Episode 45: To Be Or To Not Be A Badass?

Jae 0:00

I pledge myself to the pod loyal I'll always be a p to start a D at the end and an O sitting in between. Welcome back to and Omnia products. I'm Jae

like the letter

Angela 0:17

and I'm Angela also known as a vo

Jae 0:20

today. Ladies, gents. They them's I'm gonna start off a little story to that. So when Angela and I were thinking of starting our tic toc career, which, if you follow our tic toc, you know, didn't really happen. We have a bunch of things in drafts that I just haven't posted yet. We did one of those fun Gen Z trends even though we're too old for them where you buy her stuff at Target a girl swapsies well eventually posted not gonna guarantee one cuz I have no clue. But one of these items was a book. Now, Angela,

what books did I buy you?

Angela 0:47

Oh, you bought me? I cannot think of the title right now. But it was the newest Kevin Kwan novel.

Jae 0:53

Yeah, I don't know the name of it either. But Kevin Kwan, for those who may not know is the author of the crazy rich Asian trilogy, which we both really enjoyed. And movie. We're waiting for the second movie. Hopefully it does get made because there was a controversy about how they like fire the one Asian writer No, sorry, I believe she quit because she was getting paid to pay less than the male writer, the white male writer. So hopefully we get that second and third movie because I'm very curious to see how the books will translate into

Angela 1:19

film. You know, like justice for Astrid guys, we need to see a lot more of her. She was robbed in the first movie,

Jae 1:25

Gemma Chan,

the eternal queen.

Angela 1:27

But back to books.

Jae 1:28

So Angela, should I explain to our lovely listeners the thoughtful, generous gift you got me? Or would you like to?

Angela 1:35

I guess I will, because it's probably going to be the only time I get to truly explain what was going through my mind during all of this. But while we were in target, doing our swap, I was looking for the book. There were two that I was interested in for Jae both nonfiction because that's what Jae mainly reads. So I wanted to cater to something that would really interest her. And there was one I'm not sure who the woman was, but she was on the Forbes fortune 500 list talking about how like she made her way in business and built up her career. And the other was You are a badass at making money by Jen Sincero. Now I didn't know who Jen Sincero was. I'm not really familiar with this series. But I have seen her other book, The yellow book, you are a badass on Instagram quite a lot. And in my regular targeted ads on Instagram, Google, wherever the ads are really coming through these days. They're just everywhere. So I saw it. And I thought this is perfect. Jae's looking for something new. So I grabbed it. I figured if it's all over my Instagram, both in ads, and in the people that I regularly follow personal stories, it must be pretty good. Or at least she must be a decent writer. So I grabbed it for j and opened a huge can of worms.

Jae 2:52

Yes. I similarly to Angela had been seeing a bunch of her books on book recommendations for self help books for money for strategies. I've been seeing a lot of people rave about these books when there's a lot of press like cool. I've seen a lot I'd heard a lot about these books. And I was like I thought about getting the more self help one of your about us how to change your life. I can't read over there

Angela 3:16

how to stop doubting your greatness and start living an awesome life.

Jae 3:20

Yeah, and I, we have some personal friends who connected with this book. So I was thinking of getting it. And I was trying to learn and educate myself on personal finances, investing all of that kind of jazz. So I started reading the book, and let me just like pull the introduction. And as soon as I got through the introduction, I did give Angela a call. Unlike Angela, I did not highlight my book. So we're gonna just take a few

Angela 3:44

seconds, it's alright, take your time. Occasionally in Book Club, we sometimes forget to mark our places. Although I do have to admit I'm a little surprised that your initial reaction paragraph is not emblazoned in your memory.

Jae 3:56

I mean, there are a few but like when you start reading it, like I'm just gonna think about like we start reading it. It sounds really great because she's speaking of her variants as a freelancer as having a hard time just scraping by talking about walking blocks to save money office supplies, eating free meals. So like I wrote like okay, like this woman gets it This woman is someone I can really look up to in this area. And then I think this might be a good quote to start with the knowledge that I could be doing so much better but wasn't finally became so unbearable that I got off my butt and made the hell bent for glory decision to get over my fear and loathing of money and figure out how to make some so that was one of my initial red flags when going through this book. And then the other one I need to find is that I think it was actually in the first chapter. Okay, here we go here. Here's the first this is where Angela gotten a very aggressive phone call from me. I think voice mobile was left with it. While we're at it. Let's go Head and decriminalize rich people, shall we, contrary to popular belief, the rich are just people. They're not intrinsically filthy, nor do they deserve to be killed, eaten or robbed. We live in a society that's made a sport out of judging people with lots of money. So regardless of how you feel in your conscious mind about the rich, ie some of my best friends are rich, it's important to be aware of any negative beliefs you may be harboring deep down, I could continue on with quotes and quotes and I'm sure we'll get to more. But that was kind of my first impression. And by that page, I already knew finishing this book was gonna be a bit of a struggle. But alas, I persisted. And not only did I persist, we got the fortune to have Angela read the original self help version for us, which we'll also get to touch on today.

