Nicole Lapin

known for her strade talk. She's the author of four books, including her most recent, Miss Independent. She's the current host of her Own Money Rehab with Nicole Labin and the host of Hatched, a business competition show on the c W Network. There are so many things that you've done that I've read about that scream independence, from from freezing her exit h one to you know, never having gotten married, to living in in many many different cities and earning

your own money. What do you think in your childhood lead you down this path all of it? I think I grew up in a very traumatic upbringing. I actually always tried to hide that part of my story and thought it was my biggest weakness. It ended up being my greatest superpower, but it was only once I could actually be open and honest about it. I grew up in an immigrant household, so first generation American UM. My father died of a drug overdose when I was eleven.

My mother, as you read in the beginning part of my book, I bailed her out of jail a bunch of times when I was in middle school, and so I was dealt a pretty shitty hand and I played it the best I could. I think I won um but I didn't really have another option, and it really didn't have any more to lose. So I think everything with my childhood and the way I was brought up in a chaotic and abusive home, I think led me to the only option that was available to me, and

that was independence. I didn't have any backup plan. I didn't have a couch to go home to if something failed. I didn't have you know, family money if I lost my job. So that was the only path for me to take of independence. But so many people in those circumstances just just fall away, right They collapse under the weight of the stress. Or they don't make it through high school, they don't make it to college, they don't make it through college, they don't end up having successful careers.

What was it that made you different? I'm not sure. Actually, I think I went the opposite route. You know. I used to get a lot of people say, oh, your father must have made a call for you or something like that. When I UM started at CNN when I was twenty one. You know, a lot of my colleagues didn't think that that was possible without some sort of connections. And it couldn't have been farther from the truth. You know,

I wasn't born anywhere on the basis. I was probably born like in the alleyway, by the trash, I mean, And so I think I probably overcompensated the other way. Became the valedictorian of my high school and my college.

And the only reason I say that, because that in three fifty will get me a soil Otte these days, is that, you know, I really self prescribed, not drugs or alcohol to hide UM, but work and then some more work, and of course that led me to a complete mental, physical, emotional burnout and breakdown from you know, constantly self prescribing work since I was in my teens. I started on the air, I started at the Chicago Mark, which I thought was a mall at the time when

I was eighteen years old. So I was on the air for a really really long time by the time, you know, I was in my late twenties and early thirties, and it kind of all came to a head. How did you get the job at the Mark? Did you just send in a resume and like how did it happen? Yeah, well, at the time, you sent out a lot of VHS tapes, which I just found my VHS tape. Of course it was had a red box, unlike you know the black

boxes with the scribbling on it. I tried to have mine stand out and I yeah, I worked at the cable Access station and then I just stalked the station chief in downtown Chicago who had a station in Milwaukee, and I begged for an interview because I said, I will do anything. At that point, through Northwestern they had a program where I was a reporter in Sioux Fall, South Dakota at the CBS station and Lexington, Kentucky at

the CBS station. So I kind of did an ad hoc little education for myself and went to these smaller markets and back in the day before YouTube and no skipping steps. You had to go to these small markets and sort of work your way up. So I was like, okay, I know that I need to do that. A lot of girls in my broadcast class would go to these small markets, marry the police chief or whatever and stay there. And I was like, no putting on my blinders, like I want to be in and out of these places.

No offense to these places. I just, you know, had probably an unhealthy ambition at the time, and at that point I was like, Okay, I'm ready for big market Milwaukee, Like this is my big break. I will take the train, I'll do anything to get to the CBS station in Milwaukee. And once I finally got the interview, I said all of this, and the station chief was like, you don't get the job, and also you should learn more about geography. Um, you can't take the train prey day to Milwaukee, but

do you know anything about business news? And this was my worst nightmare. Um. My boyfriend in high school said he wanted to be a hedge fund manager, and I thought he wanted to be in gardening, so like I was completely clueless. You know, I told you that my family just used cash and in nefarious ways too. So I didn't want to think about business or money or much less talk about it much. Let's talk about it to the world. But I needed a job, and so

