Alexis Booth 0:04

Hey, I'm Alexis Booth, and welcome to the Breakout Booth. I was a senior manager at Google, I'm a wife and a mother, and I learned the hard way. If you're not fired up, you're on hold. I believe success is closer than you think. There's a set of skills and habits you can grow to unlock unbelievable outcomes. In this podcast, we'll explore them through real talk and bold conversation because I want to help you break out.

Alexis Booth 0:35

Hey there, and welcome to the Breakout Booth. I'm Alexis Booth,

Why I made this episode

Alexis Booth 0:45

and in today's episode, we're gonna dive into the taboo subject of money. Now the truth is, I've never really talked about money with anyone in my life other than my husband and a few financial planners. I mean, it's wild. Somehow I find it easier to explore the topic of money on a podcast than it would be to talk about it with just about anyone I know. That is exactly why I wanted to make this episode.

Alexis Booth 1:18

And as you'll hear in today's conversation, for the hardest parts of it, I pretty much was navigating the path all by myself. It was incredibly lonely. And I had no idea if what I was doing was gonna work. Nowadays there are at least anonymous forums that you can pose questions to, or you know, someone else in there is probably already asked the questions that you're really looking for the answers on. But what's strange and kind of sad is that those anonymous forums are also the only place that many people wind up celebrating when they have come out on the other side, whether it is climbing out of a mountain of debt or hitting a big milestone around savings or retirement.

Alexis Booth 2:13

Money is the source of all sorts of friction and fights. We're taught at a young age not to talk openly about it, which means we never even practice what it feels like to have a money conversation. And it means most of us are carrying around these complex thoughts and feelings on the subject. My goal with this episode is to help you feel less alone in your journey with finances. Because even if you're not in the financial position that you want to be, it's possible to make it out on the other side. And at its very best, money can actually become a tool that unlocks choices for you in your life.

Alexis Booth 3:03

Now, before we get into my conversation with Leslie today, I wanted to share two things with you.

Alexis Booth 3:09

First off, this podcast recently won a Signal Award! This is a fairly new award in the podcasting world. It's a spin-off of the Webby Awards, and it made more space to recognize the world of podcasting. The other winners in my category include none other than Mel Robbins and the Moth Radio Hour. And some of the other winners in other categories include incredible people like Michelle Obama, Colin and Samir, and Hassan Minhaj. I received a silver award in the category of Driveway Moment Podcast. My Burnout episode was recognized as one that demands you keep listening until the end, whether in your driveway or at your door.

Alexis Booth 3:55

Secondly, coming back to today's episode, I wound up trimming quite a bit of my interview with Leslie so we could really focus on the emotions and feelings that go with money. I didn't want us to focus too much on explanations or giving tactical advice. In the show notes, I am including links to a handful of books that align to some of the different phases of financial fitness. So if the episode sparks an interest for you to take some next steps, these are tried and true resources that you can dig into. And they have either made a really big difference in my own life or many other people have shared the same sentiment. So without further ado, let's jump into my conversation with Leslie.

Alexis Booth 4:46

I

Meet Leslie Mallman

Alexis Booth 4:49

am delighted to welcome Leslie Mallman to the mic. Welcome to the Breakout Booth. I'm so glad to have you here.

Leslie Mallman 4:56

Hi, Alexis. I'm really glad to be here.

Alexis Booth 4:59

You know, I normally imagine that you are on the other side of this kind of a conversation. You're a financial planner, you work with people over money, and you're usually the one who's probably asking the questions, not in the hot seat. When you have a first session with a new client to talk about money, what do you normally say to help them get comfortable when they're talking?

Leslie Mallman 5:21

That's a great question. You know, it really varies. People show up in all different ways to talk to me. And some people have a lot of confidence, and other people I can sense need to ground themselves a little bit more in the conversation. I like introducing myself and sharing about my background so they know who they're talking to. I like to give them an overview of the conversation we're gonna have so they know where we're going. And then also reminding them that that I'm or appreciate them showing up for this conversation, acknowledging that it's not always an easy conversation for people to have. And um that by taking this step and even reaching out to talk to somebody about it is a really big step for some people.

Alexis Booth 6:02

Well, I am so glad to have you here, Leslie. Now, when I think about money, you know, this is a topic that we all hear a lot about. I mean, I got a news feed that is teeming with investment advice, credit card offers, and there's always a new deal going on, you know, 150 bucks to open a new account. I mean, it can be so hard to filter through all of these things that are being thrown at me. Do you have the same experience or am I just like out here on my own?