Angela 5:48

Yes, So today, we're going to do a little pro con pro into the EUR a badass series. And before we get into that, I guess we have a few disclaimers and a little bit of background to provide as well. So for those of you who are unfamiliar, Jen Sincero is an author, success coach and motivational speaker in her late 50s. And please note, I pulled all of this directly from her website bio, she's written five books, including the your a badass trilogy, as well as two semi autobiographical memoir, funny, self helpy type books that are characterized by again, from her web bio, her signature, sass down to earth humor, and blunt practicality. She and her work has been featured in Forbes, Oprah Magazine, and the Howard Stern Show cosmo.com and a bunch of other places. And as we mentioned before, she's been featured all over our Instagram and personal stories of people that we follow. So before we really jump into this, we just want to state if Jen Sincero work has worked out for you, we think that's great. Whatever is working for you, and whatever resonates with you to help you build that self confidence, gain trust in yourself, take your next steps, make that move, shoot your shot, whatever it is that's working for you. That's amazing. However, she hasn't personally worked out for us, which is why we wanted to talk about it a little bit today, and just see if anyone else out there kind of resonated with how we were feeling or I don't know, as with some of our podcasts, sometimes in discussing it together live, we occasionally come to some new places as well. So we're gonna see where we end up today. And thanks for coming along on the ride with us done. So

Jae 7:31

final like this should be a commercial break now.

Angela 7:33

Oh my gosh. But okay, when you first said final, it made me think of this new book that I just got, which I think I'll need to open up in another book club with someone else. But it's called the final girls support club. And it's all about like horror movies. And the final girl,

Jae 7:46

not me. Absolutely not main pass 100% Pass. Yes, I stuck in everything. Angela stated. I think like I said, we have friends who really benefit from these books and felt a lot of growth. And there were segments and pieces that we also agreed with. There are certain people she references and things that we do stand by. And we don't think that this book is I would not say I don't this series, at least the book I read because I only had read the finance one and Angela only read the self help one. I don't feel like these books are detrimental and that they don't have a place in the world. And they're not and that they're unhelpful. The thing for me is it felt very specific, the group who this book would relate to and make sense for and it felt like I was not one of them. And it also felt like she was trying to speak to a specific group, and then still try to be universally the only kind of term I can think of right now with a PC about her views that were to what I felt a very narrow perspective.

Angela 8:50

No, so I think I don't know, I guess maybe even before getting into that I just have some general facts about the self help genre as well as the autobiographical and memoir genre, which I thought might help like, kind of crack this open for everyone and our discussion. So first of all, as of 2019, still about 75% of the current literary community, from authors to publishers, editors, agents, etc. They are all white and a lot of the self help autobiographical and more books that are out there are marketed in very niche areas versus where books like Jen Sincero are marketed to an incredibly wide audience. So I think going into this already, it's like we know that just like what you said, Jay, it's really not meant for everyone, but it's disguised as something that's for everyone. And to maybe go into the first term which I know she is touched on a little in your book, but is all throughout mine, the universal intelligence

Jae 9:47

Do you have this specific part where she brings it up in yours? Mine might be a little more succinct where she speaks about it because it's not all about that. But if you have a better section, I'm more than happy. For you to go

Angela 10:00

well, so I have an entire chapter. It's chapter two, it's called the G word.

Jae 10:05

Okay? And oh, wait, hold on, okay, sorry, I found my desire literally means desire of the Father. And whether or not you believe in God, your desires were bestowed upon you from when you became your earthly self, along with other distinctive you type things like your face, your personality, your affinity for needle crafts there you need to you and they define the essence of who you are. And they act as a roadmap for your life, your desires were given to you by the universal intelligence that created in existence with the express purpose of being carried out during your lifetime. Now, Angela, I was not raised as much of a faith based household as you were you went to parochial school? Yes. Does this sound like something that they were saying parochial school,

Angela 10:47

not at all. And frankly, I'm good. Even after you read that, I'm still going to read in a little bit of this one. So call it whatever you want. God goddess, the big guy, the universe, source energy, higher power, the grand Pooh, bah gut, intuition, spirit, the force, the zone, the Lord, the vortex, the mother lode, it doesn't matter. Personally, I find the god word to be a tad too loaded. And I prefer source energy, the universe, the vortex spirit, the mother lode, all of which I will use interchangeably throughout this book, whatever you choose to call it, it is an important, what is important is that you start to develop an awareness of it and a relationship with it.

Unknown Speaker 11:21

So

Jae 11:22

I feel like she's doing a Tell me you love God without telling me you love God,

Angela 11:28

essentially. So I mean, I don't know, we've touched on this a little bit before, like I was raised in a Catholic family, I went to Catholic school my whole life, I still consider I consider myself to be a Catholic, even though I don't attend church every Sunday, and I'm definitely more of what you'd call a CD nowadays. But to me, when I read her chapter on God and bringing God into your life, I fully support everything that she's saying with it in terms of like you, I think that you do need to open yourself up to what's out there and something higher, because I think it's a really good grounding force. But to me, when she talks about all of the different ways that you can refer to God, and whether like one is too loaded, what you believe in just she was one of them and go from there, that, to me, definitely seems like she's trying to appeal to many different groups, and then is just hoping that like, they will do the work and assign whatever their beliefs are there to then put in the work that she's talking about that is faith based, rather than actually introducing what it is to be faith based.