I said, absolutely, I know about business news. Of course, I know about business news all day, every day and twice on Sunday. And I was like, holy sh it, I guess I have to figure out business news. And so yeah, I realized that money is a language just like anything else, and I figured it out and that was quite a place to do that. But yeah, I

just needed a job. And I think a lot of times when we have these conversations about entrepreneurialism, you guys know, it's like, go out and do what you love, yolo fomo whatever you And I'm like, yo, I didn't have the luxury to do that. I wanted to be a poet when I grew up, like I started as an English major. I wanted to sit under a tree and um write poetry. And then I needed to pay the bills. And so there's no shame in doing things that you

need to do at the time. And for me, I found the shaded part of that ven diagram the things that I loved and the opportunity I had, and then I found the shaded part because I became a writer, just not the kind of expected And now a quick break. In your book, you talk about how everyone has some degree of money trauma, and we know that you had a traumatic childhood. What role did money play in that

childhood or the scarcity of money? Yeah, I have an irrational fear still to this day, and I talk about money. I teach others about money of being broke, alone and homeless, and it doesn't matter how much is in my bank account. And I just constantly still catasted fives and have to you know, talk my way out of it. Um. I have little discussions with myself a lot that i'm that's not going to happen. And it's really helped me to embrace, not to get to esoteric or wonky, this stoicism philosophy

where we suffer more in imagination than in reality. And I always try to entertain the worst case scenario. Okay, so what if I lose this project or what if I lose this job? Am I going to be alone, broken, homeless and living in the gutter as I imagine? No, I'm not. I have friends, I you know, my chosen family. That's never gonna happen to me. So still, you know, I have financial demons that haunt me, but we all have, I think, to some extent, micro or mackerel financial traumas.

Whether you know our family. I mean, if you look at me and you're like, girl, I did not have to bail my mama out of jail with the cash under the stink next to the maxipads like you did. But you know, maybe my parents hoarded or clipped coupons or spent frivolously, and that affects how you look at money. And then macro traumas like the dot com bubble or

the Great Recession, the housing crash, or the pandemic. I mean, this all affects how we look at money, and so it's really important to realize that just because it's been a certain way doesn't mean it's the way it needs to be. And oftentimes I get questions about, you know, raising financially responsible kids, and I don't have kids yet, but I would say that just by being a kid, Uh,

it is so important to lead by example. So I mean, you could try to find all the little kid financial books that you want, but if you're a financial mess. That's not help book because your kids are watching everything you're doing. How do you define financial independence? For me, financial independence is having the ultimate a few money to leave a crappy job or leave a crappy relationship. And I think far too often women in particular stay in

terrible relationships. I've received a lot of notes of women staying in abusive relationships because they're scared of taking care of themselves financially. And for me, that is having the ultimate financial independence is having that choice and having that freedom. Along those lines, you've had a lot of high profile relationships with men who are very, very successful. You went with people who were as ambitious as you were. Is

that fair to say? Well, I have a very colorful dating history, not all of it is on the internet, so um. You know, for me, I was always attracted to uh, someone who was ambitious and could relate to you know, some of that drive that I had for better or and you know, for me, regardless of a relationship, it's always important to have your own back, and it's always important to take control of those conversations that you mentioned,

like what if he leaves me? What if he asked for a prenup, Like fuck that, you know you suggest a prenup. So I'm even talking to my fiance now about prenups and I'm like, great, I made my own money, I have my own stuff, Like cool, let's talk about a prenup. And so, I don't know where in the zeitgeist we've somehow relinquished control of these conversations. I think you can reframe them and take them back, and I

think we should. Unfortunately, a lot of women want to get their financial lives together or have to get their financial lives together when they get divorced or when their husband dies. And during some of my previous book to Wars, when we were out, I r l not just you r l um. You know, I'd have young women or I'd have their moms. Unfortunately, tell me like, yeah, she went to x Y z ivy league school, but I just want her to marry a rich guy. I'm like,

are you gidding me? This is still a thing. And if we, you know, try to hide behind this boss whitch definitely, I wrote the book boss Bitch, and so I you know, this rhetoric unfortunately is not actually becoming reality in the way that we'd hope it to be. And so I think that having a proactive financial literacy discussion is really hard to have. Um I've tried to do it, of course, but it's just like having a

proactive healthy eating plan is hard. It's you know, once you unfortunately get a diagnosis, then you have to be reactive and you have no other choice but to do it. So I see a lot of women who have gotten divorced and either are screwed in one of two ways. Either there they don't have any money, or they don't have any credit because all of the bills were in

there somebody else's name. So in a lot of senses, you know, not having a prenup and not protecting yourself can screw you in ways that you don't expect, like by the way debt gets shared in a marriage, as you guys know. And I think that having control, whether it's with an estate plan, any sort of advanced directives, power of attorney, prenups is better than having the state

decide what your affairs are going to be. Like do you feel like men get different financial advice when they're young men when their boys or young men are like yeah, And I quote a study in Misindependent that shows young boys associate these power words with money, so these ambitious type words, and young girls associate scarcity words with money. So obviously finances isn't something only a guy can do. There's not any magical, you know, special sauce that men

can only figure out. But they talk about it way more, and they talk about it more confidently. I mean, I'll tell you living with an entrepreneur, you know, whether he knows something or not, he for sure says it really confidently. Um, And so I think that's something that we're missing. I don't necessarily think there's a knowledge gap. I think there's an action gap. You know. I don't think knowledge is power.

