March 9, 2025 • 64 mins
Lynnette Khalfani-Cox (also known as 'The Money Coach') is an icon in the financial media and financial education space. She is the author of 16 money-management books, including the New York Times bestseller ‘Zero Debt: The Ultimate Guide to Financial Freedom’. Lynette joins us on this episode to share some of the big takeaways from her latest book 'Bounce Back', offering practical and emotional guidance for those recovering from financial setbacks. She guides us on how to take on―and defeat―the most common and difficult challenges most of us face, like being downsized from a job, disasters, debt, divorce, discrimination, and more. Lynette also gets vulnerable with us, sharing her emotional stories about dealing with her own divorce and the death of her sister.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
he said, You know what?
I want you to cover ourbiggest beat on wall street.
I want you to cover wall streetand financial industry, stockbrokers
traders talk to money managers,CFPs, accountant, everybody.
And I was like, absolutely.
This is great.
And I said, there's just one thing.
I was like you do realize that Idon't know a stock from a bond.
(00:21):
like, don't worry about that.
He was like, you can learn that.
He was like, anybody can learn that.
He said, I can't teach you how to sourceand how to find good sources to interview.
I can't teach you how tostorytell and how to write well.
I can't teach you.
excellent communicationskills and whatnot.
He said, you have all that,that's the core of journalism.
That's what I mean.
(00:42):
as I talk about in bounce back andin zero debt, I was an overspender.
I mean, that's just thequick and dirty of it.
I now know that people get intodebt for a whole host of reasons.
Some have suffered setbacks.
they've been downsized, they'vebeen divorced, they've been
through the death of a loved one,like a bread winner and so forth.
That's, one group of consumers.
(01:03):
The other folks are thosewho have overspent or who
have mismanaged their money.
I was in that second category.
I'm just going to be honest and justsay it because it wasn't, some other,
financial setback that put me into debt.
And, Going from debt towealth now has been a journey.
I personally have experienced nine of the10 dreaded D's and have lived to overcome
(01:25):
them and to tell the tale to be in a pointwhere I'm actually thriving post setback.
So it's absolutely possible tocome back from any of these.
The worst one of all by far and awaywas a death that I had to deal with
the death of my sister, Deborah.
And so Debbie passed away in December.
2014 and nothing compares to that.
(01:47):
So if I can get past that,other stuff, been divorced.
I've been downsized.
My disability was, whatthey call a disability.
Well, I'm sorry.
That's actually theone that I don't claim.
Technically, I have experienced it.
I'm a mother of three, and when youhave a baby, they say you're, out on
disability, short term disability.
I'm like, yeah, I don't claim that one.
(02:08):
But out of all the 10dreaded D's, that's the one
(02:41):
Hello, folks, and welcomeback to Catching Up to Fi.
I'm Bill Yount with my esteemedbetter co host Jackie Cummins Koski.
That's right.
Hey, Bill.
Yeah, she's coming to us fromfrigid Dayton, Ohio, and I'm sitting
here in warm and sunny Knoxville,Tennessee in the 40s today.
I'm going for a walk after this, so,everybody should move to Tennessee, and
(03:01):
maybe Jackie, who came through here overthe holidays and visited us, is a little
bit enticed to do so today, anyway.
Yeah.
I want to get back down South for sure.
But today is an exciting daybecause we have someone that I
have followed for a very long time.
And when I was just getting startedwith learning about personal finance,
but also saying, Hey, I want to tryto do this and share what I learned.
(03:25):
I followed this person from like backin like 2009, 2010, way back in the day.
And I just consider her almost likeroyalty because I've learned so much from
her and the contributions she's made tothe financial world have been amazing.
If you haven't guessed by now Jackie isa fangirl we're talking to a hero today.
(03:46):
And Jackie, why don'tyou introduce her for us?
Yeah, well, like I said, she's oneof my absolute favorite personal
finance experts and virtual mentor.
Her name is Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, andshe's also known as the money coach,
and she is an icon in the financialmedia and financial education space.
She has graced the stages of Oprah,Dr. Phil, The Steve Harvey Show,
(04:11):
Good Morning America, The TodayShow, and now Catching up to FI.
And her advice is gold.
So Bill and I chased her down.
Oh, I mean, we had the honorof meeting her at FinCon.
And also her awesome husband We gotto meet her in person and that's
why these conferences are so great.
(04:32):
She and her husband just lights upa room and they're just so welcome.
And you never know what to think,somebody that you've been following
for a long time, you finally see him inperson, you don't know how they're going
to be, but they were very, very justcool aall around.
We loved it.
Lynette is an internationallyrecognized personal finance.
Expert speaker and bestselling author.
In fact, she has authored 16 moneymanagement books, including the New
(04:56):
York times bestseller, which is onethat I remember very, very well, zero
debt and her latest book bounce back.
So we're excited about that.
In 2003, she started the money coachLLC with her husband, Earl, which is
a personal financial education companythat offers consulting services Courses
(05:17):
and workshops, but also before startingthe money coach, Lynette was a Wall
Street Journal reporter for CNBC.
Where she covered businessand personal financial news.
Lynette spent nearly 10 yearsat Dow Jones, a very famous
company, media company.
She was working as a reporter,a bureau chief a deputy managing
(05:38):
editor, and personal finance editor.
And as of December 2024, Lynettegot her newest title, Grandma.
So Lynette, welcome to Catching Up to FI.
Thank you so much.
That's the most important one.
Sometimes I hear the accoladesand I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Whatever about the titlesand the accomplishments, mom,
grandmother, wife, these are theones that matter to me the most.
(06:02):
So, but yeah, thank youfor that introduction and
great to be with you both.
Well, we talk about money, but we,forget to talk about the fact that money.
Is not as important as relationships andwe may get into that a little bit today,
but before we do, I want Lynette to giveus a chance to give a shout out to two
charities that are near and dear to herheart that will link in the show notes
because we'd like to have a charity ofthe week, Big Sister, Little Sister is one
(06:26):
and Electus Global Financial is the other.
Lynette, tell us a little bit aboutthose so the folks can help them out.
Big sister, little sister is agreat organization founded by
a woman named Anisha Hughes.
They help youth girlsall across the country.
Who want to create abetter life for themselves.
Yes, they teach them financial education,but a lot of it is about social skills
(06:48):
and just helping them to deal with theday to day stresses and challenges that
can come, whether it's social media.
grades, boys or other things.
So I really love that organization.
And Electus Global Educationteaches FLEC to students.
FLEC education stands for FinancialLiteracy, Entrepreneurship, and
(07:09):
Careers, again, fabulous organization.
For youth between the ages of fiveand 17 slash 18, right off when
the kids are going off to college.
And so both are near and dear to myheart in different ways, but I think
they're both very worthy of support.
Awesome.
we will include that in the show notes.
We love hearing about, who ourguests support and things like that.
(07:32):
And a big part of this financialstuff is how we give back.
so yeah.
So Lynette, so you've obviously hadvery long and illustrious career.
like to start with.
How you got into the financialmedia space as a journalist and
a reporter in the early days.
Take us back there.
I really got into financialjournalism by happenstance.
(07:53):
You might even say by accident.
I certainly was on the track tobecome a journalist and did do that.
I got a master's degree in journalism.
From USC, and then I moved from LosAngeles, which is where I was raised to
Philadelphia with my then husband, nowmy ex husband for very good reasons.
I
(08:15):
you.
I got an X two.
got it right the secondtime around, believe me,
Oh,
definitely did.
We had the honor of meeting him.
So I can definitely double down on that.
but no, not to shade my ex husband.
both, everybody moved on.
Everybody's happy.
Everybody's good.
But no, he, my ex was pursuing aPhD from Penn. So that's the reason
why we moved from LA to Philly.
(08:36):
And in that time, I started workingfor two media organizations.
I worked for the PhiladelphiaInquirer by day and I worked at night.
For the Fox affiliate in Philadelphia.
And so I was extremely busy, obviouslyliterally working from, like nine
o'clock in the morning until about 11PM at night when 10 o'clock news ended.
(08:58):
And so long story short, one day, myfriends and colleagues at the Inky,
which is what we call the Inquirer, theInky, they were like, Oh, we're going
up to a job conference at Newsday.
Why don't you come along with us?
It was like Newsday.
Why would I go up to,you mean in New York?
And they were like, yeah, and I said,you want me to go from Philadelphia, or
South Jersey, which is the bureau thatwe worked in all the way up to New York.
(09:21):
I was like, no, I'm notreally trying to do that.
And they said, no, Lynette out here,we know you're from the West coast.
And, you could.
Spend two or three hours in trafficand, on the freeway in Los Angeles,
they were like out here on the Eastcoast, everybody's very mobile.
We take Amtrak, we'll be up there.
So we go up to this conference,media conference, a news day job
conference, and that's where Imet the folks from Dow Jones.
(09:42):
And met a very nice guy named RickStein who would become my editor
and a mentor for many years.
And he was just, watching my clip and hewas like, Oh, I love your storytelling
and I love your business stories.
These are great articles.
And honestly, I'm noteven going to lie, Jackie.
I was sitting there thinking whatbusiness articles, what is he talking
about?
(10:02):
gosh.
But, again, in all candor, I hadmy first job at the Associated
Press in Los Angeles at AP.
I was an intern there, and thenI lobbied my bureau chief, Andy
Lipman, to become reporter there.
And I became reporter there.
They told us interns, they picked10 of us across the country and they
told us, don't even expect to workin LA or New York or, a big market.
(10:25):
You have to start after your internshipat like, Butte, Montana or someplace.
And I was like, yeah, watch me, soanyway, I did get a spot in Los
Angeles and I happened to start whenthe riots broke out in Los Angeles.
And so, I covered a lot of Rebuild L. A.efforts that were run by Peter Uberoff.
And a lot of it was like, after,Rodney King was, and it was caught
(10:49):
on camera and the whole stuff thatjumped off there in L. A. Things
got burned down, whole industries,electronics, stores, et cetera.
So I did write a lot of thosestories and I was writing about the
economic impact of what had happenedwithin the community, et cetera.
Again, I just saw it as me talkingabout things from a community angle.
But Rick, of course, sawfinancial side of that.
(11:10):
And so he said, Oh, , I love this.
So we talked, we talked, we negotiated.
I got a job there andhe said, You know what?
I want you to cover ourbiggest beat on wall street.
I want you to cover wall streetand financial industry, stockbrokers
traders talk to money managers,CFPs, accountant, everybody.
And I was like, absolutely.
This is great.
(11:30):
And I said, there's just one thing.
I was like you do realize that Idon't know a stock from a bond.
like, don't worry about that.
He was like, you can learn that.
He was like, anybody can learn that.
He said, I can't teach you how to sourceand how to find good sources to interview.
I can't teach you how tostorytell and how to write well.
I can't teach you.
excellent communicationskills and whatnot.
(11:52):
He said, you have all that,that's the core of journalism.
That's what I mean.
And so it went from there.
it's crazy, Bill.
Now we got these , differenttypes of fires going on in LA.
So I'm sure you've beenpaying attention to that.
Yeah, we're doing this in January 2025.
And when you mentioned the LA fires, backthen it had a whole different meaning
than it does today, but nonethelessquite devastating for a lot of people.
(12:14):
But so that's where you gotyour start in the big city, huh?
really was.
I ultimately moved causeI got a, promotion.
So I moved from Philadelphia to.
Northern New Jersey.
And, right outside of New York City.
And yeah, I started working for DowJones and it was a fantastic run.
I love, I had about a decadethere and it was awesome.
I got to learn a lot.
(12:36):
I called Dow Jones and thenWall Street Journal, CNBC.
I call it kind of boot camp, for financialindustry and what I learned because
when I talked to so many folks who werehelping other people to manage their
money, Things got demystified for me andI found out this is not rocket science.
Like we really can learnand actually do it.
So it took me a minute tostart applying it to my life.
(12:59):
But after a while I was like, okay,let me start cleaning up my mess.
Now that I know better what to do here.
Well, speaking of your mess, youdidn't tell your employer that you
had 100, 000 of credit card debt, andthen you went from 100, 000 of credit
card debt to a credit score of 850.
Give us a short versionof your debt story.
Well, as I talk about in bounce backand in zero debt, I was an overspender.
(13:23):
I mean, that's just thequick and dirty of it.
I now know that people get intodebt for a whole host of reasons.
Some have suffered setbacks.
they've been downsized, they'vebeen divorced, they've been
through the death of a loved one,like a bread winner and so forth.
That's, one group of consumers.
The other folks are thosewho have overspent or who
have mismanaged their money.
I was in that second category.
(13:44):
I'm just going to be honest and justsay it because it wasn't, some other,
financial setback that put me into debt.
And, Going from debt towealth now has been a journey.
I again, I tell people the truth, interms of the time frame, it took me three
years to dig out of my 100, 000 in debt.
It probably took me, eight to 10years get into that much debt, but
(14:04):
overall it really was about me.
