April 25, 2023 • 30 mins
Suze Orman has spent the past few decades sharing her financial wisdom with the public. But before Suze became an investment maven, bestselling author, and host of her own show on CNBC, she was a 30-year-old waitress living paycheck to paycheck. In this episode, Suze Orman explains how she went from happily waiting tables at a local cafe, to losing all her money in the stock market, to becoming a personal finance guru.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Susie Orman, the myth, the legend. The woman has
been around pretty much my entire life, popping up everywhere
as in money Guru. She was hosted The Suzie Orman
Show on CNBC for over a decade and was one
of the most recurring guests on Oprah Winfrey's network shows,
(00:38):
which I can't overstate how incredible that is. Susie was
everywhere and still is, from podcasts to magazines to mainstream
cable news, giving people advice on what they should do
with their money. That level of expertise in this field
really intimidates me. I thought, by talking to Susie Orman,
(00:59):
I'd feel judged and small for my lack of financial knowhow,
which is really lacking and is really small. But it
turns out that Susie Ormand is not just smart, She's
not judgmental at all. She's a super soulful person with
a story that completely shocked me. And if I could
wish anything for myself and anyone listening to the show,
(01:20):
it's that we'd be less afraid to take big swings
in life. And Susie she certainly put fear asides several
times to take a couple of gigantic swings. This has
started from the bottom, harder and success stories from people
like us. To start a conversation, Susie tells me about
(01:40):
her childhood in Chicago and eventually making her way to Berkeley, California.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I grew up on the South side of Chicago. I
grew up where my mother was the secretary sold avon
on the side. My father was always sick, So I
did not come from a family who when I was
born and whatever, had money. They had it before I
was born, and then something legally happened that I still
(02:08):
don't understand to this day. They lost everything. So by
the time I came around, they had nothing, and my
mother early fifties, was working. No other mothers worked at
that time, so I came from that kind of background.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
When I went to the University of Illinois.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I had to pay for it myself, so I had
to work every day at the Bubbys and Zadies deli
during the day and at night at the Red Lion Inn.
And I worked till one or two in the morning,
and all I cared about was surviving. Never got a
grade above a sea I think the entire time I
(02:44):
went to the university and What was fascinating is that
I really thought that my dream job was being a waitress.
I loved it. So when I ended up as a
waitress at the Buttercup Bakery and making four hundred dollars
a month, I stayed a waitress from the age really
(03:06):
of like twenty, you know, twenty two, all the out
twenty nine or thirty.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, So the Buttercup Bakery in Berkeley, California, you're living there,
You've dropped out of college, and you're waiting tables for
what about nine years?
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Eight nine years, eight nine years.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So it never dawned on me that I would be
able to make money, that I was supposed to be
anything other than a waitress. That wasn't my ambition. My
ambition was to just get by. I didn't even have
credit cards then, right, But you know it's a you know,
it's I didn't have any money when when something broke down,
(03:42):
you know, I don't even know how I paid for it.
So I had no ambition.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
It is very important to highlight because the Susie Ormond
we know today it seems very different from the suits
the early to late twenties. Susie Ormond who was content
to be a waitress. And it really highlights that ambition, discipline,
and all the other sort of ingredients for success aren't
necessary things that you are have to be born with.
(04:11):
These are things you can you can learn and develop.
And I'm curious how you started to develop, how your
ambition developed.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, so what happened was here. It is nineteen seventy
nine and the Buttercup Bakery. When I first started, it
was on College and Alcatraz College Avenue in Alcatraz was
this little tiny place that you couldn't even really sit down.
You would come in, get a cup of coffee and whatever,
and leave. Because of my ideas and the things I said,
(04:44):
why don't we do this? Why don't we do that?
Before you knew it, they owned half the block. And
I'm sitting there going, oh great, my ideas have caused
these people to become very wealthy and I'm still making
four hundred dollars a month. What's wrong with this equation?
I thought, I know, I can open up my own restaurant.
(05:04):
So I mistakenly called up my mom and I asked
her for twenty thousand dollars. And the reason that I
say mistakenly justin is my mother didn't have twenty thousand
dollars to their name. My father was now really really
ill at this time, and she felt so bad because
she couldn't give it to me. And there isn't a
mother in this world that doesn't want to help their
(05:29):
daughters in particular. And so I went to work the
next morning, and a man by the name of Fred Hasbrick,
who I've been waiting on for all seven years, came
in and he said, what's wrong, Sunshine, you don't look happy.
I told him the story. He went back and sat
with all the other gentlemen that I've been waiting on
(05:50):
for all of these years. They were like my family,
This was their stop before they went on to their jobs,
and none of them are wealthy. Fred was a salesman
who sold little tiny tape recorders, and so before he left,
he came up to the counter and on the count
owner he put all this papers and checks, and they
(06:13):
were commitments and actual checks totaling fifty thousand dollars, with
a little note on a napkin that said, this is
for people like you to be paid back in ten
years with no interest, if you can. I didn't know
what to do with that. Kind of money. I said
to him, are the checks going to bounce like all
(06:34):
mind you?
