Hey, hey, mean all I always forget. Wait what is my brown ambition?
No entry song? Wait we're back? Oh yeah, we're God so I know helly, Hey, hey we're back.
We're black, We're extra brown today. Ambition ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition. Joe, my guest today, had to help me with theme song. Y'all know how my memory is set up. But before I forget, before I introduced my amazing special she's like my I don't say spirited animal anymore because a Native person was like that that is disrespectful, so instead they said, use patriarch, patron patronis.
Yes, she's my patronus.
If you guys are into the Harry Potter, which I am, she's my patronis. Before I introduce her real quick, y'all know, I've been in business for about fifteen years.
We made over forty million dollars.
In business, I have met I toward hundreds, if not thousands, of women, some of which are seven figure business and six figure businesses themselves. And I have a mentorship club if you will.
It is currently only ten bucks a month.
It's my way of kind of like pouring back into other women because I was poured into it's not specifically for black and brown women, but let's just say those are my faves. So if you have a business or you are thinking about starting a business, now's the perfect time to sign up at my mentor Tiffany dot com.
The link will be in the show notes.
Because this you know, by the time you listen to this show this week, we're doubling it from ten bucks a month to twenty bucks a month, but we are grandfathering in any current member, so if you're paying ten bucks, you will always paying ten bucks.
And so if you've just been curious and you're like, should I do it?
My mentor Tiffany dot com. I go live once a month with a lesson you go. You get to connect weekly with your other mentees. Is a monthly networking like game that they play together. And then even in person, I have menty dinners, you know, with mentus all around the country.
So it's just a really awesome time for ten bucks.
So why pay ten twenty when you can pay ten my mentor Tiffany dot com Because this week is the last week it'll be that price. Now let's get into the business at hand. We have the one the only burner Bernard.
How you say last name and.
Like amat and like okay, We'm.
Gonna do her bio and then we're gonna while out. You'll see why Berner is my patronas because we're both crazy. Berner is an award winning producer, speaker, podcast host, rich aunty and training and financial hype woman. I wish you guys to watch on.
YouTube you ought to be because you would see Berna is giving phase. She's voguing.
Bernon just giving energy, which is her made up way of saying that she creates financial education media all over the interwebs.
Okay.
She was born and raised in the Bay Area, and she's a proud is it is it Filipina that's gonna stay properly? Okay, Filipina, Filipina, American daughter of immigrants. Oh it's same like me, except I'm not Filipina. I'm Nigerian, but close enough. She taught herself how to pay over, pay off over fifty thousand, thousand dead.
And then did what any millennia would do. She yelled about it on the Internet.
Bernard's work has been featured on platforms like Forbes, The New York Times, BuzzFeed. Berna received a Pollutice Award for Most Entertaining Financial Content Creator two years in a row. So just so you know, the Plllutice Awards are like the Emmys for financial educator, so it's a big deal and was named one of ABC's Global Pinoy Idols. You can find Berner online at hey Berna on all platforms in Heyburner dot com or curled up with her nieces watching the Office. And I'd be remissed not to say.
Berner has a new amazing book out called Money Out Loud, which you know what I'm saying, I gave praise for because it's an awesome book and as awesome as Berner is.
So we welcome you to the stoop. Berner. Thank you for having me.
Tiffany.
This is like I can't build a safer, more wonderful financial podcast space Brad Ambition is my number one favorite financial podcast. You are my number one favorite financial educator. I've been telling everyone since like I've opened my mouth in this industry. You are my alpha and Omega. So ah,
this is this is everything to me. And for folks who may have attended my New York City launch event, Tiffany was so kind as to moderate our discussion and co host with me, and it was just it's been a very surreal couple of months kicked off with my event with Tiffany, So.
So Bernard, let's just talk about so So for those of you who are talked about the mentorship before, Berne is one of my mentees, like my in person mentees, and we talked about her book and me and Burner were talking like every month to go over, like you know, here's some things you can do, and so let's just do a check in because I know book launching is not easy.
Your spirit in your.
Soul right now, like how are you feeling in.
This great, great, great question I have been telling people over the last month two months because my book came out about a month and a half ago that it's been like, okay, you know how I love a metaphor,
Like an elongated, ridiculous metaphor. It's like when you're you're like playing in the ocean with your friends and maybe your crushes around and like you're like kind of in the deep end and you're trying to like show off your swimming skills, but like still have your like little aerial moment like flipping your hair around, shout out to Helly Bailey, and but then the waves start coming in faster and faster, and like one hits you and you're like, oh, okay,
let me breathe within the like before the next wave. But the next wave comes too fast, and so now you like swallow a bunch of seawater. And that's happening over and over. That's how I felt for like two months. But good, like all the waves of seawater are good, beautiful, miraculous life, having supportive things. But I am still drowning a little. Okay, I am still getting seawater in my mouth.
It's just like it's good seawater. So it's been wonderful and like chaotic, and I think just in the last week I've been able to get to more calmer waters and breathe a little bit.
Yeah.
So I mean, let's let's talk about money out loud, Like, well, one first, how did you become a financial educator? Like what you know?
Like how did you get here? Like you know, from how you grew up to what made you think? Like how did you pay off your your dad? And then what made you say I think I want to show other people, like what's that story.
Like, oh my gosh, the story.
