From Financial Novice to Money Guru with Nicole Lapin, Founder of Money News Network

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[00:01:39] I never had a resource. Even when I was going into CNBC and Bloomberg and Sienna and I hired tutors, I remember, because I looked at Investopedia at the time.

[00:01:50] And I was like, I need a definition for the definition. Like I need a dictionary for this presumed dictionary.

[00:01:58] And so I thought, actually there has to be a better way. There has to be a way that the way you and I are talking right now, other people can learn about money.

[00:02:05] So there wasn't. And that's what I set out to create.

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[00:02:26] Welcome to the Speed of Culture.

[00:02:34] Today we're thrilled to be joined by Nicole Lapin, founder of the Money News Network. You may know her from being a news anchor on CNN, CNBC and Bloomberg.

[00:02:42] Today she's the host of her Daily Show Money Rehab and also co-host of Help Want It.

[00:02:46] Nicole, so great to see you. Thanks so much for joining.

[00:02:48] Great to see you again. Thanks Matt. Thanks for coming with me.

[00:02:51] Yeah, this will be interesting because you're normally on the other side of the table, so to speak and interviewing other people.

[00:02:56] So this will be a welcome or a week where you actually get to talk about yourself and we'd love to just start by diving into your background.

[00:03:02] You came out hot out of the gate in the financial news and just general news category on TV.

[00:03:08] Like how do you go from being an aspiring journalist to being on TV? Walk us through that story.

[00:03:14] Oh my gosh. So I think you and I originally met when I was at CNBC or at Bloomberg.

[00:03:19] Yes.

[00:03:20] And I started in broadcast news a million and a half years ago. Honestly, I was 18 when I needed a job and I stopped a station chief in Chicago.

[00:03:30] I worked in a restaurant at the time and wanted to work in local news.

[00:03:34] But the station chief said that they didn't have a job for me at this market in Milwaukee that I thought was going to be like the end all be all for my career.

[00:03:43] And they said, instead you know anything about business news.

[00:03:46] And you may know I grew up in an immigrant family.

[00:03:49] So first generation American never learned anything about business news.

[00:03:53] Didn't work at a bank and get my MBA.

[00:03:55] So I was super clueless. My boyfriend in high school setting wanted to be hedge fund manager.

[00:03:59] I thought that you'd want it to be in gardening.

[00:04:01] So being in business news was like my biggest nightmare.

[00:04:04] But of course I said yes, absolutely.

[00:04:07] I love business news because they needed a job.

[00:04:10] And I figured out that money is just the language like anything else.

[00:04:14] We just don't have a Rosetta stone for that language growing up whether you learn it in your home or don't we don't learn it at school.

[00:04:21] And so once I could speak the language, I never expected to speak it to the world much less teach other people about it.

[00:04:27] And once I got to the business news networks during the financial crisis,

[00:04:32] I realized that there was a whole audience of my former self that I wasn't able to reach.

[00:04:38] We were reaching the richest most powerful men in the country.

[00:04:42] And that's not editorialization.

[00:04:44] That's what the Nielsen ratings show.

[00:04:46] But I wanted to talk to my former self that girl who was super scared about talking about business news,

[00:04:52] who was smiling and nodding and her boyfriend dumbtruck as she didn't hang out with the Wall Street guys.

[00:04:57] And I wanted to make this information accessible.

[00:05:01] I realized that there's an epidemic in financial literacy and my mission after watching Money Rehab with I Hard.

[00:05:10] I wanted to create Money News Network, which is a champion for financial literacy.

[00:05:16] And we aim to bridge the wealth gap, the wage gap, the whole ownership gap, all the gaps through podcast first content.

[00:05:23] That's an amazing story.

[00:05:25] And for you, like in a word of your mirror, it probably like, oh yeah, I took this step and went to that step, etc.

[00:05:30] But for most people, even the notion of your graduate college and next thing you know, you're on TV.

[00:05:36] Like how does that happen?

[00:05:37] Because it's not like anyone can just raise their hand and have it happen.

[00:05:39] Do you remember maybe some of the initial meetings or events that took place that allowed you to kind of open up the opportunities that you would one day get?