Speaker 3 (06:36):
And he said no, Susie.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
He said, go down to the local Merrill Lynch office,
open up a money market account and will help you
from there. Problem was And I said to him, I
don't know what Merrill Lynch is, and I don't know
what a money market account was. He told me, for
those of you who may not know, Merrill Lynch is
a brokerage firm where people go and they buy and
(07:00):
sell stocks. They have financial advisors, very reputable, truthfully, and
a money market account is what was coming along that
were replacing savings accounts. So I was to put that
money in a money market account until they could help me.
I walked into Merrill Lynch. I was met by Randy,
(07:20):
who was the broker of the day. He met all
the new people that came in. He had me sign
paperwork of blank papers. I didn't even know what I
was signing, and he said, how would you like to
make it quick? Hundred dollars a week, and I said,
of course. I left. And what I didn't know is
that Randy filled out that paperwork to make it look
(07:41):
like I was a very sophisticated investor with a lot
of money, and I could speculate and started to invest
all fifty thousand dollars in what's called the options market,
the most speculative thing you can do with money, buying
options because ninety percent of all people who do so
lose money. Within three months, all fifty thousand dollars was lost.
(08:03):
Now I didn't know what was I going to do.
I needed to pay back these people, even though they,
you know, told me I didn't have to. And so
I thought, I know I can be a broker. They
just make you broker. Got dressed in my red and
white striped sants soon pants, tucked into my white cowboy
boots with a blue silk shirt, the fanciest outfit I had.
(08:26):
I was a sly size six back then. That's the
only thing that I wish I could go back to.
But that is besides the point. And I went into
Merrill Lynch and before I knew it, I was in
the manager's office. His name is Peterson san Severo, and
he literally said to me, you know that, in his opinion,
(08:46):
women belong barefoot and pregnant. But he would hire me,
but in six months he would fire me, and obviously
he was hiring me to fill their women's quota because
it was affirmative action. Being the Susie Ormond that I
am today that I was still back then on some level.
(09:06):
I said to him, how much are you going to
pay to make me pregnant? And he said fifteen hundred
dollars a month? So it didn't take me long to
figure out fifteen hundred a month. Time six was nine
thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
That's two and a.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Half years at the Buttercup Akery. Almost wow, right to
make that kind of money, So I said, but fine.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
What qualifications did you have at that point to work there?
So no, So you literally imagine that you were given
the job simply to fill the quota.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
You got that, right, boyfriend.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
The level then for you to get to to put
on a suit and walk into Merrill Lynch with no
background in this that's the amazing part. It's almost not
even that you got the job, that you had the
audacity to walk in there, and how did you think
that was going to go?
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Well? I didn't care so much.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
All.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I didn't care about me. I cared about the people
that gave me this money more than myself because Fred
he couldn't afford to lose two thousand dollars, and they
all had faith in me. And because of them, not
my audacity, my desire to honor them, I knew I
(10:24):
had to do something, and that wasn't going to be
a waitress for the rest of my life to pay
fifty thousand dollars back.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
More Susie Orman. After this quick break.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Those three months that Randy was trading options, I started
to read what he was doing, and watching Wall Street
Week on PBS and reading barons and going, oh, I
get this, I understand this.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
He's going to lose all my money in some level.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
By the time those three months passed, justin I knew
more than I ever thought I would know. And when
they hired me, he told me he was going to
fire me. So I didn't really care about that either,
But I liked reading about it and studying to take
what they called the Series seven exam, which you have
(11:31):
to take if you're going to become a stockbroker, which
is a seriously hard exam to take, the first time
I took it, I flunked it, and I was in
New York. They send you to New York. I was
scared to death to go there, but they send you there.
And after I flunked it, like I think six people
out of hundreds flunked it. I was one of them.
(11:53):
And then you have one week to study and try
to pass it again. The second time. I passed it.
But I'm telling you all this because you have to know.
I wasn't a brainchild, and so it was hard work
and determination that that. It was like, all right, this
is a test from God to see if I really
(12:13):
want this, and I wanted it to pay back other people.
So I then passed the exam. Now I'm a stockbroker.
Now I'm scared to death because I don't belong with
these one hundred and five men, not one other woman
in the whole place. I'm still driving a sixty seven Vovo.
They're driving nineteen eighty Mercedes and BMW's. That's when I
(12:37):
learned that I needed to create a new truth because
I was afraid I didn't you know, I didn't belong there.
I didn't come from their world. So I decided to
create a truth that when I would be shivering going
to work, I could say to hopefully calm me down.
And the new truth went like this, I am young, powerful,
(13:00):
and successful, producing at least ten thousand dollars a month.
I wasn't so young. I was thirty now right powerful.
I was the most powerless thing you ever could have imagined.
So I was young, powerful, no successful. I don't think
so nothing about it, producing at least ten thousand dollars
(13:23):
a month, because I decided if God wanted to give
me more than ten thousand dollars a month, because I
knew he had to do it for me, because I
wasn't going to be able to do it right that
that why limit myself to ten thousand dollars. For six
months after I had passed my Series seven and became
a broker, I wrote it twenty five times a day.
(13:46):
I screamed it in the card out loud twenty five
times going to work, and at night, before I went
to bed, I looked in the mirror, looking back at myself,
and I said it silently. Six months later, all those
truths that I said came true.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
You were hired to be fired. But yes, within the
six months that you felt like you were on the line,
you love the firing line. You turned out to be
a great stockbroker.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yes, But while I was working for Merrill Lynch. I
myself am gay and have been my entire life, and
the head of operations was also a gay man, and
we were the only two in this gigantic office that
had this in common. So of course we gravitated to
(14:44):
each other. And I did not hide it from anybody
that I was gay. I never have. And so he
said to me one day, Susie, what happened to you
here at Merrill Lynch wasn't quite legal and all the
lawsuits went through this man, and he said, you know,
(15:04):
you might want to go into my office after I
leave today. I've told my secretary you might do. So
look at the drawer bottom drawer to your left, and
you figure out why I want you to do that.