Leslie Mallman 6:31

No, absolutely. I mean, that's the system that we live in right now, and it is completely overwhelming. And I'll talk about it, I'm sure, throughout this episode, the financial system is really designed to be confusing. And there's just so much thrown at you, again, of like the don't miss out and some of the, you know, various pieces of media that are, you know, oh my gosh, buy now, sell now, or you know, actually, even the mainstream media, I mean, the other day, the New York Times um headline was stocks have their worst day of 2025. And this was like, I don't know, March 10th or something. And it was like, yeah, in the past, you know, what, 70 days, stocks are gonna have their worst day. But like to create that headline is such a, you know, just designed to just like a catastrophe, right? Exactly. Like it sounds like this is a terrible thing when it's completely normal. You know, as we all know, the media is looking for eyeballs and market dips a little bit is not the attention-grabbing headline that they want. So they make it more dramatic. And that's happening obviously all over the place, whether or not it's the headline or as you say, the offer of the thing you have to do now and not miss out, et cetera, et cetera.

Alexis Booth 7:51

Before we dig into the heart of all of this money stuff, I actually want to make sure that we have a chance for our listeners to get to know you a little bit.

Leslie Mallman 8:00

Great. Well, I started uh with the extreme luck of being in high school with Alexis Booth. And that was pretty much the peak.

Alexis Booth 8:11

Right. Right there.

Leslie Mallman 8:14

Um and to be honest, um, after um in my early 20s, I randomly accepted a job working in personal finance in Chicago. And I thought I'd be there for a couple of months and then figure out what I really wanted to do. But I actually re-ended up enjoying the work and became a certified financial planner, which means I took classes in a variety of different areas of planning as well as passed a significant exam. But after several years, I decided to pursue my education at business school and went to the University of Chicago for business school, where I worked on an idea around doing financial planning online to make it more affordable and accessible. The way traditional financial planning is structured, it's often means you have to have a certain amount of assets and able to hire an advisor. That's not entirely true anymore. It's changed a little bit, but especially 15, 20 years ago, that was really true. So anyway, I worked on this idea on how to do it online to make it more affordable and accessible. Long story short, that didn't go anywhere.

Leslie Mallman 9:12

I wound up starting my own financial advising practice out in San Francisco and was really getting to the point of figuring out how to market that and grow that, when I got approached by somebody else who had a startup. They'd raised some seed money and had a similar idea around how to do financial planning online to make it more affordable and accessible. I was super excited about that idea, joined the startup, loved what we created. But unfortunately, we couldn't figure out how to market it how we needed to to be a Silicon Valley-backed company. I then worked in impact investing for a couple of years, focused on investing in companies that are doing positive things in the world.

Leslie Mallman 9:48

And then took a step back and um looked again at starting my own thing and recognized at that point, you know, I had about 20 years of talking with people about their money, really enjoy it. I had been doing my own personal inner healing work for about a little bit over 10 years in a variety of different ways from meditation and energy work and um a variety of different practices, and really seeing that then the people that I had worked with, and at that point, because of all the different ways I'd been working with people, I'd worked with people who had debt to people who had tens of millions of dollars in assets and everything in between, and seeing that all across the spectrum people have challenges with money, and was really seeing that as an interesting entry point for people to be doing some healing work.

Leslie Mallman 10:40

So I created what I call financial healing to combine um both of those areas of my life. And, you know, I had this idea of how I might be able to help people, and I created a course, took some people through the course, and it went really well and was really excited to be able to help people in that way and was very excited about that. Then as I was working on growing that, uh reconnected with a financial advisor, and long story short, kind of hiring me as an advisor. Um, I really uh wasn't looking to go work for a firm, but it was a great fit. And so I've been at Five Oceans for a little bit over a year now. So right now I have work doing financial advising with my clients through Five Oceans, and then I also teach this class uh on financial healing as sort of my passion project work.

Alexis Booth 11:33

I love that. I had never heard of the concept of financial healing before we talked about this. But before we go in there, Leslie had mentioned we did know each other in high school. We weren't really in the same circles, but when we were prepping for this episode, we had a little funny thing. So Leslie actually was a swimmer. Uh so she was getting you were like showing up at school then at like five and six in the morning, right?

Leslie Mallman 11:56

I think we had to be there at six in the morning for before school practice.

Alexis Booth 12:00

Awful. Yeah. I mean, I'd played sports, but they were all after school. And anyway, we weren't we weren't really in the same circles, but we were joking. But there was a swimming unit, and so God, we we had to wear these school-issued bathing suits. Oh, they are so gross. So on so many levels, but they were like straight from the 70s. They had this, it wasn't a skirt, but it like covered more of your legs and everything. And so, like, you'd go into the pool and you're just like, oh my God, everyone's looking at me. This is terrible. This is terrible. Meanwhile, you you realize in retrospect, everyone is having the same exact thought. Yeah, no one's looking at anyone else because everyone's so free. I mean, this is like the height of awkwardness in your teenage years. I don't know why they do that to people.