[00:05:47] So back in the day, 20 years ago, there was no YouTube, no skipping steps.

[00:05:54] I went to local news market as you remember this is how you did it in broadcast news.

[00:05:59] So I actually started in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in Lexington, Kentucky.

[00:06:03] You probably know like the media market numbers for those, but they're like 100 or something 200.

[00:06:10] I mean, teeny tiny places where the idea was you make your mistakes and then you work your way up and ultimately get to network news.

[00:06:18] Now I went to Lexington Sioux Falls CBS station there, Pumsprings with the CBS station.

[00:06:25] And then I interviewed and auditioned to be at CNN.

[00:06:28] Like cold cold then?

[00:06:29] When you say you went to Sioux Falls, did you just pick up the phone and say, I want to be on the news?

[00:06:33] Like how did it work?

[00:06:35] I sent out a VHS tape.

[00:06:37] Like I just found one.

[00:06:39] Now we're getting to what I wanted to know.

[00:06:41] So I sent hundreds of VHS tapes.

[00:06:45] You and I remember those very well.

[00:06:47] And back then like I went to Medeal School of Journalism so focused on the broadcast news track and everybody was sending out these VHS tapes with like their name written on the side.

[00:06:58] And I thought, okay, well everybody's sending these out.

[00:07:02] I need to stand out.

[00:07:03] So my big idea for that was to get a red box.

[00:07:08] So I spent a cent more per submission where I sent my resume and then a little cover letter of some of the stories that I would do if I got the job there and this red box.

[00:07:21] And I was like, I'm going to stand out in a mountain of tapes if I have like a red box.

[00:07:26] And that actually worked.

[00:07:28] I got more calls than some of my classmates got because of that.

[00:07:33] And then when I got my first and second job, I upgraded that to like the plastic cover VHS.

[00:07:40] Do you remember like we had the Disney VHS tapes with the plastic covers and the insert with, you know, what was on the tape?

[00:07:48] I did that, but for myself.

[00:07:50] So I created like this.

[00:07:53] Now it looks ridiculous, but I got a graphic designer.

[00:07:56] I think like a friend of a friend was a graphic designer and put my name and the contents of it.

[00:08:02] And I don't know, I just came up with like a little thing to help you stand out back in the day when what's amazing because right now in a world of YouTube and Canva and all these tools.

[00:08:13] It's so easy to have the tools accessible to you.

[00:08:16] And so back then, you know, the message in a lot of ways was the medium because you had to figure out how to stand out, whether it be the red box or the way that you design the cover or whatever it may be.

[00:08:26] The world's just changed so much more accessible now.

[00:08:28] So much more accessible if my former self knew Canva, she would be even more dangerous.

[00:08:34] Exactly.

[00:08:35] So when did you know that sort of the financial sector was your calling?

[00:08:39] You talked about you going to news and went on these financial news networks.

[00:08:43] You quickly realized that there was an underserved demographic, which was younger women.

[00:08:47] Like when did you get that insight and was sort of like a light bulb that went off that this is where you're going to double down?

[00:08:53] Yeah.

[00:08:54] So when I was at these business news networks talking to old rich white men about money again, like that is as you know, the real audience watches these networks.

[00:09:04] I realized that during the financial crisis, a lot of my former classmates, a lot of my friends growing up were super scared, super confused.

[00:09:13] And of course, you know, the audience that we were reaching at the time needed to know a different set of financial information, but financial literacy was something presumably they already knew.

[00:09:24] And so once I realized that there was this white space in the market, I mean, Susie Orman at the time, if you remember, this was over a decade ago.

[00:09:33] Yeah.

[00:09:34] 100%.

[00:09:35] Was the only financial expert that anyone knew and she's amazing.

[00:09:39] And she had a very specific stick.

[00:09:43] She had a very specific audience.

[00:09:45] She told people not to buy a latte.

[00:09:48] She told people to say.

[00:09:49] Very heart-hitting, right?

[00:09:50] That's right.

[00:09:51] Yeah.

[00:09:52] She told people to buy a house, not to rent a house.