Jae 12:33

Yeah, I think the main problem I have is that I don't mind people using or speaking to their faith as the reason they are a good person, the reason they do philanthropy, the reason they succeed, I have no problem when actors get on stage, and they thank God for their acceptance, I think I believe in freedom of religion, and you can have whatever thoughts and feelings on it and act upon those as in your own world, but my issue is when she talks about it as something universal as something that is just universally true. And we all believe in when it's very clear, she's speaking of what I would consider the Christian God,

Angela 13:13

yes, I think that she definitely would have been a lot better in like touching more on the religious topic and different religions, in addition to the Christian view of God, or the nondenominational view of God, however you want to think of it, I just, I think that it's, it's definitely it's some coded language like, this is what I believe. And you can believe it too. You can just choose whichever one of these titles you want to work with and go from there. And you can have what I have from my religion, rather than working on saying like, this is my religion, but your religion has this to like whether whether your religion is God, Goddess, universe, demigod multicol, faith based whatever, or if you're into a little bit more of like, God is nature or whatever, there, there are lots of different religions out there. Rather than working on rolling out how it can work with all religions. She tried to bring everyone into hers.

Jae 14:10

Additionally to that I don't mean for us to just be quoting and quoting from the book because we have so many thoughts of our own. But speaking into this other chapter in my book, when she says if you're one of those people who happens to be skeptical about buying into such Whoo hoo Hurry, and you desire to get rich, I strongly suggest you put your grouchiness aside and agree to take some new beliefs for a spin because not only could you very possibly see gigantic results by partying down with the universal intelligence, but I'm telling you, whether you like it or not, you've already started believing

Angela 14:41

it. And I mean, in that respect, she's not necessarily wrong, because whatever you prescribe to as your higher power like Yeah, but at the same time, just still throwing it back into universal intelligence, just like coded language that isn't necessary. I feel like if she wants to talk about like how her faith and religion brah Her to this place speak about how your faith and religion brought you to this place because that story will still resonate just as much with people.

Jae 15:08

And I feel the thing is, is that like gentleman saying, I have someone who does not identify with any form of Christianity, Catholicism, Jesus religions, I would still appreciate hearing that. And then I could take what I wanted from it and put it into my perspective. And people who are Jesus, God lovers could do the same, you have a different denomination like Catholicism is different. You could take the parts that you believed in from it, but by blanketing it as universal intelligence, saying, you could believe in the force like Star Wars, and be relatable and non religious at all, and be mainstream to me also, frankly, it kind of feels like a way to like not stand in your faith, like stand fully have your full testimony because you're still kind of trying to please your potential customers rather than pleasing God. Because isn't the whole thing like?

Angela 16:02

Well, I feel like within the sense of like, how are you serving God? Like that's maybe like moving a little bit away from what her overall idea is, and maybe what we're supposed to get from this book. But I especially like when you talk about like, the force in Star Wars, like when I hear that it's like, is that her way of trying to be relatable? Or is that her way of like bringing in eyes where someone says, like, Oh, yeah, she like references Star Wars and pop culture things in here. It's like, is that a way to sell more copies? Or is it a way to actually try and bring everyone in to relate? We'll never know. Exactly. So I don't know. I guess we actually started with a con, should we go into a pro and we can just kind of bounce back and forth.

Jae 16:39

I mean, a general Pro, I think it's great to know that people are interested, particularly women are interested enough in hearing from a woman's view on finances. I think we need more women in finance, more women who have knowledge of finance and success stories to be shown. The one thing it's hard not to con guys, I'm

Angela 16:58

really sorry, to hear well, I guess just finishing out the proJen Sincero is a woman who did create her own business and is now successful and lauded for it. And we applaud her for that because she is a successful woman and we all want to be successful women out there. We just, you know, maybe more a little bit more forthcoming this from her.

Jae 17:16

I think the thing that this isn't particularly it's a comment, it's not just about

Jen Sincero. It's

a comment about things in general, I feel that society is moving from like, I would say, this book reminds me of there's this lovely youtuber I saw she I wish I knew what her channel was, she was a black woman educating on personal finances. And she did a video of how I paid off I think like 25 or $50,000 of student debt. And I was really curious because I was in the process of paying off my debt. I love hearing other women's interviews in finance, because a lot of those spaces already filled with men. And then there are some people like think his name is Dave Ramsey who are very problematic. So like a woman, a woman of color, great. Let me get so I listened to her video, and she's talking about her student loan that and that, and she realized that there was a black scholarship, a slash reimbursement, essay, Grant, loan, forbearance, some kind of thing essay, she could win. So she submitted a paper and she won and the title of the YouTube video was how I paid off x 1000s of student debt and like, in like five days,

Angela 18:25

oh, no. So it's a little misleading. To me. This book is

Jae 18:29

just another symptom. Similarly to that situation of I did something great and amazing. I want to help other people because I think what I did is replicable.