We have so much knowledge out there. I mean there's all the books, forget about the ones that I've written, and all the others, and all the podcasts and all the articles. I mean, knowledge isn't ultimate financial power. Action is power. And you're never as young as you are today because you know, you hear these stories or excuses like I don't have enough money to start, I'm too old, all these things, or just stories that we're telling ourselves. And so yeah, I was just drinking out of my

coffee tup um. One of my slogans from Miss Independent was I'm glad I didn't invest earlier, said no one ever, No one in the history of the world has ever said that. It's like you never regret a workout, like getting my ass on a treadmill is very hard, but afterwards I'm stoked. Same thing with investing. What kind of narro relative did you have going into you know, you talk about in your twenties it was all ambition. At what point did that change for you and you decided, Okay,

I want a fuller life, not just my career. Well, I had no choice when I ended up in the psychiatric ward of n y U in the middle of the night with my shrink and my assistant um canceling my entire schedule because I was depressed and suicidal and had all of these issues that I never dealt with and I couldn't outrun them anymore. And it was only then that I realized self care is either the biggest asset or liability in your career. It can take you to rock bottom like it did for me, or it

can bring you more success than you imagine. So it was only then where I realized, you know, I set this little goal post for myself. I'll be happy when I get to the network, or I'll be happy when I get to New York. Or I'll be happy when I get one book. I'll be happy, but really when it hits the New York Times bestseller list. Okay, but then I'll be happy only when I have two books.

And you know, there's always something there there And for me, I never got my brain to the other side of happiness with that construction, and so it kicked mass and at that point I had no choice but to create a fuller life for myself. So what did you do when you left the hospital? What did you do? I went on a crazy journey. Like you know, we started this show joking that I was Tracy Flick of podcasting. I felt like I was Tracy Flick or Valedictorian of

the psych word because I was taking notes. I was like, I want to learn. I want to figure out how to hack this, because we don't learn this stuff in school.

I mean, if I were in charge of the world, we would not only learn about financial literacy growing up, but also what I learned dialectical behavioral therapy for instance, that really helped me and changed my life in an outpatient program, basic interpersonal skills, interpersonal effectiveness, stress management, to stress tolerance, all of these things that are really important in all aspects of business. So I went to see

every healer in the history of the world. Amy, I went to see you know, Balinese uh medicine men, to like Indian chiefs, to psychis, to mirror ball, to god knows where. And I felt really fortunate at that point to be able to afford a lot of this because it was really expensive. And so I took notes along the way, and I didn't necessarily expect it to turn into a book, but um, I felt compelled to be like, Okay, everybody, this is the cheek code if you don't have the

money to do all of these therapies. Here's the cliff notes version of that. So I really, um yeah, I took a year in half probably and just soaked all of the woo woo stuff that I could possibly soak up and tried to turn it into an action plan. You know, my brain works in like steps and metrics and measuring too, metrics and all of these types of things, and so um, so yeah, I went on a journey

to figure out how to do that. What was that moment, Like, I think so many people, especially now, are suffering from mental health issues. What was the precipitating moment for you that said, Okay, like enough is enough. I'm I'm going into psychiatric word. This isn't just normal stress. I thought a lot about this question, and I have a line in Becoming Superwoman where I talk about this. Um that's

one of my favorite lines in the book. It says that my breakdown wasn't a spontaneous combustion precipitated by a single event, but a lifetime of smoldering emperors that finally caught fire and incinerated everything in its path. And I think it really was that I was just finishing up my second book tour, and when I went out to do my third, I had a team that was like, are you okay, because like the second one created all this stuff, And I was like, it wasn't the book,

it wasn't this one thing. It was this whole lifetime of self hate and self neglect. And I had a lot of still imposter syndrome now about talking about how to you know, indulge in self care, because I was like, I'm no expert in this. I'm more of an expert in self harm or self hatred than self care and self love. And that's what made me hopefully a good person to talk about it, because I know what it was like, you know, I know what um that darkness was like. I know what it's like to have many

rounds in the ring with darkness. And I also know what it's like to be broke and live on a brown rice and beans diet because it felt fancier than roman. What do you hope that your life looks like when you're in your seventies? What do you hope your career looks like? I love that, um. Sometimes I talk to my old lady self. UM. I have a lot of uh dialogues with myself, my younger self, my older self. I think my younger self would finally be proud of me.