That's all I can tell you. I go in his
office that day, say hi to his secretary, Sit down,
(15:25):
open the drawer and there's all these Manila file folders
that say on them lose, lose.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Lose, win, win, win, win.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
And I start looking at him, and the ones that
say win are lawsuits that are being brought against Merrill Lynch,
most of them by this one attorney. I call this attorney,
and I'm so sorry. I can't even remember his name
to this day. Told him my story. He says to me,
(15:58):
I'll take this case on contingency. I said, well, what
the hell is that? And he said, it's where it's
not going to cost you anything if we lose. If
we win, I get thirty percent of whatever the settlement is.
So I said, great, we sue Merrill Lynch.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
While you're working, Well, you're working.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
While I'm working them because justin I knew it would
be easy for me to say nothing and just sit there,
but would not have been right. What if it was
my mom and all her money she put in there
and she got a quick and broker. So I decided, no,
(16:39):
this wasn't right and I needed to do something about it.
And again I felt like it was a sign that
the operations manager was telling me this. So because I
see Merrill Lynch, they could not fire me. Who knew.
Two years later, when the suit came to court, a
(17:00):
new manager came in and he looked at everything and
he said, Susie, this is ridiculous. We're set. We're going
to say this with you. And they gave me enough
money to pay back all the people that let me
money plus eighteen percent interest, and so I was able
to do that, and the rest is kind of history.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Now, the original reason you were lunch to fifty thousand
was to open up a restaurant of your own. By
that point, was that still a desire of yours? No?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Because I loved what I was learning. I loved that
Every Tuesday there would be a sales meeting at one
o'clock in California. The market closed at one, and I
would be there and they would be, you know, they
would be telling you what they wanted you to buy
and sell, and I was understanding it all right. So
(17:55):
I was always honest with what I knew and what
I didn't know. And because I knew I didn't know,
I was open to learning from people who really did know.
And over time I started to be one of those people.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
The way you are describing yourself is the antithesis of
the way we imagine powerful wealthy folks to We don't
expect powerful multi folks to admit when they don't know something.
Is that solid advice? Did not admit when you don't
know something just to continue to.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
No, it's solid advice, because you know why, when you
stand in your truth, everybody can feel it when you
tell a lie. They can feel that as well. But
they don't want to believe that you're lying, but they
know something isn't quite right. What makes you truly powerful
(18:55):
in life is that every word that comes out of
your mouth is the truth. Because there is a law
of money that I realized years ago, which is is
power attracts money and powerlessness repels it. It's people that
(19:17):
hire you, it's people that give you a pay raise.
So people are attracted to power. They can feel it
in you. What renders you the most powerful is when
you stand in your truth. What renders you the most
powerless are two things. Number One, when you stand in
(19:40):
a lie, when what you tell people is a lie.
And also another form of a lie when it comes
to money is debt. When you have debt, I'm not
talking about car loan debt, mortgage debt, or student loan debt.
When you have credit card debt, you are standing in
(20:04):
a lie because you are spending money. You don't even
have to impress people in most cases that you don't
even know or like. Now, obviously there are exceptions to
that rule because of medical expenses and things like that,
but the majority of debt that people have on their
credit cards, going out to eat, buying clothes, going on vacations,
(20:29):
doing all kinds of things like that, And that is
a lie because you don't have the money to pay
for it. So debt is bondage. Debt is a lie
in most cases. So the most the thing that renders
you the most powerful is standing in your truth.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Where do Susan ormand get all that courage from? She
talks about it when we come back.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I loved that I was a lesbian and it was
not easy to be a lesbian in the sixties. Imagine
going to high school, you know, from like you know,
sixty four to sixty nine, or well sixty five to
sixty nine, and also in grammar school when I already
knew that I was a lesbian, and you know, there
weren't gay rates rights back then. You know, none of
(21:32):
this really happened. It happened started to happen in nineteen
sixty nine. Really, But I always told everybody I was gay.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Where did you get that courage from?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I got that courage because I didn't know better. I think,
you know, it wasn't like at first, obviously, when I
first started to realize it that I went around telling everybody.
But when I went to college, I went to a
gay liberation meeting there because I knew it, and I
(22:05):
realized that gay men were very different than lesbians. And
that's when I decided, I have to do something about this.
We need to break off from gay men. And so
with my friends, I started the Gay Women's House in Champagne, Illinois,
(22:27):
and the University of Illinois arranged all these talks for me,
and I would go to Paxton, Illinois and all these
places that were so behind the times and talk about
it and nobody ever rejected me or treated me poorly.
