Hey, hey, hey, ooh got that.
You know.
We're back.
We're black, we'd brawn, ambition, ambition, Wow, dressed like Destiny's child, throw back clips, Mama Tina's always.
Instead of We're Dusty, get it? Instead of Destiny Dusty shop just a little dusty.
Just a little junkier. Yes, Oh that's all good. It's been so long I haven't been in a single mood without your babes. I'm glad to be back ish back ish, Yes, I love that, giving yourself free to define it however the hell you want. I'm exhausted from Mother's Day. I have to be honest.
Did the baby make you anything? In school?
It's a lot of freaking work to have to be a mom on Mother's Day. And every mom that I've run into since yesterday we just all look at each other like you're out here too. You don't want to be yep. You just want to take a nap, don't you.
Yep.
But they keep making us do things, the brunches, and it's great. You know, Rio made me his first little he's big enough now he can actually, like, you know, sign a card while he scribbles. But yeah, and he made They made the kids did little wind chimes for us at take care. So it's so so proud of himself. When he walked in and gave it to me, it was adorable.
But I gotta keep it forever and ever and ever.
I will because it's his full little wind chime. It's not like I don't know an ashtray. That's what I used to make my mom's. But oh my god, that's not cool anymore.
Let me think about the times, right, Oh my god. It's like my sister Carol, like her her son Roman made her some little like I don't know, I don't I don't know if it was a flower vase or like whatever, but they had like his picture on it, and he told her like if she didn't right, he was gonna take it back.
Of course he would say that. So now me, there is a did you check the terms and conditions of this? I mean the behavior clause?
I mean I couldn't believe it. She was like, you can't take it back? He said, I can't, and I will. And then Amelia created a chart where it's like she found that they have this behavior chart for her where literally it's just chart, mommy chart, and every day because like in school. I guess they have a little box. If you behave you get a check. If you don't, you get an X. So apparently they got a running chart for her in their room. Can you imagine judging her mom?
Yeah, actually I can't imagine it. The people. She's lost control, that's what.
Yes, it is.
They literally she lost control.
The calls coming in from inside the house. She took it. She put in our group chat. She was like, look at these dag on kids check deciding if I was good today.
We do that ourselves in our own minds. We don't need the kids to criticize us. We're already bad. Yeah, it was a que did cook for me. Husband did cook, but in order for him to have all of the hours, he needed to do things like shop and cook a meal as like babysitter. Didn't you didn't think about that? Nope? Okay, I'm just gonna be sitting here and it's raining cats and dogs. So I was really stuck indoors with my
wild child. But it was lovely. Long story short though, I booked a massage for myself tomorrow so we all make Tuesday, when everyone's at daycare and work and out of my damn way, we're making Tuesday Mother's Day.
Okay, we gonna be our It's like, no, you have to create space and time. I was on my neighbor and next door I was like, I've been looking to purchase, like you know, like another home or whatever. And my neighbor next door looks like he was like gearing up to move. And then a friend of mine told me, girl, like, you know how there's like financial stuff that happens in the news, but then it's like it hits home. So she was supposed to buy a house around the corner.
House is really beautiful. It's really hard to get into this neighborhood. She found it. She had a great interest that she locked in for three percent, which is awesome historical lows we all know. But the problem is is that the seller's agent was slow. And if you don't know anything about interest rates is typically the bank will give you a specific number of days, you know, sometimes it's thirty days or whatever to secure like whatever, basically
to get all your stuff together. So she had done all of her stuff and gotten all her stuff together, and the seller's agent, so that means the people that represent the people who are selling the house were supposed to get their stuff together, and they did not the agent.
So the ratelock expired, yes, and she.
Went from three percent to six percent, and now she can't afford the house.
Rates at three percent, like that was a couple months ago, like rates took gone back up. Now that's the raising.
Rates, I know. So you know she is livid. Now here's the thing, you know, Like folks don't really understand that sometimes, Like so if your rate goes up, it makes the price of the house, not necessarily go up, but it certainly makes the monthly ay, monthly payment go up.
So now all of a sudden, who someone who could afford this five hundred thousand dollars home can only afford a four hundred and fifty thousand dollars home because they can't afford the monthly payments of the five hundred thousand dollars home unless the interest rate was super low. And so now you're gonna have homes that it's like some of these homes are gonna have to adjust their prices just because people who could afford them, you know, with the lower interest rate, are not gonna be able to
afford them now. So it's like, yikes, tell me we're headed for a recession. Without telling me we were heading for a recession.