Leslie Mallman 12:47

I don't know if they do it anymore. I mean, I guess they want us to learn how to swim if we uh fall in the water, so some sort of life preservation, but I don't know. I would have uh yeah, done without that. It's just so awful.

Alexis Booth 13:00

Anyway. So let's start off our discussion with a super broad and basic question.

What is money?

Alexis Booth 13:07

It may sound almost silly to ask, but Leslie, what is money?

Leslie Mallman 13:12

You know, I don't think that's a silly question at all. And you know, I've really thought about this, even, you know, obviously prior to the podcast, but money is incredibly broad. It's everything from the dollar bill that you have in your wallet, it's what your boss pays you in exchange for your time and work that now just comes in electronically to your bank account. It's what you use to buy food or clothing or you know, tickets to see your favorite band. And it's also what causes many arguments in partnerships. For some people, it's a numerical value of how they see their worth in the world. It can represent anything from security to scarcity. And ultimately, I think money is an expression of who we are and how we see the world.

Leslie Mallman 13:55

I know people who have over $100 million who feel stressed about money and that they don't have enough. I also know people who have very minimal savings and don't earn a significant amount who really feel money is abundant and always there for them. And how can both these things, how can both these things be true? And it's because in the broadest sense, money is spiritual. And money being spiritual means, you know, anything being spiritual, meaning it's a path for seeking meaning uh and perhaps this connection to something larger than yourself, whether that's what you call God or the universe, or even just a deeper understanding of the human experience. And really the thing I've seen over and over is money is not about how much you have in your bank account, but really about how you view yourself and the world around you.

Alexis Booth 14:43

It's a really, really interesting way to answer that question. I love it. I tend to go with a very emotional reaction. And there's two ways that I was thinking about it. When I was younger, money was scary. Yeah. It was something I didn't have, especially when you're starting off. It is very hard to not live in a scarcity mindset. I graduated from college in 2001. So this was right after the internet bust happened. And I had a computer science degree. I'd been chasing after all of these jobs. Every single one of those job opportunities dried up.

Leslie Mallman 15:18

Same thing happened to me.

Alexis Booth 15:20

So no surprise that you wound up doing something that was a little different than what you maybe were expecting. You know, so I two weeks before I graduated, had this amazing dream job that I had set up. I'd worked the whole year of trying to make this work. And they called me two weeks before graduation and said, We can't, we can't do this. We're laying people off. Best of luck to you in whatever you do. And um, you know, sorry this didn't work out. And I happened to wind up in New York, which was a terrifying place for me. It was just all sort of a wild thing. So I moved there right before 9-11. The local economy tanked, and I worked these really small businesses and it was it was really rough. I went into at least $20,000 in debt at some point.

Alexis Booth 16:06

So when I think about money is scary, I mean like I didn't know how I was gonna pay the bills. I didn't know how I was gonna make through it. You know, and I was able to live a stable lifestyle.

Alexis Booth 16:17

Now, the punchline when we jump all the way to where I am now, my mindset now is that money is freedom. After all of that happened, I wound up on a pathway with some much better paying jobs. In the process of working through that debt, I learned how to save money and eventually how to invest. And I made smarter decisions around things. And ultimately, you know, I wound up leaving my job at the end of last year, but that was a decision that I could make because I had set aside money and I had access to make decisions intentionally about what I wanted to do and using money as a tool rather than it being a trap for me. It is so tied to when you're talking about financial healing. I mean, there was 20 years of progression, 25 years of progression there. And that was a journey with all sorts of ups and downs along the way.

Leslie Mallman 17:08

Yeah.

Financial health vs. financial fitness

Alexis Booth 17:09

All right. So now that we have an understanding of what money is, let's talk about financial health. What is financial health?

Leslie Mallman 17:15

So I would say there's a few components to financial health as well. For someone or one of my clients to be financially healthy, I want them to have a financial cushion for the unexpected, uh, or at least be working towards it. I want them to be aware of the balance between their income and their spending, their debt and their assets, and be intentional about all of the above.

Leslie Mallman 17:38

Just like going to the doctor can be scary to find out your cholesterol, it can also be really scary to look at your finances. And a lot of people that I work with across the board, you know, if I when I ask them how much they're spending, most people have no idea. So if you don't know how much you're spending, you're in very good company or what you're spending it on. Um, but once you do know, you can really start making the changes that will benefit you in the long run. And I so often see people who've avoided looking who feel so much relief just from diving into it because now they can take action and make the decisions that benefit them.

Leslie Mallman 18:13

And being financially healthy is also a mindset. A billionaire isn't necessarily financially healthy if they're just concerned with having more and more and more. I wouldn't call that being financially healthy either. So I think it's both the balance of having that cushion. So, for example, when you're in the job that you're being harassed in or you have an um some sort of emergency, you have the funds to pay for it. And then again, also the you have a mindset uh that isn't where it's not dominating your your thoughts.