Angela 18:39

But it's not.

Jae 18:40

And I don't think like i said i don't think it's just because I think a lot of people missed the mark a lot of people this is a little bit of a side note, I'm currently reading another book. It's called the Gorman's way six Americans in pairs, the birth of a new gastronomy. And it's talking about these people like Julia Child, MK Fisher, Richard Olney, Alice B. Toklas, Alexis London, and AJ loving all people who were in France between the 1920s to like post World War Two era and their experience and let's have a Julia Child. She went to the Sorbonne, she was in California for multifamily, very liberal moved to France, got a degree in cooking from like, the highly regarded cooking school, wrote a bunch of books. Julia Child makes a cookbook for a reason because she's educated because you put in the work and versus like nowadays, and I'm not saying I'm not trying to downplay what I do. I love to bake my family cooks, I could write a I could write a cookbook, but there needs to be some kind of differentiation when people put in time and skill and the work so meticulously versus just like I did it, you can do it too. And I think that kind of goes back to our whole kind of talks with relatability of like, well, Jen Sincero has a lot more relatable than how like Oprah or Jay Z got their money. And so they're, oh, I can relate to this. I can relate to the horse. I can do that. But it's like her story is not as reported. Red blooded COBOL as she says it is she talks about living with roommates talks up not like freelancing and not getting by. But one of the other facts she talks about is that every summer her father, who was a doctor would take the family meaning like, I think for her, I left Italy to spend time with his family. Now, I'm very fortunate, I grew up in a middle class family in the Bay Area with a single mom. But I didn't go to Europe until my junior year of college. And still there are plenty of people who have never been to Europe, nor can afford it know what how to budget it, or think that's ever an option for them. So for me, just it's about acknowledging your setpoint. And that's the part that was so frustrating with me throughout this book is like, I don't have some of the privileges that you just start off with. I don't have the opportunity to freelance and not worry about my health insurance in a few months, I don't have certain things and when you talk about being core and down on your luck, the level of poverty that exists even within the United States is the way she speaks as if she was she didn't say it isn't like I definitely think it's great that she acknowledges what she needed to do to get herself out of this cycle. She was in what that cycle was not nearly in the depths of poverty and poor and even working class that exists in this country. And that's the way she like I feel like it's trying to relate her story like I came out of that and became this not I wasn't fully apply myself to my potential because it was a mind thing because she doesn't make it sound like it was a mental hurdle. There was shame there was issue as a mental health issue. Which segues into her views on

Angela 21:41

Oh, yeah. So yeah, so I feel like one of the things that I particularly didn't like about the first book you are a badass is that and it's only this one line in there as well. But she references like, oh, if you're feeling depressed, like you need to just snap out of it choose to not be depressed. Is that to be better for yourself? No, this is not a quote because I actually I opened up to another story in here in her mummy chapter, which I know might potentially infuriate you more, but I think really like work to your point here. But it seems like overall, I don't know if jetJen Sincero necessarily has the best understanding of what it is to actually have mental health issues or be in a depressed state have real anxiety. I think just in that respect, I genuinely think she would benefit from doing some more research there before handing out certain advice like that, but to the point of your story about how she approaches like her views on money and where she comes from. on her website, she makes this reference like Oh, she was in her 40s living in a converted garage watching the tumbleweeds flow through her bank account. Then, when I was actually reading her book, and she references her time before she truly made it she talks about when she needs to buy a new car, and she says that she had a I'm already not liking where this is going. I'd been in the market for a new car for a long time and couldn't find anything I really loved or thought I could afford. But as I sat there in a puddle driving to the supermarket with a trash bag under my ass and an old t shirt slammed in the door to keep the leaking to a minimum, it occurred to me that perhaps I should speed up my search at the time. I didn't have a whole lot of money, but I had my own business that I was trying to grow. problem was I felt that if I was stuck in the place where I even though I wanted bigger and better things for myself, monetarily as well as feeling more mighty and self actualized. In general, I was worried that if I raise my prices, I lose all my clients skip on down to where she actually goes to buy her car. She has to choose between a Honda CRV and an Audi Q five and guess which one she chooses? Oh, I know he's off in a matter of one year, the Audi the Audi Yes. And she says that immediately after she bought the Audi she started making six figures and all of the money that she had manifested came into her life. And granted one of the things about her us about us book, which I found was that even though it does rely a lot on manifestation, raising your frequencies, higher vibrations, things that like I'm not necessarily sure if I personally believe in, she does talk about doing those things in accordance with working on yourself, making changes, taking those strides looking for a new job investing in yourself. But when she talks about the way that she invests in herself, and encourages other people to invest in herself, some people just don't have those means no matter how much you manifest, and if you want, like maybe you can swing the loan for the Audi Q five, but no amount of manifesting and hard work is necessarily going to get a person to the point where they're making six figures A few months after they buy the car. And one of the notes that I wrote in here in the margin for myself was can you really tell a woman of color that just by raising her vibrations and frequency she will make more money when women already make 71 cents on the dollar to a man and women of color make even less Less than that. I feel like she's really ignoring a few big hurdles that are out there and just like systemic approp hypocrisy