Not having basic financial skills,not like having been taught in
school or in my own home life, howto manage credit wisely, how to not
abuse credit how to make sure thatyou're saving alongside the spending
that is natural and necessary to do.
(14:27):
And I'm very proud now to have gone from.
Like you said, six figures in debtto having a seven figure net worth.
And you mentioned my 850 FICO score.
I don't have an eight 50 right now.
It's, I think it's like 810 orsomething right now, but I was
profiled, twice on CNBC yet forhaving a perfect 850 FICO score.
little thing, but if you have a 760or greater, by the way, you're good.
(14:48):
I call that the perfectcredit scoring range.
It is less than
Well, I watched that andthat was pretty fascinating.
So we'll include that in theshow notes, but it's like, I
don't think I ever seen an 850.
Have you ever seen an 850on your credit score bill?
No, I've lingered in the eighthundreds, but no, I've never peaked.
It seems almost like an accidentor an act of God to make it to 850.
(15:10):
Let's
percent of consumers geta perfect eight 50.
And before, like I know a coupleof people, believe it or not.
So I mentioned my ex husband,his grandfather, I remember
Papa had a perfect eight 50.
Cause I remember one time he was talkingto me about it and he said, yeah, these
people keep telling me do I want a loan?
I don't need a house loan.
My car is paid off and theywant to give me a car loan.
(15:32):
He said, they told me my score is good.
It's like a 85 or something.
And I said, And I said,Papa, do you mean like 850?
And he was like, Oh yeah, 850.
And I was like, yeah, that's really good.
So that was one.
Certainly Michelle Singletaryfrom the Washington post.
I know Michelle has had a 850,a perfect score before as well.
And there's, you hear about thesestories now and again, but yeah, it's
(15:55):
just bragging rights for a minute.
And then it, scores are dynamic.
They're changing all the time.
So
Well, it's important because you getlower rates on loans and you get jobs
because they'll check your credit score.
So it's a very important number to have.
And you talk in your book aboutone of the D's being sort of a debt
journey and dysfunctional credit.
But I want to introduce peopleto your book because you open it
(16:18):
with a quote from Nelson Mandela.
And I find these quotes from all thefamous people you have in the book at the
beginning of each chapter quite inspiring.
And Nelson said, The greatest gloryin living lies not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.
fall because your book is aboutbouncing back, resilience and recovery.
And you almost succumb to allof your attendees that we're
(16:39):
going to talk about in a minute.
And then another, you have quotesfrom Michael Jordan, Dolly Parton,
Tom Hanks, and Oprah Winfrey.
And you must have Googled bounce backbecause in the quotes are almost always
bounce back the term and, and peopletalk about this, and this is just
a fact of life because what is it?
60 percent of the time in one year.
People are having a financial trauma.
(17:00):
I mean, this is somethingwe all end up with.
And so, you had AlbertEinstein even in there.
And he says, in the middle ofdifficulty lies opportunity.
So we have to take our downs andturn them into, and our regrets and
our shame and turn them into ups.
And that's what you do in your bookbecause you're very positive, and we
(17:21):
learned to fall and fail as children.
And we bounce back up.
We were very bounceable as kids.
Now, how do we maintain thatchildhood resilience as adults?
And why is it so important?
Bill, I appreciate the questionand it's striking how much.
Transition often in a less positive wayhappens once we become adults, because as
(17:44):
you mentioned, kids are very resilient.
They do know how to bounce back as long asthey're allowed to and not like, sort of
overly coddled and allowed to experiencewhat it's like to dust themselves off,
so to speak, and right back on out there.
But one of the things that Italk about in bounce back, of
course, as you mentioned, is that.
All of us face setbacks and challenges.
(18:07):
And so I use those quotes from veryhigh profile people, , in often cases,
very wealthy people financially, froma financial standpoint, very well known
people who nonetheless have had theirown struggles, their own setbacks.
And I wanted to convey that.
From the most famous, important,richest, whatever person that
(18:29):
you might know or heard of to,quote unquote, the least of us.
And we're all equal in my eyes.
We're all God's children, buteverybody has some challenge
that they have to deal with.
And I wanted to talk about thecommonalities about what that.
Journey kind of typically looks likeand what those challenges are so that
(18:51):
we could categorize them, name them andbetter understand how to build resilience
before they happen in the midst of thestruggle and then post crisis as well.
So you mentioned the dreaded Ds I talkabout in the book, the 10 most common
setbacks that yes, indeed, in a givenyear 60 plus percent of Americans will
(19:12):
face one or more of these setbacks.
External shocks, as researchers callthem, that's a numbers according to Pew
researchers in Washington, D. C. Andthe setbacks, what I call the dreaded
D's because they all start with theletter D and they're all dreadful.
The setbacks are downsizing, divorce,death of a loved one, again, especially
(19:33):
maybe breadwinner, disability, disease.
Natural disasters debt, damaged creditand then what I call dollar deficits
because you might feel like I'm broke.
I have no cash flow or savings.
And then even things like discrimination,which can also pack a powerful punch,
not just emotionally, but financially,it can affect your wallet as well.
(19:58):
So part of what it means tobe able to recover as an adult
and to build your resilience.
It's about learning the, not only thestrategies that it takes to recover
quickly, , as opposed to making thingslinger for years and years and years, but
also about having the right mindset toput you in kind of the right environment
(20:22):
emotionally to be able to recover.
So I think one of the biggestthings that most people are shocked
when they read the book is that.
They want to get to the tellme the financial solutions
or tell me how to steps.
And really, I take a lot of time andcare in the book to talk about self
care, about having connection andcommunity with others, about practicing
(20:46):
gratitude, about grounding yourself,about taking the, what might seem to
some people like, Oh, a little bit, butabout taking some of the Steps and some
of the processes that you have to kindof sit with and go through that will
help you to not only build resilience,but to sidestep that same misfortune
in the future or to be able to navigateout a problem situation again more
(21:11):
quickly than you otherwise might have.
Yeah, Lynette, in the book, I reallyappreciate it that you did focus on that
and because I think your book Bounce Back,it is totally speaking to our late starter
audience and a lot of times the veryfirst thing they ask is about the finance.
It's about the nuts and bolts.
But really there's these other thingsabout, giving yourself grace and take
(21:33):
an inventory of everything that yougot going on and stuff like that.
That's like so important.
So I appreciate it that youdedicated a lot of the book to that.
(23:11):
with all these dreadful D's thatyou have, I was going to ask you how
many of these have you experienced?
It might be better to ask howmany you didn't experience.
Well, I personally have experiencednine of the 10 dreaded D's and have
lived to overcome them and to tellthe tale to be in a point where
I'm actually thriving post setback.
(23:32):
So it's absolutely possible tocome back from any of these.
The worst one of all by far and awaywas a death that I had to deal with
the death of my sister, Deborah.
And so Debbie passed away in December.
2014 and nothing compares to that.
So if I can get past that,other stuff, been divorced.
I've been downsized.
(23:53):
My disability was, whatthey call a disability.
Well, I'm sorry.
That's actually theone that I don't claim.
Technically, I have experienced it.
I'm a mother of three, and when youhave a baby, they say you're, out on
disability, short term disability.
I'm like, yeah, I don't claim that one.
But out of all the 10 dreaded D's,that's the one that I, when I say I've
experienced nine, that's the 10th onethat I, haven't personally experienced.
(24:16):
And I would say our late starter audience.
I mean, it's not just one thing.
There's always a plethora of things thatmay happen simultaneously that lead to
a shock, as you say, and then awe andshame and putting your head in the sand
and trying to, and we're here to try andhelp them bring it out of the sand and
find their way back to financial wellness.
(24:39):
A couple of the D's.
That we wanted to talk about ingreater detail because I think
both of you have experiences.
I fortunately have not.
I have a wonderful wife, love of mylife, but you guys both went to divorce.
Tell us how prevalent this is andwhat it means to be a financial shock.
Because I think a lot of our audiencethat we hear this conversation in
(25:00):
our Facebook community, women Moreoften, maybe than men, suffer a
setback here and financial trauma thatrequires late starting and recovery.
Well, we know that, well above 50percent of all marriages in the
U. S. fail and end in divorce.
And oftentimes, even for secondmarriages, the numbers can be higher.
(25:21):
So called gray divorces, people whoget divorced or separate later in life.
That is absolutely not going tohappen for me and my husband.
I can tell you that for sure.
We're very happily married.
And like I said, I got itright the second time around.
But I think that the prevalence of divorcemakes it one of these things where it
might be one where there is to a certainextent, a little bit less of shame and
(25:44):
stigma around some of the other ones,debt and damaged credit and whatnot.
People tend to like suffer insilence a little bit more about that.
But divorce , as women andas men, we talk about that.
It's like, Oh, let metell you what happened.
Whatever.
You know, my relationship sometimes, notalways, obviously but what I can say,
the prevalence for women to lose theirstandard of living is very common and is
(26:08):
typically greater for women post divorce.
Women often find that not onlytheir standard of living, but the
children, if there were kids involvedsuffers a decline but not always.
Again, when I tell my story,I talk about how I was the
main breadwinner in my family.
So when I. Divorced from my ex husband.
(26:28):
I was the one paying alimonyand child support, for example.
And it was a lot, it was over like 6,500 a month at one point, I paid for
years, I paid five or six years worthof alimony and support, it stepped down
every single year, but long story short.
I tell women all the time, don'tautomatically assume that if you're
getting a divorce, that, the courtsor the, judge will rule that because
(26:51):
you're the mom or the woman in therelationship, et cetera, that, a
check is going to come your way.
No, not at all.
I divorced in New Jersey and I knew thatI was going to be the one paying and it
wasn't an issue for me on that front that.
It wasn't something that I expected.
Again, told you that my ex husband hadbeen a student, so he had received his PhD
(27:11):
at that time, right as we're separating.
He had taken a little bit longerand went from Philadelphia.
I told you, we moved to NewJersey for my job promotion.
And so he didn't have a job yet.
He became a professor and did get ajob, but at the time I was the only one
making money in the house, so I knewof course I was going to be the one
paying the bills and that kind of thing.
But it can absolutely throw yourfinances, , out of whack because now you
(27:37):
go to two households living on one incomeor two households where one has a very
diminished income to support the other.
Yeah, that was one of the bounce backstories that you were kind enough to
be very transparent about because nowyou're in such a different place, and
people assume you were always there, butyou weren't, you had to deal with that
and that stuff doesn't happen overnight,between court hearings and custody and
(28:01):
all these maintenance support of your exspouse and all of that but before I hear
from you on that does Earl have a brother?
I want to know.
You know what?
I cannot, if I had a dollar forhow many times I've been asked.
Do, do you have another Earl?
Is there another
Cause Earl is the man, Earl is the man.
I can tell you that.
I've literally beenasked that so many times.
he really is so wonderful.
(28:23):
I thank God, becauseI've lucked out honestly.
So, but he does, the short answer ishe does have a brother who lives in the
DC area, who is also happily married.
Oh darn.
Okay.
I, I thought I'd give ita shot, but but yeah, so
is not the first time Jackie hasasked this question on the show.
sometimes I've regretted it once Imet the brother, let me tell you.
(28:47):
Well but yeah, I like the divorcething and to have you talk about to
know the Lynette that I know today.
And to think about, in the early days,what you had to go through to get there.
And it's so much better talk about itin past tense, but while you're going
through it, it is really, really tough.
And, so you were able toovercome that and boy, you
(29:08):
bounce back up like a trampoline.
And so I appreciate you sharing yourstory and you include the stories others,
that was in the book and all of that.
So the divorce.
Was there you mentionedyour sister, Debbie.
So that was one of the other D'sand you said she passed in 2014.
Okay.
So my condolences.
(29:29):
That's very tough.
I have three sisters cannotimagine, but do you mind
talking a little bit about that?
Well, my sister Debbiewas beyond phenomenal.
Obviously I dedicated thebook to her and talk about a
person who was so out in front.
Like, not a month goes by that Idon't see something, experience
(29:52):
something, do something looking atan email in my inbox and say, Ugh.
it reminded me of Debbie or that shewas so out in front, found emails where
she was telling me about Instagram.
Like I was like, before I was eventhinking about getting on social media
or anything, so well, what I cantell you is that you probably have
experienced some of what I've experienced.
(30:12):
I'm sure since you saidyou have three sisters.
So I have five sisters.
I still say that I have five sisters.
And my sister, Debbie, she was 49years old when she passed away.
She had an 11 year old daughter.
Her death came completely out of the blue.
It was extremely traumatic formy family and in all candor.
(30:32):
It was just devastating.
I could not get out thebed for a couple of months.
couldn't work.
Earl had to cancel things that I had.
He had to try to run the businessby himself, get other people
to write content for me just.
Try to make some semblance ofmaking the business, continue.
But it was crushing.
It was just absolutely , soul sucking.