Child, I know's that's the whispers out there, and then the stock market. You know, I'm usually pretty good. This is not our first rodeo. How long you've been doing this show? Seven years now? How many different stock market dips have we come and said to y'all, calm down, is gonna be all right? Don't look ooh. I was like this last night looking at my four one not my four to one K, but my well, you know, my four to one k's that I'm now consolidate into
my you know, my one central brokerage account. And I'm here's the thing, you know, on your brokerage account, you can view the returns from like year to date, one year ago, five years. I like to start with a ten year Outlook, how has this performed over ten years? And I was like, oh, you know, it's up. I don't I forget what the double digits you know? Up? Okay, But yeah, if you look to how I've been doing
since January eight, ain't a pretty picture. I lost. Yeah, it was down negative, negative, negative, But let's talk about why and what's going on it seems like a million different things. One, the FED is raising interest rates, yes, and businesses aka those things that make up the stock market don't love higher borrowing costs. In general, inflation is still krai krak, like insanely crazy.
Right, it's looking like ninety eighty Some of y'all wasn't even born then.
Yeah, I'm about to google it right now? What is inflation rate? What's it been like? Eight percent? It's forty years. It hasn't been as high as it is.
I know, I'm forty two, so I was two years old. We left experienced this craziness eight.
And a half percent.
I just checked high. You know, why did I Why did that march? Why did many make me do this? I just checked, like, don't For the last three months, I'm down twenty three basically twenty four percent. Yo, that's cristy.
Quick quick, look at the ten year old look quick qick.
Okay, okay, for the all time of all time. Okay, I've all come up fourteen percent of all time. See, there we go, and.
The peddercatter anxiety starts to relay. Okay, yes, but I really had to do that because it's stressful. It's like should I be doing something different?
No, No, the truth, Well that's not true. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. We started off Frans anyway, So that's all right. So the thing is is that during the last major recession two thousand and nine, and that's when wealth was made for so many people. You hear people say that over and over and over again, and then we lose our minds every time. We have the opportunity
to grow wealth in this way. And the reason why you have the opportunity to grow wealth in this way is that there are things that are legitimately down, like this is not a good company down, And there are things that are down situationally like this is a good company, but everybody down, so you down to So if you have companies that you've been studying and you know this is actually like a really good company, or maybe it's just the market itself, because the market goes up and down,
up and down, that you might say, I'm going to invest in like the overall market through an ETF, which is like a group of stocks and bonds and other financial instruments that you can purchase that mimics what the market does. You know, this is not certainly not investment advice, but I'm just saying in general that, like, you know, when the market is down, it may present an opportunity to stock up on things that are quote unquote on sale. But remember, in order for something to be on sale,
it actually has to be the real value. It's really worth the value. It just happens to be temporarily discounted. That's the key to investing is finding things that are temporarily discounted, stocking up when you're on sale, and when they return the regular price, getting you behind on Etsy
and settle them for full price, y'all. That is what So there's real opportunity here that yes, you might have lost money, but know that over the last hundred years, the market has always gone back up and exceeded where it was previously. So if we were to look back, you know, last fifty years, one hundred years, we know that that is likely to happen. Of course, no one knows the future, but it might be an opportunity to
like stock up. I'm certainly looking I have a stock or an investment WhatsApp chat and we're always talking about things like you know, what are you gonna pick up that's on sale? So what about you, mandra how are you going to be riding this wave?
Well, you know what I love? Well, I want to talk about something else. I love this podcast called The Indicator, and I have to shout them out. They are like a ten minute, quick little They basically pick one economic indicator and they kind of dive into it each week, and I love it. It's a great little nugget of a show. And last week's episode had me really noodling because they were talking about eye bonds, which don't sound
sexy at all. You think about bond savings bonds and you're like, oh, that thing that grandma bought me, you know, in the early nineties or or eighties or whatnot. But inflation bonds have been getting really, really sexy. And there's this one particular bond called the eye bond, which they talked about and then after I heard about it, I
was like googling it and really interested. But because of inflation, they basically created this product called the ie bond back in the nineties to give investors an alternative, like another way to invest their money that was relatively safe, that was actually backed by the government, so you're never going to lose the money that you put in and it had a guaranteed interest rate. And because of how it's called the inflation bond, the eebond, because it is meant
to protect you against inflation. Now, before you get too excited, and I'm going to tell you what the interest rate is today. Guaranteed nine point six two percent interest rate guaranteed, guaranteed. Right, you can only put ten thousand dollars in a year. Okay, so that's the one caveat. But it exists now, right, inflation bonds, it exists. It's not as it's not a scam.
