June 15, 2025 • 24 mins
For this Father’s Day 2025 Suze School, we get a Suze Story. Suze recalls more valuable lessons she learned from her dad and how they directly influenced her life’s decisions.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Suze (00:29):
June 15, 2025. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money
Podcast as Well as Everybody Smart Enough to Listen. Suze
O here, and today is Suze school. But because today
is a special day.
We're going to do a Suze Story. Now, why is
(00:50):
today a special day? Well, truthfully, for two reasons. Number one,
it is Father's Day, and for all of you fathers
that are smart enough to listen to the Women and
Money podcast, we wish you a very, very happy Father's Day.
And even if you aren't listening
(01:11):
and your spouses are listening. You can tell them, everybody,
that Suze and KT wished them a happy Father's Day.
Today is also special, by the way, because it is
KT's mother's 97th birthday if she had been alive. She
died 15 years ago, and I have to tell you,
(01:33):
we called her Mamma T. Anne Travis, and
out of all the mothers, my mother, my aunt, all
the mothers really I've ever met in my lifetime, Mamma
T was maybe one of the greatest, greatest of them all.
She had 6 children.
(01:54):
She raised them with hardly any money at all. KT's
father would bring in money. She would take care of it.
And when she died, we found her ledger. She kept
track of every penny, and there were so many times
that her balance,
it was down to literally $50 and that's all she
(02:14):
had but somehow she made it work and she really
did raise six extraordinary kids that all loved her so
much I can't tell you, but obviously I got to
know her for a number of years. She died in
2010 and remember I met KT in 2001.
(02:37):
So for all those 9 years, I got to become
close with Mama T and she would always say to
me when we were alone, she would say,
"Suze, does Kath drive you crazy?" and I'd say "Sometimes,
Mamma T, but it's worth it." She goes, "I just
don't know how you do it." You must have the
patience of a saint.
(02:59):
And the reason she would say that is that KT
is a little bit of a control freak in case
you don't know. And whenever we would go to visit
her mom or KT would go on her own to
visit her mom, KT would always rearrange all of Mamma
T's drawers and all these things, and Mamma T would
(03:19):
just sit there and go, "Kath, I like how everything is."
But KT did it anyway. But
we miss you, Mamma T so much. Happy, happy birthday,
and just know we celebrate you every day, not just
on your birthday. All right.
(03:39):
As I said earlier, today is Father's Day, and it
did dawn on me that so many of you write
me and you tell me how much you love when
I talk about my mom, and you love that, and
of course you do, because most of you listening are women.
Most of you listening are probably mothers, and there's nothing
(04:01):
more than a mother loves than hearing stories about a
daughter who loves her mother in the hopes that their
daughters or sons love them as much as well.
But what's interesting is I think about all the podcasts
we've ever done, and KT and I really, really don't
(04:21):
talk much about our fathers. Now what's interesting is that
my father happened to die on Father's Day all the
way back when when I was like 31 years of
age and he was 71.
So Father's Day always is a very interesting day for
(04:44):
me because it is a celebration of him and also
a remembrance of his death. But when I think about
my father,
what I want all of you to know is that
from the bottom of my heart I really, really believe
and I know without a shadow of a doubt that
(05:07):
I am who I am today because of the lessons.
He taught me when he didn't even know he was
teaching them to me.
One of the lessons he taught me was you didn't
have to have a lot of money to be interested
in learning about stocks.
(05:29):
He subscribed to something back then called Value Line. Remember
there weren't computers or anything, and the only way that
you could get information about stocks in depth then was
through certain services, and there was a service called Value
Line that put out, I think it was weekly, this
(05:50):
yellow kind of little tiny pamphlet about all the stocks
that they were covering that week.
And you would take that and put it in a binder,
and his binder was really about 12 inches thick, and
they renewed it every single year, but he would go
through those yellow pages. It was yellow, and he would
(06:13):
go through them and he would study them and he
would take notes and I would watch and I would say,
"What are you doing, Daddy?" And he said, "I'm learning
about stock, Suze."
And I said, "What are stocks?" and he said, "Well,
stocks are something that you need to know about one day."
And that would be his answer. Shortly after that, he
(06:36):
started something with a group of his friends called the
Mint Club.