(30:53):
And I was so focused on why, like why her?
And indeed they could not understandwhy she passed away at first.
it was a lot, going on, but the gistof it is that we had to have two
autopsies, things were inconclusive.
And so the why part just,threw us for a long time.
(31:13):
But then even after we got some moremedical evidence, the, why her still
happened, , and so the focus wason, she was too young, what about
her daughter, all of those things.
And it wasn't until I went through,therapy, grief counseling and other
(31:35):
Ways of, coping and trying to come toterms with her death, that I realized
that I was focusing honestly on thethings that were going to keep me in
a loop of sadness and of, sort oflike regret about the past and why
her, why her, why her, once I wasable to focus on, the things Wow.
(31:57):
My sister lived an amazing life and tofocus on her life instead of her death
and how she died and why she died.
It gave me so much more gratitude.
It gave me so much more ability tobounce back because then I started
appreciating like every single thing.
I mean, the stories that peoplewould tell me, the things that I was
(32:20):
applying and doing in my own life.
Honestly, I would 100 percent not be whoI am right now in my career or in The
things that I've done and accomplished.
If it wasn't for her, Debbie waswith me when I went on Oprah,
Debbie was the one who told meto go to leverage my journalism
skillset and to go from print to TV.
She told me like two years before Iactually even thought about doing it.
(32:43):
I was like TV.
I don't want to be on camera.
I was like, those people are,they just reading a teleprompter.
I saw them as kind of, notthe smart ones in media,
there's a lot of similarity in recoveringfrom personal trauma and financial
trauma and the process you go throughof sort of regret getting mired in the
past trying to get back to the presentand looking forward to the future.
(33:05):
And those are the kinds of struggleswe see our late starters have.
Those are the struggles that I knowI, And Jackie had and while death has
big financial implications, recoveringfrom the emotional and personal things
you talked about some ways you did it,biggest one to me is you ask for help
when you leave yourself in, shame,isolation, regret and leave yourself
(33:26):
in the past and you get isolated.
That's dangerous for your health,be it financial or otherwise, right?
Financial, physical, and emotional.
, it's absolutely dangerous.
And so that's why I talk aboutin the book about the importance
of connection and of community.
And it doesn't really matter which oneof the dreaded D's that you go through.
(33:47):
When you have community and connectionwith others, it makes your recovery
and your ability to bounce backso much stronger, greater, faster.
If you've lost a job and you feellike, Oh my God, I'm ashamed.
I don't want to talkto anybody or whatever.
Well, that next job is going to comebecause of somebody, you know, or
somebody in your circle or your sphereof influence of a former colleague,
(34:10):
a friend, a family member, et cetera.
So yes, it's not until you kindof reach out and are ready to
do so, because sometimes youhave to also sit with things.
And so one of the points that Imake in the book is that before
you can just automatically bounceback, sometimes there's a tendency
to go like, okay, let's move on.
let's get on with it.
And things like grief, Have no time span.
(34:32):
They have no, set agenda to say,okay, , a year or two later, you
should be able to deal with thisand to just know you're going to have
waves that are going to come and go.
If it's something like griefor the loss of a loved one.
but you should also know whether it'srecovering from job loss, recovering from
a divorce, recovering from the death ofa loved one or some other dreaded deed.
(34:55):
Okay.
Again, the people in your plate, inyour life and the ability to sit down,
actually experience the emotions.
I'm sad, I'm disappointed, I'm frustrated,I'm angry, to really process those.
That's actually important inyour journey of recovery as well.
And like so many times people losea job and they're just like, okay,
(35:17):
I just want to go to the next job.
One of the things that I talkabout and bounce back, Is you may
have ancillary grief if you havesomebody who you've lost, they're
called ancillary losses, right?
Along with, of course, the tangible,the person is gone and Bye.
Bye.
In my family, for example, one of theancillary losses that we experienced
(35:38):
was that Debbie was the organizer.
Debbie was the socialite.
She was the party planner.
She was the person who madesure, for the holidays that
everybody was together as a family.
And so one of the ancillary losses that weinitially suffered was the disintegration
of that to a certain extent.
think it's so importantfor people to hear that.
(35:58):
So if that's the only thing they get outof the book, that is like so important.
was talking to an older lady the otherday and she had lost her husband
way back in the day when her youngestdaughter who was adopted was a year old.
And her son who was biological wasnine years old and, a lot of this goes
back to finances, but she said theywould have never had insurance if the
(36:20):
adoption agency didn't require her.
It was a Korean adoption if theydidn't require her to get insurance.
And she went through griefcounseling and all that.
She became a grief counselor anda social worker for K through
12 schools as a result of that.
And I think that was a part ofher healing, but it's just so
interesting to hear that story.
So even her career is not just a career.
(36:41):
It sort of came out of, the loveshe had for her husband and that
was her way of healing from it.
So I guess people kind of findtheir ways to bounce back, but you
need to do it in your own time.
And sometimes I don't think that'sthe message that we get and it
was loud and clear in the book.
Sure.
And not only about timing, theother thing I want to do, because I
definitely want to give your audiencea message of hope and inspiration.
(37:03):
Every setback that you encounter, everydreaded thing is also a transition.
And it's also an opportunityfor something new in the future.
Now, let me be very clear becausesome people might be like, well,
are you saying I'm going to behappy about this in the future?
I'm going to like you saying,are you happy your sister passed?
Absolutely not.
No.
However, at this stage, I am not onlymindful, I'm keenly aware of the fact
(37:29):
that even amid trials and tribulationsand all kinds of adverse circumstances,
There is an opportunity for growth.
There is an opportunity formodeling certain behavior.
There's an opportunity for discovery.
It might be, somebody might say,the most crushing thing I've ever
dealt with is I lost a spouse.
(37:51):
I lost a child and it's completely,it's not even fathomable,
like how I can even go on.
In the midst of those kinds ofvery deep and serious emotional
blows, you may get an inspiration.
You may get a testimony that you'reable to share with somebody else.
(38:11):
To help that person to make it through.
So, even though it might be ittruly is something potentially
traumatic to have to deal with.
And we've all had financialtraumas, shocks things of that
nature, but something that'semotionally traumatizing as well.
I ask people to try to hold onto the idea, even the, little.
(38:34):
Kernel of possibility that somethinggood will actually come out of it.
What the good is to be determined.
But there absolutelyis potential and upside.
And in addition to myself and talkingabout my own experiences in each
chapter, I interview people who havegone through each of the dreaded deeds.
We talked about disability earlier.
(38:56):
I interviewed a guy, Chris,who is a quadriplegic.
Now born without ability to use anyof his arms or legs in a wheelchair
for the first 18 years of his life.
Somebody could say, well,what is the upside there?
What is the, but Chris was notone of those people who will.
Stay mired in why me thepast regret being depressed.
(39:19):
No, he taught himself to walk.
He taught himself to run.
at a university right now at a collegehe's a brilliant mathematician.
And he lives independently.
He bought a house and lives on his own.
It's extremely rare for aquadriplegic to do what he's done.
But I wanted to sharestories like that of people.
(39:39):
Who seemingly totally insurmountableodds my things that I've been
through, they're their own level of.
But, some people have far,far, far greater struggles,
Yeah, that's important to share thoseinspirational stories and that's what
we're trying to do with our community.
We're trying to give people a placeto be vulnerable, share their story.
(40:00):
And I think in being transparent withyour story, writing it down, publishing
it, coming out into public with.
Your story helps you withrecovery and many others with
their own wake up and recovery.
And that's really whatyou're doing with this book.
I want to transition right now to aD that is not talked about so much.
(40:24):
It's your 10th D. And we want todispel pretty much the bias I think
we have in the word discrimination.
That's a dreaded D, but it's about.
How it hurts us all.
That's how you talk about it.
Can you take us through a little bitof your discussion about how D for
discrimination is sort of a financialtrauma that all of us experience?
(40:47):
well, there are so manyforms of discrimination and
unfortunately the effects ofdiscrimination are wide ranging.
And so if you talk aboutgender based discrimination.
If you talk about sex based discriminationin terms of sexual orientation, if you
talk about race based discrimination,age discrimination, and more you
(41:11):
can clearly see if you add all thosepopulations together, there's, a lot
of people who are going to be affected.
But what I also talk about in BounceBack is that even the folks who are
doing the discrimination ultimatelyare harmed by it in the long run.
For example, let's say the financialinstitution that will not lend, for
(41:32):
example, to women or to black or brownpeople who are aspiring entrepreneurs.
Well, now that community is missingout on what could be very viable
products and services from A femaleentrepreneur of a black owned
business, a Latino owned business,an Asian owned business and so forth.
(41:55):
Furthermore places like McKinsey havedone studies and they showed that if
we just tackled the discriminationproblem in terms of the wealth
gap in America, we could boost GDPoverall in America significantly.
And so.
Because we would have more participationfrom more communities in the financial
(42:16):
services arena and in the financialecosystem, more people buying stocks
and bonds, more people purchasinghouses, more people contributing
to the economy of this country.
So ultimately, if it's not affected youpersonally in some way, or somebody, you
know, or care about the economy is harmed.
Communities are harmed.
(42:37):
Or the worst, worst case scenario, andI don't really go into this and bounce
back, but certainly it just kind ofsprung to mind when you discriminate
against and disenfranchise people wewere talking about the riots in Los
Angeles and that kind of being myforay into, journalism initially I
believe it was Martin Luther King Jr.
Who said a riot is thelanguage of the oppressed.
(43:01):
And that people will lash out and, dothings that to us might just seem in
the contrary to their own best interest.
Like, why would you burn down astore in your own neighborhood?
It's trying to have a voice.
It's trying to protest.
It's trying to speak up.
And so if you disinvest in communities,if you systematically poison water,
(43:22):
if you, tax people in ways thatare discriminatory, Then people
will start to lash out in ways andthen that too can harm other people.
Yeah.
And you talk a little bit about like,what can we do, because it was like Bill
said, I don't hear the discriminationpiece, as talked about as much as far as,
trying to overcome or, bouncing back from.
(43:44):
So what are some of your tips on whatto do if, , you've been a part of, or
on the losing side of discrimination.
Well, I'm very clear and bounce backin articulating the financial impact
as well as the emotional impactof being discriminated against.
I share my own story of housingdiscrimination, for example,
(44:06):
where we had an appraiser.
come through.
We lived in a very wealthy whiteneighborhood in New Jersey.
Bottom line that praiser camethrough, saw us I could tell it
was not going to be a good outcome.
And sure enough, praise our house 100,000 less than it should have been.
We appealed and did send another appraiserback out and we got the right number.
But ultimately Discrimination has a cost.
(44:29):
If you're discriminated against becauseyou have an ethnic sounding name and
you don't even get a call back and youcan't get a job or you're discriminated
against because you are a member of asame sex couple and the person doesn't
want to hire a gay person or an LGBTQindividual, that's, disenfranchising
you and harming your economic prospects.
(44:51):
If you're a woman and you have had a babyor you are a certain age and somebody
is going to not pay you as much or payothers more because of your gender or
your status as a parent or not, thenagain, that can harm you financially.
(45:11):
So some of the ways that I talk aboutbouncing back from that is one to name it
and to Be very specific in calling it out.
So sometimes we don't want tocall it out we're just like,
Oh, we want to make nice, nice.
We want to, kind of go along to get along.
We want to not make waves, but it'sonly by pointing out misbehavior
(45:34):
that we can start to address it.
So that's one thing.
Another thing is to goto, again, community.
Find the connections where you'regetting support because sometimes
you can kind of feel gaslit.
You can say, did that really just happen?
Like am I make, no, I'mmaking too much out of this.
Like, no, no, no.
they didn't mean what theysaid, even though they were
(45:56):
very clear with what they said.
Right.
And intent really doesn't matter.
It's the impact on you that matters.
Right.
So sometimes you might need to takea beat and to Go to safe spaces and
to people, organizations, and itcould be within an organization.
It might going to HR. It might meangoing to a network or supportive,
(46:21):
group of individuals or a trustedperson for feedback and for, kind of
a little somebody to bounce some stuffoff of before you kind of tackle it.
Because sometimes in the moment,it's hard to address things, right?
Another way that I talk about it iswriting things down and document, and
this is another strategy all throughoutabout journaling, about processing things,
(46:44):
about also reflecting on what has happenedbecause again, If you're not careful I
don't want to shame or blame anybody.
We're not responsible forwhat somebody else does to us.
But what I'm saying is that if you'renot careful, you can find yourself
repeatedly in situations, right?
Where the same patternsof behavior emerge.
(47:07):
And so you do have to ask yourself,what role, if any, am I playing in this?
Am I in a situation because, or notbecause, am I in a situation either
in part or in whole because of Me, notaddressing or kind of nipping in the
(47:27):
bud, something that should have beenaddressed, So like I said, when the person
came out my house gave me that a hundredthousand dollars, a hundred thousand,
I was like, Nope, absolutely not.