Girl. If you see me, I'm living and I know risk adverse investor like you, You're like, I'm like ibond for when I speak to Angelie, my financial advisor this coming week, I'm like, girl, please explain ibond nine point percent?
You said nine point six two. Nine point six two. I'll look at my old friend Ken getting quoted in this article about them. Now. This is Ken, my friend Ken. We used to work together at when I was at a couple companies ago. He's the founder of a website called depositi Accounts dot com. When you talk about the you know, revenge of the Nerds, and like people who are obsessed with conservative, you know, investments. Ken Tuoman is
like the ring leader and he's amazing. So he's I'm sure he's just dancing and having a party right now. Everyone's thinking eebonds are sexy, But I yeah, I read about it, and I'm actually I'm thinking less about my investments these days, and I just don't have the bandwidth.
But my dad is finally getting his act together as sixty two no shout out to my dad, and he had me open him up a brokerage account at Vanguard and he put in, you know, some money and I'm meant to be figuring out how to invest it, and I'm like, duh, iebond, Like, at least that's the first step for someone like him who's in his early sixties and he needs to he literally needs to hedge against inflation. And that's what that's what the eyebond is meant to do.
It's meant to, at the minimum, keep your money protected against inflation so that the dollar you put in today will at least be a dollar you know down the road. But because of how high inflation is, we just said, like what eight nine percent has? How crazy? So the eyebond rate has gone up, so if y'all want to look into it, it got my little ears perked up this past weekend and anyway, But those limitations the whole
like only ten thousand things. I think it's ten thousand per year, and on top of that it's only you know, nine point six percent is exciting, especially when you think about how much do we lose? You said twenty something percent. Yeah, but still over the ten year period. What I think I was up like you said fourteen, I haven't looked at mine, but double digits, right, So that you don't have the potential to be as high as a stock market.
So that's why it's obviously not the only answer, but it can be one one, just one investment that I was thinking about outside.
So that's what they call it, like a hedge, right, because basically when you do that, it's like like, for example, for those of you're like, what does that mean when people say they're hedging their bets, it means then as they take a risk over here and we all know which way it's gonna go, you might go to twenty three percent, thirty percent, whatever. You hedge your bets by saying,
let me keep some things aside for safety. For that way, I can only fall but so far, because it's like I can you know, with great risk comes great reward. So we could go go go go this side and then over here. It's like, you know, we can only fall, but so much. So with any of these things, really,
the key is figuring out the balance for you. You know, how much do I want to put in like quote unquote safer investments and how much do I want to put investments that have the ape the potential to go as high as possible, but just no, with great height comes great falls. Yeah, so you just got to know like what that balance is for you.
Well, one last thing on the ibond, because I did bring up this question. Here's the rules. You can put up to ten thousand dollars in ebonds per person per year. Okay, you have to go to Treasurydirect dot gov where you can purchase them, and then you can actually if you're getting a federal income tax refund, you can buy up to an additional five thousand dollars worth using your income tax refund. So if you're a couple and you're filing jointly or purchasing these jointly, that means you can buy
up to twenty five thousand dollars worth per year. So definitely a conversation to be had with a individual financial planner, not financial vesties us.
What are you reading that from? Because I'm literally gonna eat email on Julie that that.
My girl and currents from the New York Times. You want me to, I'll send you the link right now. Oh yes, please do yes and check out that episode of the Indicator. Shout out to them. I love them. They are my my walk companions on Friday. You'd be so proud of me. I'm doing a lot of my early morning I don't have early morning business calls. I usually have a coaching call every every day at ten am. Okay, and I've started a walking regimen. Regimen sounds to belitaristic.
I dropped the kid off at daycare. I go to a park that's a beautiful park and near me, and I've been walking and forty five minutes has turned into like two hours sometimes. And I'm doing coaching calls. And my clients don't mind that I'm walking around. I'm telling you, they probably really don't mind because they love it because
you are you are. It's a teachable moment of what it looks like when you align yourself, you get paid what you feel is fair, and you can walk and talk like Mandra So I love that you had to get me out of the space. And it's cold down here, and plus it's been like sunny lately or sunny today anyway, so I was like, no way am I going to sit down here if I don't have to.
