How to Rethink Your Financial Strategy During Tr*mp Tariff SZN

you for showing up, Thank you for tuning in. I don't take it for granted that the thousands of y'all who decide to listen to Brown Ambition on Wednesday and Friday each week, I just can't thank you enough. You're the reason why I do this show. Now, I want to take a moment because we have a bit of news at BA. I'm now a part well, we are now a part of the iHeartMedia Network. Now, don't worry because this doesn't really mean anything for you. In fact,

you really shouldn't experience any change. It is a huge milestone, especially for those who don't know. Brown Ambition has been around since twenty fifteen. I'm like a cheriatric podcaster. I have been doing this podcast since I was twenty six

years old. I was just a reporter at Yahoo Finance who wanted to do a podcast for black girls like me and make talking about finances and career ambition and negotiating and credit scores and am I about to marry this man if he doesn't have an eight hundred fiico. I wanted to have a safe space where we can

have those types of conversations. And I was just really bored of the bro culture that I was encountering in the business journalism channels where I was working, from Business Insider to Yahoo Finance, and yeah, I was fed up and I just wanted a space just for us. Okay, So I got my girl, Tiffany, the budget nista. She said yes to me and my random idea for this podcast. But you know who said no, my bosses. I took the podcast to Yahoo Finance and I said, I had

this idea. I want to do this show targeting millennial women of color, and I wanted to be really fun. I'm going to do all the work. You know, can I have the studio space. They already literally had the studio spaces set up. Okay, it was not any investment in terms of equipment, but still they said no. And at the time, I was pretty I don't know, devastated was the word, but I definitely felt challenged and I

felt like I'm going to prove them wrong. And honestly, the people in our lives who tell us no, they serve such an amazing purpose because how many incredible stories of success start with somebody told me no, and then dot dot dot people have to tell you no at a certain point, it serves a purpose, and I'm just really grateful not only did that no not stop me, it actually pushed me to create a podcast that I

own entirely outright. Had they said yes, had I produced Brown Ambition under the umbrella of Yahoo all those years ago, they would have owned the IP. This is the same reason why one of my favorite og black girl podcasts, Tracy and heaven Gosh, what was there? Oh another Round on BuzzFeed. I'll remember that show from back in the day. Their podcast doesn't even exist anymore because it was a

part of the BuzzFeed IP. They didn't own it, and so when they I don't know, I think BuzzFeed got of the show or the girls just went on to you know, extremely successful careers in their own right and they couldn't take this show with them. So I'm really grateful, honestly that I was told no so I could create the show, and over the past ten years, with Tiffany by my side, we managed to keep the podcast one hundred percent under our ownership, and then when she graciously

stepped aside at the end, of last year. She gave me her share. So Mandy is the well I should say, Brown Ambition LLC. Shout out to my attorney and her insane bills. My god, we won't talk with that on another show. Thank you to iHeart for believing in the show and for welcoming us to your network. This is going to be the biggest year for Brown Ambition. I can feel it in my bones and I can't wait. By the way, y'all need to be sure you're a

subscribed to the Brown Ambition newsletter. Go to Bronambition podcast dot com and make sure that you sign up for the newsletter because some really exciting news is coming on how we're going to be celebrating our ten year in aniversary. I want to get into today's show. So today we are back with the Brown Table and we have two of my favorite human beings on planet Earth. Chris Browning of Popcorn Finance. Y'all know him, my brother from another mother, the guy that I love to give a hard time

and he gives it as good as he gets. Also Berna Annette, who's the author of the book Money Out Loud and also the founder of Hey Berna. She's a personal finance educator. I just love her to pieces, and Berna is actually talking about how she got burnt out by the solo preneur life and how she might be making a career pivot back into dare I say it, corpor not there. It's fine, y'all, It's totally fine. And then we're going to bring it to the real world.