This is what we're not going to do here.
Let's go to the receipts.
Here's this house, this house inthis house, my house is just as good.
And here's all the, factfinding and the data.
(47:48):
And you know, you kind ofaddress some of that stuff.
But discrimination is oneof those thorny ones to deal
And I definitely feel you on that.
I've heard a lot of stories aboutthe whole , appraisal thing.
And so I'm getting ready tosell my house and I hate that I
have to even think about that.
You know what I mean?
But like you said, call it what it is.
(48:11):
And I also appreciate the book, like
you dropped a lot of great resourcesat the end of each chapter.
So you're talking a lot about theemotional stuff and the wholeness
and all of that, but you have a lotof great concrete resources, which
to me makes it a great book to notjust read once, but to keep around.
As reference, so thoroughly research,you're a journalist, so you got those
(48:32):
skills, but thoroughly research.
And when I was going through it,I'm like, man, this has everything.
It has everything.
So kudos for that and for that deedthat doesn't get talked about a lot that
you just discuss is the discrimination.
Well, I appreciate the discussionbecause as a white male, I'm trying
to understand, I mean, I was shockedwhen I read your book and I found out
(48:55):
that the second appraiser suggestedyou take your pictures of black family.
Off the walls to keep the housefrom being associated with that.
I mean, that's a realitythat I don't quite get.
Nobody tells me to take the pictureof my white family off the walls.
I mean, that's hard core.
And I want to make sure we getthis message out there that Mhm.
(49:17):
We've got to get intoother people's shoes.
We don't know what shoesthey're walking in.
We don't know what troublesthey're having behind the scenes.
It is not a Facebook reality.
It is not a social media reality thatthere's a hardcore reality to this.
And I wanted to just make surewe opened this discussion.
want this to continue to be discussedand that's why I wanted this
topic, this dreaded D on this show.
(49:39):
And thank you to for addressing it.
I mean, in a small way.
And let me say one other thing about that.
And I appreciate you so much sayingthat one of the other steps that I talk
about in dealing with discrimination iskind of like enlisting other partners.
When we talk aboutcommunity and connection.
It's that if you're discriminated against,let's say it's in the workplace in a
(50:00):
store or whatever, part of you enlistingand bringing in is somebody else.
And it might be somebody whois doesn't look like you.
It might be you're going to yourwhite coworker or your white colleague
or your white boss, et cetera.
If you happen to be African American,Asian, Latino, for example, and there's
been something that's happened towards youbecause getting that person's support also
(50:24):
will help you to, again, nip the issuein the bud and not have to repeatedly
deal with these kinds of issues.
Well, this has personal economicimpact, as you mentioned in the book
as well, because there's the genderpay gap, which is 80 percent women
live longer, they have to pay for theirown retirement, say, after divorce.
My mother had to regroup in her 50s and goback to work till she was 70 to recover.
(50:49):
from her divorce financially, andthen there's the racial pay gaps with
regards to black, Latino, Asians,where they're even more dramatic.
And how do they get to retirementwhen their pay is 46 cents on the
dollar, 82 cents on the dollar?
These are real issues that weneed to address I wasn't as fully
aware of till I read your book.
(51:10):
Yeah.
Well, I appreciate that so much.
And, sometimes it's not justan educational effort to be able
to impart knowledge and wisdomand statistics or whatever.
Sometimes it is about touching the heart.
Right.
About helping people to understandand to either have compassion or to
heighten their awareness what's going on.
(51:32):
That to, cause sometimes peoplemight go, wow, I didn't even know
this was a thing like this reallyexists quick aside related, but
quick aside I was on social media.
I was scrolling.
I saw that two police officers hadPut an 11 year old black girl in
handcuffs and she was walking downthe street with two friends of hers.
(51:52):
They call themselves cousins,but she was whatever town
they were in, it was snowing.
And it was, a lot of snow on the ground.
You can see in the videos, thecops, came up to them had the
11 year old girl in handcuffs.
and they said the reason that theyput her in handcuffs is she fit
the description of a woman who hadbeen accused of stealing a car.
(52:12):
The woman also had on a pink jacketlike this little 11 year old girl did
and had on some camouflage type pants.
This video is like 10 or 15 minutes long.
And the whole time I'm sitting therethinking this is an 11 year old.
This is an 11 year old child.
There's nothing more.
I mean, what more do we need to say?
(52:33):
Did the kids try to run away?
Did the kids, and of course the officers,three cop cars came and they sent
them a picture woman who allegedly,tried to steal somebody else's car.
It was definitely not her.
It was not the kid, differentshoes, different everything.
And it was, a woman, itwas not an 11 year old girl.
The girl was just crying.
The little girl, she wasfifth or sixth grade.
(52:53):
And I thought, What kind of worlddo we live in that the 11 year
old child is seen as a threat?
Yeah, I mean, I've seenthis in reverse kind of too.
My son was driving my wife's carone time and I did not realize that
the registration was out of date.
And three police pulled him overcause they thought I think that he'd
stolen the car and there's a white.
(53:15):
19 year old in there that goesthrough this, and I don't know if
they call my wife or what, but you canimagine, and this was a luxury car.
You can imagine the difference thatwould have happened if it had been
American.
of color, let's say.
Yeah.
Unfortunately there arepockets of those biases.
There's plenty of great law enforcement,great cops and all of that, in my prior
(53:37):
job, we supported law enforcementofficers and most of them are good, but
then you have these pockets that exist.
And when you are on the receivingside of that, it feels horrible, and
it's just having a little bit of, Iguess Empathy and saying, wow, that
bill, the example that you gave Itcould have turned out very different
(53:58):
if the wrong person was there.
And we hope that it'sless and less of that.
But like you said, Lynette, tryingto call it out, trying to, do
something to say, this is not right.
what can I do to try to makesure, this doesn't happen.
And again, it's not just the race.
It's not just the gender.
It's not just a sexual orientation.
All kinds of other reasons, age,Bill, you could be stereotyped.
(54:20):
I can have some of my family,
Oh, you
no, no, honestly, honestly, you know,if I exited my job now as a 60 year
old, what kind of likelihood do Ihave of getting another one, my field?
So,
you know,
is absolutely very real.
, absolutely.
mean, don't want to beat thisissue to death, but I just want
to spark people to think about it.
(54:41):
I think we've done a good job there.
And wanted to sort of move towards, youclosing of the show by maybe asking you,
Lynette, one more inspirational story,a person you interviewed that just,
let's close on an inspirational note.
Okay.
I'll highlight Dawn Kelly.
Who worked for a financial servicesfirm, had a very high level job was
(55:04):
earning, , several hundred thousanddollars a year one day got a pink slip
and she was absolutely devastated.
She never possibly saw what thesilver lining could have been.
She was emotionally wreck, to putit in her own words again, she was
like I was with my sister Debbieand couldn't get out the bed.
She talked about, , same type ofscenario and it wasn't until her
(55:28):
adult daughter kind of came in theroom one day and said when you find
my mother, can you let me know?
Because all of this, is not the motherthat I know my mother's a fighter.
My mother doesn't justsuccumb to, you lost a job.
I understand.
But she was kind of like, wantto shake you up out of this.
So Dawn said that that was,kind of a wake up call for her.
Long story short, Dawn started a business.
(55:50):
She became an entrepreneur.
She has company called the JuiceBar and she has multiple locations.
Now she's expanded so much, andshe's thriving and doing extremely
well, making great money for herself.
She's able to employothers in the community.
She works with her family membersand she's able to do something
(56:11):
that was a passion of hers.
Which is to promote healthyeating and healthy drinks.
So again, she's gone through, she'son the mayor's advisory committee
for small business in New York.
She went through the Goldman Sachsprogram for small entrepreneur,
small business owners.
And so, yeah, you go through the toughtimes and you don't know what that.
Kind of turnaround story and thattestimony is going to be, but again
(56:34):
I encourage people to have a littlebit of hope and faith that things
actually will, work out when you gothrough some, steps also to kind of
put yourself back on the, right track.
And it's not easy.
I'm not saying that it's easy.
I
And that is an amazinginspirational story.
And, Bill, I think youprobably have a good one.
We both have a good one causewe're late starters and we
(56:55):
had to bounce back from that.
I got a divorce.
That's when I startedwaking up about my finances.
And I can tell you hands down,I wouldn't be doing half the
stuff that I'm doing now.
I wouldn't be podcasting witha bald white guy, , so
Well, I think in the financialliteracy space, we are probably the
only, vanilla and chocolate duo.
(57:17):
But Bill is like, when I was, not toget back to the discrimination thing,
but I think a lot of people makeassumptions about you and anyone else,
and I have to tell them, they're like,oh, , why is he your co host or whatever?
And I'm like, you know what?
He was one of my dearest friends.
And I think once you strip out.
the exterior and you actuallytalk and get to know someone.
And I feel like thatdiscrimination happens from afar.
(57:39):
When you get to know the person completelydifferent , and Lynette, you've seen
so many things you've been aroundfor a very long time in this space
where you've seen a lot of changes.
So your voice and what you putin this book, they really matter.
And they're from a very rich and deep.
History of, being in the personal financespace and serving different roles like
(58:01):
being a part of, journalists and inthe financial media and all of that.
, so we thank you for doingthis book, Bounce Back.
And not only that, but youalso have the workbook.
So we both got, they just happento be right here on my desk.
Can I correct one thing that I said?
Because Lord have mercy, I willnot forgive myself and she will
not forgive me probably either.
Dawn's business is a juice bar.
(58:23):
It's called the Nourish Spot.
The
Nourish Spot.
Oh, yeah, got to give her a plug
Thank you.
I was like, I wantedto double check myself.
I was like, what?
, I just said what came tomy, that is a juice bar.
But then I was like, thename is not the juice bar.
So I was like, let me please.
It's called the nourish spot.
when we need one in theneighborhood here because
going to do her one better.
(58:45):
going to do it one better.
We will go ahead anddrop that in the show.
what's the locations wheremost of the locations at.
So she is in Brooklyn.
We have a lot of people in NewYork that listened to the show.
Yeah.
going to drop that in there.
She's in Queens, go look at her, find
her.
I know she's a banditand she's at Citi Field.
She's talking about opening.
(59:05):
don't know how far along they are forthis, but I know she's at Citi Field
also, but at the airports out there.
So, yeah, she's doing great
things.
Yeah.
And you've got a lot of peoplethat love to support small
businesses and things like that.
So we will drop it in there.
And I can tell you what the next timeI'm in New York, Brooklyn, or somewhere
in that area, I'll definitely belooking it up and I'll check her out.
Okay.
Okay,
(59:25):
I want to make sure we closethe show with an offer.
And you're very generousin your book to do this.
And we want to, echo this offer.
You invite people to sharetheir own bounce back story.
With you and we want to invite themto share it with us and they do so in
our community, but if you email youat info at ask the money coach dot
(59:46):
com or email us at info at CatchingUp to FI dot com with with bounce
back reader in the subject line.
So we know who's coming and we canput it to the top of the queue.
We may even.
Put it on the show, and you'llprobably answer their email.
Who knows if it gets used infurther inspirational writings.
(01:00:07):
So, when I came out of thecloset and wrote my blog for the
Humble Dollar in January of 2023.
It was cathartic and it has helped.
It was called saving our retirement.
I remember it dearly as Jonathan Clementsblog who has a wonderful story and
has been on the show with us as well.
So we're internally grateful for youand what you provide to the community.
(01:00:30):
And we encourage.
Our listenership to read BounceBack because they will find
pieces of themselves in thereand you give them tangible,
actionable things to do to recover.
I mean, it's wonderful, right, Jackie?
Yeah.
And Lynette, what's the best placeto find you and to connect with you?
Cause you have a ton of amazingcontent, very high quality journalistic
(01:00:54):
level that's been around there.
Where is the best place forpeople to connect with you?
Thank you for that.
I appreciate it.
Certainly I'm on all social platformsInstagram, YouTube, LinkedIn,
Facebook, Twitter slash x. I alsohave my own personal site, lynette
kani cox.com, and I have my blog,which is ask the money coach.com.
(01:01:17):
One final thing I'll share withyour audience, because I didn't
really mention it, but this is theworkbook, the bounce back workbook.
Is the companion guide to bounce back?
I really wanted to emphasize the peoplethat there's a process involved in all
of this in terms of recovery, but Iwanted them to be able to personalize
(01:01:38):
the strategies and insights and thetips that I share and bounce back
and to apply it to their own lives.
So I take them through journalingexercises, Q and a kind of
what if scenarios, reflections.
Quizzes, things that they can doand apply it to their lives, no
matter which one of dreaded D'sor which setback that they faced.
(01:01:58):
It's a robust resource.
happy to have met you in person at
Yeah.
to
Earl really enjoyed talkingwith you, he really did,
well, you were dealing with yourown challenges as we talked, and
it's nice to get it out there.