I know, I try to, you know, I try to get my daily walk in. And something I happit that I picked up when I was in Bali is I was like, okay, I'm going to Bali, But what am I going to do as far as exercise? Although I knew i'd do more hiking and things that normal because you know, everything's so beautiful, but still I wanted like to bring something with me. And I was at Marshall's and you know they have like this exercise section and
I was like, oh, a jump rope. I have that jump rope since I was like a kid, and so I got a jump ope. And when I tell you I enjoy jump roping, I never thought. I mean, now I'm not one of these the boxer. Here's the boxes, be like girl, and it sounds more like send a RelA just the yellow what like my jump? Yes, it's
definitely giving sixth grade Tiffany. But when I tell you that the inches that I have shred as a result of jumping rope and then after I jump, very do a little some like calisthetics like sometimes some ludgends and squads and some crunches. You know, nothing crazy, you know, So but that alone, I mean, it wasn't even that I dropped a ton of like weight or anything. It was but the inches because like the outfit that I wore to Bali, I always have like a travel pair
of jeans and shirt. It was smaller when I came back, and when I had stepped on the scale, fem when I came back, because I didn't step in any scales and Bali, I was like, okay, I actually had put on like two pounds. But yet my sister's like, did you eat when you were out there? I'm like why, She's like, you you look so like you look like you lost a lot, and I had not. It was just,
you know, like I just really shred inches. And since then I've just muscle yes, and so I've been jumping rope in the morning in the evening, and I find that when I jump rope before bed, I actually sleep better. And so I honestly when I say I love it because I'm kind of a control free I don't know if you know this about mandr and I, because she is one too, and I like it.
So she's gonna drag me down with you.
That's fine if I'm falling down the rabbit hole. But what I love about the jump rope is that, you know, like the peloton is the instructor telling me what to do. I'm like, leave me alone. The treadmill is like the treadmill selling me well. With the jump rope at any moment I can stop, I could do as much or as little, you know, I mean, it doesn't require like
all of this like thought process. I jump rope now, like talking on the phone with my sister in the morning, because it helps, like you know, talking and jumping rope, you know, like helps like with me because I had asthma as a kid, so it helps me like strengthen my lungs. I've heard that it's really good for bone density jumping rope.
I love that you're bringing this up because not long ago. I read an article that said that was like jump roping is it?
If you like?
Yes, it was all about exactly what you're saying, how it helps with bone density, how it's a good cardio workout, and how it ads what's it when you actually your body weight? Like that's why walking and running are good too, because you you have to carry yourself in it. I don't know, probably something scientific that I'm not qualified to speak on, but because of that article, I bought my I bought me a little seven dollars jump rope. Okay,
and I can. I haven't been. I wish I could say I was, as I had gotten more in the habit of it. But what I liked is I could put it on my pocket and take it on a walk with me, you know, whip it out. It is fun, though it does take you back to being a kid.
Yes, because I'm like literally like look at me, and I'm tellingly and I'm like, damn it. But I so I had this thing. So in the beginning, I was like, well how long do I jump? I said, you know what, how about now? How long? Just do a hundred rotations? So I'd be like one to mess up? Okay, three, four or five six messed up? Okay, So then then when a hundred rotations got to be easy, because in the beginning, I would do like four and be like I need a minute. Yeah, right, then that got easy.
Then I would do stuff like okay, one Drake song because you know, he'd be crooning for a while. Then I'm like, okay, two Drake songs. So then you know, so literally I'll set it and now I'll be like, okay, I'm going to listen to a podcast and jump rope. So it makes it easy to like, I like to pair it with a thing, so I'm not really thinking about the jumping of the rope. Or maybe I'll say I'm gonna jump rope this whole conversation with my sister. But when I tell you it's been awesome, I've been
intermittent fasting. I had already done that already. I like intermittent fasting. I like, like, I'm not a breakfast person, so you know, I don't eat late anymore for the most part, but like, you know, maybe I eat my first meal like eleven thirty twelve because my fast is eleven thirty twelve to seven thirty so anytime after eleven thirty, but also too, like just listening to my body, like I'll eat something. I'm realizing chicken doesn't really do me right,
you know, like like beef and chicken. I'm like, really, so I've cut that out. I had not eaten beef in a while anyway, But really it's seafood, heavy, heavy, vegetable. The more vegetables I eat, the better I feel. So knowing that, I'm just like, that's why I'm skin You look at my skin. For those of you who are not watching our YouTube or not watching her, who are not following us on Insta, you're missing out because Mandy and I skin is glowing.
I need sunglasses. The glow is I'm also kind of annoyed. I'm like, damn, another person being like vegetables and exercise.
Honestly, I had decided because I was doing that obviously. After the drill passed her, I was like, because everybody's fiving me like cookies and cakes and this and that, and I was raking it in. But before he had passed away, I had actually gone to the doctor and two visits twice. My I'd never had high blood pressure before, and my blood pressure was elevated and she was like, hmmm. The first time, she was just like, eh, you know, maybe you ran up the stairs to come see me.