So I mean you were right at the like the freaking a big plot point of my story, I must say. But I didn't grow up at all in money, knowing money, understanding money. You and I connect on this and being children of immigrants, first gen, and my my parents immigrated from the Philippines, and like so many of us first gen children of immigrants, we only know what our parents taught us, and our parents didn't have time to teach us.
Stuff like this.
You know, we were very much in the lower middle income household, and the focus in an immigrant family is to assimilate and survive and to just get a knowledge of the rules and the systems, and so growing up it was like the money was never talked about.
It was not discussed.
It was only felt in like tension and weirdness when my siblings and I would walk into the room and it was like the classic picture of like bills all over the table and like weird vibes with my parents. So money was never part of my life really except for like background tension. Cut to I'm in my mid twenties, i am in New York City trying to be a
magazine editor remember those, remember magazines? And so I was very broke, and I was in like twelve thousand dollars a credit card debt, forty eight thousand dollars thirty eight forty eight thousand dollars of student loan debt, and I, like everyone else around, it was just like, I guess I'm just gonna die broke.
L l la la la.
I started to think through, like what would it take to take down my credit card debt? So I started, like I always use the classic gif of like, you know, like the cat at a keyboard going like this, like tapping at a keyboard.
That was me being like what is budgeting?
Like how would I theoretically get rid of this credit card debt? And this is kind of where my journey started. It wasn't necessarily what I was learning. What I was learning was really it was mind blowing because we don't get taught this stuff in school. It's really just a matter of whether you can access the information and if you can understand the information. So I was like, where was all this information about budgeting and credit card interest
rates and debt payoff plans? Like we don't learn any of this stuff?
How come I have to.
Google it to find out. That was one thing that made me angry. But the second thing that made me go, Okay, I think I need to start learning this stuff is the fact that, and I know I've said this to you many times, I say this on the internet all the time. I saw that all the educator, so many of our financial education idols were Hella, male, Hella, Pale, Hella, Stale. I am from the California Bay Area. I will say
Hella at every opportunity. You can't stop me. So that was it was the two things that really got me like, oh heck no. Was one the inaccessibility to the information and how it was like a foreign language financial education, and to the fact that there were so few women and even less women of color in the financial education space. But one thing that changed everything is I met somebody named Tiffany Aali Check. Someone recommended Tiffany to me, and
I was like, what's this person all about? And I vividly remember I was sitting on my bed and my partner at the time was like putting away clothes and he was like, what are you laughing at? And I was like, I'm on a Facebook live of this woman named Tiffany, and she's talking about I think you were talking about like mortgage. I was like, this is so irrelevant to my life, Like I just that week's topic happened to not be relevant to my debt payoff plan.
But I was like, why am I sitting here listening to this woman talk about mortgages. I'm just like enraptured. You were the first person to make me go, wait, we can be funny and in.
Financial education at the same time.
Why do I feel like I'm just like on Skype with my bestie, Like this is so great. That really changed things for me too. So I started sharing my debt payoff journey internet things, you know, video and things grew and we're here.
Yeah, that's awesome, awesome, awesome.
So how did you go from that to like, okay now, because ultimately a book is just another tool for education. Yes, you know, when did you decide, you know what, I want to put my ideas into a book?
Were you just approach and you never thought about it?
Like?
What was that process like for you?
This was I keep telling people I got into my book deal kind of butt backwards. But maybe this was seeded by my childhood self. I wanted to be a writer. When I first kind of like I don't know, became sentient, like understood what it meant to have a job. I was like, I want to write, but of course I have immigrant parents. And if you have immigrant parents, you know, writer is not on the table, especially for Asian Filipino American kids. I keep joking that you have four choices when you are.
Nigerian doctor, lawyer, check, engineer, yes, pharmacist.
Well, I was gonna say, the last one is always disappointment.
To me. The fifth one is drug dealer. For Nigenists, they're like, hey, so yeah, a drug dealer. I'm like, I'm a teacher.
They're like drug dealer, drug dealer, A drug dealer is the catch all for everything that's embarrassing to them.
Yeah, exactly, And even like in the last few years describing my career to my parents, they're like, you do what with the same tone as if I was like ideal drug father, That's what I do.
It's like doctor, lawyer, engineer, disappointment and so writer. I think was taken off the table pretty early when I was younger, and I sort of like went around and pursued like pr and marketing, and things like that. But I'd always wanted to write fast Forward again to you know, being a content creator, putting up videos, doing speaking gigs. I had hired an agent to help me with sorting through you know, these inquiries and negotiating and everything I
took time. I was like, I want to I want to agent up with with a woman of color and an independent agency, because this is this is distribution of wealth, like this is who I want to build my like financial ecosystem with. And then a month after we signed on together, my agent, Tabia was like, so I was approached by HarperCollins and I was like, ar And they were like, they're looking for someone to write a financial education book for young people specifically, like would you be
interested in that? And I feel like my eleven to like seven to eleven year old self was like, oh yes, very interested. They had a outline for what wanted the book to have, and they already kind of had ideas for like a title, and I saw it and I was like oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no no no. There was this sort of like your Teen's Guide to I was like, uh uh no, ma'am, none of that. Because I worked for seventeen magazine. I worked for the YMCA and lots of other teen programs, after school programs
in camps in New York City. The worst thing you can do, especially in terms of media, is call it teen a teen Teens guide to I was, okay, we need I need to bring YMCA burn it into this and be like here's how I would do it. Here's how I would restructure all the information to get rid of this. Put more of this. And they were like, do you want to write it? And I was like,
I do, absolutely do. That's that's how we got to the book deal specifically, and I was just psyched, like this has been a very full circle healing moment for my inner self.