Alexis Booth 18:44

I love all of the things that you've described there. And in fact, I actually don't like the question. I would actually prefer to think about it almost as financial fitness. It feels like a more approachable term, kind of dials down the temperature. Health to me sounds like an official thing that you're striving for versus fitness being something that maybe it's more about how I feel about it. When you go to the doctor, like they take your vitals, they take your blood, and there's a healthy norm that you're supposed to be within. And if you're not in that norm, then you need to take the medicine.

Alexis Booth 19:19

Financial fitness feels more like I can choose things a little bit more, and I like that better. So when you think about physical health, I mean, the goal is to live a long life and that you're able to do all the things that you want to. Money and finances is a lot different. It comes back to people's goals and what they want to do with it, can be vastly different.

Alexis Booth 19:40

And even for me, my goals have changed so much over time. Once I started a family, once I, you know, owned a home, once I made other sorts of decisions and really set roots in a place that starts to change what your actual goals are. And sometimes it can also, it may not be things that you're choosing, it may be you wind up having a health issue or your parents have a health issue. And so suddenly your actual goals in life have changed and you need to think about things a little bit differently.

Alexis Booth 20:11

This is also one of the things where when you're like, oh, I guess I need to see a financial planner, it feels worse than going to the doctor in many ways, actually, because you've been seeing a doctor all your life. The very first time that you actually even come up with the idea that you could see a financial planner, you've never seen one before. If you didn't actually learn about money and money management when you were younger, it can be really, really overwhelming. It can be really hard. If you have a lot of challenging ideas about money, you are definitely not alone. And this is like a very, very common thing that people talk about.

Leslie Mallman 20:49

I think you're ready to be a financial advisor.

Alexis Booth 20:54

There is a part of me that wishes I went and got a CPA early on in my career or financial planning. Anyway, I love I now love money, but I used to hate it. It was so scary.

Leslie Mallman 21:04

It's amazing that you've made that transition. You know, maybe I really like your analogy too, around, you know, calling it financial fitness, where, you know, if somebody just uh goes to the gym and pumps iron, but they're not flexible, or they're not all the different dimensions of fitness, also there's so many different dimensions of being financially healthy.

Financial healing

Alexis Booth 21:24

What is financial healing? What is the kind of work that you're doing with people? And um, how or why do people need to get healed?

Leslie Mallman 21:33

Starting with that last question first, why do people need to get healed? I mean, you just sharing your own experience of, you know, you started working uh you're you you graduated college at a time when getting the work that you were excited about turned out to be more of a challenge than you expected. You went through a period of having debt and feeling, it sounds like regularly feeling quite stressed about money. And you've managed to work through that, which is fantastic. Um and I think it's really interesting too to hear more about how you did that.

Leslie Mallman 22:03

For a lot of people, that kind of challenge really stays with them and how they're viewing, how they're viewing the world. You know, I think it's so much too of lessons that we were taught about money from a very young age, just you know, from observing our parents or our caregivers, or um, how money was being talked about maybe in our communities or in our church or wherever you were spending time. And we really internalize those. And those ideas might be really helpful, often they're not.

Leslie Mallman 22:34

And so taking the opportunity to dive into what is what are those ideas that you're carrying that you might not even be aware of. And, you know, the thing about money is that we're making money decisions all the time. It's in, you know, where do you live? It's in what kind of work are you doing, but it's also in, should I buy this sweater? What kind of restaurant should I go to for dinner with my friends? If it's bringing up stress and anxiety for you, then that's a lot of opportunities for stress and anxiety.

Leslie Mallman 23:08

There's just so many different dimensions that I could go into here, but people are at such different spectrums of this too. Some people are very comfortable with it and don't have that stress. And so they might not be sensitive to the stress that you have around it.

Leslie Mallman 23:21

For example, you know, that sort of maybe a classic story of your friends are going to an expensive dinner. This has definitely happened to me. You know, you're going to an expensive dinner, you're not earning that much for whatever reason, or you're saving for a different goal or whatever the thing is. And the bill comes and you've had an appetizer, everybody else has had three courses and five glasses of wine, and they're like, let's split the bill.

Alexis Booth 23:46

And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no.

Leslie Mallman 23:49

Yeah. And, you know, I know something so uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. And when I've been in those situations, what I found the most comfortable for me is to say up front, I'm working on paying off some debt, or I'm working on saving towards this goal. An ideal situation, I would love to fully participate, but I'm going to be able to contribute a smaller amount.

Alexis Booth 24:11

When I go back to my 20s, I was not as upfront about my financial situation. So I might sort of skirt the issue while still also placing a boundary or an expectation at the beginning of the meal.