And the Mint Club would meet once a month, and
they would each put in about $15 or $20 a
month and they would gather that and they would invest
it in stocks and every month one of the members
(06:58):
of the Mint Club,
would have to host all the other members, and I
used to love when my dad and mom had to
host and and by the way my mom was involved
with it too. All the wives came to learn, which
I loved as well cause it wasn't just for men.
I used to love when it was at our house,
(07:21):
and they would all crowd into this little living room
and they would all discuss which stocks they should buy
that month.
As time went on, the neighborhood changed. We lived on
the south side of Chicago, and the Mint Club members,
the majority of them, all moved to the north side.
(07:43):
So the Mint club dispersed, but my dad never stopped.
He kept putting little by little into the stock market
of stocks that he was getting through Value Line.
And I just have this image of him sitting at
the table with his Value Line brochures around him or
(08:03):
pamphlets or whatever you call them, reading the newspaper looking
at the current stock quotes. What was fascinating about that
is that when he did die in 1981, he had
amassed $700,000 worth of stocks that he did leave my mom.
(08:26):
So that was fabulous, but the lesson I learned there,
is that you have to have knowledge even if you
don't have money. You have to think things are for
you even when you can afford them.
So it was interesting because if I think about my
own trajectory and how I started at this, remember everybody
(08:51):
at the Buttercup Bakery gave me $50,000 to open up
my own restaurant. I gave it to a broker at
Merrill Lynch to hold it for me, and within 3 months,
all of it was lost. But even though it wasn't
my money,
the lesson my father taught me by watching him was, "Suze,
(09:13):
you better learn what that broker is doing with your money."
And that's when I became like my father, and I
started to read Barons and I watched Wall Street Week
every Friday night with Louis Rue Keiser.
And every day I would look at the Wall Street
Journal and my whole bedroom was plastered seriously with newspapers
(09:36):
with the stock quotes option quotes, and I had learned
more in those one or two months than I think
my financial adviser knew when it came to investing in
options because the reason all $50,000 was lost.
It is because Randy Koch, which was what his name
was and probably still is, right, was investing in the
(10:00):
options market. I didn't know what that was at the time.
He made it look like I was a very sophisticated investor,
which I obviously was not. I was a waitress at
the Buttercup Bakery, and buying options is the most speculative
thing you can do. 90% of people lose their money.
And I seriously started to like... I didn't like that
(10:21):
I lost the 50,000, but I liked learning, and I
got that I could understand it, and it was with
that knowledge, understanding that this could be for me, I
went and interviewed with Merrill Lynch. They hired me obviously
to fill their women's quota.
(10:42):
But that was the start of Suze Orman, and that
start started way back when with me watching my father
learn about things that at the time he could not afford,
so I found that very fascinating. Next thing I learned
(11:03):
from my father was that money was more important than
life itself.
You all know the story about my dad had this
little tiny place called Chicken A Go Go that was
on the corner under these railroad tracks. It was like
400 square feet.
And you could get fried chicken. You could get ribs,
(11:27):
you could get all these things there. And my mom
and I drove up to pick him up one day,
and we saw him standing outside and the entire place
was aflames. It was burning and all of a sudden
my father runs back into the building to get the
(11:48):
cash register cause every single penny we had to our
name
was in that cash register and back in those days
the cash registers were metal.
And he picked up that register, went outside. It was
scalding hot, dropped it on the ground, and with that
(12:09):
all the skin on his arms and his chest came
with it. So he had third degree burns to try
to save the money.
And from that he got emphysema.
But what was interesting is after that little store burnt
down and he had recovered, he really didn't have any
(12:32):
money to start a new place, but because of the
relations that he made with his vendors; David Berg, the
bread people, everybody, they all gathered together.
And they gave him the money to open up a
new little store, and this time he called it Maury's
(12:54):
Deli on 55th Street in Hyde Park.
Now the lesson that I learned there.
Was that if you're good to the people that you
do business with, you treat them with respect, you're kind.
You somehow develop a relationship with them because you're all
(13:15):
just trying to make a living.
Those are people that one day might just come back
and save you like he did with my father and
therefore our family.
So from there I learned that no matter who you were,
what your position was in life,
(13:36):
treat everybody with respect. Treat everybody as if they were you.