And then at Merrill Lynch, when I told everybody I
(22:51):
was gay, right, they didn't care. I mean, when somebody
had a birthday, they would have these women's strippers come in,
and they thought I would enjoy that, you know, and
I was just like whatever, But you know, justin even
when I got my first big contract for my book
(23:15):
that I got not the you know, my first book
was You've earned it, don't lose it. The second book
is what gave me a you know, big contract. It
was eight hundred thousand dollars and I thought, who's going
to pay me eight hundred thousand dollars to somebody who
doesn't even know how to write. So I went into
Chip Gibson, who was president of Crown Publishing at the time,
and I said, Chip, I can't take this kind of
(23:36):
money without you knowing two things about me. Number One,
I don't know how to write, and he said, oh great,
find me a writer who knows that they don't know
how to write. And number two, I'm a lesbian and
he said, well, tell me something I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Why did you tell him that?
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Because if I was on interviews and asked if I
was gay, I was going to I wasn't going to lie.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
It seems like so many of the ingredients for your
success were they're early from your standing in your truth,
like knowing who you were, not being afraid of who
you were, not being afraid to acknowledge what you don't know,
And there certainly must have been some underlying level of ambition,
even if it was dormant. Why do you think why
do you think it took until thirty, which is still
(24:22):
relatively young, but rather than twenty. Why do you think
it took until thirty for these sorts of ingredients to
start coming together to create a level of financial success.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Well, because I loved my life as a waitress. The
person that I admired the most in life was a
woman by the name of Helen. Helen had red hair
and a beehive on top of her head and smoked
a cigarette, was probably sixty five or seventy, and had
worked her entire life at the Buttercup restaurant, you know,
(24:51):
the Buttercup Bakery. And I loved her and I wanted
to be like her. She was my role model because
she was happy and she was excited to go home
to her kids or her grandkids or whatever. And I
didn't look at it like I wanted money. I looked
(25:13):
at it like I love what I do. Helen loves
what she does, and look how happy she is. Yeah,
so I didn't, That was my truth. Yeah, Yeah, I didn't.
I didn't have anybody to inspire me to want to
be more than that.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, you start your You start your group in nineteen
eighty seven. Yeah, she's Ormand's financial group. Tell me about
why you started that.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
I started it because after Merrill Lynch, I then was
hired by Prudential Based Securities as a vice president of
investments for them. They paid me a lot of money
to do so, and I became known as the nation's expert.
While I work there in an investment called single premium
(26:01):
whole life, very different than the whole life insurance that
most financial advisors sell today or insurance agents sell today.
And Prudential Base did not like that I was putting
people in single premium whole life policies that they themselves
did not sell. They wanted me to sell maybe the
(26:22):
Prudential one, but at the time I liked equitables or
I forget which one, and so I needed to start
my own firm so that I could do what was
right for people and put them in the best policy possible.
And you know, so that's what I did. So I
(26:43):
started my own firm in nineteen eighty seven. So I
then decided people would pay me what they thought my
services were worth. That is how I charged them, and
that's kind of how that firm started. If you are
in the financial industry and you put money in front
(27:04):
of people, you're in big trouble. That's why for the
teen years that I did the Susie Orman Show on CNBC,
I ended every show with there's only one thing that
I want you to remember when it comes to your money,
and that's people first, then money, then things. All right,
(27:25):
So if you always put people first, if you always
put their needs in front of your needs, you will
always be a financial advisor that other people want to
work with, especially if you do the right things with
(27:45):
their money. And so to this day, I still do that, Susie.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
You're seventy one and a half. Now you're doing the
half Earlier someone throwing the half seventy one and a half.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
I always celebrate my half birthdays.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
I love it. I love it. You're seventy one and
a half. The world is quite different from nineteen eighty. Yeah,
what advice would you give young women now? Taking it
two things in consideration, what advice would you give young
women that you would say worked for you in nineteen
eighty and what advice would you give? What advice do
(28:21):
you think has to be modified in twenty twenty two
or is there or is there if there is such
a thing.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Now, I don't think there is such a thing of
modifying anything, because the truth is everlasting, justin what's true
is true. Truth doesn't really change. So what I would
tell a twenty two year old, no, matter how you
identify yourself is there is no excuse big enough to
(28:52):
keep you from being who you are meant to be.
When you are in a situation, you know what's true
and you know what's not. You know, if you're in
a relationship and it's not good for you, you know
what's true and what you need to do about it.
You know, if you are pulling out your credit card
(29:12):
to buy something that you can only pay the minimum
payment due when that bill comes in, you know that
is a lie. You know it's the truth when you
have an eight to twelve month emergency fund and when
you put something on your credit card, you can pay
it off in full at the end of the month.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Susie, your a real inspiration. You're a real soulful human being,
and you've done incredible work. And thank you so much
for taking the time to talk to me.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Thank you so much, Susie, anytime, talk to you soon.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Bye bye the Great Susie or Man. She completely eliminated
any empocess syndrome I had with that Meri Lynch story.
It's the most gangster thing I've ever heard on the show.
I think taking that level of confidence with you in
your day to day life is going to make stretching
out of your comfort zone so much easier. The Start
(30:10):
from the Bottom is produced by David Jah, edited by
Keishaw Williams, Engineered by Ben Holliday, Booked by Laura Morgan
with production help from Lea Rose. The show is executive
produced by Jacob Goldstein, who's not all up in the
videos for Pushkin Industries. Our theme music's by Ben Holliday
and David Jaw featuring Anthony Aggs and Savannah Joe Lack.
(30:33):
Listen to Start from the Bottom. Wherever you get your
podcasts and if you want ad free episodes available one
week early sign up for Pushkin Plus. Check out Pushkin
dot fm or the Apple show page for more information.