[00:09:55] You know, all of these things that reached a very specific audience and I looked at it and I said, well, gosh, I now know and I can speak the language of money and I never imagined I would be teaching other people about it.

[00:10:08] But now that I understand this, like you can buy a latte and still get your financial life together.

[00:10:14] You can rent and also still move ahead with your financial goals.

[00:10:19] And so I thought that there was a different set of advice for a different audience that was maybe not appropriate for Susie and she had her niche.

[00:10:30] And I thought, well, if she has her niche, I think there could be other niches.

[00:10:34] And so I set out to do that and I wrote my first book, as you know, Rich Fitch, which is set out to be the Bible of financial literacy that I wish I had when I was getting my own financial life together.

[00:10:46] Like I got into my own debt.

[00:10:48] I got out of it.

[00:10:49] I had a resource.

[00:10:50] And even when I was going into CNBC and Bloomberg and Sienna and I hired tutors, I remember because I looked at Investopedia at the time.

[00:11:00] And I was like, I need a definition for the definition.

[00:11:04] Like I need a dictionary for this presumed dictionary.

[00:11:08] And so I thought, gosh, there has to be a better way.

[00:11:10] There has to be a way that the way you and I are talking right now, other people can learn about money.

[00:11:15] So there wasn't.

[00:11:16] And that's what I set out to create.

[00:11:19] Yeah, I think your initial book, Rich Fitch, what I loved about the title is it really kind of from afar kind of captured your own persona.

[00:11:27] What you didn't read it?

[00:11:29] Yeah, well, many times over.

[00:11:31] Many times from back after anything about it.

[00:11:34] But basically, I think you tried to convey or at least from where I sat was like empowerment.

[00:11:39] And yet you're still going to be able to maintain who you are and you're going to have a sense of self.

[00:11:44] And it's okay that you're in a world with all these rich older white men to speak, but it doesn't mean you can't be successful and do it your way.

[00:11:50] And I think it's a message and an overall brand that I can see why just a lot of people gravitate towards in terms of your target audience.

[00:11:58] Thank you.

[00:11:59] Yeah, you know what I realized, Matt at the time this was after four book proposals for false starts different agents.

[00:12:08] I had started a decade earlier.

[00:12:10] It took me 10 years to get my first book deal.

[00:12:12] And what I realized is that in media, as you know, you'll forget them.

[00:12:17] Most people will ever know about it is that you can't be all things to help people or nothing to anyone and especially in media,

[00:12:25] especially in books.

[00:12:26] And so I wanted to speak to a very specific audience and you're right with the title like rich fish.

[00:12:34] It was either going to fail miserably, or it was going to be super successful.

[00:12:39] Like there was no great area people were gonna have feelings about a title like that.

[00:12:43] And that was the point.

[00:12:44] I actually was there was more controversy at the time.

[00:12:47] I remember the only pushback I got was from Mika Brzezinski who was a mentor to me when I was at NBC.

[00:12:54] And I went back on her show, Morning Joe.

[00:12:56] And she said, you know, listen, I really love what you're doing to teach women about money.

[00:13:01] I hate this title because I was called a bitch in a derogatory sense.

[00:13:05] And I said, so is I.

[00:13:07] But what I'm doing is I'm taking it back and owning it as a badge of honor because what people met and they called me a bitch when I was rising through the media ranks really, really quickly.

[00:13:17] Never had a silver spoon in my mouth barely had a spoon of food in my mouth growing up.

[00:13:21] So did it the hard way. No connections, no trust fund, none of that.

[00:13:25] They meant that I was strong and powerful and not only should I want to see at the table but I wanted a voice.

[00:13:31] And if that meant I was a bitch then damn, I'm a bitch.

[00:13:33] Exactly.

[00:13:34] But I owed it as a badge of honor along with so many powerful women out there.

[00:13:37] So I said to her, you know, I think the ends justify the means.

[00:13:39] If we can get a woman to pick up a money book, never imagined she would care about money or financial literacy.

[00:13:45] Then we all win.

[00:13:47] And so if I came out with a book called like five steps to financial freedom, it would have been dead on arrival.