And, It's the warmth of exchanging thatkind of information, even with new friends
(01:02:19):
or strangers, sometimes that, it meansyou're more comfortable in your own skin,
and we hope that our audience today aftertalking with you is more comfortable in
their own skin, whatever color it is.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We will see you guys next week withnew and exciting guests on Catching Up
(01:02:40):
Thanks Lynette.
he said, You know what?
I want you to cover ourbiggest beat on wall street.
I want you to cover wall streetand financial industry, stockbrokers
traders talk to money managers,CFPs, accountant, everybody.
And I was like, absolutely.
This is great.
And I said, there's just one thing.
I was like you do realize that Idon't know a stock from a bond.
(00:21):
like, don't worry about that.
He was like, you can learn that.
He was like, anybody can learn that.
He said, I can't teach you how to sourceand how to find good sources to interview.
I can't teach you how tostorytell and how to write well.
I can't teach you.
excellent communicationskills and whatnot.
He said, you have all that,that's the core of journalism.
That's what I mean.
(00:42):
as I talk about in bounce back andin zero debt, I was an overspender.
I mean, that's just thequick and dirty of it.
I now know that people get intodebt for a whole host of reasons.
Some have suffered setbacks.
they've been downsized, they'vebeen divorced, they've been
through the death of a loved one,like a bread winner and so forth.
That's, one group of consumers.
(01:03):
The other folks are thosewho have overspent or who
have mismanaged their money.
I was in that second category.
I'm just going to be honest and justsay it because it wasn't, some other,
financial setback that put me into debt.
And, Going from debt towealth now has been a journey.
I personally have experienced nine of the10 dreaded D's and have lived to overcome
(01:25):
them and to tell the tale to be in a pointwhere I'm actually thriving post setback.
So it's absolutely possible tocome back from any of these.
The worst one of all by far and awaywas a death that I had to deal with
the death of my sister, Deborah.
And so Debbie passed away in December.
2014 and nothing compares to that.
(01:47):
So if I can get past that,other stuff, been divorced.
I've been downsized.
My disability was, whatthey call a disability.
Well, I'm sorry.
That's actually theone that I don't claim.
Technically, I have experienced it.
I'm a mother of three, and when youhave a baby, they say you're, out on
disability, short term disability.
I'm like, yeah, I don't claim that one.
(02:08):
But out of all the 10dreaded D's, that's the one
(02:41):
Hello, folks, and welcomeback to Catching Up to Fi.
I'm Bill Yount with my esteemedbetter co host Jackie Cummins Koski.
That's right.
Hey, Bill.
Yeah, she's coming to us fromfrigid Dayton, Ohio, and I'm sitting
here in warm and sunny Knoxville,Tennessee in the 40s today.
I'm going for a walk after this, so,everybody should move to Tennessee, and
(03:01):
maybe Jackie, who came through here overthe holidays and visited us, is a little
bit enticed to do so today, anyway.
Yeah.
I want to get back down South for sure.
But today is an exciting daybecause we have someone that I
have followed for a very long time.
And when I was just getting startedwith learning about personal finance,
but also saying, Hey, I want to tryto do this and share what I learned.
(03:25):
I followed this person from like backin like 2009, 2010, way back in the day.
And I just consider her almost likeroyalty because I've learned so much from
her and the contributions she's made tothe financial world have been amazing.
If you haven't guessed by now Jackie isa fangirl we're talking to a hero today.
(03:46):
And Jackie, why don'tyou introduce her for us?
Yeah, well, like I said, she's oneof my absolute favorite personal
finance experts and virtual mentor.
Her name is Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, andshe's also known as the money coach,
and she is an icon in the financialmedia and financial education space.
She has graced the stages of Oprah,Dr. Phil, The Steve Harvey Show,
(04:11):
Good Morning America, The TodayShow, and now Catching up to FI.
And her advice is gold.
So Bill and I chased her down.
Oh, I mean, we had the honorof meeting her at FinCon.
And also her awesome husband We gotto meet her in person and that's
why these conferences are so great.
(04:32):
She and her husband just lights upa room and they're just so welcome.
And you never know what to think,somebody that you've been following
for a long time, you finally see him inperson, you don't know how they're going
to be, but they were very, very justcool aall around.
We loved it.
Lynette is an internationallyrecognized personal finance.
Expert speaker and bestselling author.
In fact, she has authored 16 moneymanagement books, including the New
(04:56):
York times bestseller, which is onethat I remember very, very well, zero
debt and her latest book bounce back.
So we're excited about that.
In 2003, she started the money coachLLC with her husband, Earl, which is
a personal financial education companythat offers consulting services Courses
(05:17):
and workshops, but also before startingthe money coach, Lynette was a Wall
Street Journal reporter for CNBC.
Where she covered businessand personal financial news.
Lynette spent nearly 10 yearsat Dow Jones, a very famous
company, media company.
She was working as a reporter,a bureau chief a deputy managing
(05:38):
editor, and personal finance editor.
And as of December 2024, Lynettegot her newest title, Grandma.
So Lynette, welcome to Catching Up to FI.
Thank you so much.
That's the most important one.
Sometimes I hear the accoladesand I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Whatever about the titlesand the accomplishments, mom,
grandmother, wife, these are theones that matter to me the most.
(06:02):
So, but yeah, thank youfor that introduction and
great to be with you both.
Well, we talk about money, but we,forget to talk about the fact that money.
Is not as important as relationships andwe may get into that a little bit today,
but before we do, I want Lynette to giveus a chance to give a shout out to two
charities that are near and dear to herheart that will link in the show notes
because we'd like to have a charity ofthe week, Big Sister, Little Sister is one
(06:26):
and Electus Global Financial is the other.
Lynette, tell us a little bit aboutthose so the folks can help them out.
Big sister, little sister is agreat organization founded by
a woman named Anisha Hughes.
They help youth girlsall across the country.
Who want to create abetter life for themselves.
Yes, they teach them financial education,but a lot of it is about social skills
(06:48):
and just helping them to deal with theday to day stresses and challenges that
can come, whether it's social media.
grades, boys or other things.
So I really love that organization.
And Electus Global Educationteaches FLEC to students.
FLEC education stands for FinancialLiteracy, Entrepreneurship, and
(07:09):
Careers, again, fabulous organization.
For youth between the ages of fiveand 17 slash 18, right off when
the kids are going off to college.
And so both are near and dear to myheart in different ways, but I think
they're both very worthy of support.
Awesome.
we will include that in the show notes.
We love hearing about, who ourguests support and things like that.
(07:32):
And a big part of this financialstuff is how we give back.
so yeah.
So Lynette, so you've obviously hadvery long and illustrious career.
like to start with.
How you got into the financialmedia space as a journalist and
a reporter in the early days.
Take us back there.
I really got into financialjournalism by happenstance.
(07:53):
You might even say by accident.
I certainly was on the track tobecome a journalist and did do that.
I got a master's degree in journalism.
From USC, and then I moved from LosAngeles, which is where I was raised to
Philadelphia with my then husband, nowmy ex husband for very good reasons.
I
(08:15):
you.
I got an X two.
got it right the secondtime around, believe me,
Oh,
definitely did.
We had the honor of meeting him.
So I can definitely double down on that.
but no, not to shade my ex husband.
both, everybody moved on.
Everybody's happy.
Everybody's good.
But no, he, my ex was pursuing aPhD from Penn. So that's the reason
why we moved from LA to Philly.
(08:36):
And in that time, I started workingfor two media organizations.
I worked for the PhiladelphiaInquirer by day and I worked at night.
For the Fox affiliate in Philadelphia.
And so I was extremely busy, obviouslyliterally working from, like nine
o'clock in the morning until about 11PM at night when 10 o'clock news ended.
(08:58):
And so long story short, one day, myfriends and colleagues at the Inky,
which is what we call the Inquirer, theInky, they were like, Oh, we're going
up to a job conference at Newsday.
Why don't you come along with us?
It was like Newsday.
Why would I go up to,you mean in New York?
And they were like, yeah, and I said,you want me to go from Philadelphia, or
South Jersey, which is the bureau thatwe worked in all the way up to New York.
(09:21):
I was like, no, I'm notreally trying to do that.
And they said, no, Lynette out here,we know you're from the West coast.
And, you could.
Spend two or three hours in trafficand, on the freeway in Los Angeles,
they were like out here on the Eastcoast, everybody's very mobile.
We take Amtrak, we'll be up there.
So we go up to this conference,media conference, a news day job
conference, and that's where Imet the folks from Dow Jones.
(09:42):
And met a very nice guy named RickStein who would become my editor
and a mentor for many years.
And he was just, watching my clip and hewas like, Oh, I love your storytelling
and I love your business stories.
These are great articles.
And honestly, I'm noteven going to lie, Jackie.
I was sitting there thinking whatbusiness articles, what is he talking
about?
(10:02):
gosh.
But, again, in all candor, I hadmy first job at the Associated
Press in Los Angeles at AP.
I was an intern there, and thenI lobbied my bureau chief, Andy
Lipman, to become reporter there.
And I became reporter there.
They told us interns, they picked10 of us across the country and they
told us, don't even expect to workin LA or New York or, a big market.
(10:25):
You have to start after your internshipat like, Butte, Montana or someplace.
And I was like, yeah, watch me, soanyway, I did get a spot in Los
Angeles and I happened to start whenthe riots broke out in Los Angeles.
And so, I covered a lot of Rebuild L. A.efforts that were run by Peter Uberoff.
And a lot of it was like, after,Rodney King was, and it was caught
(10:49):
on camera and the whole stuff thatjumped off there in L. A. Things
got burned down, whole industries,electronics, stores, et cetera.
So I did write a lot of thosestories and I was writing about the
economic impact of what had happenedwithin the community, et cetera.
Again, I just saw it as me talkingabout things from a community angle.
But Rick, of course, sawfinancial side of that.
(11:10):
And so he said, Oh, , I love this.
So we talked, we talked, we negotiated.
I got a job there andhe said, You know what?
I want you to cover ourbiggest beat on wall street.
I want you to cover wall streetand financial industry, stockbrokers
traders talk to money managers,CFPs, accountant, everybody.
And I was like, absolutely.
This is great.
(11:30):
And I said, there's just one thing.
I was like you do realize that Idon't know a stock from a bond.
like, don't worry about that.
He was like, you can learn that.
He was like, anybody can learn that.
He said, I can't teach you how to sourceand how to find good sources to interview.
I can't teach you how tostorytell and how to write well.
I can't teach you.
excellent communicationskills and whatnot.
(11:52):
He said, you have all that,that's the core of journalism.
That's what I mean.
And so it went from there.
it's crazy, Bill.
Now we got these , differenttypes of fires going on in LA.
So I'm sure you've beenpaying attention to that.
Yeah, we're doing this in January 2025.
And when you mentioned the LA fires, backthen it had a whole different meaning
than it does today, but nonethelessquite devastating for a lot of people.
(12:14):
But so that's where you gotyour start in the big city, huh?
really was.
I ultimately moved causeI got a, promotion.
So I moved from Philadelphia to.
Northern New Jersey.
And, right outside of New York City.
And yeah, I started working for DowJones and it was a fantastic run.
I love, I had about a decadethere and it was awesome.
I got to learn a lot.
(12:36):
I called Dow Jones and thenWall Street Journal, CNBC.
I call it kind of boot camp, for financialindustry and what I learned because
when I talked to so many folks who werehelping other people to manage their
money, Things got demystified for me andI found out this is not rocket science.
Like we really can learnand actually do it.
So it took me a minute tostart applying it to my life.
(12:59):
But after a while I was like, okay,let me start cleaning up my mess.
Now that I know better what to do here.
Well, speaking of your mess, youdidn't tell your employer that you
had 100, 000 of credit card debt, andthen you went from 100, 000 of credit
card debt to a credit score of 850.
Give us a short versionof your debt story.
Well, as I talk about in bounce backand in zero debt, I was an overspender.
(13:23):
I mean, that's just thequick and dirty of it.
I now know that people get intodebt for a whole host of reasons.
Some have suffered setbacks.
they've been downsized, they'vebeen divorced, they've been
through the death of a loved one,like a bread winner and so forth.
That's, one group of consumers.
The other folks are thosewho have overspent or who
have mismanaged their money.
I was in that second category.
(13:44):
I'm just going to be honest and justsay it because it wasn't, some other,
financial setback that put me into debt.
And, Going from debt towealth now has been a journey.
I again, I tell people the truth, interms of the time frame, it took me three
years to dig out of my 100, 000 in debt.
It probably took me, eight to 10years get into that much debt, but
(14:04):
overall it really was about me.
Not having basic financial skills,not like having been taught in
school or in my own home life, howto manage credit wisely, how to not
abuse credit how to make sure thatyou're saving alongside the spending
that is natural and necessary to do.
(14:27):
And I'm very proud now to have gone from.
Like you said, six figures in debtto having a seven figure net worth.