No, I love that.
So Money out Loud you would say, like, who is the ideal like reader for Money out Loud? And you know, is it just the young teen or is it a parent of a teen? Is it the aunties of you know? Like, who would you love to see pick this book up off the shelf?
Oh, my absolute number one audience. It's two people. In my mind, it is the anyone who identifies with the rich auntie and that is of any age of any generation. But the person in my mind, next to the rich auntie holding my book has given a second copy to the young person that they want to inspire. I really wrote this as a letter to my sixteen year old self, really like a letter to my nieces. I have four nieces, all between the ages of twenty three and two, and
this was me writing a book to them. And so my ideal audience is anyone who considers themselves a mentor and also understands that no matter what age you're at, you were probably failed by the financial education system. So I don't want anyone to feel like, oh, it's a book for young people.
It's not for me.
It is for you, and my dream is to for you to also give it to a young person who like you, I wish you could do better by your younger self. So I'm going to pay it forward and give it to the newer generation so that they don't have to struggle like we did. I'm like it is very much an auntie and nibbling like mentor mentee kind of pairing.
That's my ideal.
I love that.
So one of the things I love about Money out Loud. First of all, the cover is everything all right, thank you? I love how you advocated. You know, I know all the stuff behind the scenes about Berna, but I love how you advocated for yourself for the cover. Yes, you know, you were the opposite of me. I was like, I don't want to be on I don't want to be.
Well you being on your cover and made me go like that is so impactful. I'm sure a lot of the decisions of you being on the cover and all the positives.
I'm like, yeah, it hit.
Me because I'm like, how many women of color do you see on the cover of their own money books?
And so that was something that we fought.
For, so yours is like super fun.
And then also too, what I really really love is that like there's so many awesome illustrations in this book and they're so fun, you know, so like if I was a young aunt, which aunty, which I am actually aunty, and so I just love, you know, I enjoy reading.
Go to Barns and Nobles, pick a book off the shelf.
I will do the flip, you know, the book flip when you look in and I'm like, if you do the book flip here, You're like, wait a minute, there's like, you know, there's illustrations it just looks fun, it doesn't look overwhelming. I just love that you included and like there's all these drawings of Berna so you can see this brown girl with big curly hair. Yeah, you know, and I just love like you know, you're always giving encouragement, like this one that says.
When I say community, you say care. I love that.
I had to step into the hype woman of it all and I have to give all the flowers to Monique Sterling. She is our illustrator. Incredible when my publisher was like, let's get an illustrator on this. Here's Monique Sterling's portfolio, and Monique had done a bunch of illustration also for BPOC authors who are writing specifically towards like racial justice and just like very like focusing in on like here are authors who don't typically get to be authors.
I was like, ah, Monique, yes, And it was wonderful to work together because we're like, how do I how do I portray that in me? And cartoon form is brown and has big curly hair, but also is not like, you know, I'm I'm Filipina, you know, like I'm not coding that I am a black woman with like an Afro.
There are some moments where we're.
Like, oh, hold up, let's not let's not misrepresent but I do want people to see my hair and my skin. And I'm like lunging and yeah, we wanted to make it fun.
No, I love it. Like, first of all, first of all, this is fre the interlu tax party, taxes, don't know her.
I'm like, yo, honestly, this book is like a party and a financial party in a book.
Thank you, and that that chapter specifically, we're like textbuer, I'm like, let's put balloons.
Yeah, that's like what where would you see? Like you see that and you're like, what is she talking about?
Is it taxes?
Let's find out?
Wait, hold that thought, Berna.
We are going to pay some bills and do a little break for a moment, and we're.
Back and black and brown. Let's resume.
I can't remember the first time that I saw you, but I don't know if you were alive or think it was just maybe you were doing like a series of videos and I was like, oh my gosh, she is so silly and so fun and so wild because I think because when I came into this space, I was really nervous about being myself. I actually slipped up. It was myself, and that's how it came out. Like up until that, neverody was like, oh, very serious Tiffany. Hi, guys,
we're gonna learn this. And so all my early if you go to my YouTube channel, all my early YouTube videos is very serious Tiffany, fake serious, because that is not. And then one time I was live and I think, I don't know what happened. Everything that could go wrong was all my My bonus started had come into the room and I was asking her to close the door
because at the time she was like young. And then I kept saying like I think like Alyssa, and Alexa kept saying yeah, and I'm like, so I'm trying to keep it together, like not you, Alexa, Alyssa, and you go, yeah, what you. So finally I was like god, damn it.
And that is when I entered the room and it was like this is my person and I didn't realize.
I looked at the camera and I was like, wait, I shold myself. I tried to go back to fake phony, serious Tiffany, but the comments went crazy yes, and it was like what my therapist calls a corrective experience. You know, you tell yourself, you know, if I go left, I bump my toe.
If I go left, I butt my toe.