[00:13:53] Like I even looked back at some of my older book proposals.

[00:13:56] One was called making bank which was like all things to all people fund finance that would have sucked.

[00:14:02] It totally would have just been dead on arrival.

[00:14:05] It didn't know who it was talking to.

[00:14:07] It tried to be like all things to all people.

[00:14:09] And that's what I realized really quickly in media that you don't have to be all things to all people.

[00:14:15] But you need to know who you're talking to and have those people be your biggest fans.

[00:14:21] Absolutely.

[00:14:22] We'll be right back with the speed of culture after a few words from our sponsors.

[00:14:26] You've been doing this for quite a while now.

[00:14:28] What are the same mistakes, the personal financial mistakes that you see your audience make over and over again over the years?

[00:14:35] Like one of the common themes of the advice that you're giving when you're interacting with your audience.

[00:14:39] I think the biggest thing as you know is the jargon.

[00:14:43] It keeps people out of every industry and you know there's jargon for all industries.

[00:14:48] Marketing has its whole other set of CPMs and Gamos what like I don't even know all of the acronyms.

[00:14:54] But every industry has that.

[00:14:56] And I think it keeps people out of the conversation because they think this is above their head.

[00:15:01] But the truth is like if you didn't speak Japanese and you went to Japan,

[00:15:07] you would be really confused until you spoke the language.

[00:15:11] And then you're like, duh, that was so obvious.

[00:15:13] How did I never know that?

[00:15:14] Well, you didn't learn the language.

[00:15:16] And so the same thing goes with money.

[00:15:18] I think the jargon is what keeps people who have figured out harder things in their lives out of this conversation.

[00:15:26] You and I have figured out harder things than like dealing with fidelity to transfer, you know,

[00:15:32] 401k to an IRA or something like that.

[00:15:34] But somehow when you say stuff like that, it's like, ah, I mean, I know I used to break out into highs.

[00:15:41] Like my arguments would be sweating and I would be like, I have no idea what this means.

[00:15:45] But the truth is like I just didn't understand the language.

[00:15:49] And as soon as they were like, oh, you know, we're okay.

[00:15:53] It's a retirement plan.

[00:15:55] It's not an STD or whatever.

[00:15:57] Right.

[00:15:58] You know, it's obvious.

[00:16:00] But until you get to that point, I think that's what keeps people out of the conversation.

[00:16:05] I think it's what has increased the gender wage gap and wealth gap and all of those gaps

[00:16:11] because I think the language and the jargon is the thing that's most intimidating.

[00:16:15] We'll be right back with the speed of culture after a few words from our sponsors.

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[00:16:24] to help you find quality professionals quickly and easily for any role you need.

[00:16:29] Marketing wizards?

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[00:17:43] Yeah, and I bet with a lot of wealth management, there's a lot of predatory behavior too where they take advantage of the fact that maybe younger women don't understand the language.

[00:17:50] Maybe they're being charged higher fees or getting involved in the more complex fight against poverty.

[00:17:55] And I think that's a good thing to do.

[00:17:57] I think it's important to have a lot of awareness about how to deal with poverty.

[00:18:01] And I think that's a good thing to do.

[00:18:03] I think that's a good thing to do.

[00:18:05] I think that's a good thing to do.

[00:18:37] And I was like, oh, yeah, it's a bond feedback program.

[00:18:40] They're like, oh, okay, I understand conceptually what that means from the Federal Reserve and whatnot.

[00:18:45] But like I didn't know that it was called QE2.

[00:18:48] That was jargon that didn't come up in my industry.

[00:18:52] And I was like, that's so interesting.

[00:18:54] Even the bond guys didn't know what the equity guys were saying.

[00:18:56] It's a whole other language.

[00:18:58] Not all finance is, you know, something that every area of the community is doing.

[00:19:04] That every area of the financial world understands.

[00:19:09] And so even when I was writing my last book, my fourth book, Miss Independent,

[00:19:13] I snuck in like NFTs and crypto and stuff at the time, right?

[00:19:18] Because it continues to evolve and it continues to change.