And on some level treat everybody and see them,
really as if they were God's creation, which in fact
they are.
So that was a very important lesson for me because
(13:58):
it really came to play throughout my whole life and
everybody I have ever worked with, my producers, my everybody.
Because we were never a hierarchy with anything I created,
we were all equals, and we all loved one another,
and we were all there for one another. And therefore
(14:19):
the end product that we created was created out of
love and respect for each other, which you could feel
as you listened or watched the Suze Orman show or
read my books, you could feel it.
From there I learned another lesson which was, as I
(14:40):
just said, he contracted emphysema from that fire.
And I would hear my father every single night.
Cough and cough and cough and he had all these
machines next to his bed and you'd hear the machines
giving him all that medicine that he would inhale but
(15:02):
every single morning.
Absolutely no matter how sick he was that night, he
would get up and go to work because he had
responsibility in his mind to support his family. My mother
also went to work every day.
(15:25):
But she would just look at me and she would say,
"I don't know how he does it."
And that's where the saying
And this didn't just go on for a week or
two or three. It went on for the rest of
his life till literally he could no longer even get
(15:46):
out of bed.
So from that I learned,
there isn't an excuse big enough to keep you from
doing that which you are meant to do.
And so many times all of us, including me when
I was younger, ah, I'll do it tomorrow. It's OK.
(16:06):
I don't feel like it.
That's not how I operate my life because of what
I saw my father do.
I always do what I need to do in the
moment I need to do it. I don't put it off.
I really don't wait till the last minute. I cannot
(16:28):
do anything else if I know I have not completed
the task at hand.
And truthfully where this lesson really came to play was
after the operation that I had back in 2020 when
for three years everybody.
(16:50):
At night my nerves would fire. I don't think I
slept for three years, and I would still get up.
And KT would help me get dressed, and I would
go to the computer and turn on the videos because
those were the years when the pandemic was happening and
(17:10):
people wanted to hear from me and I was on
all these shows and nobody had a clue that it
took me an hour and a half to put my
jacket on and KT another hour to put my makeup
on so that I could do my job.
But I don't think I could have done that if
(17:32):
I didn't have the memory of my father doing what
he did.
So again,
Dad, if you're listening up there, I just want you
to know you so taught me that.
As time went on, my father could no longer go
(17:52):
to work.
And he was in the hospital almost all the time.
And so that meant that I had to do it.
My brothers had to do it, and it was we
had to show up.
The next lesson I learned was that at my dad's deli,
(18:14):
Maury's deli, he always had a line out the door.
And it was the favorite place for everybody to come
and eat. It was so much fun, really, and it
wasn't a place that you could sit down and eat.
You could just pick it up. It was a takeaway
and come 12 o'clock you'd have to get ready cause
(18:35):
I worked there and the lines, literally hundreds of people
would come to buy his sandwiches.
One day during the summer, I remember my friends and
I went to downtown Chicago, and they all wanted to
go to a deli to eat lunch, so we did.
And what was fascinating, and we all shared everything cause
(18:57):
we couldn't really afford a big sandwich on our own,
is that the sandwiches at this deli in downtown Chicago,
were twice as expensive as my dad's and it had
half the amount of corn beef on it that my
dad's sandwiches had. So I came home and I said, "Dad,
(19:20):
I know how we can make more money." And he said,
"And how is that, Suze?"
And I said, "Well, it's very simple. Just raise your prices,
double them, and cut the amount of meat on your
sandwiches by 5%, and profit margin will absolutely go up."
(19:40):
And he said, "Suze, did it ever dawn on you
that I'd rather have 50% of something than 100% of nothing?"
And I just looked at him.
And with that he just walked away. Now how did
that come to play in my life?
As my career started to take off, and I started
(20:03):
to develop products.
Besides books, remember, I had the must have documents and
the FICO kit and the insurance evaluator, all these things
that I had created product, and I very easily could
have manufactured them, created them all by myself, and therefore
(20:25):
be entitled to 100% of the profits.
But I rather have 50% of something than 100% of nothing,
and that is when years ago I partnered with Hay House,
who I love so much it's not even funny.