Jae 25:09

yes and not to be the PC trying to save our but disclaimer, police were speaking systemically we know there are plenty of successful women of color who might have followed this advice and succeeded from it or followed similar advice or did followed completely different advice. Women of Color can and have no biological, intellectual reason to not be doing it. There are just systems in place, particularly for black and brown people of color to make it harder for them. Not all and the ones who make it we should applaud double but twice as hard for half as much exactly another story. I was trying to find the criminal crime story which I might just paraphrase. But I think this is a great success story that was mentioned in my book. The chapter is called the hollering of your heart. And she puts us a little anecdotes about her personal coaching clients. So this client wanted and was manifesting $75,000 because she wasn't loving her job. She wanted to pay off some debts mortgage car loan, and she realized to quit her job and find her new universal intelligence connect better. She had 75 grand and she's like, what the heck am I gonna do? So what did she do? She started writing 75 on things she meditated. She wrote it all over notebook. Sure. I believe she did all the manifesting all the great affirmations and she's like, there somewhere. I must have the money. I must have the money. Do you remember the story yet? Oh, my God. Yes. So I'm now quoting directly from the and then I remembered that way back in 1999, I had received as a gift some stock for participating on an advisory board of a tech startup. Hmm, now that company's gone public, I wonder what it's worth the stock info is buried somewhere in our home office files and miraculously, I found the files easily The next morning, I did some research to find out whom to contact about the stock shares. I bought the phone number of the management company to understand the value of how to sell them. I had no idea if they were worth anything, but I had to give it a try. And the fund manager was extremely helpful in mock me through the process of selling the shares. I asked her what the value would be worth since it was a gift it was initial worth $200. And guess how much it was worth now

Angela 27:12

if I guess $80,000? No. 75 she was manifesting 75 when I went just a little over, but 75,000 So

Jae 27:21

do you want Do you want my thoughts first? Or do you want to go with yours first?

Angela 27:25

Oh, you can go first

Jae 27:26

one. Angela, you work in finances? Jason, you know some things through your father and business and philanthropy and your old jobs? Right? Don't you have to claim stock you own on taxes?

Angela 27:37

You should? Yes. It's part of your income.

Jae 27:39

I'm great. Well, God, glad we established that. And number two,

I don't know about you. I

I've started investing little you invest a little right. I don't forget where I place stock money. Oh, absolutely. Not to me. If I have enough money, like sure I'll lose sunglasses, not my expensive ones. But the point is this $200 stock tech startup from 1999 was so disposable that this woman didn't think about it for years. My mom got me one stock of Disney for Christmas, which has gone up in value. Thank you to Disney plus in the expansion of the party. But I know where it is. I have the lovely envelope and sparkly and the official paper that says I own a stock in Disney. Oh, I love that. Is there anything I have to do like to legally like I'm not sponsored by Disney. I'm not like advocating anyone else go buy stock in Disney. It was just the things that my mom got me to support me in my financial things. And she thought it'd be fun. Yeah, no, I

Angela 28:32

think that's super cute. And I mean, I honestly I mean, I don't know, maybe there were less regulations in the 90s. Maybe I don't know what was going on there. Maybe she had someone doing her taxes. So they already had all of that information. So she wasn't looking at it. But I still find it very strange that someone could actually just forget that they have money floating around in stocks or some stock portfolio somewhere that they're not thinking about because that's something that you should really be taking an active interest in. Because what if the stock had tanked? What if as she found out it was worth a ton of money and like to just sell stocks like that as well. But there's also quite a bit that goes into that. And they don't necessarily always make selling stocks easy, particularly when you want to fully cash out.

Jae 29:18

So again, anecdote sounds great. But like, I don't know, Angela, do you have any old family stocks that are unaccounted for? Nope,

Angela 29:27

I don't think anyone actually has any old family stocks that are unaccounted for. I think that's just something that people say in my opinion, oh, hot tape. I mean, okay, do you Angela to kick it in with a pro again because we said we would pro con pro um, one of the things that I did agree with and like and you are a badass is that she has several chapters about like claiming your self confidence and yeah, I mean, there's like a little bit too much like relatable language in there for me sometime like She uses awesome a lot. Awesome a lot, a lot. But I mean, she does have like some nice little call us. I don't know if she does this and like you are a badass with money, but like things are like bolded more like that. Yeah. So in one of her chapters, I know you are but what am I? It's all about not caring what people think about you. And just like owning whatever you want to do, like whether it's in your personal life or your professional life, like be who you are, and don't apologize for it. And I think that's one message she she got really