Leslie Mallman 24:24

Yeah, it's and it really comes down to what you're comfortable with. There is a movement now. I'm not on TikTok, but I've still heard about this movement called loud budgeting, where people are sharing out loud and they're not being quiet about the fact that they're working on paying down their debt or working towards saving, which I think is amazing. And you know, there's such a taboo around talking about money that to be upfront about it and to be sharing with people what your situation is. There is so much shame around it too. But if you're able to share that, I think it starts to step away from that shame and starts to recognize that you're focused on something different than maybe your friend who happens to have a large trust fund.

Alexis Booth 25:04

When I look back at my own past, I have gone through quite a few different moments of financial healing. They started out pretty tactical. So for starters, finding and keeping steady employment. I, by the way, I was also laid off from one of my jobs. So I also carried with me for several years after that a fear that I was going to continue to get laid off and that I even couldn't maintain employment. I think it's a really common experience and it's very unsettling.

Alexis Booth 25:34

As I learned how to better manage my spending and my cash flow, uh, not relying on retail therapy to boost my spirits, finding other ways to actually manage that. Later on, climbing out of debt, believing that I could do it, and then actually following through on it. Saving, getting over the fear of even just literally picking a savings account. I remember I was like, I want to pick the right one. I don't I don't know which one it is. And by the way, like we're talking like, sure, that maybe there's like a 0.1% difference in, but like at the end of the day, saving money is the most important thing.

Alexis Booth 26:10

Once I got into investing, I was terrified about actually moving out of like a money market because that meant I needed to know about which stocks to go in. And so there's like all this inertia there.

Alexis Booth 26:22

But I didn't really have specific big money goals when I was younger. I now do. When I finally made the call to quit, I mean, there was this two-month period of time that I went through an identity crisis, honestly, because I was living to make money. That was my specific number one goal in so many, so many ways. And letting go of that and actually trying to get okay with the idea of actually, maybe that's not all I need to be or I want to be. And okay, I've saved all this money. Like I have other things that I need to pay attention to and take care of right now that I don't have the time and the energy to do. And so really shifting it to where I'm now investing my time and my energy, not in money, not in markets. It's investing it in my family and investing it in my own personal health. And that was a huge change.

Alexis Booth 27:21

And again, this was only possible because I had done a lot of legwork to set myself up to be able to make that choice. I realize it is a privilege for me to be able to do that, and not everyone can. Um, but you know, I think that's a lot of what I've gone through in my own.

Leslie Mallman 27:37

Well, and I would say too, that the that goal of or that mindset of living to make money is very seductive, especially for, you know, having known you since high school, you're very smart, you're very capable, you're very hardworking. All the traits that can lead to making a lot of money and progressing steadily through your job and earning more and more. And there is an a number associated with that, you know, and it's just like when it we went to a competitive high school where we got ranked, and you knew exactly how you fell amongst your other 1,000 classmates. And how do we rank ourselves now through how much money we're making? How good am I? Oh, I made more than I made last year. I made more than 10 years ago, and that's it's what we've sort of been trained in.

Alexis Booth 28:28

And I make I make more than other people like this. It is definitely seductive. And it was walking away from a paycheck, it was a good paycheck. It was really hard. There are still moments where I catch myself feeling complicated thoughts about all of it. I still know that I made the right decision for me. But it it is definitely uh it's a challenging thing.

What does a financial advisor do?

Alexis Booth 28:55

Alexis Booth 28:55

So talking more broadly about the work that you do also as a financial advisor, what are the types of things that people actually come to you for help with?

Leslie Mallman 29:03

With my clients at Five Oceans, I help clients do everything from figure out how much they can spend now to achieve their future goals, help them figure out how to invest, both what they're investing in and how much to invest in what we call different asset classes. So at a very high level, that's how much to invest in bonds, how much to invest in stocks type of thing, how much to save and where, how much they can spend in retirement. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs. So I'm helping an entrepreneur who's uh working on selling her company. So we're helping her think through how much the minimum is she would need to earn from the company in order to meet certain financial goals so that she knows her minimum for her negotiations. Um there's a variety of different things.

Leslie Mallman 29:49

And the central question that we really like to help clients with is what is enough? And that really is about what is enough for you.

Alexis Booth 29:58

I really, I really love that it it ties and blends in so much to broader life goals and other aspirations that you have too. When I think about the things that I've needed help on over time, probably the most challenging part for me really was when I was younger. I did not know where money was going. I had no way of managing my cash flow and spending. And I felt like financial advising was much more oriented around investment work. You know, this wound up being work that I had to do on my own. And it's something that I felt very alone in.