What's happening with tariffs and honestly, what's happening with the stock market. We're going to talk about how to cope

with the anxiety of what's happening in our markets right now, with our government and the man children who are running things and oh my days. We are going to talk about how we're thinking about our investment and strategy, are saving, strategy.

also post on YouTube. I don't think my brand new, shiny podcast network like wants me to tell you that, because you know, audio is still king and how we make money. But ran ambition, if you want to watch, we are also on the YouTube and let's see, it feels like a momentous day, completely selfishly for so many reasons. But before I get to my favorite subject, wah, let me introduce you to today's Brown panel co host so Ba Fam.

Whether you're listening for the first time in a while or you are brand brand new, I have introduced this like new format ever since my my beloved Tiff at the end of last year, This new format where I invite more friends onto the show and we chat about the news you need to know when it comes to

your personal finance. But then always always, always serving up a side of inspirational tea so that we don't give into the sads and you know, go into our dark you know, hibernation of doom and anxiety and doom scrolling. But so that y'all at least live leave the podcast. My hope is you leave the podcast feeling like, Okay, I have some tools, some things I can do to strategize and just like cope with this insanity financially, personally, mentally,

all the things. So today at the Brown Table, I have got Chris Browning, fan of the show, biggest fan of brownhibition in America, I.

So when he saw my photos, he was like da da, and he was I mean, I don't think he understands what weddings are, but he's like, that's a lady. And I was like, where's mama? Like, wow, I don't know, you tell me. So that's always fun to look back at photos and be like, wow, I was really hot and slept very well, and that.

wedding in cash. It was like a destination wedding. I was so proud of that moment, and I suffered for it in a way, Like I we moved in with my in laws for five months leading up to our wedding, so that it wasn't that I didn't have the money saved up for the wedding. This is how like how smart I was financially back then, and how free I was without childcare expenses. But I had said, oh, I have six months of savings which we could use for the wedding. But I don't want to. I don't want

to dip into that. So we're going to go live with your parents in this like cramped apartment and save money on rent and delight your Dominican mother because I loved it out of wedlock, doesn't matter. Like they were like, please move it, cohabitate and we, yeah, saved rent for five six months, and you know, got made it so that we could pay for that wedding and then not have to like come out the other side even though we paid for in cash. I didn't want to feel that was all my cash.

Sometimes I feel a little self conscious saying that is if it's a strategy, because I think there's this sense now you guys tell me, I've been doing this since I feel like I was twelve. Now I'm one hundred

talking about money. But it feels like now it's not as welcome to give these like aggressive savings and investing strategies like oh yeah, give up your independence, move out of your cute apartment, move in to your future in laws apartment, and suffer the suffocation that comes with that particular dynamic because I'd meant I married a first born Dominican prince, so like I knew when I was getting more.

guaranteed as you millennials thought it was. And so I'm going to enjoy myself now. I'm going to work less, like I don't want to like you know, move fast break things. I don't want to live that like crazy tech life for intense hustle life. Got to give credit to that, but we didn't. We had to do. You made the decisions that you knew were right at the time.

We knew we didn't want to be there for a full year, and so all the things sort of aligned for me, the cost savings, the logistics of being a renter, and having like to sign a contract to be stuck somewhere. So I'm grateful for it, but yeah, I had to do all day. I couldn't. I couldn't. We could have delayed our marriage, you know, we didn't have to get married that quickly, but it is what I did. I'm I'm super grateful to the decisions I made in my twenties.

But being now eight years from that moment and with two kids and I have the house that I thought I was going to be saving for a down payment for back then, and I'm like, you did it. But you know, also those those like memes now on the trend on social media where it's like a picture of you from your past and it's like, oh, she had no idea stress.

far behind. I don't I have a house, I don't have that much safe for retirement, and I just beat myself up all the time. And I think I would just tell me stuff just to relax, because like, now eight years that have passed, it feels like so much time, and I feel so much older than I did when I was thirty, and I was like, it wasn't really that big of a deal. You could have just relaxed a little bit. But I was just stressing myself out all the time and just looking at everybody else.

you know, I right before my thirtieth birthday is when I paid off my credit card debt that was from the wedding and all the other stuff. And so but I stressed myself off paying that out, like kind of like you, like you just I had moved in with family for we only lasted a few months.