But I had them manufacture and created and they took
(20:49):
all the risks. That gold box that we used to
sell on QVC, QVC sometimes would order 20,000 at a time,
100 or 200,000 at a time, and at $20 our
cost for that box, that was a tremendous amount of
money that you had to put out, but I never
(21:11):
had to put that out. That was Hay House's risk.
And we split profits fifty-fifty, just that simple. Now why
was that a great thing for me? Because I got
to create these products with them, obviously.
But I didn't have any risk involved if they sold, OK,
(21:34):
if they didn't sell, OK.
But that allowed me to get on television to talk
about it without me thinking about, "oh, we have to
make this money back."
I got to talk about why these products were something
that you should purchase, how they will help you, how
they'll make your life easier, all these things, and I
(21:57):
never thought about the money.
Because there's one thing interesting about money, you cannot sell it.
You can only inspire people to purchase what they need
to buy.
And so 50% of something if you look at my
life today,
(22:19):
really serve me so well it's not even funny.
So all of those lessons and I could go on
and on and on.
But I think you're getting the idea of the role
that my father, my father served in making me the
(22:43):
Suze Orman that I am today.
Again, I wish you all a very happy Father's Day
if you're a father out there and even if you're
not a father out there wherever you happen to be,
whether it's on this earth or up in heaven or whatever,
just know all of you in your own way,
(23:05):
have served a role in making us all who we
really are to this day.
And before we go, Ms. Travis has just joined me
in the studio because both of us do want to
wish one incredible father a Happy Father's Day. KT take it away.
KT (23:27):
Colo, Happy Father's Day, Poppy. Everyone loves you, especially your
three beautiful, beautiful children.
And your two furry babies, Toby and beautiful Mia. Happy
Father's Day, Colo. We love you.
Suze (23:44):
So very, very much, my dear. All right, that's everything.
So until next Thursday when Miss Travis joins us again,
are you going to join me, Miss KT?
KT (23:54):
Suze, they can't live without me, nor can you.
Suze (23:58):
That's true. I cannot, right? There's only one thing we
want you to remember. You tell them what it is, KT.
KT (24:04):
People first...
Suze (24:05):
Then money...
KT (24:06):
Then things.
Suze (24:07):
Now you stay safe. Bye bye.
June 15, 2025. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money
Podcast as Well as Everybody Smart Enough to Listen. Suze
O here, and today is Suze school. But because today
is a special day.
We're going to do a Suze Story. Now, why is
(00:50):
today a special day? Well, truthfully, for two reasons. Number one,
it is Father's Day, and for all of you fathers
that are smart enough to listen to the Women and
Money podcast, we wish you a very, very happy Father's Day.
And even if you aren't listening
(01:11):
and your spouses are listening. You can tell them, everybody,
that Suze and KT wished them a happy Father's Day.
Today is also special, by the way, because it is
KT's mother's 97th birthday if she had been alive. She
died 15 years ago, and I have to tell you,
(01:33):
we called her Mamma T. Anne Travis, and
out of all the mothers, my mother, my aunt, all
the mothers really I've ever met in my lifetime, Mamma
T was maybe one of the greatest, greatest of them all.
She had 6 children.
(01:54):
She raised them with hardly any money at all. KT's
father would bring in money. She would take care of it.
And when she died, we found her ledger. She kept
track of every penny, and there were so many times
that her balance,
it was down to literally $50 and that's all she
(02:14):
had but somehow she made it work and she really
did raise six extraordinary kids that all loved her so
much I can't tell you, but obviously I got to
know her for a number of years. She died in
2010 and remember I met KT in 2001.
(02:37):
So for all those 9 years, I got to become
close with Mama T and she would always say to
me when we were alone, she would say,
"Suze, does Kath drive you crazy?" and I'd say "Sometimes,
Mamma T, but it's worth it." She goes, "I just
don't know how you do it." You must have the
patience of a saint.
(02:59):
And the reason she would say that is that KT
is a little bit of a control freak in case
you don't know. And whenever we would go to visit
her mom or KT would go on her own to
visit her mom, KT would always rearrange all of Mamma
T's drawers and all these things, and Mamma T would
(03:19):
just sit there and go, "Kath, I like how everything is."