I kind of lost my way a little bit, um and and focused on some of the things that you know, perhaps she wouldn't have loved. And I think my old lady self, UM, I would I love for her to have the um, the financial freedom and you know, the ability to not only pursue projects she loves. But I have no regrets. On her death bed, I think about my death bed a lot. You know, the the word that Chris Pan does the my Intent bracelets where you

put like the word on the circle. I've often put time when then I tattooed that, so then I stopped putting that. But then deathbed because they think about, you know what, am I going to regret not being brave enough to do? So what was the moment when you felt like, Okay, I'm healed, I'm ready for the next chapter of my life. I don't think you're every necessarily healed.

I actually wrote an epilogue to my last book where I felt like I was on the verge of another breakdown right in the precipice of the launch of the book, and I actually delayed it six months, which my former self would have never imagined doing. And I said, you know, balance can be used as a noun and a verb, and often in this discussion we use it as a noun, like I found balance. It's there, I'm good. And I think for me, it's been helpful to use it as

a verb because it's something that's constantly in motion. It's something you constantly have to work on and cultivate. So I think that for me, remembering that balance and chaos coexists. They have to coexist because sometimes again in a habit even still where I'll get back to that balance or self care stuff like after this, and um, you know, I think that there's never an after this for me realizing that you have to be in both. In fact, both have to coexist to have the other. And so

it's a lifelong journey. I think I'm always going to be a reader of my um my third book, which is crazy because I'm the writer, but also I think a lifelong reader. And now a quick break. Are you a woman owned business looking for a new sales channel. I'm so excited to tell you about our newest partner in the W Marketplace. Founded by two women, it's a nationwide e commerce site for women entrepreneurs and the shoppers who support them. It offers favorable terms and is a

supportive community for female funded companies. With over five hundred women owned businesses selling thousands of products and services, the W Marketplace might be your favorite news sales channel. Intrigued learn more at Join the W Marketplace dot com. Where does your fiance Joe fit into this timeline? He and I met over the pandemic I moved from New York to l A. I drove by myself, and I didn't know that I would end up back in l A. I grew up in l A and I lived in

ten cities. UM since then it always felt like home to me. So I ended up getting back here and UM connected with a matchmaker named Talia Goldstein who's the founder of three Day role UM. And so she and I had always tried to connect over the years, um, you know, when I was in between relationships, and we never did. So she sent me an email and I jumped on the phone with her and she's like, you know,

I think I have somebody for you. What's up? And at that point I got had a lot of clarity about what I was looking for, Like I needed to have my right handed wedding ring before I had my left handed one and have that most important relationship first, which I did, and found a lot of clarity about what I was looking for and who I was. And so I just was super real with Talia and I

was like, here's where I'm at. And she's like, well, I don't think you're right for this guy, but I'll put you in the database and if there's a guy that meets your criteria, I'll call you and what do you think? I said, why do you think I'm not right for the guy? Yeah? Or I just said, I'm not a database girl, and I would like somebody to

meet my criteria versus the other way around. So I had no intention of joining this service, but whatever it is, on principle, I'm going to feel good about this conversation if I get off not being in a database waiting to meet somebody else's criteria, but the other way around. And oftentimes men join these services as clients. Although Ali Webb had just met her I don't know fiance yet at the time through Talia, and she was a member, and so I thought, okay, she's like a boss bitch whisperer.

She gets it. And so I joined with very low expectations. And um, you know, there are only a couple of truisms on Wall Street and life by low cell high, and it's better to beat low expectations, and um, and

very low expectations for it. And um, the first person they introduced me to, they said, well, we actually have he's not a client, that he was an early investor in three Day Roll and he was actually the only male investor who invested in Talia while she was pregnant fundraising, and he's always rejected all of the offers that we've put before him, I guess. And but he's really excited about you, and I know it's that was Joe, my

now fiance. UM, but he I always joke with him that he invested in the company to have the right of first refusal on all the best ladies. But of course, yeah, we met. Our first date was at Neptune's net Um. There was nothing to do during quarantine, so we ended up talking a lot, and um, he came up with this little ruse that I found out later that he needed to move really quickly. And I had moved from

New York and love housing everything. If all else fails, I would be an interior designer and I just love housing porn noble varieties, and so I had like compass folders ready to go, and he's like, well, you know, maybe you can show me some of the options that you had in there, and still liked, maybe you can help me, and I was like, sure, no problem, um, and I did. And I later find out he didn't really need to move, but he wanted to lock it down, and so he was like, well, take a key or whatever,

and you know, come and go. And then we looked at this first place we looked at, which is the place we live in now. He was like, no, you know what, just move in with me. And so I had a place that I love, love, loved um that was like my bachelorette pad that I actually lived next to the actual bachelorette. This was a very funny story too. When I first moved in, I was sitting outside and she was so sweet and got my postmates or something, and I was like, yeah, this is my bacherette pad.