and then I was like victory lap. I quit my job in twenty seventeen and traveled all twenty eighteen, and so it was like it was definitely a high point for me financially because I'd been doing the hustling. The hustling for me meant I was going to say something more vulgar, but doing tech things, doing just hanging out with the tech gods, you know, and being like me me meaning me corporate brand a la la la la lah, and putting all that money. I also was living with

my parents. My partner and I were living with my parents at the time because we had this goal of paying off all of our debt.

the seeds for a very wild ride. I would tell her, buckle up, girl, like what you just did and all the things, all the seeds you planted, and how you work so hard. That's about to open a chapter that you can even imagine. Because then I've traveled for a year and backpacked through Asia, did that whole millennial thing, and then started, hey burnis stuff the next year, so I didn't even know. I don't know where I was going. I was just like one way ticket to Auckland, let's go.

Thirty percent is for your need, your wants, your wants, and then twenty is for the needs.

Business Insider, Yahoo Finance. I was in this shit every day saying the same thing, which was, you know, fifty percent ideally, but I like to keep my housing expenses, you know, my essentials less than thirty percent, me and my childless. You know, freedom like just doing the most and you know what, shout out to her because at least she saved that extra money because God, the way that I know, I could be rich if I had these kids. But I am rich in love and legos so exact.

I want to do it in Georgia, where I'm from. I want to have these memories that you know, and bring joy for my family and friends. And I did that, and it was so in alignment. It would be so different if I had suffered with my in laws to then spend money on this wedding and pay for it cash, and it was a wedding I didn't even want, no

thank you. At least it was so in alignment with my values, and we did our you know, we loved traveling women to Italy, so you know, and I spent a lot of money on Broadway shows and those other experiences, and it was in so much alignment with who I am and what I value. Now, what I would tell her is like, she has no idea how difficult, how far away she's going to get from those values in the next eight years, and how she's going to have to claw claw herself back because when I I don't

know if it's a combination of motherhood plus pandemic. It could be both, honestly, because I had my first son in twenty nineteen, like three months before shut down, and I think with the heightened level of anxiety and mental struggles that I as long as what the whole world

were going through. But I'll just speak for myself, and I wasn't able to, like I wasn't able to use money to do the things that really had brought me had had to align with my values before, like family and friends, and you couldn't go anywhere, you couldn't do very many things, so all of us just bought crap, right, you would buy things. And I think my addiction that dopamine hit of like I can order something, I can

get delivered. I can especially for the kids. I would my firstborn son, like buying him activities and toys and things that felt like a way of bringing joy to me and to us. And I get it because where

else were you getting that from? Living in you know, in the dark winter of Newark at the time. And anyhow, I think that kicked off for me, this sort of like slippery slope where I started to be attracted to I started to get those dopamine hits and that that like soothing from stuff and from things, and I next thing, you know, and then I'm not giving time to myself. I'm not you know, pouring into things that I love. I am putting house child, this new lifestyle in front

of it. By the way, also business, because I'm like launching my own thing. And then it's and then I do end up being like oh oh, looking around and I don't feel the way I did at my wedding, where I was like, you know, didn't have I had a lot less money in the bank, but I was so happy with how I had spent it. And now I'm looking around and I'm like, God, damn, there's a lot of monster trucks. The monster trucks are not bringing the joy.

and then clawing out of that. I still feel like what five years later, we're still sort of crawling out of the effects of that time, and it hit everybody financially. It was when that was a moment where I, as my business coach, likes to remind me my crisis response is to work and make things even when I am tired and sad. So we did this whole like week of like free classes. I was like, Wow, let's do like a money thing for people, so people can do

like get free budgeting classes for a week. But tired myself out because my crisis response was serve, sacrifice, figure it out, ignore my feelings and try to take care of other people. And all this therapy later, I still have not fixed that, but well we're figuring it out.

you need mode in it. I'm super grateful that target did did its did it did its big one and got rid of DEI because the way that this boycott is doing wonders for my budget. Bounced, my budget grew up. I now it's just become. It broke the spell. I have not shopped. And y'all know the chokehold that suburban moms have with Targeted. Don't know if you know that it's strong, so strong, you make a day of it, hundreds of hundreds of dollars multiple times a month, and

it's dead. It deaded. I don't. I haven't gone into one. And I also I don't want to. I don't want to freak anybody out. But and this is just a personal choice, all right, you do what you gotta do. But I canceled Amazon Prime.