Alexis Booth 30:33

Although I love the things we were talking about earlier, some of the movements around what millennials are doing, being more open about it because I do think that there is so much value in being able to talk about it and connect with other people about it. When I was earlier on, even if I wanted to go to a financial advisor, I didn't really have the money to spend for it. I did eventually, you know, start making more money and I was in a space where I could save and invest. And that was

Negative experiences with advisors

Alexis Booth 31:01

when I started working with financial advisors.

Alexis Booth 31:03

The first real one that I officially engaged actually wasn't me. It was my husband who had found someone and started working with them. And I did not like this guy. I did not feel like he was looking out for my best interests. I always felt like he was hawking me things and trying to have me make decisions and move more money under his management. And it just, I ultimately wound up forcing a breakup with him after the fourth or fifth time that he tried to sell me whole life insurance because he was associated with a large institution. And every single one of these times I said, no, I don't want this. Please don't ever sell this to me again. But I didn't like this guy. And he was trying to move more of the assets under management because also that was another way that he was compensated.

Alexis Booth 31:51

Leslie, since you are the financial advisor here, I would love for you to talk a little bit more about the way that financial advisors can be compensated, how financial advisors work.

Leslie Mallman 32:03

Great. Yeah. And if you're considering working with a financial advisor, I really want to empower you to be very upfront in asking them about their fees and really understanding how it works.

Leslie Mallman 32:16

As a general framework, there are two main ways that financial advisors get paid. There's one, you pay the financial advisor a fee for their time and their service. If an advisor is stating that they're fee only, that means they're not getting commissions. And two, is perhaps this person that Alexis worked with, I imagine, was getting a decent commission on selling life insurance, which is why they wanted Alexis to buy life insurance. Not necessarily because it was the best thing for Alexis. They had a quota. They had to hit their number. Right. And so they're just looking at like, okay, who else can I get to buy life insurance today? There's exceptions to every rule, but in general, I'm not a fan of commission-based advising. And I highly recommend fee-based advising.

Leslie Mallman 33:04

And then within fee-based, there's a couple of different ways that financial advisors charge. One could be an hourly rate, two, perhaps I also know advisors who charge X amount per year for their services. And then also what's called assets under management or AUM, where the advisor is advising you and managing your assets, so investing for you and also providing advice.

Leslie Mallman 33:30

One comparison I'll give that you maybe include this or not, but um, and I know that talking about financial things can get very confusing. So just to give an example from another area, as we were touched on earlier about health, a number of years ago, I was working with a doctor who recommended I take a number of supplements, and she gave me a discount code to buy these supplements through a particular website. And I bought the supplements and I took them and da-da. And then uh at some point I was talking with a friend who's a doctor, and she said, Oh yeah, that site is giving a big commission to the doctor. And so they wanted me to enter the code so that the doctor would get the commission on the supplements I was buying. I'd also paid this doctor for their time, and they had not told me that they were getting paid on the supplements that I was buying. And that was a really frustrating experience in terms of are these the supplements I need to be taking, or did you just need an extra hundred bucks?

Alexis Booth 34:32

Right.

Leslie Mallman 34:32

And that is not the question you want to be asking your doctor or your financial advisor, which is why I would have felt much more comfortable if the doctor had been very upfront about what they were, what type of commission they were getting from the supplements. At least you want them to be upfront about it. And ideally, you do not want your financial advisor to be getting paid commission. Now, there might be a situation where whole life insurance actually is the right thing and somebody might get paid commission on it. So it's not an across the board, it's not something you want to ever do. But as a general rule, I don't recommend it.

Alexis Booth 35:04

The other thing that I didn't love about the financial advisor that I'm talking about, the good news is we had checkpoints to talk about our finances, but he ran the agenda. You know, he did have a list of things and was prompting us to talk about things. Even to start, it always felt like he was framing it from his mindset. And I actually don't want to vilify this guy because I do think that there were a lot of good things that he did. He did open us up to having a lot more conversation and being more diverse on things. It didn't feel like I had agency around my money. It felt like we needed him, which also was a really yucky feeling for me.

Alexis Booth 35:45

That I think can also come into this whole financial thing of I don't feel like I can control and manage my own money. I need this person to do it for me. I think that's also that can be a trap that people fall into with an advisor. I think there is a healthy way to go about doing it. And that's what I would be encouraging people is is uncomfortable as it may be to take ownership of your money, ultimately that is going to be the pathway to your freedom and being able to have the agency and choice over what you want to do.

Leslie Mallman 36:18

Absolutely. And there's a lot of great advisors out there. There's a lot that I think have their incentives not aligned with you. And, you know, you're as you're sort of you were sensing like this person was not necessarily interested in what was going on with you. They were interested in their agenda. And a good advisor will be centering you.