But KT did it anyway. But
we miss you, Mamma T so much. Happy, happy birthday,
and just know we celebrate you every day, not just
on your birthday. All right.
(03:39):
As I said earlier, today is Father's Day, and it
did dawn on me that so many of you write
me and you tell me how much you love when
I talk about my mom, and you love that, and
of course you do, because most of you listening are women.
Most of you listening are probably mothers, and there's nothing
(04:01):
more than a mother loves than hearing stories about a
daughter who loves her mother in the hopes that their
daughters or sons love them as much as well.
But what's interesting is I think about all the podcasts
we've ever done, and KT and I really, really don't
(04:21):
talk much about our fathers. Now what's interesting is that
my father happened to die on Father's Day all the
way back when when I was like 31 years of
age and he was 71.
So Father's Day always is a very interesting day for
(04:44):
me because it is a celebration of him and also
a remembrance of his death. But when I think about
my father,
what I want all of you to know is that
from the bottom of my heart I really, really believe
and I know without a shadow of a doubt that
(05:07):
I am who I am today because of the lessons.
He taught me when he didn't even know he was
teaching them to me.
One of the lessons he taught me was you didn't
have to have a lot of money to be interested
in learning about stocks.
(05:29):
He subscribed to something back then called Value Line. Remember
there weren't computers or anything, and the only way that
you could get information about stocks in depth then was
through certain services, and there was a service called Value
Line that put out, I think it was weekly, this
(05:50):
yellow kind of little tiny pamphlet about all the stocks
that they were covering that week.
And you would take that and put it in a binder,
and his binder was really about 12 inches thick, and
they renewed it every single year, but he would go
through those yellow pages. It was yellow, and he would
(06:13):
go through them and he would study them and he
would take notes and I would watch and I would say,
"What are you doing, Daddy?" And he said, "I'm learning
about stock, Suze."
And I said, "What are stocks?" and he said, "Well,
stocks are something that you need to know about one day."
And that would be his answer. Shortly after that, he
(06:36):
started something with a group of his friends called the
Mint Club.
And the Mint Club would meet once a month, and
they would each put in about $15 or $20 a
month and they would gather that and they would invest
it in stocks and every month one of the members
(06:58):
of the Mint Club,
would have to host all the other members, and I
used to love when my dad and mom had to
host and and by the way my mom was involved
with it too. All the wives came to learn, which
I loved as well cause it wasn't just for men.
I used to love when it was at our house,
(07:21):
and they would all crowd into this little living room
and they would all discuss which stocks they should buy
that month.
As time went on, the neighborhood changed. We lived on
the south side of Chicago, and the Mint Club members,
the majority of them, all moved to the north side.
(07:43):
So the Mint club dispersed, but my dad never stopped.
He kept putting little by little into the stock market
of stocks that he was getting through Value Line.
And I just have this image of him sitting at
the table with his Value Line brochures around him or
(08:03):
pamphlets or whatever you call them, reading the newspaper looking
at the current stock quotes. What was fascinating about that
is that when he did die in 1981, he had
amassed $700,000 worth of stocks that he did leave my mom.
(08:26):
So that was fabulous, but the lesson I learned there,
is that you have to have knowledge even if you
don't have money. You have to think things are for
you even when you can afford them.
So it was interesting because if I think about my
own trajectory and how I started at this, remember everybody
(08:51):
at the Buttercup Bakery gave me $50,000 to open up
my own restaurant. I gave it to a broker at
Merrill Lynch to hold it for me, and within 3 months,
all of it was lost. But even though it wasn't
my money,
the lesson my father taught me by watching him was, "Suze,
(09:13):
you better learn what that broker is doing with your money."
And that's when I became like my father, and I
started to read Barons and I watched Wall Street Week
every Friday night with Louis Rue Keiser.
And every day I would look at the Wall Street
Journal and my whole bedroom was plastered seriously with newspapers
(09:36):
with the stock quotes option quotes, and I had learned
more in those one or two months than I think
my financial adviser knew when it came to investing in
options because the reason all $50,000 was lost.
It is because Randy Koch, which was what his name
was and probably still is, right, was investing in the
(10:00):
options market. I didn't know what that was at the time.