And it's causing me to slow down. And if I could give anyone listening some personal finance advice now, I know that we could talk about all these different the fifty thirty twenty and the pay yourself first. There's all these like different strategies to to budget and to save more, but also slow the earth down. Whatever you can to slow yourself down. It's gonna be painful because it's causing your own self inconvenience and the world is so not

set up for us to be inconvenienced right now. It is out of style.

like I'm trying to. I'm trying to shed that too.

Like boycotts and DEI and stuff. And the other day he was begging me to go. He had fifty bucks burning a hole in his little pocket from birthday money, and he is like, I want to go a Target is my money. I'm like, you're right, but listen, we're not going to go to Target. We're going to go to We went to Barnes and Noble. And the way I googled the CEO of Barnes and Noble before, I was like, y'all know, Barnes and Noble's like the good guys. Now they're like the little shop around the corner. Oh

now Tom Hanks is now Meg Ryan. It's all flipped. Yes, why because of Amazon? Because Amazon really killed the in store book experience, bookstore experience, and so Barnes and Noble had like all these store closures on everything. But if you go into your local Barnes and Noble, now it feels like a local neighborhood bookstore because they've got this new CEO who came in. He founded this big chain,

the Waters or Waters and something in the UK. He's a British guy, so he founded this, like you know, smallish regional bookstore chain in the UK. So now he's overseeing Barnes and Noble and they've brought that same like pathos to the way that they managed. So they're letting the local teams at Barnes and Noble make it feel make it like, make a more of a community anyway. Okay,

I'll say, so Hella toys, so target loophole.

people are trying to buy what's there now. My mom and my stepdad were one of these people, this couple, they went to their dealership and they felt the pressure to like buy by and inventory is going getting lower because yeah, people are trying to rush to buy them. So that's created higher prices. There's some I mean, I think grocery prices have became such a big issue during

the election, especially eggs. We know that, but like unless it's imported, So I think like produce and imported goods from these countries like Asia, Sorry, I know Asia is not a country, but Japan, China, tie in, Vietnam, Cambodia. Like if you're getting any goods from there, I mean, I wonder what h Mart's going to be, like, Oh do you love to We love our h Marts, Keep a lookout for that. Let me see one of the tariffs. Okay,

the ten percent the baseline tariff. And just to remind y'all, tariffs are something that that consumers end up paying the brunt of because like say that you're what's the name of a company that uses any company Apple, So your Apple, and you get your gizmos and gadgets to make your iPhone from from China, and now with these tariffs you'll be paying I mean, like, this is just a number I'm throwing out there. I don't think the tariff's probably

much higher. But if there's a ten percent tariff on those gizmos and gadgets for you to bring them into America to put together for our iPhones, then you, the company, are going to be paying that ten percent, and so it's going to make you less likely to want to buy your gizmos and gadgets from that country. That's like my you know, tariffs for dummies explanation of like how they kind of work. But that's why the cost is

going to get passed on to us. All right, so home crisis could also rise, I mean, like another reason why home ownership is so hard in this country, and like the recession, the existential crisis of an economic recession. This is all real. This is all and I don't want to downplay it. I don't want to. I do try to be optimistic, but I don't want to be

toxic optimism where we ignore the realities. And with that, because we are in our we are in our stage middle thirties years together, I think, right, I don't know burn as a young thing, but we have We've had the pleasure of experiencing some things, recessions, pandemic, economic downturns. We have been their housing crisis, student alone crisis. So I want to take a moment just to think about, like we've been here before, we will be here again

because things have cycles. But like if you could, you know, think about people who are listening BA fam who are wondering I'm seeing all this news. I know it's a huge effing deal but like, what am I supposed to do with my pocketbook to be different? And do I need to be messing with my investments? That always comes up, you know, people trying to sell get out of the market whatever. What do you guys say to that? And what would you say to someone who's a little worried now?