Alexis Booth 36:38

And the guy that I wound up working with after him, actually, he's still my financial advisor. He's great. He was the one who the first conversation I was talking about, how unhappy I was in my job. And every time we were, we checked in with him, he's like, What's next for you? And he was, he really broadened the conversation and made it much more about well, what do you want to do? Not just with your money, but like, what is it that you want in your life? How do we make money work in the context of that? And by the way, this is what the huge value and power is over working with a financial advisor is having those really big strategic discussions and even pushing outside of the bounds of what you're naturally thinking about. And then how do you line up all of the pieces within that so that you can make it happen? And so also it doesn't have to feel so hard while you're getting there. How do you balance this?

Alexis Booth 37:34

Another thing for us was I was I had gotten into this major hoarder kind of mindset. I was like, must make money so I can save it, so I can eventually quit and never have to work again a day in my life. And so I didn't enjoy spending money because I was like, but I should save it. And so I was delaying any sort of enjoyment. And when I spent money, it felt yucky. All of those. Yeah. So it's so complicated.

Leslie Mallman 38:02

One reason I really love the firm I'm at is um we're called Five Oceans. And that's because we talk about what we refer to as our clients' five oceans of life. And so there's finances, there's health, which includes physical, mental health, there's relationships, there's career, and there's fun. And if you're not thriving in all those areas, what's the point of, you know, having a giant bank account? Yeah. If you're having no fun and you have, you know, all the money saved, what's the point? And so we're really having those conversations with clients to help guide them and help bring them into that broader framework of what is going on in their life. And if you have an advisor who's simply talking about your money with you, that can be very helpful. But to have somebody who's really encompassing, as it sounds like this advisor is with you, who's really encompassing all these different areas can really be impactful and um help you navigate through all the different life changes that happen.

What is "enough" and how it's changed over time

Alexis Booth 39:01

Being a financial advisor, you've been one for quite some time now. Have there been any changes in terms of either the requests for help people have been coming to you with or the challenges that they've been facing over time?

Leslie Mallman 39:17

The challenges are the same of spending, saving. And over my career, I've gotten to see a broader spectrum of people and and various uh life situations. But I think the general question of do I have enough and what even is enough have really been consistent.

Leslie Mallman 39:34

And I would say the one major thing that has changed in general, of course, has been social media and with it the opportunity to compare ourselves. And uh just this past weekend, I was talking with a couple who are both medical doctors and I don't know how much they earn, but you know, they're doctors. And they were talking about how, you know, they are saving for their kids' college, they are paying down their mortgage. And sort of what they have left over is to go camping with their kids and and they're, you know, they take vacations, but they don't consider them glamorous vacations.

Leslie Mallman 40:07

And they're saying, but we see these other friends who on Instagram are constantly posting from Paris or Greece or Tokyo or whatever fabulous vacation they're on. And they were sort of like, How are they doing this? And it really is that comparison trap. No secret to anybody that that's gotten worse with social media. And the one thing I really like to emphasize is the importance of focusing on yourself. And going back to money being spiritual, it really is about you. It's so easy to compare ourselves to our friends or our colleagues or that random person on Instagram.

Leslie Mallman 40:42

But because money is so taboo, we never know what someone's true situation is. And I love to talk about this because of my work, I get to see it into it, but it's something I don't think most people do. You know, so this couple that they see traveling around, there's two potential situations. And I I'm gathering that from the work that they do, it's not that they're they're they're surprised at this couple.

Alexis Booth 41:05

They might also still have all sorts of debt from school, too, though. I mean, there there's it's complicated. There's a lot more to even be in a doctor. Oh, it's very complicated.

Leslie Mallman 41:17

But in comparison to this couple, they um, you know, you don't know their situation. You don't know if they have multiple mortgages on their home, if they are up into their eyeballs in debt, if they have no college savings for their children, on and on. Right. Or perhaps one of their grandfathers invented something incredible, and they get a huge amount of money into their bank account every month. All of the children's college funds were fully funded at birth. They received a down payment for their home, and the money that they earn is mostly available to spend on vacation. That is not unreasonable to think that that might be happening.

Leslie Mallman 41:58

And I had a client who I knew socially for some amount of time before she became a client. And um, it turned out that her grandfather indeed had invented something amazing and she got a large check every month. I would never have known, and nobody else knew, and she didn't go around talking about it. I also had a client at the same time, they didn't in reality know each other, but I had another client who had been on her own since she was 16. Wow. Nobody's ever given her a dime. She put herself through college. She sends her mother $1,000 a month so her mom can pay rent.