And then one day you go left and you don't, and you're like, oh, like just because turning left is not a precursor for bubbing my toe. So I thought like success had to come from serious. Success is serious. And then one day, you know, I slipped up and I wasn't serious, and it was like I got this immediate reaction of like, we like this, Tiffany. And so as a result, it corrected that experience for me to say, wait, can I be myself? And then you know, bring people
into the room still. And so when like did you start off when you first started, like, hey, Bernard, did you start off like fully being yourself?
Did you have to grow into it like when you started to be more publicly facing.
I think I didn't have to spend too much more time going into it, because honestly, creators like you made me go like I was seeing other financial creators be the serious and I was like, okay, and this is where I'm just a learner.
I'm just a learner.
I'm just sort of like synthesizing my education in my own little private Google doc and great, and I'm just a student. When I saw folks like yourself bring the personality, and not only was that more entertaining for me, but it made the education go down differently. It was like the spoonful of medicine or a spoonful of sugar makes some medicine go down. I was like, oh, this is impactful. Also, I'm nuts like could this help? Could this help people learn?
And so when I started sharing my financial journey, my like debt payoff journey, my like budget building journey, I'm naturally inside. I'm a child, like my inner child is very is its right friend and center all that she's at the control center always. And so in order for me to learn anything, I have to translate for my inner child. And that's how I started sharing my information, just like, so interest is this, Here's the like Investipedia
kind of Miriam Webster's dictionary. Here's how I would explain it to my inner five year old people, I feel like other people's inner five year old was like, now I get it, Now I understand. And so it was it was you open the door for so many of us to be like, oh, like I can be myself and then I realized the more I am myself, the
more I speak to a different level of people. Like so many of us, especially be IPOC, we understand what it's like to be talked at from the like wha our professional voice and like our professional selves are like
I'm talking back to you in the professional selves. But when we're ourselves, like when you and I as creators are ourselves, we get under that layer and it's like, oh, that's how I yell at alexa at Like that's you know, that metaphor that Burnham made is something that's the way that like I would explain it to my five year old self, It just like it digs in deeper, and
I want to always stay in that level. So it was freeing for me to see creators like you do that, And the more that I do it, the more that I was like making silly metaphors and skits and characters and seeing that people were being entertained and learning. At the same time, I was like, great, I found my pocket, Like I don't have to hide my inner child. She actually is a big part of the impact that I make. So she's she's a CEO.
So we all know that there are so many ills that that we people of color have to navigate because of the state of our personal finances and the state of the way the world looks at us and the the world interacts with us via the economy and our in our finances.
Like, what problem do you hope to solve with hey, Berna?
For me, I hope to help to start to close the racial wealth gap, specifically through black women, right, And so I don't turn anyone away, but that's like my core deliverable, Like I want to help black women get on financial track because through black women you help black men.
Through black women, you help black children.
Through black women, you help the black family and communities, and then the communities at large benefit overall.
Right, So what.
Problem are you hoping to solve or at least take stally start to chip away at.
Yes, Okay, So I think in I feel like there's a woo wuo problem and then like a technical problem that I'm hoping to solve. I think the woo woo problem is the feel is the sense that a lot of people don't feel like they belong in the financial conversation at all. And I think I've shared this metaphor with you before, but One of my favorite sort of impacts that effects that I feel like my work has had is it's like you're at a party, or like your friend invites you to a house party, but you
go without your friend. You like arrive late, so you come by yourself and you walk into the door and you're like, okay, like the party's already started. You don't really know anyone, you don't see anyone you know, but everyone's having a good time, and you're like this is intimidating. You're like, is everybody looking at me? I don't think I belong here. It's loud, I don't see my friend. And then you're like, you know what if I just leave, no one's gonna know, and my friend's not gonna know.
I'm just gonna get out of here. But then your friend sees you and they're like, oh my god, Like Tiffany, you're here, thank God, Like you made it. Okay, let me show you around. Here's where you put your jacket, avoid these people. This is where you get the drinks. That guy sucks whatever. And then you like you joined the party. But then later on in the night, you got comfortable you've made friends. You might lose that friend again.
But it's fine because you've already been introduced. You were brought in by someone who made you feel welcome, you were like oriented, and now you're having a great night even without that person. That is what I want to be for the financial world. I want to be the person that's like, hey, you're here, you belong here. I'm so happy you're here, I'm glad. Let me just make
you feel comfortable. Let me orient you to a different financial world where you don't have to listen to hell a male, stale, pale dudes gaslight you out of your financi reality and let me bring you in. And that effect I think is so impactful. Even if after that
they never like engage in my content again. They might buy money out Loud, but that is then the impetus for them to buy a whole bunch of other financial books that speak to them and go down all these other financial rabbit holes and find a Tiffany or find anyone else that they're like, oh, this is me furthering my education. I'm happy to be the bouncer. I'm happy to be the person that brought them in, the orientation leader.
I guess I love that, Okay, yes, absolutely. And then the technical thing is And this is something that I've been talking a lot with my friend Yanelli, who also just came out with a financial education her yesterday.
I'm ning her to her new book coming out. What the book k has So yes, I've been.
Yes, she is incredible.
She also works as I think it's like director of education at next Gen Personal Finance. They're working very hard on trying to pass as many financial education literacy laws in the country, because only I want to say, like twenty one to twenty two states have it mandatory. I know Tiffany has a budget niete the law in New Jersey.