If you like your show, please remember to share, rate,
and review us on your podcast app. I'm justin Richmond.
Pushkin. Susie Orman, the myth, the legend. The woman has
been around pretty much my entire life, popping up everywhere
as in money Guru. She was hosted The Suzie Orman
Show on CNBC for over a decade and was one
of the most recurring guests on Oprah Winfrey's network shows,
(00:38):
which I can't overstate how incredible that is. Susie was
everywhere and still is, from podcasts to magazines to mainstream
cable news, giving people advice on what they should do
with their money. That level of expertise in this field
really intimidates me. I thought, by talking to Susie Orman,
(00:59):
I'd feel judged and small for my lack of financial knowhow,
which is really lacking and is really small. But it
turns out that Susie Ormand is not just smart, She's
not judgmental at all. She's a super soulful person with
a story that completely shocked me. And if I could
wish anything for myself and anyone listening to the show,
(01:20):
it's that we'd be less afraid to take big swings
in life. And Susie she certainly put fear asides several
times to take a couple of gigantic swings. This has
started from the bottom, harder and success stories from people
like us. To start a conversation, Susie tells me about
(01:40):
her childhood in Chicago and eventually making her way to Berkeley, California.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I grew up on the South side of Chicago. I
grew up where my mother was the secretary sold avon
on the side. My father was always sick, So I
did not come from a family who when I was
born and whatever, had money. They had it before I
was born, and then something legally happened that I still
(02:08):
don't understand to this day. They lost everything. So by
the time I came around, they had nothing, and my
mother early fifties, was working. No other mothers worked at
that time, so I came from that kind of background.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
When I went to the University of Illinois.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I had to pay for it myself, so I had
to work every day at the Bubbys and Zadies deli
during the day and at night at the Red Lion Inn.
And I worked till one or two in the morning,
and all I cared about was surviving. Never got a
grade above a sea I think the entire time I
(02:44):
went to the university and What was fascinating is that
I really thought that my dream job was being a waitress.
I loved it. So when I ended up as a
waitress at the Buttercup Bakery and making four hundred dollars
a month, I stayed a waitress from the age really
(03:06):
of like twenty, you know, twenty two, all the out
twenty nine or thirty.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, So the Buttercup Bakery in Berkeley, California, you're living there,
You've dropped out of college, and you're waiting tables for
what about nine years?
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Eight nine years, eight nine years.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So it never dawned on me that I would be
able to make money, that I was supposed to be
anything other than a waitress. That wasn't my ambition. My
ambition was to just get by. I didn't even have
credit cards then, right, But you know it's a you know,
it's I didn't have any money when when something broke down,
(03:42):
you know, I don't even know how I paid for it.
So I had no ambition.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
It is very important to highlight because the Susie Ormond
we know today it seems very different from the suits
the early to late twenties. Susie Ormond who was content
to be a waitress. And it really highlights that ambition, discipline,
and all the other sort of ingredients for success aren't
necessary things that you are have to be born with.
(04:11):
These are things you can you can learn and develop.
And I'm curious how you started to develop, how your
ambition developed.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, so what happened was here. It is nineteen seventy
nine and the Buttercup Bakery. When I first started, it
was on College and Alcatraz College Avenue in Alcatraz was
this little tiny place that you couldn't even really sit down.
You would come in, get a cup of coffee and whatever,
and leave. Because of my ideas and the things I said,
(04:44):
why don't we do this? Why don't we do that?
Before you knew it, they owned half the block. And
I'm sitting there going, oh great, my ideas have caused
these people to become very wealthy and I'm still making
four hundred dollars a month. What's wrong with this equation?
I thought, I know, I can open up my own restaurant.
(05:04):
So I mistakenly called up my mom and I asked
her for twenty thousand dollars. And the reason that I
say mistakenly justin is my mother didn't have twenty thousand
dollars to their name. My father was now really really
ill at this time, and she felt so bad because
she couldn't give it to me. And there isn't a
mother in this world that doesn't want to help their
(05:29):
daughters in particular. And so I went to work the
next morning, and a man by the name of Fred Hasbrick,
who I've been waiting on for all seven years, came
in and he said, what's wrong, Sunshine, you don't look happy.
I told him the story. He went back and sat
with all the other gentlemen that I've been waiting on
(05:50):
for all of these years. They were like my family,
This was their stop before they went on to their jobs,
and none of them are wealthy. Fred was a salesman
who sold little tiny tape recorders, and so before he left,
he came up to the counter and on the count
owner he put all this papers and checks, and they
(06:13):
were commitments and actual checks totaling fifty thousand dollars, with
a little note on a napkin that said, this is
for people like you to be paid back in ten
years with no interest, if you can. I didn't know
what to do with that. Kind of money. I said
to him, are the checks going to bounce like all
(06:34):
mind you?
Speaker 3 (06:36):
And he said no, Susie.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
He said, go down to the local Merrill Lynch office,
open up a money market account and will help you
from there. Problem was And I said to him, I
don't know what Merrill Lynch is, and I don't know
what a money market account was. He told me, for
those of you who may not know, Merrill Lynch is
a brokerage firm where people go and they buy and
(07:00):
sell stocks. They have financial advisors, very reputable, truthfully, and
a money market account is what was coming along that
were replacing savings accounts. So I was to put that
money in a money market account until they could help me.