Second time, she said, she mean, you never have elevated bloo pressure. This is the second time. But by then I had packed on like twenty pounds, like this is pre passing. And I was like, yeah, you know same. I was just kind of like, I'll do this, I'll do that. I would stick to something for a week or two. I bought the peloton and all these other things. But you know, I really started to worry because I'm like, you know, blood pressure is really nothing to play with it.
And then she told me if you come back and your blood pressure is still high, I'm gonna have to put you on medication. I was like medication, Like I'm seventy, and I was like, Tiffany. And so once Yeral passed away, I said to myself, Tiffany, we can't do both. Like I know that you want to eat all the things, but I can't. I have to just focus on this grief right now, girl, I cannot also stress about your health.
So it's like I had to almost step outside of myself and say, you know, like you you know, we could like see me in the year sis if we went to over eat, you know, but right now, you need to focus on this one thing. And so that's what pushed me to say, I cannot also be afraid that I'm going to have a heart attack, like girl, I'll choose something. And so that's why I got the jump rope. That's why honestly I chose Bali because I
knew I could reset my diet. And I did, you know, like I do this thing that my sister hates, what I call it hot salad, so like I don't cook y'all roast, I know, that's what I say.
I'm like, I'm about to get me a hot sala It's just like I don't swear so but really what it is is I go to Whole Foods and I get all the warm, warm vegetables, you know, because one of the reasons, like one of the deterrents for me eating vegetables is like I don't always want crispy, crunchy cold, and so I'll just go to you know what I mean, I always I'll go to Whole Foods and I'll get like, you know, a bunch of like and all the little containers like beans and this containers and another set of
beans here, and then like the cooked vegetables and all their separate containers.
And then I have maybe four or five containers at home, and then I will like you know, like put them all into like a pan a walk and then I'll seize them up and eat that for like breakfast or lunch or dinner. And so, but that has helped a lot because I'm like, you know, sometimes I do like the crunchy you know, cold, but you know, sometimes I
want something warm. And beans and mushrooms have been really like my best friend when it comes to needing that more robust feeling what I'm eating, you know, and being full longer. So it's helped significantly. But yeah, I'm down like twenty something pounds. I don't know if y'all could sell, but yeah, I'm down like twenty something pounds.
And you like feel you look like you say a feeling, which is.
Yes, but like I feel healthy, That's what I'll say, Like I do. I feel physically stronger and healthier. But yeah, so for those of you who might be struggle laying, consider hot salad and a jump rope.
The hot salad jump rope. I'm sure it'll be a best.
Because you know, people don't feelze Like my friend always says that bad health is like people are like, oh, you know, good food is expensive, like healthy food is expensive. I'm like, bad health is even more expensive.
You're so right, And it's so annoying that you can be so smart even to grief, to.
Be because it's true.
It's one more kind damn thing to think about and think that. I'm just like this again, Mandy, another one, another fifty pounds. Come on, Hey, we're all on our own journeys, right, So we're all on our own journeys. All right, Well, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back with more a brown ambition. All right, ba fan, we're back. Can I tell you a little secret though that I'm really excited about. And I decided I'm gonna
speak my secrets out loud. But at the beginning of the year, one of my one of my goals was to work on a book proposal. Okay, so I could, yes, I could, you know, get my own, get my own Uh what's that on you? What do you call that behind you? That picture? I want my own book cover on the wall behind me. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no. But I know I've had this, I've had this idea, but I wasn't happening right. Like I'm someone I've written
my whole life. I've always wanted to write a book, you know, and I know I have it in me and I keep saying that, but yet we're the book at No. Never had it, never got that agent, agents reach out, and never did anything, you know, And I realized, Okay, so what do I need to change? I need some accountability. So I'm working with a book proposal coach me accountable, and I'm going to get this book. I'm not ready to like talk about titles and stuff, but you know,
i'll tell you. I'll tell you offline, Tiff, now that you're backish, but I'm really excited and and I know, Tiff, you just went through this too, but I'll share y'all. So the journey is for me proposal first, and then shop it to agents, and then agent gets it and hopefully agent takes it to a publisher and then all that. But I'm not focused on that now. The focus now
is just months, several months work of proposal writing. So that's going to be my summer activity, and I'm really it feels so damn good to have taken one step that I know. It's like, Okay, I'm actually doing this damn thing. It feels and I'm.