Like I'm basically going to just lean into the idea that I was put on this planet to help women with money and not get married and have kids and that's all good. And she's like, do you know who I am? And I'm like, I don't know. You're my neighbor. And she's like, I am the Bachelorette and I'm like, I've never seen the show, not one, not ever. And I was like, oh, that's crazy. You're Southern and like you sound so you know, like you want the guy

to be Chivalris and all these things. So if the the bachelor proposes to the bachelorette or whatever on the show. Is it the opposite on the Bachelorette? Like, do you propose to the guy? I had no idea, I was so good, but yeah, I ended up leaving that place and we moved together and he proposed probably less than a year later. Is this your first engagement? It is? So does it bring up all sorts of like financial merging issues for you know, I mean we're very financially

nerdy family. He's a fintech entrepreneur and an anti poverty advocate and thinks about many issues a lot, and we both had very similar upbringings. Actually both of our homes um were foreclosed on when we were a little which had a huge impact on our lives um and contributed to our desire to want to help others. It really comes from the most honest place within me that, you know, I want to teach my former self, which she didn't know.

And now that I you know, got beyond the red velvet ropes of Wall Street that I never thought I would, I'm like, oh, I want to tell you guys all the things. And so he feels very similarly, and so, yeah, having financial discussions at this point. You know, is definitely a much easier I want to have. But a lot of couples do fight and separate because of money more

than anything else. All right, well we are going to go to our speed around and now we're just going to ask you a few quick questions and you can give us quick answers aimed. You want to start? Yes, what book are you reading now? The Art of Stillness? What is the last vacation you tech to Hawaii over the holidays? Who leaves you star struck? Janet yelling? It's a good answer issues. You know, you've made these Tracy Flick jokes and you present as very perfect. What's the

last imperfect thing that you did? I put my lash on incorrectly because there was a shooting unfortunately on the four oh five today and so the Glam team couldn't come, and so I had half of my lash on um as of one hour ago. All right, Well, Lou Burns has been listening and he always comes in at the end with a male perspective, and often the sharpest perspective,

So umlu take it away. So there was something you mentioned about about home interior decorating, and I thought about the many roles you play in life, and um, you know, I've done quite a few things. So what role in your life do you enjoy the most. Well, when you bring up home design and work, if I read between the lines, I do really enjoy making a few a full home. I feel like a boss bitch at work, but I actually really like being sort of in my

feminine energy at home. And that's not for everybody. But we have a show on my first podcast, touch Money, where we debated who plays who pays on a first date, and my producer just assume that Jason, my co host, would say that the man should pay, and then I would say split And I was like, hell, no, I'm not a touching no, no, no, And it's not because

I can't pay, It's because I don't want to. So yeah, I do the I did the fake reach a lot proudly because I think that there's the difference between needing somebody and wanting someone. And I really enjoyed that role in my life now, which is odd I never thought I would even have that role. What would you like to be doing that you're that door right now. I would really like to start a family. Um, that's uh,

it's harder. Who knew back in the day, Oh my goodness, we thought we could be pregnant like at any day of the month, like if no matter what, and uh, it's it's harder than you think. So that's a role that I'm excited to find somehow. One day, Amy Nicole makes me want to save money and like really dig into my finances in a deeper way. She really does.

And the thing is, like, I love how she walks this line of being like really pragmatic and I feel like conservative about money with the talking about it in a really fun way, which I think is one of the hardest hurdles for people because money is scary to talk about. Yeah, I agree. Her writing is very straightforward but fun, Like it's hard to make a finance books fun, but she manages to do that. And I also, I mean, our personal story is one of a lot of struggle,

and it's quite inspiring. Even just the fact that now she you know, found true love and and it's rewriting a new chapter of her life is really inspirational. I think it really is. I think I mean to hear a woman who has gone through such hard childhood put all of these pieces together and not only succeed professionally, but personally is pretty amazing. Thanks for listening to What's

Her Story with Sam and Amy. We would appreciate it if you leave a review wherever you get your podcasts, and of course, connect with us on social media at What's Her Story podcast. What's Her Story with Sam and Amy is powered by my company, The Riveter at the Riveter dot c O and Sam's company, park Place Payments at park place Payments dot com. Thanks to our producer Stacy Para and our male perspective Blue Burns