Jae 30:35

right. I agree. She talks similarly about that in the money one and I but as I'm learning in therapy, and I'm sure you are too, especially with CBT. There's always it's not a but it's an end. I think we should all claim ourselves and a book I would much prefer to this one that I hope Angela you do read and we've talked about is Glennon Doyle's becoming, that's Michelle Obama, and J. Sorry, guys have been talking about multiple books today. Yes, untamed by blood and oil shocks about your knowing which is what she considers her God or God is like, it's the God within you in your knowing when you're doing something right. The deepest, deepest, darkest places, it's like for her, it's how she knew she was she loved women, but couldn't come out. But that, to me is a much better thing. My answer to that is, we all deserve to live our most authentic, loving, knowing wholehearted as Bernie brown would say selves. And as my therapist loves to point out and remind me that the Harvard happiness study showed us that what brings people the most fulfillment and love is connection with others. And I love myself. And I know now Angela, and I practice this even with our own friendship. And I think, frankly, our friends have been a lot healthier about putting ourselves first. But the other thing about putting yourself first in every situation and advocating that be unapologetically yourself is that you sometimes don't need to be number one exactly, no. So I think the con to this is that there's a difference between putting yourself first and being me centric, and assigning yourself the value that you deserve. Does that make sense? Kind of,

Angela 32:10

because it's like, I think we all need to put ourselves first and focus on our goals to like, help make our lives richer. But the thing is, our lives don't just consist of us. Our lives consist of family members, friends, other loved ones, significant others who who are very big factors in our lives as well. And occasionally, they need more support than you just being like a bystander in their lives. Like they need you to be really active. So sometimes that means putting some things that you want on hold, not putting your needs on hold, but putting your wants on hold to help them out or a little bit. So I think that's the difference between being knee centric and assigning value.

Jae 32:49

Yeah, I agree. And similarly, in the finance book, I like how she talks about like, you don't need to be ashamed when you can't go to everything when you can afford everything when you can't, because people will love and accept that, like Angela and I, we both fortunately get to live at home and not pay very many of any bills at all. And we're very fortunate in that regard for people our age. We know not everyone gets to do that in such an expensive area, or even in an auto expensive area. Not everyone has the privilege to do that. So when we save or have finances, like let's go back to us for when Andrew and I both Well, I'll speak for myself with an antral income Devin. I made it a goal of myself to pay off my student debt as soon as I could. I had about half of what a lot of my peers had. But I didn't like having any debt under my belt. Yes, financially. I know people, some people have different decisions because of the low interest rates. I'm not getting into that part of it and credit score. I'm not we're not getting into that here. But I wanted to make the decision to pay it off as soon as I could and work at whatever I had to do to do it. I had a part time retail job for most of the time, and I paid mine off for some reason my deferment didn't actually start six months and started the second I graduated. So it took me 18 months technically, it only took me a year because they started my deferment. But regardless those few extra $100, but I paid off my student debt in a year and a half, I think or a year. I don't know, I paid it off very quickly. I've hit it off of normally quickly for someone in my situation with a part time job

Angela 34:10

you did very well. I will say like the one thing that concerned me a little bit was that I worried sometimes that you were putting the value of your student loan over the value of your own comfort.

Jae 34:21

Yeah, I just really had a fear about being in debt, which I've now gotten myself more financially literate and gotten more resources expanded my bubble people I talked to and I think we've both gotten more edgy. But going back to it. There's a reason Angela brought this up once doing an episode on student loan debt. And I told her at least from my perspective, I'm not comfortable giving advice when I was able to passively pay it off, travel internationally twice and brunch frequently and see my friends because let alone the idea of going to a four year university when you graduate from the University the fact that my health insurance is still covered fact that I don't pay rent, the fact that I don't pay for electricity that food is accessible to me are all factors that went into why my money, any money I made could be tossed into my loan. And yes, did I work extra hours that I work overtime? Did I work and kick butt and do everything I could to do it?

Unknown Speaker 35:19

Yes.

Jae 35:20

But when you start at 100%, and you can just everything else is just can go on? Of course I can. It was part time job. And your story's not exactly the same. But I would you say it's

Angela 35:32

different? No, not necessarily. Because I think like similarly to you, I started paying off my student loan, like with a part time retail job. And then after, like retail, I moved into temp assignment. So I'd work two to three weeks, maybe a couple months, maybe a couple days. And I did that for about another year and a half. And then so I think it took me a little under three years to pay off my student loan debt. But the majority of the money that I put into it was when I was actually like working retail or working like part time as a temp. And then I think when I got to my current job that I'm at now, then I think I just saved up like one big lump sum, because I'd been paying so much that I just kept pushing my payment date out. So it finally like I just kicked in the one big lump sum, and then it was done. So I think in that way, like we were both incredibly fortunate because we didn't have that overhead expense. And we had, we were no we weren't ever in default. Like we never, we didn't miss payments, we didn't have to worry about not being able to meet our minimum payment. So I agree, I don't think we're necessarily the best people to give others advice on what it's like to pay off a student loan or any kind of loan. But I think maybe we're in a position to give a little bit of a cautionary tale because we paid it off incredibly quickly. And granted, like that was really great. And it worked out for us. But it's also like it doesn't need to be something so scary for you. And like for people who do have like other larger loans. I know it can be something that weighs very heavily on their conscience, but it's not something that's going to wreck your life or hang over you forever. We hope.