Proud of you for it. Because I got the agent first and then the proposal was due. I'm not gonna lie the level of stress it was so because I had never been Yeah, but to your point, I had not thought it through, like what do I want to write?
Wait?
Wait, wait so but but I will tell you the best piece of advice and my agent, Heather gave me was because I was like, can I do like.
A little five page proposal?
She was like, you can, but she said the issue with doing that is that but one, when you do a more flushed out proposal, that means that you and your head are really clear about what you're going to write. And also two, it makes the person who's buying the book clear about what you're going to write, because if you do a shorter one, you know, the publisher might be like, let's turn left, and you're like, well, you know, my intention was to turn right, but it's not in
the proposal, so how would they have known that? You know? So I was like, okay, So I told myself, girl, I don't care what I'm talk about. I'm about to do this ten page proposal seventy pages later. Yeah, between fifty.
And one hundred is the estimate. Yes, that's right on the nose.
Yes, I think it was like seventy pages late. But I when I tell you, I'm so glad that I wrote the proposal in the way that I did because it forced me to get clear on what did I want to write, and I wrote the like I can have it to Mandy. I don't know if I have, but I can obviously share my proposal with you. I wrote my whole first like introduction chapter for you know, and then like you know, like here are the chapters,
here's what I'm what I'm going to cover. When I tell you, it was so helpful because it was like the most amazing outline that I just had to fill in as I was doing the book. So yeah, like the proposal process can be. Truthfully, it's crazy. I almost found it harder the proposal process and the actually writing of the book.
Yeah, because it's exactly it's all of that. It's clarity, it's being focused, it's having all that feedback and I know, and that's what's been so daunting, is and I and thank you for that, because a lot of generous people have shared their proposals with me and and in the best way. It's like it's like it forced me to be like, Okay, let me get this right. And even like speaking to different coaches and who I wanted to
work with and ended up picking this wonderful woman. I mean, we haven't started yet, so I'll endorse her once it's done. But but she's actually worked with authors just like me, people who and Tiff as well, like you know, people who have you know, built a following and have a message,
but really want to target it and be specific. And for me, the book is really just a continuation of my business, you know, for me, I know it'll open doors to opportunities and just yeah, I you know, but one step at a time, and I coach this all the time with my clients, is what's the one step you did today to get you toward your end goal? Just one baby step? And for me, signing that contract with her was a big baby step, a big girl step. Yeah.
Can I give you one one one piece of advice that really helped me aside from like not the proposal itself, but just in general this process. So I would just say that, figure out what do you want, Meaning like for me, I was like, okay, what do I want out of this book? And so I was like, well, one, I wanted something I could imagine the woman going to Barnes and Nobles and picking it off the shelf and saying, Okay, now I know what to do when it comes to
the foundation of my first personal financial life. Like I wanted like a almost like a financial bible. So that was one I was like, I wanted it was almost like I mean, I'm dating myself like an encyclopedia. That's how I wanted it to feel. So I was like, one, I want to help that woman, the woman who emails me and sees me and whole Foods and marshals and says, Tiffany, I need help with It's like, here's the foundation. That
was one. Two to me. It wasn't really about like how big my contract was going to because honestly, I didn't have a point of reference on how big contracts could because I was a new time author as far as you know, publishing in this way. But I said, I know that I want to see can I do it? Like I wanted to sell a hundred thousand copies in the year, although I'm not gonna lie. I didn't realize like that's like not realistic, a realistic goal. Yeah, it's not.
You operate in a different universe than the rest.
Yeah, but I didn't know. But I didn't know what was a lot or little you know what I mean. Like I thought, like, you know, I didn't realize that ten thousand is really good, twenty five is great over fifty years, Okay, girl, we see you. So one hundred thousand is like, all right, girl, are you Michelle Obama? You know? So I didn't, but that was like my number in my head just because I just I'm used to working with like my business numbers. So I was like, Okay,
this is our goal. And then third, I really wanted a New York Times bestseller, not for the flex, although it's nice flex, really because I wanted to be taken more seriously in other circles. And I knew that having that stamp was going to allow folks who might be like in no shade to influencers because I'm in part
an influencer on top of financial educator and otherwise. But I knew that if I wanted to be taken seriously on a broader market, having that stamp of New York Times bestseller was going to assist me in doing so. So I just share that to say, then, and that's just for any of y'all setting any kind of goals, like the goal before the goal, because you have to
that's really the spice to the thing you're creating. That had I not set those intents ahead of time, I baked in those intentions into the writing of the proposal and then the book, and then the marketing and then the so really got clear, like I want that woman to have her financial bible, and with that New York Times bestseller, so it gets me that stamp of approval.