as well? If it's affecting electronics, our second electronics affected as well. I genuinely don't know.

anything new. This is where the first gen child immigrant thing comes all the way out where I'm like and now living with my partner who is like, he's also first gen, but he's on the opposite side of the spectrum where he likes new things and he likes nice things. I'm the frugal betty in the relationship. I'm like, why would we buy that new? I'm on things like Swapa and back market like used electronics, secondhand all that stuff, And I think for me, downshifting into that is not

too difficult. These are moments where I'd be like, well, hello, buy nothing group on Facebook. Hello, like community swapping, Hello, you know, connecting to a lot of coworking spaces in the Bay Area and they do things like clothing swaps

and like meal prep circles, things like that. I think these are moments where I almost get a little not excited, but just like it's time to like shift into community most shine, it's time to it's time to just live in the world that I always want to live in, where I'm just pretending everything is like summer camp and we all exchange resources is a more bartering, there's more work exchange, there's more kind of community level things like that. So that's where my When I.

looks like for me. More swapping, more secondhand, we're giving for free more like even moving out, I gave so much stuff away through my buy nothing group, and it was so fun because I actually got to know a bunch of neighbors and I'm like, my bed frame went to this person. We talked about why, and this person's taking my mattress because their niece is moving in to the neighborhood and all that. So it became this like

really beautiful generative moment. And some of the stuff I was giving away, I was like, this was a buy nothing, like not purchased, a buy nothing acquisition for me, and I'm gifting it back to the community. So people, now my toaster rubbin is like fifth generation buy nothing and it is somewhere in the original San Francisco living a fifth life. I hear the traveling Toaster of Traveling Toaster rebin is what my life, which is funny because I'm so obsessed with Sister to the Traveling Pants.

I'm gonna check out. There's this Once upon a Child like secondhand gently used chain of for parents if you want to give away like gear or toys, clothing, shoes, all this stuff, all the accessories. My goodness. But yeah, as the kids get older, I'm I could definitely I have to start thinking that way. It doesn't have to be brand new, especially if I'm going to align my spending with my values and I don't want to teach

my kids to value stuff. I want to teach them to value you know, this road trip to Atland and we're a taking for spring break and you know, family excursions and stuff. So that's that's a point well taken. I love that too. The community aspect of it burna. Yeah, I wish we were neighbors. That would be so fun.

but I've yeah, I've I've become that person on the block who's like, I may have to, you know, disappear for the week after this, but for this week, I'm going to be all up in your face. Is going to be best pals and like, you know, making these bonds, supporting each other.

community that I've made. So it's good to invest in that.

like I was supposed to be able to do.

liked it. I did not. Oh. I was just lucky to pay my childcare bill and my mortgage to twenty more and we are grateful. I have a roof over my head. But yeah, I'm hoping that's my only goal. It's like to try to, you know, max out my solo for one K and maybe a wroth.

tariffs on the islands where just ping Woods live. You got like crazy stuff happening, and it feels a little different, and I get I think, I think nervousness is justifiable. But the thing is, there's no other solution, right, Like, what are you gonna do? You know, take all your money out, putting cash and then wait for the perfect time to jump back in, because you don't know when

that's gonna be. And honestly, like if all of a sudden the stock market just imploded it at all, just crash and just everything economy failed, we had a lot bigger problems than how you're investing for retirement. So to me, I'm like, I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing, even though it feels nerve wracking, even though it feels like,

oh what, what's gonna happen? There's a lot of uncertainty, but it's still the best option that we have to get towards retirement, and we don't know how things will shake out. So I think it's it's a little more risky to pull your money out and not know what you're going to do and try to guess the best time to come back in versus just sticking with it, saying discipline and then you just see where things go.

tabs on, Like when does that introepr end? Oh god, But that's the same thing that could jillionaires do. Literally, ain't none of that really spending cash. They are leveraging debt, low interest debt.

make any set of movements. And then I had not set up the right notifications for this new card and new bank, and I was one day late on my payment and they were like, oh, sir, and no more, no more zero percent APR for you, bye bye, and here's twenty five percent. I had to I had to do that thing where you call customer service over and

over until you get a nice person. Yes, and it worked, but I had to call a couple of times before I got a very kind person who was like, I got you, I understand, we're going to reset it for you, but put on autopay and I was like, I will dip it.