He made it look like I was a very sophisticated investor,
which I obviously was not. I was a waitress at
the Buttercup Bakery, and buying options is the most speculative
thing you can do. 90% of people lose their money.
And I seriously started to like... I didn't like that
(10:21):
I lost the 50,000, but I liked learning, and I
got that I could understand it, and it was with
that knowledge, understanding that this could be for me, I
went and interviewed with Merrill Lynch. They hired me obviously
to fill their women's quota.
(10:42):
But that was the start of Suze Orman, and that
start started way back when with me watching my father
learn about things that at the time he could not afford,
so I found that very fascinating. Next thing I learned
(11:03):
from my father was that money was more important than
life itself.
You all know the story about my dad had this
little tiny place called Chicken A Go Go that was
on the corner under these railroad tracks. It was like
400 square feet.
And you could get fried chicken. You could get ribs,
(11:27):
you could get all these things there. And my mom
and I drove up to pick him up one day,
and we saw him standing outside and the entire place
was aflames. It was burning and all of a sudden
my father runs back into the building to get the
(11:48):
cash register cause every single penny we had to our
name
was in that cash register and back in those days
the cash registers were metal.
And he picked up that register, went outside. It was
scalding hot, dropped it on the ground, and with that
(12:09):
all the skin on his arms and his chest came
with it. So he had third degree burns to try
to save the money.
And from that he got emphysema.
But what was interesting is after that little store burnt
down and he had recovered, he really didn't have any
(12:32):
money to start a new place, but because of the
relations that he made with his vendors; David Berg, the
bread people, everybody, they all gathered together.
And they gave him the money to open up a
new little store, and this time he called it Maury's
(12:54):
Deli on 55th Street in Hyde Park.
Now the lesson that I learned there.
Was that if you're good to the people that you
do business with, you treat them with respect, you're kind.
You somehow develop a relationship with them because you're all
(13:15):
just trying to make a living.
Those are people that one day might just come back
and save you like he did with my father and
therefore our family.
So from there I learned that no matter who you were,
what your position was in life,
(13:36):
treat everybody with respect. Treat everybody as if they were you.
And on some level treat everybody and see them,
really as if they were God's creation, which in fact
they are.
So that was a very important lesson for me because
(13:58):
it really came to play throughout my whole life and
everybody I have ever worked with, my producers, my everybody.
Because we were never a hierarchy with anything I created,
we were all equals, and we all loved one another,
and we were all there for one another. And therefore
(14:19):
the end product that we created was created out of
love and respect for each other, which you could feel
as you listened or watched the Suze Orman show or
read my books, you could feel it.
From there I learned another lesson which was, as I
(14:40):
just said, he contracted emphysema from that fire.
And I would hear my father every single night.
Cough and cough and cough and he had all these
machines next to his bed and you'd hear the machines
giving him all that medicine that he would inhale but
(15:02):
every single morning.
Absolutely no matter how sick he was that night, he
would get up and go to work because he had
responsibility in his mind to support his family. My mother
also went to work every day.
(15:25):
But she would just look at me and she would say,
"I don't know how he does it."
And that's where the saying
And this didn't just go on for a week or
two or three. It went on for the rest of
his life till literally he could no longer even get
(15:46):
out of bed.
So from that I learned,
there isn't an excuse big enough to keep you from
doing that which you are meant to do.
And so many times all of us, including me when
I was younger, ah, I'll do it tomorrow. It's OK.
(16:06):
I don't feel like it.
That's not how I operate my life because of what
I saw my father do.
I always do what I need to do in the
moment I need to do it. I don't put it off.
I really don't wait till the last minute. I cannot
(16:28):
do anything else if I know I have not completed
the task at hand.
And truthfully where this lesson really came to play was
after the operation that I had back in 2020 when
for three years everybody.
(16:50):
At night my nerves would fire. I don't think I
slept for three years, and I would still get up.
And KT would help me get dressed, and I would
go to the computer and turn on the videos because
those were the years when the pandemic was happening and
(17:10):
people wanted to hear from me and I was on
all these shows and nobody had a clue that it
took me an hour and a half to put my
jacket on and KT another hour to put my makeup
on so that I could do my job.
But I don't think I could have done that if
(17:32):
I didn't have the memory of my father doing what
he did.