And there was a certain amount of books I wanted to sell, although I just found out Penguin told me, like I had a meeting with them last week and they were like, the number we have an author portal. Almost every publisher has one or big publisher you can go in and see your numbers. And I was like, oh, okay, I see my numbers. Uh. One year later, my book has sold drum roll, please, one hundred and fifty seven thousand copies in one year. I was like, say what now,
I said the author, Putty, don't say that. She was like, yeah, I know. She's like, I don't know why it's off, she said, but they pull numbers like Target calls them every week, Barnes and Nobles, Amazon every week. They get all the numbers from all the bookstores and whatever. She's like, now, I can tell you right now, one hundred and fifty seven thousand cops these in one calendar year, which is insite. So I can't wait for your book to come out.
Book came out, Sorry, girl, I can't.
Wait to give you all my tips and tracks job like, don't do that, oh, Mandy do it? Don't do that, Mandy, oh'll do this?
Well, No, I just told you on last week's show, and I'll say it again, and I've said it to other people too. The fact that your book did so amazing,
like you don't even understand. It'll probably take years for you to find it, but to figure it out or to or even it's not one of those things that could maybe ever tangible, but it makes us such a big difference still to this day, ten percent or fewer books are by people of color, not even women of color, people of color, And I feel like if you even get into the business category and finance categories and even smaller percentage there are so there's so much room for us.
But unfortunately we're still on this point of we need to prove that there's a marketplace and all that bullshit. Right, so in such a huge way, you know, and with your intentions, I know, you know, being entirely what they are about that woman picking your book off the shelf, but you creating that book has probably made it easier for me to get a book deal, and other people have come at you. So again, I will poor, I
will always give you your flowers, Tiff. You deserve it, you do, and I hope, I hope my book can do the same. I'm really excited.
Will y'all gonna be sick of us, sick of us over here?
Give me this book, my untitled book project. I'll tell you more about it as I go. Okay, but yeah.
All right, ah well that post is in a great move for some boosty breaky time.
Yeah, let's take a quick let's take a quick little commercial break to hear some from some of our sponsors, and we'll write back with you our boost and break? All right, Wait, what's your boost and break song? I forget, I don't know.
It's now it's time to No. No, it was like the Mickey Mouse song is like am I c khy?
Like? Do the kids even know what that is anymore?
No?
Do you have a version of that you know that we could do with I don't know, bad Bunny DJ Khaled, something that the youths are into these days.
No, but I will. I will think of something. I will. I'm trying to think of, Like, what's a cute little ditty that we could do it too? For now? We could just be like, are you gonna boost? Are you gonna break? No, we didn't. This is just new.
In the background. Find us some theme music.
Yes, you know what here, this is what we're gonna do. Brown a bitch and listeners, Mandy and I would love a really cute booster break Diddy. Okay, So if you can sing us a little songy song and send it to us, maybe dms via Instagram? Is that a good place to send a little songy song?
Sure?
Sure, right, dm us on Instagram with your little songy song about boosting and breaking brown boosts, brown break, Brown boost, brown Break? What you're gonna do? No, that's some bad voice. But yeah, see I'm just I'm tap dry. So if you have a keep booster breaks song, send it. Maybe we'll play it, and we will, we will, you know, you know, we'll shout out your ig.
How about that? That sounds good? And I know I'm no help because all I can think of is the wheels on the bus which was being which was bopping in the car this morning, and the ba Keyway theme song. But I got nothing, But let's get into it. What're you gonna do tif boost or break? Today?
I am going to boost because I had therapy right before, because I know we chatted prior and you were like, before this, you took like an hour or two to kind of think about the show, and I took the hour to like, you know, just kind of like decompressed from therapy. So I cannot tell you how helpful therapy has been, not just for obviously this grief process, because today was like a really rough day, and certainly, you know I was telling you my therapist, I'm like, I
woke up so anxious and I couldn't. I didn't understand why. And you know, she helped me to see, like there's just a lot of triggers in my house that just like I just missing Darrell honestly, and how to see grief as a wave, not you know, you hear like the five stages of grief. She's like, you know, they've since debunked that, therapist, because that's just not how grief like reveals itself. It's more like a wave. There's ebbs
and flows, and that's gonna be natural. Some days the wave is gonna be really big and all I can do is anchor myself to the beach. And some days, you know, the waves will barely brust my feet and that will just be and that's normal. So that helped
a lot. But also like we're not just working through, Yes, the grief, that is definitely the main priority, but also I've been working through, you know, like unearthing why sometimes I have a hard time having the hard conversations and I'm like on the cusp of finally being able to shake some of that so I can be free of that. If there is one heavy thing that hangs around my neck outside of the grief, it has been hanging around my neck since I was in elementary school? Is why
am I afraid to say the hard things? And I know why I'm afraid to say the hard things. And I've been practicing saying the hard things and I'm getting so much better at it. And so I just don't know what I would do without therapy, because it just would have been this thing that I got used to dragging along with me. And so I just encourage, like, you know, asking for help whatever that might look like. It might look like coaching, it might look like therapy.