[00:19:21] And so the language that you and I figured out as we were getting our financial lives together

[00:19:28] and rising the ranks in our careers and whatever industry you're in,

[00:19:32] you're going to learn a different set of acronyms.

[00:19:34] Like those continue to change.

[00:19:36] They should change.

[00:19:37] You should evolve.

[00:19:38] It should change.

[00:19:39] And so once you have a baseline in the back of all of my books,

[00:19:43] and you wrote financial dictionaries, this is why I was single for so long,

[00:19:47] I guess because I would rewrite financial dictionaries.

[00:19:50] But it continues to evolve and change.

[00:19:52] So right?

[00:19:53] Like NFTs was not something that even, you know, in the zeitgeist or even invented when I was first starting out in this,

[00:20:01] I think it's really important to have the baseline and understand that you can learn and grow,

[00:20:06] rents and repeat all of that.

[00:20:08] Absolutely. Totally makes sense.

[00:20:10] And as somebody who spends a lot of time in the financial world,

[00:20:13] what do you see as a state and a consumer heading into 2024?

[00:20:16] Because I can't remember a time in history where you had so many differing views of where we're headed

[00:20:22] because on one hand you have record high interest rates and credit card record low savings.

[00:20:27] You have the consumers holding up pretty well in 2023.

[00:20:30] Do you have any thoughts or predictions in terms of where the economies headed next year?

[00:20:34] I think that, you know, what we've seen in the last year is that women have controlled the spending

[00:20:41] and the power in the households and brands are spending so much money, as you know,

[00:20:46] marketing dollars to women to take that market share.

[00:20:51] And not enough brands, I think, are focused on helping women invest in themselves.

[00:20:56] What we've seen is that while we're making more money as women in the workforce,

[00:21:02] we have most of that in our checking accounts.

[00:21:05] And so I think what we're going to see moving forward is a big push from brands,

[00:21:10] from marketers to take that money out of our checking accounts

[00:21:14] and start putting it into work and start investing not only in ourselves but actually investing.

[00:21:20] And so I think that's what we're going to see in my space more so in the upcoming year.

[00:21:25] Okay, totally makes sense.

[00:21:27] So let's switch gears a little bit as we wrap up here to the business of Nicole.

[00:21:31] So you obviously now have your own Money News Network.

[00:21:34] You're still writing books that you spoke about and seems like you're doing a million different things.

[00:21:38] You're also excellent on Snapchat and TikTok and social media engaging your audience.

[00:21:43] So where is your focus right now with Money News Network and all your other ventures

[00:21:48] and where do you see it all heading into the future?

[00:21:50] Listen, Matt, I just want to say that I was on TikTok pre-pandemic.

[00:21:54] There you go.

[00:21:55] You always were a trend center.

[00:21:57] You're the best.

[00:21:58] Thank you.

[00:21:59] When Money Rehab hit the top of the Apple Podcast charts during the pandemic,

[00:22:05] I realized that there was a whole other medium that I wasn't like nailing

[00:22:11] and that was the audio space.

[00:22:13] And during the pandemic, there were so many questions

[00:22:16] and young people would get all of their information on Instagram and TikTok and whatnot.

[00:22:21] And so I saw huge growth in our audience and I saw this need continue to expand.

[00:22:28] And the podcast that's very intimate, audience engagement, right?

[00:22:32] Like you could be in their ear hole, right?

[00:22:34] That's very intimate.

[00:22:36] Like you're talking to them.

[00:22:37] And it was a space that truly when I came up in television,

[00:22:42] I thought about visuals, right?

[00:22:44] Or like what the box looked like.

[00:22:46] I didn't think audio first.

[00:22:48] And so once Money Rehab really hit the charts and took off,

[00:22:53] I wanted to expand that into other genres of finance.

[00:22:57] I saw again the same white space I saw when I was leaving network news

[00:23:03] and getting into talking to women about financial literacy in the podcast space.

[00:23:08] We don't have a CNBC podcast.

[00:23:11] Now we do.

[00:23:12] It's Money News Network.

[00:23:13] And I aim to be that where we could create a slate of shows in different genres within finance.