And I'm really hoping that this book can help become not necessarily part of the curriculum for financial education, but part of the push that financial education is important to start in middle school, in high school. Make it relevant, make it interesting, make it brown. I want to get this book in front of as many young b ipoc as possible for free. They should not have to shell out twenty book, twenty bucks or whatever or like go
seeking this information. I want it to be at the in their classrooms, at the YMCA, in their after school programs.
So I'm trying to do it for the youth.
I love that.
I love that so big, big, big. I want to welcome you in to financial education. You have a space in the place here. You're not only welcome, but you are important. And then you know, more concrete, you know, let's get financial education in the hands of young people, especially young people of color. Ideally, you know, your book being one of the core tools that people can use. Yes, love you see my recap, that's my teacher recap.
See my recap?
And beautiful is she a teacher?
You should teach? Maybe you should go to education. Everything is like that, all.
Right, Well let's talk more personal things, right, so Bernard, Like you know, for me, I'm always just like beyond, like business beyond, you know, like what you do, Like I don't know, like what is your.
Like how do you want life to go for you? Like I'm just curious. This is just me, like mentor Tiffany asking you, like how is it? You know?
I know you're doing this and you're doing well. But I've seen so many people who have totally checked out. I don't even know if you've noticed. Lately a lot of people literally have closed down their social media shops. That's been like a real trend of overwork and overwhelm. So I'm just curious, like what would you like to see for yourself in the next like two, five, ten years, Like what direction you want to go in? Like what are your big and small goals?
Oh my gosh, great question and a wonderful time to ask it, because I'm after this after this week, I'm taking off like three weeks. It's my official like stop after the book tour. Like I keep I keep using the metaphor with my god, I'm drink every time I say metaphor. I keep using the metaphor with my therapist of just like you know, you're like running a race
and you get you sprint across the finish line. But once you get across the finish line, you can't just stop right like you have to You have to run slower, and then you got a jog, and then you got to walk, and then you have to stop eventually and like drink water and eat food. My typical I feel like this is very first gen daughter of immigrant behavior. But if I don't check myself, I will jog, I
will walk, and then I'll start jogging again. I might not even walk and I jog and then start sprinting, like, because all we know is to push and work and try and achieve. And so I'm trying to take this summer to practice differently, right, to like correct my behavior and actually give myself three weeks off in June and then give myself the whole rest of the summer to
just go slow. For a lot of us, I imagine maybe this is true for parts of your business too, But there's like a nice summer slow down, and I'm like trying to lean into that. And what I want for like five to ten years from now, I just I want to be softer. I spent the first thirty three years of my first gen ass alpha daughter, app.
Can I say, ass, Yeah, yeah, okay, get it.
I spent the first thirty three years of my first gen ass alpha daughter of immigrants ass going hard and sprinting all the time and never never having a leisurely stroll. Right. I don't know how to do that, so I need to teach myself how to do that. And knowing that I've spent so much of this part of my life sprinting, what would the rest of my life look like if I went slow on purpose? What would it look like if I were soft and gentle to myself and took
my time and like finally believed my own hype. I think part of why folks like me keep running even when we've accomplished so much is we don't let ourselves internalize or trust what we've already achieved, and we don't ever let ourselves like it kind of be on our own, like that's not even just hype, because that makes it sound like sort of helium. We don't let ourselves trust the foundation we've actually set and the work we've actually put behind us, and really kind of put trust in
our own abilities that like already happened. I want to go soft and go slow. And the question I keep asking myself is like, what kind of abundance?
I know?
What kind of abundance can come up if I work my butt off? Like manically, I understand that very intimately. What kind of abundance can happen if I don't work my butt off?
If I go slow?
If when I mean no, I say no as opposed to you yes, because I'm scared you're gonna go away opportunity. Also, in a more tangible sense, I want to start working on this next summer. My dream as an entrepreneur has always been to work during the school year so that during the summertime I could take all my weeks off and be a summer camp auntie, go back and work at summer camps in any degree because I worked as
a teen camp programs director for three years. I worked in the summer basically leading fifteen to seventeen year olds and doing like leadership programs at camps. Best job of my entire life, worst paid, probably the most physically stressful and maybe mentally stressful, but it all the light bulbs in my body light up when I'm at camp and I'm working with young people at an overnight summer camp who are specifically like young brown people who've never been
to camp before. I never freaking touched a river, I never heard a frog like that. I'm doing all this so that I can disappear every summer and do like lead arts and crafts and campfire songs.
I love that.
I want it so bad, and I think I want to use this book as my vehicle to like launch myself into summer camps next summer and basically like you know, wave the book around and then also be like, okay, s'mores, Okay, let's tell me.
I love that you've gotten so specific with it, because yes, you know, like sometimes we don't even know, like you work so hard to your point.
I call it launch mode. You know.
Like so if anybody's ever like launched a book or a business or whatever, you know, there's a certain energy that's brought on, hyper vigilance, hyperwork, and you know there's nothing wrong with that when you're launching the actual thing. But so many of us don't know how to deactivate launch mode. It's like there's nothing actually launching, and I'm going just as hard and fast, you know, exactly.
Exactly, like you just live. Your default mode is launch mode. There's no relax.
Like my business coach Kristen always gets mad at me because she's like, okay, Like she's like, Okay, you just launched this thing, you launched your membership, you did a week of classes, you launched a book.