So again,
Dad, if you're listening up there, I just want you
to know you so taught me that.
As time went on, my father could no longer go
(17:52):
to work.
And he was in the hospital almost all the time.
And so that meant that I had to do it.
My brothers had to do it, and it was we
had to show up.
The next lesson I learned was that at my dad's deli,
(18:14):
Maury's deli, he always had a line out the door.
And it was the favorite place for everybody to come
and eat. It was so much fun, really, and it
wasn't a place that you could sit down and eat.
You could just pick it up. It was a takeaway
and come 12 o'clock you'd have to get ready cause
(18:35):
I worked there and the lines, literally hundreds of people
would come to buy his sandwiches.
One day during the summer, I remember my friends and
I went to downtown Chicago, and they all wanted to
go to a deli to eat lunch, so we did.
And what was fascinating, and we all shared everything cause
(18:57):
we couldn't really afford a big sandwich on our own,
is that the sandwiches at this deli in downtown Chicago,
were twice as expensive as my dad's and it had
half the amount of corn beef on it that my
dad's sandwiches had. So I came home and I said, "Dad,
(19:20):
I know how we can make more money." And he said,
"And how is that, Suze?"
And I said, "Well, it's very simple. Just raise your prices,
double them, and cut the amount of meat on your
sandwiches by 5%, and profit margin will absolutely go up."
(19:40):
And he said, "Suze, did it ever dawn on you
that I'd rather have 50% of something than 100% of nothing?"
And I just looked at him.
And with that he just walked away. Now how did
that come to play in my life?
As my career started to take off, and I started
(20:03):
to develop products.
Besides books, remember, I had the must have documents and
the FICO kit and the insurance evaluator, all these things
that I had created product, and I very easily could
have manufactured them, created them all by myself, and therefore
(20:25):
be entitled to 100% of the profits.
But I rather have 50% of something than 100% of nothing,
and that is when years ago I partnered with Hay House,
who I love so much it's not even funny.
But I had them manufacture and created and they took
(20:49):
all the risks. That gold box that we used to
sell on QVC, QVC sometimes would order 20,000 at a time,
100 or 200,000 at a time, and at $20 our
cost for that box, that was a tremendous amount of
money that you had to put out, but I never
(21:11):
had to put that out. That was Hay House's risk.
And we split profits fifty-fifty, just that simple. Now why
was that a great thing for me? Because I got
to create these products with them, obviously.
But I didn't have any risk involved if they sold, OK,
(21:34):
if they didn't sell, OK.
But that allowed me to get on television to talk
about it without me thinking about, "oh, we have to
make this money back."
I got to talk about why these products were something
that you should purchase, how they will help you, how
they'll make your life easier, all these things, and I
(21:57):
never thought about the money.
Because there's one thing interesting about money, you cannot sell it.
You can only inspire people to purchase what they need
to buy.
And so 50% of something if you look at my
life today,
(22:19):
really serve me so well it's not even funny.
So all of those lessons and I could go on
and on and on.
But I think you're getting the idea of the role
that my father, my father served in making me the
(22:43):
Suze Orman that I am today.
Again, I wish you all a very happy Father's Day
if you're a father out there and even if you're
not a father out there wherever you happen to be,
whether it's on this earth or up in heaven or whatever,
just know all of you in your own way,
(23:05):
have served a role in making us all who we
really are to this day.
And before we go, Ms. Travis has just joined me
in the studio because both of us do want to
wish one incredible father a Happy Father's Day. KT take it away.
KT (23:27):
Colo, Happy Father's Day, Poppy. Everyone loves you, especially your
three beautiful, beautiful children.
And your two furry babies, Toby and beautiful Mia. Happy
Father's Day, Colo. We love you.
Suze (23:44):
So very, very much, my dear. All right, that's everything.
So until next Thursday when Miss Travis joins us again,
are you going to join me, Miss KT?
KT (23:54):
Suze, they can't live without me, nor can you.
Suze (23:58):
That's true. I cannot, right? There's only one thing we
want you to remember. You tell them what it is, KT.
KT (24:04):
People first...
Suze (24:05):
Then money...
KT (24:06):
Then things.
Suze (24:07):
Now you stay safe. Bye bye.
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