But this black girl over here is here only because of you know, my ability to have help through this journey, like you know, professionally, personally and otherwise. And so just a black girl brown boost for therapy and black therapists. Oh my gosh, Doctor Green is amazing. You know, there's stuff that we could talk about, sister girl talk. You know that I don't have to explain what I mean. And She's like, no, I got exactly, I'm picking up what you putting down, Tiffany.
So yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm such a huge fan of therapy too, and I also feel like getting it before you absolutely need it should be normalized too, because for me, it's like the mental health emergency Fund, like I may not need it, but I'm still going to be squirreling away, you know, some money. So that and by money, I mean having my biweekly appointments, even if I don't feel like there's something that I need, because I mean, even you, after what you went through, I'm
so glad. I know you had that moment where you weren't sure she could even really see you because of the state laws and stuff. But thankfully she could. But how amazing. And then you don't have to tell someone all about you and start from scratch. And that I have someone because with my life, it's always something. Eventually, there will always be something. So I love that. I love it. So what can I boost today? I actually, ooh,
this is what I wanted to boost. So I read this article about these tenants in the Bronx and I thought this the whole story isn't incredible, and we'll put the article in the show links. But the headline is a landlord underestimated his tenants. Now they could own the building. Okay, So a new landlord came into the Bronx, bought a building and threatened to raise rents and kick out the tenants.
But the tenants banded together, and because they took this landlord to court, they have now each been able to purchase their apartments for guess what. This is a Manhattan apartment in the Bronx two five hundred dollars each. Wow, this is a dozen tenants from most small Bronx apartment building. So I love this story. We'll share the We'll share the link in the show notes. But I love it David versus Goliath, especially at a time in New York where I've got friends who are finally moving back to
New York post pandemic. Well it's not post pandemic, but you know, you could get apartments in New York in twenty twenty twenty twenty one for really for a lot lower rent because everyone was going the other direction. But now the rents are going back up, like we're talking double digit rent increases, some even more than that. So I love this story. I thought it was just a cute, little not even cute and exciting David versus Goliath where the David's actually won. Let's talk about the picture is
wearing my target dress. Yeah, I also have I'm like you.
I love a target dress. I mean, is there anything better than the target dress? It just really isn't.
This particular dress traumatized me because it it buttons all the way down the front and I had one. This was can I go there? I'm gonna go there. I was on the way to work in the before times. I had this dress on plus like a bag that went across my you know, strapped across the front or whatever. Slowly but surely, each of those buttons was popping open on the sixth train and it was it was it was a.
Given a show girl.
Oh my god, was I giving it. I've never been so mortified in my life when this woman tapped me and she was like ma'am and she looked down and I was like, oh oh, oh.
Mandy was holding off to the pole and working a pole at the same time.
And then in the subway, listen, if you've never been a working woman who had to go to CBS with safety pins and pin herself into a dress on a work call, you know, then have you really lived? Have you ever really found success? All Right? That's my break and my my yes, my boost for the Bronx tenants. Shout out to y'all.
Oh this was nice, did you guys? Miss us My love language is words of information. I need to hear it.
Tell us, yes, tell us, shout us out on ig We're at Brown Ambition Podcast. Thank y'all again, and quick acknowledgment to our two time Webby Award winning show speaking about you know, getting our flowers. Y'all helped us get one of those webbys, so thank you for that. It feels good. We're getting back Ish in a group. Yes, Ish, we're also matching in more ways than one today.
I know I've both got a hair up in our show.
I know too much, little dainty necklaces. Yes, it's good to have.
You back to Oh, it's good to be Backish.
Well until next week, y'all. This is a Brown Ambition We're out bye, hey ba fam. We could not do this show without your support or the support of our team behind the scenes. The Brown Ambition Podcast is produced by Cumulus Podcast Network. It's edited by the wonderful Imani Crosby and produced by Tanya Bustos. Dennis Stimplinsky is our in house techduru, and I am Bandy Woodard Santos your co host, and I will see y'all next week.