I walked into Merrill Lynch. I was met by Randy,
(07:20):
who was the broker of the day. He met all
the new people that came in. He had me sign
paperwork of blank papers. I didn't even know what I
was signing, and he said, how would you like to
make it quick? Hundred dollars a week, and I said,
of course. I left. And what I didn't know is
that Randy filled out that paperwork to make it look
(07:41):
like I was a very sophisticated investor with a lot
of money, and I could speculate and started to invest
all fifty thousand dollars in what's called the options market,
the most speculative thing you can do with money, buying
options because ninety percent of all people who do so
lose money. Within three months, all fifty thousand dollars was lost.
(08:03):
Now I didn't know what was I going to do.
I needed to pay back these people, even though they,
you know, told me I didn't have to. And so
I thought, I know I can be a broker. They
just make you broker. Got dressed in my red and
white striped sants soon pants, tucked into my white cowboy
boots with a blue silk shirt, the fanciest outfit I had.
(08:26):
I was a sly size six back then. That's the
only thing that I wish I could go back to.
But that is besides the point. And I went into
Merrill Lynch and before I knew it, I was in
the manager's office. His name is Peterson san Severo, and
he literally said to me, you know that, in his opinion,
(08:46):
women belong barefoot and pregnant. But he would hire me,
but in six months he would fire me, and obviously
he was hiring me to fill their women's quota because
it was affirmative action. Being the Susie Ormond that I
am today that I was still back then on some level.
(09:06):
I said to him, how much are you going to
pay to make me pregnant? And he said fifteen hundred
dollars a month? So it didn't take me long to
figure out fifteen hundred a month. Time six was nine
thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
That's two and a.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Half years at the Buttercup Akery. Almost wow, right to
make that kind of money, So I said, but fine.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
What qualifications did you have at that point to work there?
So no, So you literally imagine that you were given
the job simply to fill the quota.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
You got that, right, boyfriend.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
The level then for you to get to to put
on a suit and walk into Merrill Lynch with no
background in this that's the amazing part. It's almost not
even that you got the job, that you had the
audacity to walk in there, and how did you think
that was going to go?
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Well? I didn't care so much.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
All.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I didn't care about me. I cared about the people
that gave me this money more than myself because Fred
he couldn't afford to lose two thousand dollars, and they
all had faith in me. And because of them, not
my audacity, my desire to honor them, I knew I
(10:24):
had to do something, and that wasn't going to be
a waitress for the rest of my life to pay
fifty thousand dollars back.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
More Susie Orman. After this quick break.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Those three months that Randy was trading options, I started
to read what he was doing, and watching Wall Street
Week on PBS and reading barons and going, oh, I
get this, I understand this.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
He's going to lose all my money in some level.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
By the time those three months passed, justin I knew
more than I ever thought I would know. And when
they hired me, he told me he was going to
fire me. So I didn't really care about that either,
But I liked reading about it and studying to take
what they called the Series seven exam, which you have
(11:31):
to take if you're going to become a stockbroker, which
is a seriously hard exam to take, the first time
I took it, I flunked it, and I was in
New York. They send you to New York. I was
scared to death to go there, but they send you there.
And after I flunked it, like I think six people
out of hundreds flunked it. I was one of them.
(11:53):
And then you have one week to study and try
to pass it again. The second time. I passed it.
But I'm telling you all this because you have to know.
I wasn't a brainchild, and so it was hard work
and determination that that. It was like, all right, this
is a test from God to see if I really
(12:13):
want this, and I wanted it to pay back other people.
So I then passed the exam. Now I'm a stockbroker.
Now I'm scared to death because I don't belong with
these one hundred and five men, not one other woman
in the whole place. I'm still driving a sixty seven Vovo.
They're driving nineteen eighty Mercedes and BMW's. That's when I
(12:37):
learned that I needed to create a new truth because
I was afraid I didn't you know, I didn't belong there.
I didn't come from their world. So I decided to
create a truth that when I would be shivering going
to work, I could say to hopefully calm me down.
And the new truth went like this, I am young, powerful,
(13:00):
and successful, producing at least ten thousand dollars a month.
I wasn't so young. I was thirty now right powerful.
I was the most powerless thing you ever could have imagined.
So I was young, powerful, no successful. I don't think
so nothing about it, producing at least ten thousand dollars
(13:23):
a month, because I decided if God wanted to give
me more than ten thousand dollars a month, because I
knew he had to do it for me, because I
wasn't going to be able to do it right that
that why limit myself to ten thousand dollars. For six
months after I had passed my Series seven and became
a broker, I wrote it twenty five times a day.
(13:46):
I screamed it in the card out loud twenty five
times going to work, and at night, before I went
to bed, I looked in the mirror, looking back at myself,
and I said it silently. Six months later, all those
truths that I said came true.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
You were hired to be fired. But yes, within the
six months that you felt like you were on the line,
you love the firing line. You turned out to be
a great stockbroker.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yes, But while I was working for Merrill Lynch. I
myself am gay and have been my entire life, and
the head of operations was also a gay man, and
we were the only two in this gigantic office that
had this in common. So of course we gravitated to
(14:44):
each other. And I did not hide it from anybody
that I was gay. I never have. And so he
said to me one day, Susie, what happened to you
here at Merrill Lynch wasn't quite legal and all the
lawsuits went through this man, and he said, you know,
(15:04):
you might want to go into my office after I
leave today. I've told my secretary you might do. So
look at the drawer bottom drawer to your left, and
you figure out why I want you to do that.