And you mentioned my 850 FICO score.
I don't have an eight 50 right now.
It's, I think it's like 810 orsomething right now, but I was
profiled, twice on CNBC yet forhaving a perfect 850 FICO score.
little thing, but if you have a 760or greater, by the way, you're good.
(14:48):
I call that the perfectcredit scoring range.
It is less than
Well, I watched that andthat was pretty fascinating.
So we'll include that in theshow notes, but it's like, I
don't think I ever seen an 850.
Have you ever seen an 850on your credit score bill?
No, I've lingered in the eighthundreds, but no, I've never peaked.
It seems almost like an accidentor an act of God to make it to 850.
(15:10):
Let's
percent of consumers geta perfect eight 50.
And before, like I know a coupleof people, believe it or not.
So I mentioned my ex husband,his grandfather, I remember
Papa had a perfect eight 50.
Cause I remember one time he was talkingto me about it and he said, yeah, these
people keep telling me do I want a loan?
I don't need a house loan.
My car is paid off and theywant to give me a car loan.
(15:32):
He said, they told me my score is good.
It's like a 85 or something.
And I said, And I said,Papa, do you mean like 850?
And he was like, Oh yeah, 850.
And I was like, yeah, that's really good.
So that was one.
Certainly Michelle Singletaryfrom the Washington post.
I know Michelle has had a 850,a perfect score before as well.
And there's, you hear about thesestories now and again, but yeah, it's
(15:55):
just bragging rights for a minute.
And then it, scores are dynamic.
They're changing all the time.
So
Well, it's important because you getlower rates on loans and you get jobs
because they'll check your credit score.
So it's a very important number to have.
And you talk in your book aboutone of the D's being sort of a debt
journey and dysfunctional credit.
But I want to introduce peopleto your book because you open it
(16:18):
with a quote from Nelson Mandela.
And I find these quotes from all thefamous people you have in the book at the
beginning of each chapter quite inspiring.
And Nelson said, The greatest gloryin living lies not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.
fall because your book is aboutbouncing back, resilience and recovery.
And you almost succumb to allof your attendees that we're
(16:39):
going to talk about in a minute.
And then another, you have quotesfrom Michael Jordan, Dolly Parton,
Tom Hanks, and Oprah Winfrey.
And you must have Googled bounce backbecause in the quotes are almost always
bounce back the term and, and peopletalk about this, and this is just
a fact of life because what is it?
60 percent of the time in one year.
People are having a financial trauma.
(17:00):
I mean, this is somethingwe all end up with.
And so, you had AlbertEinstein even in there.
And he says, in the middle ofdifficulty lies opportunity.
So we have to take our downs andturn them into, and our regrets and
our shame and turn them into ups.
And that's what you do in your bookbecause you're very positive, and we
(17:21):
learned to fall and fail as children.
And we bounce back up.
We were very bounceable as kids.
Now, how do we maintain thatchildhood resilience as adults?
And why is it so important?
Bill, I appreciate the questionand it's striking how much.
Transition often in a less positive wayhappens once we become adults, because as
(17:44):
you mentioned, kids are very resilient.
They do know how to bounce back as long asthey're allowed to and not like, sort of
overly coddled and allowed to experiencewhat it's like to dust themselves off,
so to speak, and right back on out there.
But one of the things that Italk about in bounce back, of
course, as you mentioned, is that.
All of us face setbacks and challenges.
(18:07):
And so I use those quotes from veryhigh profile people, , in often cases,
very wealthy people financially, froma financial standpoint, very well known
people who nonetheless have had theirown struggles, their own setbacks.
And I wanted to convey that.
From the most famous, important,richest, whatever person that
(18:29):
you might know or heard of to,quote unquote, the least of us.
And we're all equal in my eyes.
We're all God's children, buteverybody has some challenge
that they have to deal with.
And I wanted to talk about thecommonalities about what that.
Journey kind of typically looks likeand what those challenges are so that
(18:51):
we could categorize them, name them andbetter understand how to build resilience
before they happen in the midst of thestruggle and then post crisis as well.
So you mentioned the dreaded Ds I talkabout in the book, the 10 most common
setbacks that yes, indeed, in a givenyear 60 plus percent of Americans will
(19:12):
face one or more of these setbacks.
External shocks, as researchers callthem, that's a numbers according to Pew
researchers in Washington, D. C. Andthe setbacks, what I call the dreaded
D's because they all start with theletter D and they're all dreadful.
The setbacks are downsizing, divorce,death of a loved one, again, especially
(19:33):
maybe breadwinner, disability, disease.
Natural disasters debt, damaged creditand then what I call dollar deficits
because you might feel like I'm broke.
I have no cash flow or savings.
And then even things like discrimination,which can also pack a powerful punch,
not just emotionally, but financially,it can affect your wallet as well.
(19:58):
So part of what it means tobe able to recover as an adult
and to build your resilience.
It's about learning the, not only thestrategies that it takes to recover
quickly, , as opposed to making thingslinger for years and years and years, but
also about having the right mindset toput you in kind of the right environment
(20:22):
emotionally to be able to recover.
So I think one of the biggestthings that most people are shocked
when they read the book is that.
They want to get to the tellme the financial solutions
or tell me how to steps.
And really, I take a lot of time andcare in the book to talk about self
care, about having connection andcommunity with others, about practicing
(20:46):
gratitude, about grounding yourself,about taking the, what might seem to
some people like, Oh, a little bit, butabout taking some of the Steps and some
of the processes that you have to kindof sit with and go through that will
help you to not only build resilience,but to sidestep that same misfortune
in the future or to be able to navigateout a problem situation again more
(21:11):
quickly than you otherwise might have.
Yeah, Lynette, in the book, I reallyappreciate it that you did focus on that
and because I think your book Bounce Back,it is totally speaking to our late starter
audience and a lot of times the veryfirst thing they ask is about the finance.
It's about the nuts and bolts.
But really there's these other thingsabout, giving yourself grace and take
(21:33):
an inventory of everything that yougot going on and stuff like that.
That's like so important.
So I appreciate it that youdedicated a lot of the book to that.
(23:11):
with all these dreadful D's thatyou have, I was going to ask you how
many of these have you experienced?
It might be better to ask howmany you didn't experience.
Well, I personally have experiencednine of the 10 dreaded D's and have
lived to overcome them and to tellthe tale to be in a point where
I'm actually thriving post setback.
(23:32):
So it's absolutely possible tocome back from any of these.
The worst one of all by far and awaywas a death that I had to deal with
the death of my sister, Deborah.
And so Debbie passed away in December.
2014 and nothing compares to that.
So if I can get past that,other stuff, been divorced.
I've been downsized.
(23:53):
My disability was, whatthey call a disability.
Well, I'm sorry.
That's actually theone that I don't claim.
Technically, I have experienced it.
I'm a mother of three, and when youhave a baby, they say you're, out on
disability, short term disability.
I'm like, yeah, I don't claim that one.
But out of all the 10 dreaded D's,that's the one that I, when I say I've
experienced nine, that's the 10th onethat I, haven't personally experienced.
(24:16):
And I would say our late starter audience.
I mean, it's not just one thing.
There's always a plethora of things thatmay happen simultaneously that lead to
a shock, as you say, and then awe andshame and putting your head in the sand
and trying to, and we're here to try andhelp them bring it out of the sand and
find their way back to financial wellness.
(24:39):
A couple of the D's.
That we wanted to talk about ingreater detail because I think
both of you have experiences.
I fortunately have not.
I have a wonderful wife, love of mylife, but you guys both went to divorce.
Tell us how prevalent this is andwhat it means to be a financial shock.
Because I think a lot of our audiencethat we hear this conversation in
(25:00):
our Facebook community, women Moreoften, maybe than men, suffer a
setback here and financial trauma thatrequires late starting and recovery.
Well, we know that, well above 50percent of all marriages in the
U. S. fail and end in divorce.
And oftentimes, even for secondmarriages, the numbers can be higher.
(25:21):
So called gray divorces, people whoget divorced or separate later in life.
That is absolutely not going tohappen for me and my husband.
I can tell you that for sure.
We're very happily married.
And like I said, I got itright the second time around.
But I think that the prevalence of divorcemakes it one of these things where it
might be one where there is to a certainextent, a little bit less of shame and
(25:44):
stigma around some of the other ones,debt and damaged credit and whatnot.
People tend to like suffer insilence a little bit more about that.
But divorce , as women andas men, we talk about that.
It's like, Oh, let metell you what happened.
Whatever.
You know, my relationship sometimes, notalways, obviously but what I can say,
the prevalence for women to lose theirstandard of living is very common and is
(26:08):
typically greater for women post divorce.
Women often find that not onlytheir standard of living, but the
children, if there were kids involvedsuffers a decline but not always.
Again, when I tell my story,I talk about how I was the
main breadwinner in my family.
So when I. Divorced from my ex husband.
(26:28):
I was the one paying alimonyand child support, for example.
And it was a lot, it was over like 6,500 a month at one point, I paid for
years, I paid five or six years worthof alimony and support, it stepped down
every single year, but long story short.
I tell women all the time, don'tautomatically assume that if you're
getting a divorce, that, the courtsor the, judge will rule that because
(26:51):
you're the mom or the woman in therelationship, et cetera, that, a
check is going to come your way.
No, not at all.
I divorced in New Jersey and I knew thatI was going to be the one paying and it
wasn't an issue for me on that front that.
It wasn't something that I expected.
Again, told you that my ex husband hadbeen a student, so he had received his PhD
(27:11):
at that time, right as we're separating.
He had taken a little bit longerand went from Philadelphia.
I told you, we moved to NewJersey for my job promotion.
And so he didn't have a job yet.
He became a professor and did get ajob, but at the time I was the only one
making money in the house, so I knewof course I was going to be the one
paying the bills and that kind of thing.
But it can absolutely throw yourfinances, , out of whack because now you
(27:37):
go to two households living on one incomeor two households where one has a very
diminished income to support the other.
Yeah, that was one of the bounce backstories that you were kind enough to
be very transparent about because nowyou're in such a different place, and
people assume you were always there, butyou weren't, you had to deal with that
and that stuff doesn't happen overnight,between court hearings and custody and
(28:01):
all these maintenance support of your exspouse and all of that but before I hear
from you on that does Earl have a brother?
I want to know.
You know what?
I cannot, if I had a dollar forhow many times I've been asked.
Do, do you have another Earl?
Is there another
Cause Earl is the man, Earl is the man.
I can tell you that.
I've literally beenasked that so many times.
he really is so wonderful.
(28:23):
I thank God, becauseI've lucked out honestly.
So, but he does, the short answer ishe does have a brother who lives in the
DC area, who is also happily married.
Oh darn.
Okay.
I, I thought I'd give ita shot, but but yeah, so
is not the first time Jackie hasasked this question on the show.
sometimes I've regretted it once Imet the brother, let me tell you.
(28:47):
Well but yeah, I like the divorcething and to have you talk about to
know the Lynette that I know today.
And to think about, in the early days,what you had to go through to get there.
And it's so much better talk about itin past tense, but while you're going
through it, it is really, really tough.
And, so you were able toovercome that and boy, you
(29:08):
bounce back up like a trampoline.
And so I appreciate you sharing yourstory and you include the stories others,
that was in the book and all of that.
So the divorce.
Was there you mentionedyour sister, Debbie.
So that was one of the other D'sand you said she passed in 2014.
Okay.
So my condolences.
(29:29):
That's very tough.
I have three sisters cannotimagine, but do you mind
talking a little bit about that?
Well, my sister Debbiewas beyond phenomenal.
Obviously I dedicated thebook to her and talk about a
person who was so out in front.
Like, not a month goes by that Idon't see something, experience
(29:52):
something, do something looking atan email in my inbox and say, Ugh.
it reminded me of Debbie or that shewas so out in front, found emails where
she was telling me about Instagram.
Like I was like, before I was eventhinking about getting on social media
or anything, so well, what I cantell you is that you probably have
experienced some of what I've experienced.
(30:12):
I'm sure since you saidyou have three sisters.
So I have five sisters.
I still say that I have five sisters.
And my sister, Debbie, she was 49years old when she passed away.
She had an 11 year old daughter.
Her death came completely out of the blue.
It was extremely traumatic formy family and in all candor.
(30:32):
It was just devastating.
I could not get out thebed for a couple of months.
couldn't work.
Earl had to cancel things that I had.
He had to try to run the businessby himself, get other people
to write content for me just.
Try to make some semblance ofmaking the business, continue.
But it was crushing.
It was just absolutely , soul sucking.
(30:53):
And I was so focused on why, like why her?
And indeed they could not understandwhy she passed away at first.
it was a lot, going on, but the gistof it is that we had to have two
autopsies, things were inconclusive.
And so the why part just,threw us for a long time.
(31:13):
But then even after we got some moremedical evidence, the, why her still
happened, , and so the focus wason, she was too young, what about
her daughter, all of those things.