Unknown Speaker 37:11

Yeah,

Angela 37:12

that's that's my big disclaimer, we hope because granted, like I know for some people, it can be really hard to like find that job or translate that into or like maybe there are like other outside circumstances like familial, your family, maybe your your partner's family, something like that. I don't know, I feel like I'm rambling a little now.

Jae 37:31

But just a wee bit. The point being, we have no problem telling our stories, as we just did about getting out of student debt when we were able to, but we would never tell someone that we did this and because even more than Gen Xer there are two of us, we both did it this way without acknowledging all of the things that started us there because you can't afford rent, don't pay for your student loans. If you can afford bare necessities. If you need gas in your heart to get to try to find a job, there are plenty of things that we were in a position to not worry about. And we want to make sure that's acknowledged the morally to like in a relatable conversation. Similarly, with plastic surgery or body augmentations are had, we're going to make sure that people know because it's a thing of we want everyone to succeed and everyone can have success and success does with different to a variety of people. The differences when you're trying to explain a process to have other people follow in your weed.

Angela 38:30

I yield me to give them all the information there

Jae 38:32

needs to be transparency and what they're following.

Angela 38:35

I feel like we got a little heavy so can I just read them all the part that made us laugh earlier? Sure. A good way to make yourself accountable is to make a bet with someone who will hold you to it, they must have no mercy. They can't coddle you or understand that you tried your best. You want the kind of person who will make you feel humiliated even before the excuses come out of your mouth. Now granted, J does not make me feel humiliated, but every bet that we've ever had, she does hold me to as you all know from our MTV episode and the Tiffany's bracelet,

Jae 39:05

Angela has not made a bet with me since unfortunately, I will not be and no one else has ever since heard that story.

Angela 39:12

See, and the thing is granted, like how many bets Have I made with you over the years and you always win and I just I so thought I had you I wasn't gonna hold you to the Tiffany's bracelet but I just like wanted to scare you a little bit. But I just want I get

Jae 39:26

that reminder. Lovely listeners viewers listener audience, people in the Abyss about our Steph Curry quote that you think we need that we had to otter? Wasn't Steph Curry?

Angela 39:36

Oh, yes it is Steph Curry. So I forget what game This was exactly. I think the warriors were playing the suns but they beat them by close to 50 points and a report and that's a lot for basketball. It is a lot for basketball and basketball. So I'm a reporter asked Steph Curry in the interviews afterwards. What They're not he and the rest of the team had thought about taking it easy on Amazon. And he just laughed and replied No, like, that's, that's not something that we can do is like, it's our duty to go out there and beat them by as many as we can. And it's for them to remember this feeling so that it doesn't happen again.

Jae 40:18

And Angela being such a big hurry fan, I felt an obligation to lead by his example.

Angela 40:25

Good job. Good job. Thank you. Should we do one last each?

Jae 40:29

I think so. I'll start I think in theory, in the finance book, she does chapter affirmations and little workbook exercises I like please fill in the blank and like some little tips. And then the con goes when I read I'll just read you a few of these mantras, suggested money mantra, say it, write it, feel it, own it, love it. I love money, because it's the root of so much awesome. I love money and money loves me again with the awesome i love money because I love living an awesome life.

Angela 41:01

I wonder if anyone who's ever read this for a book club has used the awesomes as like, take a shot or like take a sit I love money because it comes when I call like if I call it with like my Barbie dreamfoam I don't know,

Jae 41:13

I love money. And I'm grateful every day that it's surrounding me with its glorious goodness. So yes, like I said, mantras are good manifestations are good. affirmations are good. And luckily for you all, I have a godfather uncle figure in my life, who I love very dearly, who actually has the money mantra I respect and that will be or send off today. But you're gonna have to hold off and let Angela get through her years before we

Angela 41:34

get there. Okay, so another chapter, which I

Jae 41:38

reasonably liked. high praise.

Angela 41:41

Well, I don't I don't want to say I completely liked it because I there were there wasn't I didn't agree with everything in it, but called procrastination perfection and a Polish beer garden. So this is one of those times where you actually get a Jen Sincero anecdote where she's talking about how she went out and sold herself on a job that she felt that she was completely under qualified for. And then in retrospect, to realize that she was actually incredibly qualified for it just not in a traditional sense. So I think that she did a great job there reminding people that not every qualification that you have can necessarily be described perfectly on your resume and can necessarily be found in your traditional job experience. So maybe you do need to take that time and find a way during your interview to call that out to your potential employer of what you can bring to the team that might necessarily not be represented there on paper. And I think that's a good reminder for people and especially as Jay your career searches on, I'm potentially looking at either a new job or going back to school, like that's something that's a helpful reminder to us. And I think to all just that, like we are not the sum of what two pieces of paper are. Now what I will say about not necessarily liking this chapter is just that she I mean, she like really sold herself into this job. And I mean, like, that's, that's really great on her part. But at the same time, like she completely hoodwinked her new employers and was able to run a festival for them. And that could have ended disaster so disastrously so please sell yourselves but don't lie. That's what that's what I got from this.