[00:23:20] So I had personal finance.

[00:23:21] I have a show with the editor and chief of entrepreneur magazine, Jason Piper, as you know,

[00:23:25] that focuses on career investing show.

[00:23:28] We have a show in English and Spanish that audiences really underserved.

[00:23:33] And so what I found within podcasting to create higher growth is to create a flywheel effect

[00:23:41] where you're essentially promoting and cross-promoting to the same type of audience

[00:23:47] for other shows that they would want because they're already on that.

[00:23:50] It's really hard, as you know, to go from social media or Instagram to podcasts

[00:23:56] because it's a whole other app.

[00:23:58] Like you're not consuming it in a way that yields conversion.

[00:24:02] And so I saw that we were going away from like the celebrity driven podcasts

[00:24:08] that ended up charting.

[00:24:10] That was sort of no longer the formula.

[00:24:13] I think we even had shows where celebrities would come on

[00:24:17] and they would do less good as the ones that we would just answer advice for

[00:24:22] because every celebrity then had their own podcast.

[00:24:25] And so really we found that listeners were looking for the information

[00:24:30] and not another celebrity that they heard on 50 other podcasts.

[00:24:34] And so as the market was changing, I wanted to be on the forefront of that, of course,

[00:24:39] and create what that network would be as a CBC of podcasting.

[00:24:44] And so that's what I did last year.

[00:24:47] So I would imagine a big part of your job is basically figuring out

[00:24:51] what are the next verticals you want to go into?

[00:24:53] How do you keep the quality of the different podcasts

[00:24:56] as well as continue to build your audience?

[00:24:58] Like how does your pie chart of your day split between those things?

[00:25:01] Well, right now I'm primarily focused on scaling money news at work

[00:25:05] and growing the impact that we have through champion financial literacy.

[00:25:09] And so what I spend my time thinking about is how to reach this audience

[00:25:16] who may be a new podcast listener or maybe somebody who's looking to

[00:25:21] expand the slate of podcasts that they're listening to with really targeted advice.

[00:25:27] When I was at IHARC with my show at the time,

[00:25:31] I think my biggest nightmare would have been to read an FTX ad.

[00:25:35] I didn't have control over that at the time.

[00:25:38] And you know of me, I really do like control, but especially around this,

[00:25:43] it's so, so important, right?

[00:25:45] Like it's more important than if you vet a t-shirt company or something else.

[00:25:51] Like this is your financial life.

[00:25:52] And so thankfully I never read an FTX ad, but I didn't have control

[00:25:56] or the due diligence that I now have where I'm able to say,

[00:26:00] no, we're only going to promote brands and companies that I care about

[00:26:05] that I believe in.

[00:26:06] We're going to have less ads because I think a lot of the ads

[00:26:10] that were smushed into my show when I didn't have control became

[00:26:14] almost audio debris.

[00:26:15] I think of it as like audio pollution.

[00:26:17] And as I became more and more immersed in the space,

[00:26:21] I realized that that doesn't do well for the listener,

[00:26:25] the host, the brand.

[00:26:28] If you're just going to have a ton of stuff like shoved into a short episode,

[00:26:33] nobody wins.

[00:26:34] And so I wanted to rethink what that looks like and rethink the marketing

[00:26:39] and the advertising and the integrations that we were doing

[00:26:42] as a network and then just take more care and take more due diligence

[00:26:46] because our audience chooses to come to us, right?

[00:26:49] Like you have to hit subscribe.

[00:26:51] You have to actively and with intentionality come to me for financial

[00:26:56] advice and to all of our other hosts.

[00:26:58] And so I take that responsibility so crazy seriously.

[00:27:02] And so being able to call those shots finally was of ultimate

[00:27:08] importance to me.

[00:27:09] And I think it was the best way that I could serve this audience

[00:27:13] that I feel for so long was underserved.

[00:27:15] And now we've nailed it and we just want to continue to help them

[00:27:19] learn and grow.

[00:27:20] Just like I have.

[00:27:21] That's amazing.