What are you going to do to relax?
And I'm like, take a nap. She's like, Oh, that's that's a biological need. What else are you going to do? I'm like, epasta. She's like, that's also a biological need. What's indulgent that you're going to do? What's like, what's how are you going to treat yourself? And I blank, I literally cannot answer it. And I think so many of us are in that same position because all we know is launch and we don't know. We even like shy away from and run away from celebrating ourselves and
giving ourselves the credit and things like that. And so I'm gonna try. I feel like a baby deer, like on wobbly legs trying it this summer and being like, what am I going to do for three weeks panic work? My business coach is like, and that's why we're going to structure your three weeks a little bit.
Yeah, I'm gonna take your laptop away.
Honestly, at my peak overwork and overwhelm, there was not a place I did not take my laptop. Literally, I would take my laptop food chopping. Yeah, no, because you never knew, girl.
I was like, you never know.
And there were times when I was in the aisle and I would take it out because my admin would text her, call me or whatever and be like, oh hey, Tippy, this is a contract you have to review as if she said or else the world is going to be bombed or something. Yeah, I'm like, girl, I think you can wait till you get home and you put the eggs up.
But I would be like girls say less, and I would take out my laptop in the supermarket on my card and be like done and hot spot. I did not.
I did not know I had a problem until I didn't think you would think that was it, but no, I remember distinctly. I was getting like my annual checkup, and I was like waiting in the doctor's office and I was wait, wearing you know, like I don't know, like you know, the little gown, just sitting waiting and I had my laptop on my life and I was working. So she yes, and I'm not totally normal, because girl, I want to wait ten fifteen minutes.
What will I do with my.
Hands literally forty five seconds of rest email.
Meanwhile, not my cell phone, my laptop. So she comes in.
So before before she came in, you know, like the nurse or I'm guessing us to know, she she you know, take your blood pressure, take your vitals, and they come in and then she was like, so.
Your blood pressure is really high.
And I was like really, I was like, yes, why I guess on hold on real quick, doctor just wrapping up this email and.
Said what I was like, is it?
She was like, this is the second time you come in and it's a little elevated. I was like, I think because I run up the stairs. She looked at the laptop and looked at me and was like, the delusion is real.
Yes.
It was like typically do you always work this much? I was like, no, it's just right now. You know, we have a project. And it didn't really click to me. I had I was in such a level of stress I did it. So I'll give you example. Like when I was in college, this like my first real like major crush. He said, smell smoke hellowed. I did not know this because I was like grew up super sheltered or whatever. I was like and no judgment.
But I remember one time I was like, you seem weird today. Are you okay? He was like, oh, I'm not high. Wait what he was like, Oh no, I spoke a lot of we You.
Didn't know that.
I was like, I did not know. He's like, what do you think that smell was? I'm like, I do not know colone.
So for me, I was so rested that when I wasn't, I was like, oh, because I'm not high meaning like I was. That was my when someone was like, is everything okay, Tiffany, it was like, wait, I didn't know I was so stressed. I did not know I was stressed because that was just life. I bet that was one time that said like some of you guys think your mourning people, but it's your anxiety waking you up. It read me for fifth because I, honestly I was
wake up every morning at five. I was like, I don't I remember I used to prove myself I don't need an alarm clocks. I was like my internal clock fee up click, it's my anxiety, Like get up, girl, you don't get no. I honestly I don't care if I went to bed at one five o'clock, oh, to bed two five o'clock, like I could not sleep. Beyond that, I couldn't, and I thought that It was like, you know, I'm just working really hard.
This is what it looks like.
And I just worked myself into where it got so bad that she was like, Okay, I want you to take home this blood pressureroom like machine, and I want you every day to put in your numbers in the morning and the evening so I can see because I told her I'm not taking medicine.
I'm not eighty girls not happy.
Because I try to. I convent her. It's because I ran up the stairs. I'm just a little stress in this moment. But I'm good either way. She's like, okay, proven and so I'm almost positive at like like a healthy blood pressure is like one twenty over eighty. I mean, just let's see see what healthy blood pressure is. And so I took the machine home and child, let me see healthy blood I'm healthy. H We're googling it a girl, because Google knows healthy blood pressure, right, So yes, one
twenty over eight, but it's considered healthy. Mine was saying like one sixty over hundred. I mean that's like go to the hospital now. And I remember being like, so the first time I did it was like one forty one fifty over like you know, like ninety or something.
I was like, right, huh seems and I really was like uh, So I kept taking it.
So finally my sister was home and I was like, girl, come come take this, come use this broken machine.
Her said, one twenty over eighty.
I was like, m So, my bonus daughter Lissa, who's like seven, that's the time, like fourteen, list come take this machine and it was like one twenty over eighty. I was like, and then I would take mine and it would be higher one sixty over set or something, and I'm like, this got to be broken.
But only when I put it on my arm. I just I could not conceptualize how could my blood pressure be so because I was always perfect blood pressure girl in green health. And by then, by then I was like I was thirty pounds heavier than I am now, but I'm like I've been thick before, right, you know, And is it the weight? No?
I was so stressed from how much work that I was doing. And I remember at the peak is when my business was making its most we had him ten million dollars that year. Wow, and we were like we were making the most and I felt physically the worst.
Wow.