And it wasn't until I went through,therapy, grief counseling and other
(31:35):
Ways of, coping and trying to come toterms with her death, that I realized
that I was focusing honestly on thethings that were going to keep me in
a loop of sadness and of, sort oflike regret about the past and why
her, why her, why her, once I wasable to focus on, the things Wow.
(31:57):
My sister lived an amazing life and tofocus on her life instead of her death
and how she died and why she died.
It gave me so much more gratitude.
It gave me so much more ability tobounce back because then I started
appreciating like every single thing.
I mean, the stories that peoplewould tell me, the things that I was
(32:20):
applying and doing in my own life.
Honestly, I would 100 percent not be whoI am right now in my career or in The
things that I've done and accomplished.
If it wasn't for her, Debbie waswith me when I went on Oprah,
Debbie was the one who told meto go to leverage my journalism
skillset and to go from print to TV.
She told me like two years before Iactually even thought about doing it.
(32:43):
I was like TV.
I don't want to be on camera.
I was like, those people are,they just reading a teleprompter.
I saw them as kind of, notthe smart ones in media,
there's a lot of similarity in recoveringfrom personal trauma and financial
trauma and the process you go throughof sort of regret getting mired in the
past trying to get back to the presentand looking forward to the future.
(33:05):
And those are the kinds of struggleswe see our late starters have.
Those are the struggles that I knowI, And Jackie had and while death has
big financial implications, recoveringfrom the emotional and personal things
you talked about some ways you did it,biggest one to me is you ask for help
when you leave yourself in, shame,isolation, regret and leave yourself
(33:26):
in the past and you get isolated.
That's dangerous for your health,be it financial or otherwise, right?
Financial, physical, and emotional.
, it's absolutely dangerous.
And so that's why I talk aboutin the book about the importance
of connection and of community.
And it doesn't really matter which oneof the dreaded D's that you go through.
(33:47):
When you have community and connectionwith others, it makes your recovery
and your ability to bounce backso much stronger, greater, faster.
If you've lost a job and you feellike, Oh my God, I'm ashamed.
I don't want to talkto anybody or whatever.
Well, that next job is going to comebecause of somebody, you know, or
somebody in your circle or your sphereof influence of a former colleague,
(34:10):
a friend, a family member, et cetera.
So yes, it's not until you kindof reach out and are ready to
do so, because sometimes youhave to also sit with things.
And so one of the points that Imake in the book is that before
you can just automatically bounceback, sometimes there's a tendency
to go like, okay, let's move on.
let's get on with it.
And things like grief, Have no time span.
(34:32):
They have no, set agenda to say,okay, , a year or two later, you
should be able to deal with thisand to just know you're going to have
waves that are going to come and go.
If it's something like griefor the loss of a loved one.
but you should also know whether it'srecovering from job loss, recovering from
a divorce, recovering from the death ofa loved one or some other dreaded deed.
(34:55):
Okay.
Again, the people in your plate, inyour life and the ability to sit down,
actually experience the emotions.
I'm sad, I'm disappointed, I'm frustrated,I'm angry, to really process those.
That's actually important inyour journey of recovery as well.
And like so many times people losea job and they're just like, okay,
(35:17):
I just want to go to the next job.
One of the things that I talkabout and bounce back, Is you may
have ancillary grief if you havesomebody who you've lost, they're
called ancillary losses, right?
Along with, of course, the tangible,the person is gone and Bye.
Bye.
In my family, for example, one of theancillary losses that we experienced
(35:38):
was that Debbie was the organizer.
Debbie was the socialite.
She was the party planner.
She was the person who madesure, for the holidays that
everybody was together as a family.
And so one of the ancillary losses that weinitially suffered was the disintegration
of that to a certain extent.
think it's so importantfor people to hear that.
(35:58):
So if that's the only thing they get outof the book, that is like so important.
was talking to an older lady the otherday and she had lost her husband
way back in the day when her youngestdaughter who was adopted was a year old.
And her son who was biological wasnine years old and, a lot of this goes
back to finances, but she said theywould have never had insurance if the
(36:20):
adoption agency didn't require her.
It was a Korean adoption if theydidn't require her to get insurance.
And she went through griefcounseling and all that.
She became a grief counselor anda social worker for K through
12 schools as a result of that.
And I think that was a part ofher healing, but it's just so
interesting to hear that story.
So even her career is not just a career.
(36:41):
It sort of came out of, the loveshe had for her husband and that
was her way of healing from it.
So I guess people kind of findtheir ways to bounce back, but you
need to do it in your own time.
And sometimes I don't think that'sthe message that we get and it
was loud and clear in the book.
Sure.
And not only about timing, theother thing I want to do, because I
definitely want to give your audiencea message of hope and inspiration.
(37:03):
Every setback that you encounter, everydreaded thing is also a transition.
And it's also an opportunityfor something new in the future.
Now, let me be very clear becausesome people might be like, well,
are you saying I'm going to behappy about this in the future?
I'm going to like you saying,are you happy your sister passed?
Absolutely not.
No.
However, at this stage, I am not onlymindful, I'm keenly aware of the fact
(37:29):
that even amid trials and tribulationsand all kinds of adverse circumstances,
There is an opportunity for growth.
There is an opportunity formodeling certain behavior.
There's an opportunity for discovery.
It might be, somebody might say,the most crushing thing I've ever
dealt with is I lost a spouse.
(37:51):
I lost a child and it's completely,it's not even fathomable,
like how I can even go on.
In the midst of those kinds ofvery deep and serious emotional
blows, you may get an inspiration.
You may get a testimony that you'reable to share with somebody else.
(38:11):
To help that person to make it through.
So, even though it might be ittruly is something potentially
traumatic to have to deal with.
And we've all had financialtraumas, shocks things of that
nature, but something that'semotionally traumatizing as well.
I ask people to try to hold onto the idea, even the, little.
(38:34):
Kernel of possibility that somethinggood will actually come out of it.
What the good is to be determined.
But there absolutelyis potential and upside.
And in addition to myself and talkingabout my own experiences in each
chapter, I interview people who havegone through each of the dreaded deeds.
We talked about disability earlier.
(38:56):
I interviewed a guy, Chris,who is a quadriplegic.
Now born without ability to use anyof his arms or legs in a wheelchair
for the first 18 years of his life.
Somebody could say, well,what is the upside there?
What is the, but Chris was notone of those people who will.
Stay mired in why me thepast regret being depressed.
(39:19):
No, he taught himself to walk.
He taught himself to run.
at a university right now at a collegehe's a brilliant mathematician.
And he lives independently.
He bought a house and lives on his own.
It's extremely rare for aquadriplegic to do what he's done.
But I wanted to sharestories like that of people.
(39:39):
Who seemingly totally insurmountableodds my things that I've been
through, they're their own level of.
But, some people have far,far, far greater struggles,
Yeah, that's important to share thoseinspirational stories and that's what
we're trying to do with our community.
We're trying to give people a placeto be vulnerable, share their story.
(40:00):
And I think in being transparent withyour story, writing it down, publishing
it, coming out into public with.
Your story helps you withrecovery and many others with
their own wake up and recovery.
And that's really whatyou're doing with this book.
I want to transition right now to aD that is not talked about so much.
(40:24):
It's your 10th D. And we want todispel pretty much the bias I think
we have in the word discrimination.
That's a dreaded D, but it's about.
How it hurts us all.
That's how you talk about it.
Can you take us through a little bitof your discussion about how D for
discrimination is sort of a financialtrauma that all of us experience?
(40:47):
well, there are so manyforms of discrimination and
unfortunately the effects ofdiscrimination are wide ranging.
And so if you talk aboutgender based discrimination.
If you talk about sex based discriminationin terms of sexual orientation, if you
talk about race based discrimination,age discrimination, and more you
(41:11):
can clearly see if you add all thosepopulations together, there's, a lot
of people who are going to be affected.
But what I also talk about in BounceBack is that even the folks who are
doing the discrimination ultimatelyare harmed by it in the long run.
For example, let's say the financialinstitution that will not lend, for
(41:32):
example, to women or to black or brownpeople who are aspiring entrepreneurs.
Well, now that community is missingout on what could be very viable
products and services from A femaleentrepreneur of a black owned
business, a Latino owned business,an Asian owned business and so forth.
(41:55):
Furthermore places like McKinsey havedone studies and they showed that if
we just tackled the discriminationproblem in terms of the wealth
gap in America, we could boost GDPoverall in America significantly.
And so.
Because we would have more participationfrom more communities in the financial
(42:16):
services arena and in the financialecosystem, more people buying stocks
and bonds, more people purchasinghouses, more people contributing
to the economy of this country.
So ultimately, if it's not affected youpersonally in some way, or somebody, you
know, or care about the economy is harmed.
Communities are harmed.
(42:37):
Or the worst, worst case scenario, andI don't really go into this and bounce
back, but certainly it just kind ofsprung to mind when you discriminate
against and disenfranchise people wewere talking about the riots in Los
Angeles and that kind of being myforay into, journalism initially I
believe it was Martin Luther King Jr.
Who said a riot is thelanguage of the oppressed.
(43:01):
And that people will lash out and, dothings that to us might just seem in
the contrary to their own best interest.
Like, why would you burn down astore in your own neighborhood?
It's trying to have a voice.
It's trying to protest.
It's trying to speak up.
And so if you disinvest in communities,if you systematically poison water,
(43:22):
if you, tax people in ways thatare discriminatory, Then people
will start to lash out in ways andthen that too can harm other people.
Yeah.
And you talk a little bit about like,what can we do, because it was like Bill
said, I don't hear the discriminationpiece, as talked about as much as far as,
trying to overcome or, bouncing back from.
(43:44):
So what are some of your tips on whatto do if, , you've been a part of, or
on the losing side of discrimination.
Well, I'm very clear and bounce backin articulating the financial impact
as well as the emotional impactof being discriminated against.
I share my own story of housingdiscrimination, for example,
(44:06):
where we had an appraiser.
come through.
We lived in a very wealthy whiteneighborhood in New Jersey.
Bottom line that praiser camethrough, saw us I could tell it
was not going to be a good outcome.
And sure enough, praise our house 100,000 less than it should have been.
We appealed and did send another appraiserback out and we got the right number.
But ultimately Discrimination has a cost.
(44:29):
If you're discriminated against becauseyou have an ethnic sounding name and
you don't even get a call back and youcan't get a job or you're discriminated
against because you are a member of asame sex couple and the person doesn't
want to hire a gay person or an LGBTQindividual, that's, disenfranchising
you and harming your economic prospects.
(44:51):
If you're a woman and you have had a babyor you are a certain age and somebody
is going to not pay you as much or payothers more because of your gender or
your status as a parent or not, thenagain, that can harm you financially.
(45:11):
So some of the ways that I talk aboutbouncing back from that is one to name it
and to Be very specific in calling it out.
So sometimes we don't want tocall it out we're just like,
Oh, we want to make nice, nice.
We want to, kind of go along to get along.
We want to not make waves, but it'sonly by pointing out misbehavior
(45:34):
that we can start to address it.
So that's one thing.
Another thing is to goto, again, community.
Find the connections where you'regetting support because sometimes
you can kind of feel gaslit.
You can say, did that really just happen?
Like am I make, no, I'mmaking too much out of this.
Like, no, no, no.
they didn't mean what theysaid, even though they were
(45:56):
very clear with what they said.
Right.
And intent really doesn't matter.
It's the impact on you that matters.
Right.
So sometimes you might need to takea beat and to Go to safe spaces and
to people, organizations, and itcould be within an organization.
It might going to HR. It might meangoing to a network or supportive,
(46:21):
group of individuals or a trustedperson for feedback and for, kind of
a little somebody to bounce some stuffoff of before you kind of tackle it.
Because sometimes in the moment,it's hard to address things, right?
Another way that I talk about it iswriting things down and document, and
this is another strategy all throughoutabout journaling, about processing things,
(46:44):
about also reflecting on what has happenedbecause again, If you're not careful I
don't want to shame or blame anybody.
We're not responsible forwhat somebody else does to us.
But what I'm saying is that if you'renot careful, you can find yourself
repeatedly in situations, right?
Where the same patternsof behavior emerge.
(47:07):
And so you do have to ask yourself,what role, if any, am I playing in this?
Am I in a situation because, or notbecause, am I in a situation either
in part or in whole because of Me, notaddressing or kind of nipping in the
(47:27):
bud, something that should have beenaddressed, So like I said, when the person
came out my house gave me that a hundredthousand dollars, a hundred thousand,
I was like, Nope, absolutely not.
This is what we're not going to do here.
Let's go to the receipts.
Here's this house, this house inthis house, my house is just as good.
And here's all the, factfinding and the data.
(47:48):
And you know, you kind ofaddress some of that stuff.
But discrimination is oneof those thorny ones to deal
And I definitely feel you on that.