Jae 43:20

I agree. And also, though, I think that shows that sometimes when the opportunity knocks, you can rise to the occasion. It's not a guarantee, but it can happen completely. So final thoughts. If you're interested after what we said, feel free to pick up a copy of the books, maybe it'll really resonate with you. Maybe, uh, well, it didn't for us. But clearly, we read two of her books, we thought enough to dedicate an episode to this because frankly, no one really seemed to be speaking of it from our opinion, and only in our personal lives. Have people kind of confided their thoughts you'd read it who didn't have one of the biggest fan, but there weren't any people even critiquing it at all, which was the part that we found a little bit confusing,

Angela 43:59

definitely. So I'm not big into Reddit, like I don't have my own account or anything. But I've come to learn that that's where a lot of people generally debate things like this. And I only found one Reddit forum with eight posts dedicated to this,

Jae 44:15

from what we found people who'd feel similar, we just maybe just don't talk about it and kind of put it in the midst of their hit or miss books,

Angela 44:22

they might be a little concerned to take on the 2 million copies sold. Like in a few independent blogs, I found some people who refer to it as the cult of Jen Sincero, the cult of the 2 million copies so there might just be like a little bit of star power or backing maybe associated with her name now that people are afraid to take on for fear of being canceled and

Jae 44:45

I don't think if it wasn't clear, we are not trying to cancel her. nor are we trying to get cancelled by doing this. It was more a thing of I read this book and frankly surprised surprise. I personally it left a pretty sour taste in my mouth and I thought it was important to talk about not to disregard Jen and what she's built and how she did what she did. But just as cautionary tale that if you read it like I did and are like crap like I'm gonna go start looking for socks I know I don't have any stocks hidden I know where I invest. I'm, I know certain things. And it was just a thing of like, there was so much anecdotal things taken as action steps that someone reading this could feel really bad about themselves or feel like they're doing the steps and not seeing the fruitful outcome and then thinking what am I doing wrong, when you might not be doing everything wrong, you might be manifests, manifesting, AF affirming all the things Jen tells you to do taking no prisoners with you're putting yourself first doing what you need to do trying to kick ass trying to get a coach trying to do whatever she tells you. And it might not work. It could work and kudos, but it doesn't for everyone. It didn't for us. And we want people to know

Angela 46:05

that's okay, too. Not every book is designed for everyone. And I think also as you bring up anecdotal evidence, I'm just going to bring up one more general fact for you all that I meant to touch on earlier and completely did not so self help books as particularly more anecdotal ones fall along similar copy lines as autobiographies and memoirs. And unfortunately, as an English major, I got to study a little bit of the seedy backside of the auto biography and memoir genre, and I really hate to burst anyone's bubble right now. But a lot of stories in there sometimes get overly sensationalized and made a little bit more exotic for readers and to sell more copies. I know right?

Jae 46:49

What are you gonna tell me next? The bachelors not real

Angela 46:52

sorry. Yeah. So just anyone out there who maybe thinks like, wow, like these things can happen. Like it can happen to me just know that I'm not saying that anything in general, is not real. I'm going to clarify that right now. I'm just saying like, if you are out there, and you do read a lot of like self help books, autobiographies and memoirs, and you're listening to stories of people's lives that seem like completely like fantastical, sensational, like miracles are happening every day for them. Sometimes they're not. So just be aware of that if you don't feel like that's, that's necessarily translating into your life when you're trying to emulate the paths that others have taken. Just remember, take stories with a grain of salt sometimes. So yeah, but overall, I think you are a badass, it was entertaining. I'm going to give it like a five out of 10 for entertaining for entertaining.

Jae 47:40

Oh, I'd give mine like a seven and a half out of 10. Okay, I was very entertaining. I was very entertained every morning waking up.

Angela 47:48

There's one where she talks about meeting a man in a loincloth in the middle of the desert after he's completely rejected societal norms and just lives out there now in a cave hunting deer with a bow and arrow that he's made himself very entertaining. Yeah, she called him like a hot Tarzan basically.

Jae 48:05

Got it. Okay, so to end this lovely episode on a much more what I would consider a positive note, my godfather uncle, who I already referenced, I would say has done pretty well for himself as one could say he's quite comfortable in life. And he said this mantra since he was in his 20s and I genuinely think something like this. Well, let me say and then I thought why like it And yes, I already told him I'm just giving his mantra to the world so you're welcome people. "Money is always flowing into me whether I need it or not." And the thing about this, which is nice is I think it's just a reminder that similar way to a lot of things like we hold on so tight when we're afraid of them, but it's like money is always coming money is always around whether like I needed or not. It's kind of a just a good reminder to like be open when money opportunities are around.

Angela 48:50

I like that and I think everyone has something that works for them a little bit. I stand in front of the mirror every morning and I tell myself, my nose is skinny, it got skinnier last night

Jae 49:00

and that works for me, as I say on Degrassi whatever it takes.

Angela 49:06

And on that note, thank you for listening to this episode of in Omnia paratus grab your coffee bowls and don't forget to rate follow or download at Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts as always where you lead will follow so head on over to @inomniapod on Instagram and let us know what you'd like to hear about in the comments by him.

Jae 49:27

I love money and will not give up until I'm surrounded by all the wealth I desire.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai