Everything I Know About Money—and Why We Won’t Talk About It

0:09Hi, my darlings, and welcome back to Aspire. Today, we are talking about one of my favorite things, money. And let me tell you something that I don't say often enough. One of the biggest reasons I actually wanted to start this show was money. Not just about making it, really talking about it, understanding it and getting really clear on the end goal that we as women need and deserve more of it. I will never stop talking about it out loud in public with other women and on the record because that conversation almost never happens and the silence around money is quietly costing you a fortune. I wanted to create a place where we could finally shift that.

0:52The truth is you're allowed to want to be rich. Oh, yes, you are. I need more women to actually say that part out loud, but we're not, not on stage and not even with the women closest to us. So I built Aspire to be a place where that finally happens because the truth is this, the gender pay gap, career interruptions for things like caregiving, longer life expectancy and historical exclusion from financial conversations all mean that women need to be more intentional about money and not less. So as I have done from the very beginning on this show, I'm going to continue to introduce you to the best money experts in the world.

1:33And practically, I'm going to share how I think and what I actually do when it comes to my own money. So let's get into it, shall we?

1:45The stretch between meals is where most days start to fall apart. You've got meetings stacked all day. Maybe you're doing a little workout, you're trying to fit it in, the school runs, the travel, whatever it is. But by mid-afternoon, you are reaching for whatever's closest. For a long time, the protein bar was the fallback and the trade-off was fairly obvious. Either the macros were good and the flavor was flat, or the flavor was good and the ingredients list really wasn't something that you choose on purpose. Now that's the gap that the founders of Stars and Honey decided to close. They make protein bars with thoughtfully sourced whole ingredients, balanced macros and flavors that you actually want to eat.

2:21There is no chalky protein powder aftertaste, no sugar, alcohols, no gluten and no seed oils. What I appreciate is that they didn't treat taste and nutrition like opposing ideas. The food you choose every day has to be something that you actually want to come back to. And that's what makes it a better habits stick. It feels easy, it tastes good, and it fits into the day that you're already living. Stars and Honey Protein Bars are now available at Target stores nationwide. Pick up a box during your next Target shopping trip. The way we think about health is shifting. For a long time, the annual physical was the main window you had into your own body.

3:00One snapshot a year, a basic panel, and a report that mostly told you that everything looked fine. Now, there's a version of this that goes so much deeper. Superpower is built around that shift. One lab drawer tests over 100 biomarkers and you get a real picture of what's happening inside your body. Heart, thyroid, metabolism, hormones, gut health, vitamin levels. Alongside it, you also get a personalized plan and a care team that works through the results with you. It's the move from reacting to your health to actually understanding it. Membership starts at$199 and it's HSA and FSA eligible. Go beyond your annual checkup and finally understand what's really happening inside your body.

3:41For a limited time, our listeners get$20 off to unlock their health membership. Head over to superpower.com and use code ASPIRE for$20 off your$199 superpower membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask you how you heard about superpower. Tell them ASPIRE with Emma Gray sent you so that you can show your support to the show.

4:05here is how my brain actually works these cameras the ones filming me i know what they cost the chair the chair that i'm sitting in the chair my producer's sitting in the lights up there like absolutely everything i know the cost i've asked and i understand it i know what it costs to run this entire room people think i'm joking when i say that i know the price of everything but believe me, I am not. I know what a head of lettuce costs. I know what a pint of milk costs. I know, and I run businesses that are worth a great deal more than either of those things. People read that as me being like tight or overly frugal, but what it actually makes me is fluent.

4:47And I stay this close to money because you cannot have a healthy relationship with money or with anything that you refuse to look at. So let me show you exactly what I mean. I once, and I've told this story a couple of times, I once sat on a panel called Women, Power and Money. I thought it might be my favorite panel that I'd ever sat on in my life. It was a row of the most seriously impressive women, all from different industries, all from different backgrounds, but like real power. I actually remember getting on there and thinking, wow, what an impressive group of women. But as we talked, I could literally feel my patience growing.

5:24I could feel myself getting annoyed and angry because we covered everything except the one thing that's actually useful for women to talk about, money. It was like right there in the title, but no one said a word about it at all. You want to know when the real conversation happened? When the mics were cold and the cameras were off? And only, by the way, because I insisted and I asked the questions that I hoped we were going to give answers to. So it's important for me to know and for you to know exactly how much people are getting paid, how their deals are made, for example, how and when their structure's changed, what their lawyers cost them, all the little nitty gritty details.

6:04But it fascinates me how many women, in particular those that just like will decide to shift uncomfortably at my questions, even when you're off the record and on a stage that's actually built to talk about, quote unquote, women's progress, not a chance. So Aspire was actually made for that reason. And it isn't only panels, it actually happens on this show too. I cannot tell you how many unbelievably successful women that I've sat down with and I can barely get a straight answer out of them about money. They just won't indulge it. And then a dude will turn up, a Michael Rubin, for example, he'll sit in exactly that chair, a man who built what, a$30 billion business.

6:45this. I asked him every money question that I could think of, and he answered every single one. Not a flinch, not an apology, not a sausage. Now that gap is the whole reason that I wanted to make this episode. And so today I'm going to break the rule. This is everything that I know about money. A lot of it is in my book, Start With Yourself, especially the money chapter. The book goes far deeper, but today I wanted to bring that conversation to life and I want to bring it directly to you. I am not here to teach you how to budget. You can find a thousand people online for that. I actually want to talk about the practicalities, what I have actually done, your money relationship, and how it should change as much as you do decade by decade.

7:32Because just like our faces, a little work can go a long way if you know what I mean. So here's where I want going to start. I want you to understand that money isn't dirty and it isn't crass. It's a neutral tool. So just take that in for a second. You don't need to bring all of your relationships that you have with money. Just think about it just like this. It's a tool. And the discomfort that you feel when you're talking about it, that was actually taught to you. And trust me, you can put it down. You must, and you absolutely can unlearn that shit. I was never, and I never have been. I've just never been scared of money.

8:09My mum used to sit at the kitchen table every single month, probably every week actually, and she would balance her accounts by hand. We didn't have much, but when the lights went off, I learned why the lights went off. That is your money story, by the way. Not the number that sits in your bank account, but the thing that you actually absorbed about money in your childhood. The thing that you learned before you were old enough to question it. Actually, it stays with you and it's your responsibility to understand that and work to unlearn it. Now, one thing before we go into detail on the decades, and I am going to take you in this conversation decade by decade with my own experience, the benefit of my own experience, because a lot of people have gotten this so wrong about me.

8:54I didn't marry for or into money. When Jens and I got together, he was not rich. He was 29 and I was 24. We both actually had very little, but he believed in me as a businesswoman long before there was any romance. I have always had my own. I will always have my own. And that is the whole point. You build your own and you stay in every decision because underneath all of this is very, very simple. You should never outsource your money, not to a partner, not to an advisor, not to anyone. The onus is on you to learn it and to have the hard conversations. So I really want you to approach it in the way that you'd approach anything that you want to get good at, with curiosity.

9:39You have to ask the questions. You have to think about it constantly and you have to take an interest. Every single decade that you have has a different financial job. The mistake is thinking about money as though it is just about earning. Money is actually about earning, keeping, growing, protecting, and eventually building your wealth. And different decades require very different priorities. Remember, and this is the important one, I want you to like write this down, underline it, all the things. Remember that you should never measure yourself against the outliers. It is so easy to think that we should all be like some insane, amazing tech giant that came out of Silicon Valley.

10:24Like forget about it. Social media will have you believing that we should be billionaires in our 20s. Don't buy into that lie. Most people actually don't make money until their 40s. And the truth is building wealth actually takes a really long time. What is key is that you take responsibility for it and you can do that at any age.

10:49A morning routine only works if it's something you can actually stay consistent with. And for me, that means the things I reach for every day need to earn their place. That's why I like Peak Sun Goddess Matcha. I used to think that matcha was mostly about taste or choosing something that felt a little bit cleaner than coffee. But if you're drinking something every morning, the quality of what's actually in it really matters. Peak Sun Goddess Matcha is one of the few that is both certified organic and ceremonial grade. It soars from Kangoshima, Japan, where the volcanic soil, spring water, and mountain climate naturally protect the leads without pesticides.

11:28It's also shaded longer than most matcha's, which raises the L-theanine content, the compound behind the steady, focused kind of energy that people associate with matcha rather than coffee. For anyone rethinking what premium should mean in wellness, this is the version that holds up. If you're already investing in your health every day, your morning ritual is one of the best places to start. And this has easily become one of my favorite daily upgrades. Right now, you can get 15 % off exclusively with my link, peaklife.com slash aspire.

12:07So let's get into it decade by decade, starting with your twenties. Oh, I remember my twenties like it was just yesterday. So the financial job of your 20s isn't getting rich. It's becoming valuable. Think about it for a second. Your greatest asset in your 20s isn't your savings account. It's your ability to earn money. That is a fundamental shift that I want you to take in because the biggest mistake that people make in their 20s is focusing on saving money instead of increasing their earning potential. Because listen, you can only budget your way so far, but you can dramatically change your life by increasing your income.

12:46What I want women to focus on is learning skills that are actually scarce and valuable, taking more risks. Yes, risks. We're going to talk more about that later. Building a reputation, always asking for more money and understanding investing early. And we are going to get into that in a little bit more detail later on. The biggest mistakes that you can make in your 20s are under negotiating your salary because that has a trickle-down effect. The other one is living beyond your means to appear successful. Just don't do it. Then people carry debt or they wait to learn about investing. And lastly, they choose comfort over growth.

13:25Avoidance will cost you dearly. So many of us will actually spend hours and hours researching a vacation or where we should eat or a new item for our wardrobe and just minutes researching an investment account. The first step to financial power is awareness, which leads me to my next point. You must heal your story and build the foundation. Here's the part that most money advice just skips right over. Before any of the practical stuff works, you have to deal with your story. You didn't arrive in your 20s as a blank page. You actually showed up already carrying a story about money that somebody actually handed you.

14:05And for a lot of women, that story is about scarcity. So think deeply about yours. Scarcity is the deep belief that there is never enough and that if you get more, then somehow somebody else is getting less. For others of us, it's shame or it's just pure avoidance, like ignoring and avoiding ever looking at your money. The real work in this decade, in your 20s, before the budgets, before the negotiation is to name yours out loud. You have to name and understand your story. And I write about this so much in my book. I write about what it means to understand your story, because if you get that story wrong, none of the rest will stick.

14:45Pinky Cole, who's the founder of the restaurant chain, Study Vegan, she actually said it best at a conference. I don't hate all conferences, but she said it best at a conference. She said, if you're scared of money, you ain't going to make no money. And it's really true. I'll be honest, I'm just not scared of money. I don't carry the scarcity story because I worked out early that scarcity is a trick that people play on you and boy, do they play it on you. But I have a money story too. And it actually drives my husband completely crazy. Mine is that what goes boom can also go bust because I watched that reality happen around me everywhere where I grew up in East London.

15:22Someone would hit it big and have a big moment and then they would have nothing, absolutely nothing. So when Jens and I started dating, I told him straight, I don't go backwards in lifestyle. I probably take it a little bit too far, but that story is exactly why I understand every facet of my finances and why honestly, I've taken cash off the table whenever I can. Now I am definitely not telling you to adopt my story, but I am telling you that it's a good idea to actually figure out your story and to say it out loud. Now, Rich Kleiman, which is literally one of my favorite interviews, we got into this on the show.

15:59So you should watch that episode I did with him if you can, because the hardest story to change is the one that you tell yourself. Once you see and you understand your story, you can actually work on it. And the place that it actually bites the hardest is when you have to go and ask for money. When Maury Terrapaw came in, she actually said something that stuck with me the most. Before you can negotiate for anyone, you have to heal the story that you tell yourself about what it is that you're worth. The number you're brave enough to ask for sits downstream of actually what you believe you deserve.

16:31So here's the practical work for this decade. Just assume you're underpaid because very likely that you are and ask for more. Learn to feel the moment that you've got leverage because by the time somebody is actually sitting across from you, they already want the deal. Watch your own language because you've got to be able to strike all the cushioning out of your emails. The little bit that goes, you know, if it doesn't work, I completely understand. Like stop being so helpful. Think very carefully before you give your services away for free. And by that, I mean, if you're not being paid for it right then and right there, it better be leading to something.

17:11But make no mistake that doing favours has a price and you need to calculate the cost and the potential return of anything that you do for free. Women leave a fortune on the table doing unpaid work and waiting quietly to be noticed for it. Nobody's coming to notice you. You've actually got to be willing to say out loud that you want to be paid and paid well, I might add. Now, I started working when I was 12 years old. I had a paper route at first and then literally any job that I could get my hands on. But I learned the value of a wage really early. I didn't have all of the rest of it sorted, but an old boyfriend actually used to call me a squander bird because I'd spend every little bit of cash I had the second that it landed on a pair of shoes, on a night out, whatever it might be.

17:58But I told you, I don't have a scarcity mindset. So learning to hold onto money instead of just earning it and then watching it disappear, that took me years. I learned it the hard way. I learned it and that's what counts. Now there's one thing I did really understand early though, even before I had the word for it. And that was optionality. I left school with nothing. So if I wanted the unpaid internships for the experience that would actually get me somewhere, then I had to fund those myself. So I would actually just split my week. I did a few days of paid work just to cover myself and the rest I spent working for free in the rooms that I needed to be in.

18:36But I was always asking the same question. How much do I need to get from here to get to the next thing? Now, Julia Collins, who's the first black woman to co-found a unicorn, said it even more deliberately when we spoke. She was on Aspire recently and she did an incredible episode. She said as a teenager, she worked really hard to save$10 ,000 before college and then$100 ,000 after with a bartending job and weekend tutoring, all of these jobs that she amassed. But it was precisely so that she could afford to take a low salary at an early stage startup and bet on herself in the future. That buffer allowed her to pay the risk.

19:16The story comes first, the skills come after, but you actually will need both. Now for your 30s. So the worst thing that you can be to me ever actually is uninformed. You have to learn about everything, but you definitely need to learn about money. You need to learn how your industry works. You need to learn about the connections between what it is that you do and how the actual business that you're in works. You need to learn also, and really importantly, how the economy affects your wallet. So let me break this down for you and explain exactly why some of the things that you read about or the things that you hear about in the news really affect you and how you need to think about them more importantly.

19:58So the first one, inflation. Let's call this the silent pay cut. Now imagine this. If your grocery bill last year was$200 a week, this year the same cart cost you$230. Your paycheck didn't change, but your money buys you so much less. That right there, that's inflation. Here's how it hits you directly. Your rent goes up, but your salary doesn't follow. Savings sitting in a bank account lose value over time if the interest rate is lower than inflation. The dollar you saved five years ago is worth maybe 80 cents today in buying power. Inflation doesn't just affect rich people or big companies. It's essentially like a hidden tax on everyone, but it hurts lower and middle income earners the most because the bigger portion of their income goes to necessities like food or rent or utilities.

20:54Now you hear about gas prices all the time, right? Like nonstop. It's always on the news. Yes. And rightly so, because there is a direct correlation between gas prices and what you pay for goods. It's literally like a domino effect. Most people just think about gas prices. Like if you drive around a lot, that is totally wrong because gas prices are like a tax on absolutely everything. Every single thing that you buy had to be shipped somewhere. So higher fuel costs mean that trucking companies charge more. They mean that grocery stores pay more, which means you pay more at the checkout. Airline ticket prices rise.

21:32Local businesses with delivery costs, they rise their prices. Farmers pay more to run their equipment. Therefore, food gets more expenses. The trickle is on and on. So even if you take the bus, gas prices still reach you in your pocket through the price of nearly every single product that you touch. Lastly, I want to touch on market fluctuations because again, these are not just for Wall Street. They actually affect you. So many people think that the market is just a rich person's game. But if you have a 401k, a pension or any retirement account, you are in the market. When the markets drop 20%, your retirement savings can drop 20 % too.

22:12A market crash can trigger layoffs, companies cut costs, jobs disappear. A booming market creates jobs, raises, and business opportunities. Interest rates set in response to the market conditions, they directly control what you pay on your mortgage, on your car loan, and any credit card debt that you might have. So when the Fed raises interest rates to fight inflation, your credit card APR goes up. A$5 ,000 balance that cost you$80 a month suddenly costs$110 a month just because of an economic decision that was made in Washington. Here's the reason you need to understand this. If you don't understand the economy, you get caught off guard by price hikes.

22:54You keep savings in a low interest account during high inflation. You can take on a variable loan rate when rates are rising. A recession can completely blindside your career and you panic sell investments when markets drop. Whereas if you do actually understand the economy, you can plan ahead and budget when price hikes are actually happening. You could move your money into assets that keep up with inflation. You could lock in a fixed rate at the right time. You would build a little emergency fund before any kind of recession actually hits. And most importantly, you stay calm because you actually understand what's going on.

23:32The bottom line is that the economy isn't something that happens to powerful people. It happens to everyone. Every time you fill up your tank, every time you pay rent, as you swipe your credit card or you check your retirement balance, understanding even the basics puts you ahead of most people. It means that you're going to make decisions proactively and not reactively. And over a lifetime, those small informed decisions, they can mean the difference between financial stress and financial freedom. So when I talk about learning, and I've done this in so many ways, but it is so key that you stay curious about the industry that you work in.

24:11You have to read industry press, understand what's happening in the underlying of the businesses that you're in and ask questions all the time, because all of this will help you form an opinion about what you should and shouldn't be being paid. You've got to understand the difference between saving and investing. And honestly, most women in their 30s, they save, but far fewer invest. This is a critical mistake. Open a Roth IRA. Just contribute to it every year because it grows tax-free, meaning that future you pay zero taxes on decades of growth. Your 30s are actually when you have real things to negotiate over.

24:49A salary that actually matters and potentially at some point, maybe some equity on the table. So this is the decade to get really, really good at it. And this is the framework that honestly, I so wish that someone had handed me when I first started my career working for so many different companies.

25:11Denim is the piece of clothing I have spent more time thinking about than almost anything else. When a pair of jeans is right, you feel it every single time you put them on but when they're wrong you find every reason not to reach for them it's been the foundation of everything I've built at Good American I obsess over every detail on our jeans right down to the wash the color of the hardware because I believe that a good pair of jeans does more work than any single piece that you own right now is actually the perfect moment to be paying attention to denim it's the fabric that carries you through the transition from summer into fall better than anything else.