That's all I can tell you. I go in his
office that day, say hi to his secretary, Sit down,
(15:25):
open the drawer and there's all these Manila file folders
that say on them lose, lose.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Lose, win, win, win, win.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
And I start looking at him, and the ones that
say win are lawsuits that are being brought against Merrill Lynch,
most of them by this one attorney. I call this attorney,
and I'm so sorry. I can't even remember his name
to this day. Told him my story. He says to me,
(15:58):
I'll take this case on contingency. I said, well, what
the hell is that? And he said, it's where it's
not going to cost you anything if we lose. If
we win, I get thirty percent of whatever the settlement is.
So I said, great, we sue Merrill Lynch.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
While you're working, Well, you're working.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
While I'm working them because justin I knew it would
be easy for me to say nothing and just sit there,
but would not have been right. What if it was
my mom and all her money she put in there
and she got a quick and broker. So I decided, no,
(16:39):
this wasn't right and I needed to do something about it.
And again I felt like it was a sign that
the operations manager was telling me this. So because I
see Merrill Lynch, they could not fire me. Who knew.
Two years later, when the suit came to court, a
(17:00):
new manager came in and he looked at everything and
he said, Susie, this is ridiculous. We're set. We're going
to say this with you. And they gave me enough
money to pay back all the people that let me
money plus eighteen percent interest, and so I was able
to do that, and the rest is kind of history.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Now, the original reason you were lunch to fifty thousand
was to open up a restaurant of your own. By
that point, was that still a desire of yours? No?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Because I loved what I was learning. I loved that
Every Tuesday there would be a sales meeting at one
o'clock in California. The market closed at one, and I
would be there and they would be, you know, they
would be telling you what they wanted you to buy
and sell, and I was understanding it all right. So
(17:55):
I was always honest with what I knew and what
I didn't know. And because I knew I didn't know,
I was open to learning from people who really did know.
And over time I started to be one of those people.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
The way you are describing yourself is the antithesis of
the way we imagine powerful wealthy folks to We don't
expect powerful multi folks to admit when they don't know something.
Is that solid advice? Did not admit when you don't
know something just to continue to.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
No, it's solid advice, because you know why, when you
stand in your truth, everybody can feel it when you
tell a lie. They can feel that as well. But
they don't want to believe that you're lying, but they
know something isn't quite right. What makes you truly powerful
(18:55):
in life is that every word that comes out of
your mouth is the truth. Because there is a law
of money that I realized years ago, which is is
power attracts money and powerlessness repels it. It's people that
(19:17):
hire you, it's people that give you a pay raise.
So people are attracted to power. They can feel it
in you. What renders you the most powerful is when
you stand in your truth. What renders you the most
powerless are two things. Number One, when you stand in
(19:40):
a lie, when what you tell people is a lie.
And also another form of a lie when it comes
to money is debt. When you have debt, I'm not
talking about car loan debt, mortgage debt, or student loan debt.
When you have credit card debt, you are standing in
(20:04):
a lie because you are spending money. You don't even
have to impress people in most cases that you don't
even know or like. Now, obviously there are exceptions to
that rule because of medical expenses and things like that,
but the majority of debt that people have on their
credit cards, going out to eat, buying clothes, going on vacations,
(20:29):
doing all kinds of things like that, And that is
a lie because you don't have the money to pay
for it. So debt is bondage. Debt is a lie
in most cases. So the most the thing that renders
you the most powerful is standing in your truth.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Where do Susan ormand get all that courage from? She
talks about it when we come back.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I loved that I was a lesbian and it was
not easy to be a lesbian in the sixties. Imagine
going to high school, you know, from like you know,
sixty four to sixty nine, or well sixty five to
sixty nine, and also in grammar school when I already
knew that I was a lesbian, and you know, there
weren't gay rates rights back then. You know, none of
(21:32):
this really happened. It happened started to happen in nineteen
sixty nine. Really, But I always told everybody I was gay.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Where did you get that courage from?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I got that courage because I didn't know better. I think,
you know, it wasn't like at first, obviously, when I
first started to realize it that I went around telling everybody.
But when I went to college, I went to a
gay liberation meeting there because I knew it, and I
(22:05):
realized that gay men were very different than lesbians. And
that's when I decided, I have to do something about this.
We need to break off from gay men. And so
with my friends, I started the Gay Women's House in Champagne, Illinois,
(22:27):
and the University of Illinois arranged all these talks for me,
and I would go to Paxton, Illinois and all these
places that were so behind the times and talk about
it and nobody ever rejected me or treated me poorly.
And then at Merrill Lynch, when I told everybody I
(22:51):
was gay, right, they didn't care. I mean, when somebody
had a birthday, they would have these women's strippers come in,
and they thought I would enjoy that, you know, and
I was just like whatever, But you know, justin even
when I got my first big contract for my book
(23:15):
that I got not the you know, my first book
was You've earned it, don't lose it. The second book
is what gave me a you know, big contract. It
was eight hundred thousand dollars and I thought, who's going
to pay me eight hundred thousand dollars to somebody who
doesn't even know how to write. So I went into
Chip Gibson, who was president of Crown Publishing at the time,
and I said, Chip, I can't take this kind of
(23:36):
money without you knowing two things about me. Number One,
I don't know how to write, and he said, oh great,
find me a writer who knows that they don't know
how to write. And number two, I'm a lesbian and
he said, well, tell me something I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Why did you tell him that?