I was like, you know, and it took I was on that space. It wasn't until really, like my husband draw pasay, that it like hit me like a ton of bricks, where it was like, what is this salt for? Again?
Nothing is more clarifying than death, you know, And I just was like, I remember distinctly asking myself, You're going to have to choose between having the space to grieve or managing this health, Tiffany, because you actually don't have the energy for both.
So if you want to have the space to grieve, I need.
You to remove the stress, eat better, and start moving your body, because I need I need. I didn't have the energy to manage both, you know what I mean, Like, no, I can't be dragging like this, like heart that's not working when the heart is already broken, you know. And so I just it was in that moment. I went to Bali for two months, and there's like no sugar available unless you want to pine apple, and you know, outside is fresh and clean, and you're walking everywhere and
the beach every day and swimming every day. And so I dropped like fifteen pounds from like grief as well as just like you know, like doing being better to myself. I came back and I totally reorganized my companies because there was just a lot of people that were working here that were awesome, nice people, but I just was like overpaying because just I wanted to overcompensate for women of color and like I just we had way more
people than we needed. I was paying way more than what I what really that the company could bear, just because like I said, I want to overcompensate, and but it meant that I had to work really really hard to maintain that, and so I had to restructure the company. And now I can say my blood pressure is back to normal. I'm back to one twenty over eighty yay, down thirty pounds. And when I tell you, m I walk about an hour and some change every you know, every day, and I take a nap daily, and I
do not overwork and overwhelm. I take about three months off a year. And like even now, I had, like today, I had like a team call and I call that I do walking calls.
So I was like it was so nice outside.
I was like, oh, you know, I'm gonna do the call, and y'all, you know, if you want to be on zoom, that's cute for you, but I will be on zoom dialing and then I'm mute because the birds are chirping, so lod.
I'm like, all right, you're up next, logan mute.
You know, and so you're like snow white in my head.
But literally that's just the birds sucking.
Sorry, but I realized that my bad habits were also pouring into the team because they were overworking as well too. And so I do the walking calls and I let them hear that because I let them know you can be outside too. I'm not mad at that unless you're physically presenting something, you can be outside. You can take your you know, you can take the call while you're getting your hair braided, you know, like and so yeah,
I want that. So for all my mentees and things, I'm always leaning into just like you know, I want you life to meet you healthy, happy hole that what you're doing should be a tool for that, not the thing itself. I don't want you to be overworked and over and certainly, you know, book launch time. I understand that you have to launch, but I'm so glad you
have a definitive I'm out of launch mode. And like the big sister in me is like, hey, you know, do you have a kind of like these do you Cause we talked about like after now the book, you know you're not in heavy launch mode. You know, hopefully you have like a warming pot where the book continues to like be out there without you physically having to like be so present, you know, like how I do my Friday post that kind of talk about the book. But I'm like, girl, those are light lists, but it
does make a big difference, you know. And thing, so do you have something like lined up like that.
I do have.
I'm working with for the first time ever, working with a social media person who, like I've I've always sort of if I've worked as a social media person before, I've like shared the rains a little bit, but I was.
Always the poster.
I was always still like the front and so it's been really interesting for me to actually hand the keys over and like you post what you when you tell me what like what needs to be posted you post, you give me a ideas you post for like on behalf of Me. And we were talking about like how can we post consistently throughout the summer. So I'm not like making a new video series, you know, I'm not like putting hell a work into it because I still
want to be a little offline. But what can we automate and what routines can we set kind of like like your get good with Money Fridays?
Is it what it is?
What can we automate to the people, like it's like a very consistent low lift drum meat. So I'm actually conceptualizing that right now, like these next couple of weeks with my social media person Cat, because I've found someone that I trust to speak to my community almost like on my behalf and like share that load with, which is my little baby step towards like actual passive work. I think there's like a first gen resistance in me.
Like part of my new brain is like I love passes stuff, like yes, we love to work less, do less, do more, get more.
But there's still a part of other part of my brain that's like, is that a scam? If I'm not sweating, do I deserve the accolades afterwards? I should be crying.
I should be crying right If I'm not crying right now, then well it's not real work. And so I'm like slowly trying to turn that bus around and have that going. And I'm also hoping on We're planning on a fall tour once school is back in session for me to be able since you know we're pushing this, like you young brown people need to have this book agenda, lining
up lots of speaking gigs for the fall. So I'm sort of I think this is something that you and I have talked about a lot in our mentorship sessions. It's like seasons, you know, like there's a season for like, ah, I'm out, I'm doing this, and there's equal value in being like I'm hiding, I'm conceptualizing, I'm you know, yeah, I'm recharging my energy. So trying to find the balance.
No, I love that, and I love that and honestly too, just remember that sometimes it's not balance, it's harmony. Right, So yaws, the sopranos they're slaying, and you know, the altos are just like the humming in the background, and sometimes the alsos are like, girl, it's my solo.
Yeah, you know.
So there are moments in time where you're like, you're more partner than and you are daughter, You're more darter than you are sister. You're more sister than you are bestie, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that. Harmony means it's for the betterment of the overall song of your life, you know.
Yes, one hundred percent.
