, but they
17:13
Suze: were still like, we can't believe it, but we're so happy.
17:17
Suze: Now, why am I telling you this story today?
17:22
Suze: And this is what's gonna be hard for me.
17:24
Suze: Over the years that this had happened, I became very,
17:29
Suze: very close with Doctor Groff. He became my North Star.
17:34
Suze: When anything wasn't going right, when the pain was more
17:38
Suze: than I could tolerate, whenever anything, I would call him.
17:43
Suze: And those calls turned it into a friendship where he
17:47
Suze: came to the island again. He went fishing with Colo.
17:52
Suze: He came to our house here in Florida all the
17:54
Suze: time for dinner. I mean, we were close. We talked
17:57
Suze: at least once a month. I would talk to him
18:00
Suze: about his money. He would talk to me about my health.
18:04
Suze: Around right now, one year ago, and none of you
18:08
Suze: knew this, but I did end up back in the
18:11
Suze: hospital for a week.
18:13
Suze: And I had called Mike and he was just about
18:18
Suze: to go on a little trip with his family, and
18:21
Suze: we were supposed to talk on April 14th of last year.
18:27
Suze: He said, don't worry, Suze, I'm gonna talk about it.
18:30
Suze: We'll get through this. It's OK. Don't worry, I'm here
18:33
Suze: for you.
18:34
Suze: And so, everything was fine, tests were coming back normal,
18:39
Suze: all of that. Now, it's April 12th, and it happened
18:45
Suze: to be Passover and Easter, I believe, right at the
18:49
Suze: same time.
18:51
Suze: And Mike, and his wife Joy, who was also a doctor,
18:57
Suze: and his daughter, Karenna.
19:00
Suze: And her boyfriend James, they were 25, and Jared, which
19:06
Suze: was Mike's son, and his girlfriend Alexia, were all going
19:13
Suze: to a seder in upstate New York in Copake, New York,
19:18
Suze: to be exact.
19:20
Suze: And they had called their other daughter, Anika, who's 18,
19:25
Suze: and said, Do you wanna come? And she said, No, no,
19:28
Suze: it's OK. I know all of you will be back
19:31
Suze: tonight because we'll have Seder together and we're gonna celebrate
19:38
Suze: Karenna's 25th birthday. So I'll just wait here and get
19:42
Suze: everything ready for you.
19:45
Suze: Well, on April 12th, later that day.
19:50
Suze: We got a call from one of the head doctors there, Linda.
19:55
Suze: And she said, I have something I have to tell
19:57
Suze: you now. KT and I are in the hospital room.
20:01
Suze: We found out everything's OK with me, so you don't
20:03
Suze: have to worry about that. And she said, Suze, I
20:06
Suze: have to tell you something.
20:08
Suze: And I said, well, wait, let me put you on
20:10
Suze: speakerphone so KT can hear it too.
20:14
Suze: And she said, Mike... was in an airplane accident.
20:22
Suze: And he and his entire family were killed.
20:27
Suze: Now Mike was an avid pilot. He had always piloted
20:32
Suze: his own plane.
20:34
Suze: It was one of his greatest joys in life to
20:38
Suze: be a pilot. He could do helicopters. He could do
20:41
Suze: all of it, and he had this plane that he
20:44
Suze: just loved.
20:47
Suze: Anyway, he was flying the plane that day with his
20:51
Suze: whole family.
20:53
Suze: And he missed the exit of where to land.
20:58
Suze: And it was foggy, and he turned around and hit
21:02
Suze: the side of a mountain, and all of them died.
21:06
Suze: On the spot
21:09
Suze: Can you just imagine?
21:11
Suze: And to say that we cried and we cried is
21:15
Suze: putting it mildly later that day.
21:19
Suze: We're sitting there and just so distraught, and the head
21:23
Suze: neurologist of Boca and all these other neurology doctors came
21:28
Suze: in with the results of my MRI. I'm like, oh God,
21:33
Suze: don't tell me. What are you doing here? What do
21:36
Suze: you need? And he said to me, he said, I
21:40
Suze: just want to tell you something, Suze.
21:43
Suze: Everything's fine.
21:45
Suze: But I don't know what surgeon did this surgery on you,
21:51
Suze: but I can tell you that man absolutely saved your life.
21:57
Suze: He is the best we have ever seen, and if
21:59
Suze: you ever talk to him, can you tell him?
22:03
Suze: That the staff here at Boca, the neurological staff, just
22:09
Suze: can't even believe it.
22:12
Suze: And I just looked at him as they all walked out.
22:14
Suze: There were four of them.
22:17
Suze: And, and obviously...
22:24
Suze: Obviously, Mike wasn't going to be talking to me on Monday.
22:29
Suze: Mike could never talk to me again.
22:34
Suze: But the reason that I'm telling you this story is
22:37
Suze: because it was one year ago today.
22:41
Suze: One of the worst days of my life.
22:45
Suze: That news was absolutely more devastating to me than the
22:51
Suze: medical news that I got those years ago.
22:55
Suze: It really was.
22:58
Suze: But a few days later after this happened, there was
23:02
Suze: an online funeral and a funeral in Boston.
23:07
Suze: And Anika, his daughter, who was 18 at the time,
23:12
Suze: she was a senior in high school.
23:16
Suze: She lost her father, her mother, her brother, her sister,
23:24
Suze: their boyfriend and girlfriend. She lost her entire immediate family
23:30
Suze: all in one swoop. She got up there by herself,
23:36
Suze: and here's what she said.
23:39
Suze: She said, I only wish that I was on the
23:41
Suze: plain with them.
23:44
Suze: And I'll never know why I really wasn't.
23:48
Suze: But I do know one thing.
23:50
Suze: They would want me to be strong.
23:53
Suze: They would want me to make them proud.
23:57
Suze: They would want me to show the world that against
24:01
Suze: all odds.
24:03
Suze: You can survive. You can recover. You can smile again,
24:08
Suze: and you can make it.
24:12
Suze: I want you to think about that.
24:15
Suze: I want you to think about that.
24:20
Suze: Today she's living with her aunts, uncles, grandparents. She's, she's OK.
24:26
Suze: She's in college.
24:29
Suze: And she seems to be doing exactly what she said
24:32
Suze: she would be doing.
24:35
Suze: She's making them proud.
24:37
Suze: And she's learning how to thrive against all odds and
24:42
Suze: all losses.
24:45
Suze: Now, I'm also telling you that for a reason, this story.
24:53
Suze: I'm telling you that cause I just want you to
24:55
Suze: think about this. When you get so upset about the
24:59
Suze: markets going down, when you get so upset about the
25:03
Suze: things that are going crazy in this world,
25:06
Suze: When you get upset about things that can be changed,
25:11
Suze: can be helped, can be brought back.
25:16
Suze: I just want you to remember.
25:18
Suze: That this one girl Anika...
25:22
Suze: 18 years old lost everything.
25:27
Suze: And she now has the strength to go on.
25:32
Suze: So all of you that suffer a serious loss
25:37
Suze: I hope you can take a little bit from this story,
25:40
Suze: a little bit from Anika, and go on.
25:44
Suze: Go on with strength and faith knowing you have the
25:50
Suze: ability to thrive again you can do it you have
25:55
Suze: to do it you have no other choice.
25:59
Suze: So Mike and family, I miss you so much.
26:04
Suze: So much...
26:06
Suze: It's all I can say. So, until next week, there's
26:11
Suze: only one thing I want you to remember, and that's
26:14
Suze: never forget, we all have the ability to thrive.