Uh huh, And I have a similar about it. Yeah, I've been.

raw dog in it. Like we were just saying it was just therapy, therapy and that's it. I was not taking any kind of medications in or SSRIs. I barely knew about what my brain was like in solopreneurship and how that's then a lot harder and just the last couple of years I've been creating, Like right, I can continue to ride this out and like build some form of financial stability for myself that we know that the creator and influencer market has changed so much in the

last like two three years. So it's it's surfing, it's always surfing, and I just decided I don't want to surf anymore. I want to glide. I want to be pulled along in a wagon, like like like a child at a fun You want.

Like I've done this ride. It's been a great ride, and to be very clear. Money out alowed is not going anywhere. Hayburn is not going anywhere. I'm gonna be. I haven't decided yet whether I want to be super public about where I'm going to work, and I full disclosure. Haven't even started yet. My start date it's actually next week. But I'm very excited about it. I could tell you all about it offline. But I'm psyched because I get stability.

I get to work with a team, I get to do it is in financial services, it's in money stuff. I get to like build something with other people. That's what I really was craving. I missed co workers, I missed, you know, talking to someone else besides myself within three to four days of so in my apartment. Yeah, I just really want it. I'm like, it's it's this grind, the solopreneurship grind has been an amazing adventure. And let's get a different flavor here. Let's let's just shift to

some to have a new chapter. Let's have a new chapter, and that chapter happens to absolutely include more financial stability, just you know, beautiful wellness stipends and dental coverage that that's not coming out.

you have now and so ready for it. And I love that we are past this like influencer boom kind of stage now where you're kind of seeing influencers, like like educators, online educators and influencers sort of mature into the next phase of like okay, so because that's so natural,

it's just part of our career. You know, we have these like moments and then you think about, Okay, I learned from this, and then now I'm going to go into this you know, next stage differently, and then in another eight years you might decide like, oh, I'm going to go do hey burn a full time, or maybe you'll go I don't know on the Blue Horizon jet and make that your whole Is that a job? People seem to have a job just doing that now you're just a martian. That's really exciting.

But like I really felt that in the last few months of like, Okay, this is a moment where you know, I tend to try to downplay most of the time what I do and what I've built, But I was like, this is a moment where I'm going to reach all the way into my networks and really talk about it with like partners. I loved working with the mentors, and that's that's how I got it, Like, that's it was one hundred percent through someone who's like, I like your work and I would like you to come work over here.

The job was not even listed, like it was not it was not a thing find like and I I really I was like, man, it's a good thing that I can play extrovert because it was one hundred percent networking. It was one hundred percent someone who watched my work over the last few years and I kept in touch with and and then it was another you like my matho and with another five hundred percent timing, because that's got you got that. I'm a word girl. I wrote a book. I I don't do that.

started doing things on my own. How much I still do, you know, miss that part of my working career because yeah, it's nice knowing, hey, that Patriock's showing up in my bank account every two weeks.

So for those of you who are new, new here, I'm manifesting like hundreds of thousands of new listeners now that we're on iHeart. By the way, Hello, Brown Amission's on iHeart now.

may be. I'm trying to give Chris some ideas so that he cannot claim that he is not ready by the time I finished the spiel, and the Brown Break is going to be something that we are fed up with, we could care to have less of in our lives, something that's just we need to just get off our chest. That is probably hella relatable. Okay, who wants to go for Look at Berna's face. I'm smiling because you said,

Hella relatedt to my boost? Did he pay you your what was it like a thousand bucks per use of Hella mail?