[00:27:22] And that's all your entrepreneur and you're calling the shots

[00:27:25] and your control of your destiny, which is always a great thing.

[00:27:28] Some days, most days.

[00:27:30] Some days.

[00:27:31] Most things exactly.

[00:27:32] What advice would you give 20 year old Nicole getting started

[00:27:36] out trying to get the confidence entering the world to where you are

[00:27:39] lately?

[00:27:40] Maybe you wish you had known then.

[00:27:41] Obviously you've had a great career and you're clearly just getting started.

[00:27:44] But what are some of the things maybe you wish you knew earlier in your

[00:27:47] career?

[00:27:48] So many things.

[00:27:49] You know, it's crazy is why I started CNN when I was 21 years old

[00:27:54] and I had this whole complex that like people were going to figure

[00:28:00] out that I was so young and then one day my badge was not going

[00:28:04] to work at the turnstile to get into this unit center in Atlanta.

[00:28:08] You'd be exposed.

[00:28:09] Right.

[00:28:10] And then I was like, they for sure made a mistake.

[00:28:13] I auditioned when I was 20 to launch pipeline, which was their digital

[00:28:18] offering that was ahead of its time.

[00:28:20] And I really was so embarrassed by how young I was and damn that

[00:28:27] like my nearly 40 year old self.

[00:28:30] If I could go back and tell that girl like embrace your youth

[00:28:34] and understand what a attribute it is.

[00:28:38] Not a deficit.

[00:28:39] It is.

[00:28:40] I wish I could just like shake her and tell her how cool that was.

[00:28:44] And ultimately she did lean into her youth and took it back

[00:28:48] instead of being scared of it.

[00:28:49] I launched this really funnily named series at CNN called

[00:28:53] Young People Who Rock where I interviewed young people under 30

[00:28:56] doing amazing things.

[00:28:57] So I started to lean into it, but there was this time where

[00:29:00] I wore shoulder pads and like teased my hair to try and look

[00:29:05] older.

[00:29:06] And I wish I could have just told her to like enjoy that time.

[00:29:09] I love that.

[00:29:10] And what an asset it was.

[00:29:11] Yeah, for sure.

[00:29:12] Is there a mantra that you like to live by finally that you wake

[00:29:15] up every morning and get you going?

[00:29:17] I'm sure you have so many.

[00:29:18] I've heard you say many on social media, but what comes

[00:29:21] to mind?

[00:29:22] I do love some isms.

[00:29:23] My always go to one is that it will be okay in the end.

[00:29:29] If it's not okay, it's not weird.

[00:29:31] I love that.

[00:29:32] So that faith and keep pushing along, which you've clearly

[00:29:35] done.

[00:29:36] But as you know, like as an entrepreneur, most days are not

[00:29:38] okay.

[00:29:39] It's true.

[00:29:40] It's true.

[00:29:41] You have to keep your head down and keep moving.

[00:29:43] So Nicole, thanks so much.

[00:29:44] It's great seeing you again.

[00:29:45] It's been a great interview.

[00:29:46] I can't wait for our audience to hear it.

[00:29:47] On behalf of the Susan Adwey team, thanks again to

[00:29:49] Nicole Lapin, founder of Money News Network bestselling

[00:29:52] author podcast host for joining us today.

[00:29:54] Be sure to subscribe, rate and review the speed of

[00:29:56] culture podcast and your favorite podcast platform.

[00:29:58] Well, next time to see you soon, everyone.

[00:30:00] Take care.

[00:30:02] The speed of culture is brought to you by Suzy as part of

[00:30:05] the Adwey podcast network and a guest creator network.

[00:30:08] You can listen, subscribe to all ad weeks podcast by

[00:30:11] visiting adwey.com slash podcast.

[00:30:14] To find out more about Suzy head to Suzy.com and

[00:30:17] make sure to search for the speed of culture in

[00:30:19] Apple podcast, Spotify and Google podcast or

[00:30:22] anywhere else podcasts are found.

[00:30:24] Click follow so you don't miss out on any future

[00:30:26] episodes.

[00:30:27] On behalf of the team here at Suzy, thanks for

[00:30:29] listening.

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