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Because if I was on interviews and asked if I
was gay, I was going to I wasn't going to lie.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
It seems like so many of the ingredients for your
success were they're early from your standing in your truth,
like knowing who you were, not being afraid of who
you were, not being afraid to acknowledge what you don't know,
And there certainly must have been some underlying level of ambition,
even if it was dormant. Why do you think why
do you think it took until thirty, which is still
(24:22):
relatively young, but rather than twenty. Why do you think
it took until thirty for these sorts of ingredients to
start coming together to create a level of financial success.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Well, because I loved my life as a waitress. The
person that I admired the most in life was a
woman by the name of Helen. Helen had red hair
and a beehive on top of her head and smoked
a cigarette, was probably sixty five or seventy, and had
worked her entire life at the Buttercup restaurant, you know,
(24:51):
the Buttercup Bakery. And I loved her and I wanted
to be like her. She was my role model because
she was happy and she was excited to go home
to her kids or her grandkids or whatever. And I
didn't look at it like I wanted money. I looked
(25:13):
at it like I love what I do. Helen loves
what she does, and look how happy she is. Yeah,
so I didn't, That was my truth. Yeah, Yeah, I didn't.
I didn't have anybody to inspire me to want to
be more than that.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, you start your You start your group in nineteen
eighty seven. Yeah, she's Ormand's financial group. Tell me about
why you started that.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
I started it because after Merrill Lynch, I then was
hired by Prudential Based Securities as a vice president of
investments for them. They paid me a lot of money
to do so, and I became known as the nation's expert.
While I work there in an investment called single premium
(26:01):
whole life, very different than the whole life insurance that
most financial advisors sell today or insurance agents sell today.
And Prudential Base did not like that I was putting
people in single premium whole life policies that they themselves
did not sell. They wanted me to sell maybe the
(26:22):
Prudential one, but at the time I liked equitables or
I forget which one, and so I needed to start
my own firm so that I could do what was
right for people and put them in the best policy possible.
And you know, so that's what I did. So I
(26:43):
started my own firm in nineteen eighty seven. So I
then decided people would pay me what they thought my
services were worth. That is how I charged them, and
that's kind of how that firm started. If you are
in the financial industry and you put money in front
(27:04):
of people, you're in big trouble. That's why for the
teen years that I did the Susie Orman Show on CNBC,
I ended every show with there's only one thing that
I want you to remember when it comes to your money,
and that's people first, then money, then things. All right,
(27:25):
So if you always put people first, if you always
put their needs in front of your needs, you will
always be a financial advisor that other people want to
work with, especially if you do the right things with
(27:45):
their money. And so to this day, I still do that, Susie.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
You're seventy one and a half. Now you're doing the
half Earlier someone throwing the half seventy one and a half.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
I always celebrate my half birthdays.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
I love it. I love it. You're seventy one and
a half. The world is quite different from nineteen eighty. Yeah,
what advice would you give young women now? Taking it
two things in consideration, what advice would you give young
women that you would say worked for you in nineteen
eighty and what advice would you give? What advice do
(28:21):
you think has to be modified in twenty twenty two
or is there or is there if there is such
a thing.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Now, I don't think there is such a thing of
modifying anything, because the truth is everlasting, justin what's true
is true. Truth doesn't really change. So what I would
tell a twenty two year old, no, matter how you
identify yourself is there is no excuse big enough to
(28:52):
keep you from being who you are meant to be.
When you are in a situation, you know what's true
and you know what's not. You know, if you're in
a relationship and it's not good for you, you know
what's true and what you need to do about it.
You know, if you are pulling out your credit card
(29:12):
to buy something that you can only pay the minimum
payment due when that bill comes in, you know that
is a lie. You know it's the truth when you
have an eight to twelve month emergency fund and when
you put something on your credit card, you can pay
it off in full at the end of the month.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Susie, your a real inspiration. You're a real soulful human being,
and you've done incredible work. And thank you so much
for taking the time to talk to me.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Thank you so much, Susie, anytime, talk to you soon.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Bye bye the Great Susie or Man. She completely eliminated
any empocess syndrome I had with that Meri Lynch story.
It's the most gangster thing I've ever heard on the show.
I think taking that level of confidence with you in
your day to day life is going to make stretching
out of your comfort zone so much easier. The Start
(30:10):
from the Bottom is produced by David Jah, edited by
Keishaw Williams, Engineered by Ben Holliday, Booked by Laura Morgan
with production help from Lea Rose. The show is executive
produced by Jacob Goldstein, who's not all up in the
videos for Pushkin Industries. Our theme music's by Ben Holliday
and David Jaw featuring Anthony Aggs and Savannah Joe Lack.
(30:33):
Listen to Start from the Bottom. Wherever you get your
podcasts and if you want ad free episodes available one
week early sign up for Pushkin Plus. Check out Pushkin
dot fm or the Apple show page for more information.
If you like your show, please remember to share, rate,
and review us on your podcast app. I'm justin Richmond.
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