I've been to Oakland, a Ton. This is my first time being a resident, and I just want to shout out the brownness of it all and the blackness of it all like it is of if you've you've seen,

probably Chris.

in and it's just booh. There's the culture, there's the black and brown people, there's the different languages, there's the different like the there's the good style, there's the I've been living in San Francisco for about five years and it's a white city. A lot of it is very white, and you notice it real viscerally when you go to Oakland, and I feel physically calmer in Oakland. I feel physically

more like here it is. And there are so many more black and brown businesses in Oakland too, and ones that really boost it. They're like we are you know, They're just it's so much more visible. It's wonderful and so massive boosts to the city of Oakland. I'm saying a lot of the most obvious things in the universe. Oakland's been this way for a very very, very very long time. So I just want to give an extra

boost today to all the props that it deserves. And if anyone knows of any and all just black, brown women owned businesses in Oakland, please let me out because I'm trying to get my money to all up that.

I was claim in my room. I was listening to the Jay Shuddy podcast. And you know, my iHeart brother Bread right on a different He's in the first class section of iHeart way in the back by the bathroom, you know, but you know, easy access and all that. But anyway, he had MI girl Lizzo on as a guest, and I just we talked about Lizzo when her whole

scandal happened a couple of years ago. One of her a couple of her dancers had claimed like sexual harassment, workplace harassment, and it was this whole thing, and Lizzo's

reputation was just like dragged through the mud. And I remember at the time having so much compassion for her as an as a fellow, like thirty somethingter young manager of people and learning some hard lessons about what happens when you hire friends and what happens when you kind of bridge that line between friend vibe and workplace vibe. And I've been I just knew she was going to go on. I knew she was going to be going

through stuff. But I think it's really apparent whether you've heard anything about the Lizzo journey, whether you've been a fan for a long time, or you use that you know, that whole new cycle a couple of years back to just like you know, you know, just like write her off and decide that you weren't going to give her the time of day. I really encourage you to listen, because she has just she clearly has had gone through

and done like so much personal work. And the way that she talks about the way that she takes accountability, the way that she talks about her own journey to self love, the way that she even has reframed her her relationship with her body as she's she's calls it

like releasing weight, not losing weight, but releasing weight. She acknowledges all the you know, all the controversy, and how she like it really made her like hit this rock bottom of self worth, having everybody decide that you are this villain and a story that you didn't write, and she talks about I mean, there's so many gems that I wish I had had a penant paper I could have written them down, but I was multitasking but one of them that really stuck with me is the concept

of letting other people tell your story for you, and how they are casting her as a villain in a story, and how she has the power to like she can't control, and she also understands how people can well believe that story because and she acknowledges that, like she was one of those people who would read gossip or read accusations about people and then she would participate in that because what other information is there for us to, you know, base our our beliefs about someone on other than what

we may see publicly. So she like makes peace with the fact that she can't control what people think about her, but that she can take back control and she can write herself back into the story. She can write her own narrative. And she's putting out music again and she's loving herself and I am just so happy for her.

And I think we got to get people more grace and space to go through the kind of self work that Lizzo has gone through, and to have done that in such a public, freaking stage and to still be standing.

I just think that she's extraordinary, and I think she made mistakes and she thinks she makes mistakes, and I believe having made a lot of mistakes myself and having gone through like something of an ego death the past couple of years, and you know, on such a journey myself, on a very similar journey, but on a thank god, not a public stage like Lizo did. I just have

so much compassion for everybody, Like so much compassion. Like everyone is redeemable, almost everyone, not you, you know who, not you, You're not dragoons, but a lot of people are redeemable, and like we should give ourselves space and grace to make mistakes. And listen, if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, yeah, I've heard that before,

but you haven't lived it yet. When you have the privilege of living through some of the worst days of your life and some of the biggest challenges you've faced, and you are able to get on the other side of those, it just gives you this like freedom, freedom to be kinder to yourself, and freedom to be kinder to others and to treat everyone else with compassion and yourself.