And I think what's really hard And it sounds like I heard this in your story too, talking about how grief was clarifying for you and your life was like you need to give something up. So much of us again in this like first gen alpha kid mentality is like, no, we do everything. We check all the boxes, we keep all the plates warm, like all the burners are burning bright right, like we yeah, we can do it all, we can do it all, but that's a lie that
we have been sold and continue to sell ourselves. And so letting go of that and really embracing the fact that like no, you really you can't, or you can try and do everything, but here's what happens. You hit a wall, your blood pressure spikes, like you know, you can try. It's letting go of that, like she can do everything, she's a superhero.
Like letting go of that.
There's fear, for sure, I'm afraid to let go of that, and it's because it's all we know and being that has given us so much. But like letting go, what instead are you making room for that actually could be more expansive and more healing than high achievement or like oh the money. That's so hard to retrain, at least for me, very difficult to reach my brain around, but trying.
It is because the world.
The world rewards, you know, like I would say outward high achievement. Yes, you know, like oh my gosh, you know they have that sticker on their book or on that TV show or they're making how much and it isn't I would still be on that train head Like life literally just sat me down because it's very hard to retrain your brain.
You know.
That's why I don't spend as much time on social media like I used to, you know, unless I'm watching somebody renovate their house, because me watching other people succeed externally, it's very hard not to say I want to get that too, even if I don't actually want to. What I'm really saying is I want that at work. I want the external accolades as well, yes, now, because that's how you bring value if you you know, are you not valuable if people don't know and so like yeah,
I just was like, oh, I'm tired. I don't want to play that game.
Let them have it. I don't care. I want an actual good.
Life exactly exactly.
It's this has been really difficult to contend with in the middle of my launching because of course, like I'm like launching the book I like have dreams of being on all Besset litters or whatever. And at the same time, I'm like, wait, are you enjoying the process? Like will you look back on this time of your life and be like I was so stressed. I was like, you know, like it's been really interesting for me to go Like, Okay,
here's one way the book launch could go. I could stress myself the hell out trying so hard to accomplish these things.
Do I actually want those things?
What would it look like to achieve them or get on that show or do that thing? And at the end of the day does that Did you have a good time? Again, I'm talking to my inner child. Did I have a good time? Was it memorable?
Like?
Am I now no longer present at these amazing events? And like my family through me a surprise party, Like these are the things I want to like invest my energy in and be present for. One of my really good friends, Mimi. She's an author that I met in my coworking space in San Francisco. She is like the A few weeks before launch, she was like, I want you to know She's like, I, No, You're a highly ambitious individual and all these things are gonna happen. It's
going to be great. You're gonna be triggered to try to make more things happen. Please know you already did the hard work.
You wrote the book. You already did it.
If you don't do anything to like extra promote this book, it takes nothing away from the accomplishment. Like you can lay down and let launch day happen, show up at your events, and then go back to sleep, and no jury in the world would convict you of not doing enough. That's the monster in your head telling you. But like, you did it already, Like authors need to say that to other authors, like you already did the hard work.
And so I've been leaning into that and whenever I have a moment in the last few weeks of like wait, should I be posting today? Should I should?
But I'm like, I already did it. Come on now, like don't want to.
Get to ask saying me it right?
Thank you, me, me, me me lack incredible. She's like you already. She's also like I'm older and you make me tired. So I just want to let you know what you do is amazing. I'm tired of just look at your social media and I hope that you're like, you're doing this because you like it, not because you feel like you have to, Because you already did all the have to you did lean back.
I was like, okay. My therapist would say, not have to get to get to or want to. She was like, Tiffany, and I feel like I should. She's like, not should, but could or want to? You get to decide. Oh, thank you for coming on. You're awesome.
You're amazed.
Every every time we talk, Tiffany, it's like, I don't know. It's like it's like dipping my heart in honey. It's like my heart is just like in a spa.
I love that honey is both sweet and it's foliating exactly.
And it has antibacterial properties.
Right, So where could the girlies get money out loud and where can they connect with you?
No matter where you are.
Of course, you can get money out loud anywhere that you buy books, and you can get the audiobook as well, anywhere that you get audiobooks. But I really stress you go independent. I love pointing people to bookshop dot Org, bookshop dot com. Sorry, well oh right, okay, let me
start it. I actually love pointing people to bookshop dot org because they are an organization where you can either buy from an independent bookstore or every purchase supports an independent bookstore, and those are the folks that really need your money. And also the audiobook. I narrate the audiobook. That's something that I have not in terms of marketing. I have not told enough people that people are like I wish you would and I'm like, damn it better
on this one. But I narrate the audiobook. So if you find me entertaining in your ears, then you can listen to the book, and then you can find me everywhere at hey Berna. I'll be going a little quieter on socials this summer, but I will be back to my full obnoxiousness in the fall. So you have till then to unfollow me.
We welcome the crazy. I love it.
So yes, Hey Burner on all the things, Heyburner dot com.
Money out Loud, available wherever books are. So but I do you go to a book bookshop right bookshop dot org.
Yes, go ahead and get it, rich Auntie for you and your little nibbling. You know, if you got a young person in your life, a college student, it's actually a perfect time for college because if your if your child, or you know a child that you know is going off to college that summer before it's time to sit down and have talks with them. That talks about drinking, talks about safety, that talks about money. It's perfect timing, so money out loud by Burner, Annette, thank.
You feel it. It's going to be a low simmer this summer, so hopefully it doesn't hurt.
No.
I love it. Thank you Burner, thank you