I've heard a lot of stories aboutthe whole , appraisal thing.
And so I'm getting ready tosell my house and I hate that I
have to even think about that.
You know what I mean?
But like you said, call it what it is.
(48:11):
And I also appreciate the book, like
you dropped a lot of great resourcesat the end of each chapter.
So you're talking a lot about theemotional stuff and the wholeness
and all of that, but you have a lotof great concrete resources, which
to me makes it a great book to notjust read once, but to keep around.
As reference, so thoroughly research,you're a journalist, so you got those
(48:32):
skills, but thoroughly research.
And when I was going through it,I'm like, man, this has everything.
It has everything.
So kudos for that and for that deedthat doesn't get talked about a lot that
you just discuss is the discrimination.
Well, I appreciate the discussionbecause as a white male, I'm trying
to understand, I mean, I was shockedwhen I read your book and I found out
(48:55):
that the second appraiser suggestedyou take your pictures of black family.
Off the walls to keep the housefrom being associated with that.
I mean, that's a realitythat I don't quite get.
Nobody tells me to take the pictureof my white family off the walls.
I mean, that's hard core.
And I want to make sure we getthis message out there that Mhm.
(49:17):
We've got to get intoother people's shoes.
We don't know what shoesthey're walking in.
We don't know what troublesthey're having behind the scenes.
It is not a Facebook reality.
It is not a social media reality thatthere's a hardcore reality to this.
And I wanted to just make surewe opened this discussion.
want this to continue to be discussedand that's why I wanted this
topic, this dreaded D on this show.
(49:39):
And thank you to for addressing it.
I mean, in a small way.
And let me say one other thing about that.
And I appreciate you so much sayingthat one of the other steps that I talk
about in dealing with discrimination iskind of like enlisting other partners.
When we talk aboutcommunity and connection.
It's that if you're discriminated against,let's say it's in the workplace in a
(50:00):
store or whatever, part of you enlistingand bringing in is somebody else.
And it might be somebody whois doesn't look like you.
It might be you're going to yourwhite coworker or your white colleague
or your white boss, et cetera.
If you happen to be African American,Asian, Latino, for example, and there's
been something that's happened towards youbecause getting that person's support also
(50:24):
will help you to, again, nip the issuein the bud and not have to repeatedly
deal with these kinds of issues.
Well, this has personal economicimpact, as you mentioned in the book
as well, because there's the genderpay gap, which is 80 percent women
live longer, they have to pay for theirown retirement, say, after divorce.
My mother had to regroup in her 50s and goback to work till she was 70 to recover.
(50:49):
from her divorce financially, andthen there's the racial pay gaps with
regards to black, Latino, Asians,where they're even more dramatic.
And how do they get to retirementwhen their pay is 46 cents on the
dollar, 82 cents on the dollar?
These are real issues that weneed to address I wasn't as fully
aware of till I read your book.
(51:10):
Yeah.
Well, I appreciate that so much.
And, sometimes it's not justan educational effort to be able
to impart knowledge and wisdomand statistics or whatever.
Sometimes it is about touching the heart.
Right.
About helping people to understandand to either have compassion or to
heighten their awareness what's going on.
(51:32):
That to, cause sometimes peoplemight go, wow, I didn't even know
this was a thing like this reallyexists quick aside related, but
quick aside I was on social media.
I was scrolling.
I saw that two police officers hadPut an 11 year old black girl in
handcuffs and she was walking downthe street with two friends of hers.
(51:52):
They call themselves cousins,but she was whatever town
they were in, it was snowing.
And it was, a lot of snow on the ground.
You can see in the videos, thecops, came up to them had the
11 year old girl in handcuffs.
and they said the reason that theyput her in handcuffs is she fit
the description of a woman who hadbeen accused of stealing a car.
(52:12):
The woman also had on a pink jacketlike this little 11 year old girl did
and had on some camouflage type pants.
This video is like 10 or 15 minutes long.
And the whole time I'm sitting therethinking this is an 11 year old.
This is an 11 year old child.
There's nothing more.
I mean, what more do we need to say?
(52:33):
Did the kids try to run away?
Did the kids, and of course the officers,three cop cars came and they sent
them a picture woman who allegedly,tried to steal somebody else's car.
It was definitely not her.
It was not the kid, differentshoes, different everything.
And it was, a woman, itwas not an 11 year old girl.
The girl was just crying.
The little girl, she wasfifth or sixth grade.
(52:53):
And I thought, What kind of worlddo we live in that the 11 year
old child is seen as a threat?
Yeah, I mean, I've seenthis in reverse kind of too.
My son was driving my wife's carone time and I did not realize that
the registration was out of date.
And three police pulled him overcause they thought I think that he'd
stolen the car and there's a white.
(53:15):
19 year old in there that goesthrough this, and I don't know if
they call my wife or what, but you canimagine, and this was a luxury car.
You can imagine the difference thatwould have happened if it had been
American.
of color, let's say.
Yeah.
Unfortunately there arepockets of those biases.
There's plenty of great law enforcement,great cops and all of that, in my prior
(53:37):
job, we supported law enforcementofficers and most of them are good, but
then you have these pockets that exist.
And when you are on the receivingside of that, it feels horrible, and
it's just having a little bit of, Iguess Empathy and saying, wow, that
bill, the example that you gave Itcould have turned out very different
(53:58):
if the wrong person was there.
And we hope that it'sless and less of that.
But like you said, Lynette, tryingto call it out, trying to, do
something to say, this is not right.
what can I do to try to makesure, this doesn't happen.
And again, it's not just the race.
It's not just the gender.
It's not just a sexual orientation.
All kinds of other reasons, age,Bill, you could be stereotyped.
(54:20):
I can have some of my family,
Oh, you
no, no, honestly, honestly, you know,if I exited my job now as a 60 year
old, what kind of likelihood do Ihave of getting another one, my field?
So,
you know,
is absolutely very real.
, absolutely.
mean, don't want to beat thisissue to death, but I just want
to spark people to think about it.
(54:41):
I think we've done a good job there.
And wanted to sort of move towards, youclosing of the show by maybe asking you,
Lynette, one more inspirational story,a person you interviewed that just,
let's close on an inspirational note.
Okay.
I'll highlight Dawn Kelly.
Who worked for a financial servicesfirm, had a very high level job was
(55:04):
earning, , several hundred thousanddollars a year one day got a pink slip
and she was absolutely devastated.
She never possibly saw what thesilver lining could have been.
She was emotionally wreck, to putit in her own words again, she was
like I was with my sister Debbieand couldn't get out the bed.
She talked about, , same type ofscenario and it wasn't until her
(55:28):
adult daughter kind of came in theroom one day and said when you find
my mother, can you let me know?
Because all of this, is not the motherthat I know my mother's a fighter.
My mother doesn't justsuccumb to, you lost a job.
I understand.
But she was kind of like, wantto shake you up out of this.
So Dawn said that that was,kind of a wake up call for her.
Long story short, Dawn started a business.
(55:50):
She became an entrepreneur.
She has company called the JuiceBar and she has multiple locations.
Now she's expanded so much, andshe's thriving and doing extremely
well, making great money for herself.
She's able to employothers in the community.
She works with her family membersand she's able to do something
(56:11):
that was a passion of hers.
Which is to promote healthyeating and healthy drinks.
So again, she's gone through, she'son the mayor's advisory committee
for small business in New York.
She went through the Goldman Sachsprogram for small entrepreneur,
small business owners.
And so, yeah, you go through the toughtimes and you don't know what that.
Kind of turnaround story and thattestimony is going to be, but again
(56:34):
I encourage people to have a littlebit of hope and faith that things
actually will, work out when you gothrough some, steps also to kind of
put yourself back on the, right track.
And it's not easy.
I'm not saying that it's easy.
I
And that is an amazinginspirational story.
And, Bill, I think youprobably have a good one.
We both have a good one causewe're late starters and we
(56:55):
had to bounce back from that.
I got a divorce.
That's when I startedwaking up about my finances.
And I can tell you hands down,I wouldn't be doing half the
stuff that I'm doing now.
I wouldn't be podcasting witha bald white guy, , so
Well, I think in the financialliteracy space, we are probably the
only, vanilla and chocolate duo.
(57:17):
But Bill is like, when I was, not toget back to the discrimination thing,
but I think a lot of people makeassumptions about you and anyone else,
and I have to tell them, they're like,oh, , why is he your co host or whatever?
And I'm like, you know what?
He was one of my dearest friends.
And I think once you strip out.
the exterior and you actuallytalk and get to know someone.
And I feel like thatdiscrimination happens from afar.
(57:39):
When you get to know the person completelydifferent , and Lynette, you've seen
so many things you've been aroundfor a very long time in this space
where you've seen a lot of changes.
So your voice and what you putin this book, they really matter.
And they're from a very rich and deep.
History of, being in the personal financespace and serving different roles like
(58:01):
being a part of, journalists and inthe financial media and all of that.
, so we thank you for doingthis book, Bounce Back.
And not only that, but youalso have the workbook.
So we both got, they just happento be right here on my desk.
Can I correct one thing that I said?
Because Lord have mercy, I willnot forgive myself and she will
not forgive me probably either.
Dawn's business is a juice bar.
(58:23):
It's called the Nourish Spot.
The
Nourish Spot.
Oh, yeah, got to give her a plug
Thank you.
I was like, I wantedto double check myself.
I was like, what?
, I just said what came tomy, that is a juice bar.
But then I was like, thename is not the juice bar.
So I was like, let me please.
It's called the nourish spot.
when we need one in theneighborhood here because
going to do her one better.
(58:45):
going to do it one better.
We will go ahead anddrop that in the show.
what's the locations wheremost of the locations at.
So she is in Brooklyn.
We have a lot of people in NewYork that listened to the show.
Yeah.
going to drop that in there.
She's in Queens, go look at her, find
her.
I know she's a banditand she's at Citi Field.
She's talking about opening.
(59:05):
don't know how far along they are forthis, but I know she's at Citi Field
also, but at the airports out there.
So, yeah, she's doing great
things.
Yeah.
And you've got a lot of peoplethat love to support small
businesses and things like that.
So we will drop it in there.
And I can tell you what the next timeI'm in New York, Brooklyn, or somewhere
in that area, I'll definitely belooking it up and I'll check her out.
Okay.
Okay,
(59:25):
I want to make sure we closethe show with an offer.
And you're very generousin your book to do this.
And we want to, echo this offer.
You invite people to sharetheir own bounce back story.
With you and we want to invite themto share it with us and they do so in
our community, but if you email youat info at ask the money coach dot
(59:46):
com or email us at info at CatchingUp to FI dot com with with bounce
back reader in the subject line.
So we know who's coming and we canput it to the top of the queue.
We may even.
Put it on the show, and you'llprobably answer their email.
Who knows if it gets used infurther inspirational writings.
(01:00:07):
So, when I came out of thecloset and wrote my blog for the
Humble Dollar in January of 2023.
It was cathartic and it has helped.
It was called saving our retirement.
I remember it dearly as Jonathan Clementsblog who has a wonderful story and
has been on the show with us as well.
So we're internally grateful for youand what you provide to the community.
(01:00:30):
And we encourage.
Our listenership to read BounceBack because they will find
pieces of themselves in thereand you give them tangible,
actionable things to do to recover.
I mean, it's wonderful, right, Jackie?
Yeah.
And Lynette, what's the best placeto find you and to connect with you?
Cause you have a ton of amazingcontent, very high quality journalistic
(01:00:54):
level that's been around there.
Where is the best place forpeople to connect with you?
Thank you for that.
I appreciate it.
Certainly I'm on all social platformsInstagram, YouTube, LinkedIn,
Facebook, Twitter slash x. I alsohave my own personal site, lynette
kani cox.com, and I have my blog,which is ask the money coach.com.
(01:01:17):
One final thing I'll share withyour audience, because I didn't
really mention it, but this is theworkbook, the bounce back workbook.
Is the companion guide to bounce back?
I really wanted to emphasize the peoplethat there's a process involved in all
of this in terms of recovery, but Iwanted them to be able to personalize
(01:01:38):
the strategies and insights and thetips that I share and bounce back
and to apply it to their own lives.
So I take them through journalingexercises, Q and a kind of
what if scenarios, reflections.
Quizzes, things that they can doand apply it to their lives, no
matter which one of dreaded D'sor which setback that they faced.
(01:01:58):
It's a robust resource.
happy to have met you in person at
Yeah.
to
Earl really enjoyed talkingwith you, he really did,
well, you were dealing with yourown challenges as we talked, and
it's nice to get it out there.
And, It's the warmth of exchanging thatkind of information, even with new friends
(01:02:19):
or strangers, sometimes that, it meansyou're more comfortable in your own skin,
and we hope that our audience today aftertalking with you is more comfortable in
their own skin, whatever color it is.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We will see you guys next week withnew and exciting guests on Catching Up
(01:02:40):
Thanks Lynette.
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