And I know that what I've gone through has made me a kinder, more empathetic, more understanding, open hearted person and it was really refreshing and very heartening to hear and recognize that journey in a public figure who I have loved for so long. I'm just really really proud of her. I don't know her. I don't know you, Melissa Lisso, but I love you and I do love Jay Shutty's podcast. Now y'all should go check it out. It's called On Purpose with Jay Sheddy and Yeah Brown,

Big Brown Boost for that. So y'all can go listen to that after this, after you subscribe and follow and write us a review, then you can go check out Jay Shutty's podcast. Not sponsored, No, that doesn't kinda that's so beautiful. I think it's kind of related what you

were saying before. When we were going through lockdown, like early twenty twenty twenty one, all we had was one purchasing things and two judging things on the internet, and I think we got really good, too good at being very sharp and unforgiving with each other because there was no other outlet. There was very little empathy that we were all in ridiculous crisis. And so I've been thinking a lot over the past few years about, of course,

like cancel culture, how toxic it could be. And also how like carcorole, it is, how very prison system it is for us to go, like one thing I heard that was bad for you jail, like moral jail. Forever you're counseled, forever, you can't be redeemed. It's wild that we cast that upon each other, and we would never actually want that to be enacted on us on ourselves. It's giving mob mentality, it's giving like public hangings and medieval times exactly, it's really you know, American times.

our humanity, that we and that we need that. I know everyone loves saying now more than ever, but like, truly, truly, and I know I I beat the community drum, but like, that's something you really need if you're gonna be seriously in community, is the ability to give kindness and grace to each other through mistakes because it's gonna keep happening.

Lively thing. And it's like, you have situations like that where you don't know you hear ones side of the store, you don't know whose story it is, you don't know if it's true, and then you don't leave room for maybe the person to come out and say something, or even if they did something wrong, is there always room for someone to kind of like come out do the work,

and people say, okay, all right, we respect that. Like, I think it's it's kind of hard sometimes in the very knee jerk, very negative world that is social media and just being online in general.

make mistakes. Like she's worthy of her own success and worthy of sharing her art and doing what she loves, you know, like for her it's.

Lizzo like she has sat like I have. She has sat in that mirror, whether physical or just mental, and looked so hard until you stop seeing what you want to see and you finally accept what you see, even if it's like ugly and damaged and broken and imperfect, and you take accountability for your part in like the

way that you treat others and what you do. And that is like when you're someone who like you get your value from how people see you, and then you realize that you've done, you know, bad things and like you've made mistakes, like it can so damage your sense of self worth and like like I just know that when you can sit there and you can get through that and then you decide to still love yourself, like I can hear Lizo has like that is the freaking journey of a lifetime, you know. I think that's if

we're one hundred percent. I think we're all on a journey like that. It's it's just a matter of like will we ever get to that mountaintop? And some of us I think it's stuck, you know, and you think that you're happy, you know, but you're really you're just stuck and you haven't really gotten there yet. And I'm grateful to her and I'm grateful for her, and thanks to let me be on my Lizo train. Love it, my little fantrain. Okay, be a fam. We're gonna say goodbye for now. Thank you so so so so much

for listening. Don't forget to rate and review, subscribe. It takes like thirty seconds. If you want to share this episode with a friend, go ahead and do that. And by the way, we would love to hear from y'all. Please dm me. I'm at Brand Ambition Podcast on ig or. You can email me and yes it's actually me reading your emails Brian Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com and let us know if you have questions. If you want

to just leave a comment about the show. I'm so grateful to y'all for sticking with me through this new journey, this new chapter for BA and we will see y'all Friday. Okay, be a fam. Thank you so much for listening to this week's show. I want to shout out to our production team, Courtney, our editor, Carla, our fearless leader, for idea to launch productions. I want to shout out my assistant Lauda Escalante and Cameron McNair for helping me put

the show together. It is not a one person project, as much as I have tried to make it so these past ten years, I need help y'all, and thank goodness I've been able to put this team around me to support me on this journey and to y'all bea fam I love you so so so so much. Please rate, review, subscribe, make sure your sign up to the newsletter to get all the latest updates on upcoming episodes, our ten year anniversary celebrations to come, and until next time, talk to you soon via buye