Leslie Mallman 42:30

Now, these two people could sit next to each other at work and know for a fact that they aren't being paid the same amount. And for one, it is completely reasonable to go spend $200 on a dinner on a Monday night. And for the other, that might not be something that makes sense to do on a regular basis. Again, because you're not talking about it, you don't know and you can get really caught up in, oh, they're doing it. I guess, I guess I could do that too. And so I really, again, just like to come back to that importance of focusing on yourself and figuring out what works for you and your financial situation.

Alexis Booth 43:05

In addition to the constant comparisons that you have, how many times have I been just like, you know, it's 11 at night and I'm like, uh, ooh, ad for some random crap that I on Facebook that I totally do not need. How many times have I just like clicked the button and like, ooh, this is gonna be amazing? And then like a week or two later, the thing shows up and I'm like, what the hell is this? Like, I don't even remember buying that. Like, there was no intention behind it. It was just like a random thing.

Alexis Booth 43:37

The other thing, too, like the doom and gloom and and the the just catastrophizing and the the the level of just sensationalism that's also happened in the media itself because we're now in an intention economy and everyone's just trying to get the eyeballs. It just sort of surrounds us in this. They all tend to be very negative thoughts. We're being bombarded by this so frequently and it's in everywhere. So, you know, when I think about like the best thing to do, it's not just being intentional, it's also to just be disconnected more and and let yourself actually have a thought for yourself, which is rather than get swept away.

Leslie Mallman 44:19

Great advice on so many levels.

Alexis Booth 44:22

And I do not always take it. Much easier to tell everyone else to do that. I do try. There's been a lot of articles that I keep on, probably because I clicked on one and so now it's in the algorithm and I keep getting all this stuff. You know, like you're supposed to have X amount of money by 30 and 40 and 50 in your in your retirement fund. Have you seen any of those articles?

Leslie Mallman 44:47

I've seen those articles for the past 20 years, and I think they're clickbait.

How much should I have saved in my retirement?

Leslie Mallman 44:52

I regularly have people ask me a version of, you know, I'm 35. How much should I have saved in my 401k? And there's so much behind that question.

Leslie Mallman 45:01

You know, on the one hand, did your parents pay for college and you started working in a higher earning career at 22 and you've been progressing at the same career and you're single and you don't have kids? Or did you graduate with a mountain of student loans? You went on to do work that was decently but maybe not highly paid. You maybe had a life situation that required you to take some time off work, or you had large medical bills. Um, maybe you have three kids to support. Maybe your brain operates in a way that makes it hard for you to stay organized around finances. So that's on the one hand. On the other hand, you know, do you love your work and you want to keep working? And then in retirement, you're excited to garden? Or do you want to retire by 50, travel the world first class and not have to think about working ever again?

Leslie Mallman 45:47

So, how can you possibly begin to compare how much one should have invested or saved? It really is personal. Like, and even if I told you, like, oh, at 35, you should have, you know, however much in your 401k. If you don't have that number and you have less than that, that's not helpful. Like focus on where you are now. Look at what you're saving towards, look at what your goals are, and go from there.

Alexis Booth 46:12

There's a common phrase I hear a lot of people in the financial world talk about, which is the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best day is today.

Leslie Mallman 46:23

It's true. I mean, you know, I know people so often people come to me and they're like, Oh, I really wish I'd started looking at my finances earlier. Yeah, you would be in a different spot if you had. And also, if you wait five more years, you'll wish you started today. You can make a lot of progress in five years. So

Alexis Booth 46:42

In a year, even.

Leslie Mallman 46:43

In a year. Yes. Absolutely.

Alexis Booth 46:46

So another thing that I like to think about uh is traps, hidden traps, things that people may not think about, but that they can affect

Common traps that affect financial well-being

Alexis Booth 46:56

you. Are there any traps that you have seen people fall into in terms of their financial well-being?

Leslie Mallman 47:02

Um, well, definitely the theme, one of the themes of this conversation of comparison.

Alexis Booth 47:07

Thief of Joy.

Leslie Mallman 47:09

Indeed. Definitely the trap of getting a credit card and maxing it out, not realizing that paying just the minimum is going to be very expensive for you over time. Um yeah, that's a bad one. The very easy trap of ignoring your money. And I would also say that if you're going to invest in the stock market, being prepared for the market to be volatile. So don't invest money that you need in six months or even two years. The last thing I would want to do for a client is invest the money that they need for a home down payment in a year and then have the market fall 20% at that point and force them to sell out of the stocks at a loss. Financial wealth is built by being able to stay invested through the ups and downs of the market. And everyone knows you want to buy low and sell high, but you also have to be prepared to do that.

Alexis Booth 48:03

I'm very much a buy and hold person.

Leslie Mallman 48:05

G ood job.

Alexis Booth 48:06

It's not necessarily the answer.

Leslie Mallman 48:09

It is the answer.

Alexis Booth 48:12

All right. Well, there you go. So now we can close this off.

Leslie Mallman 48:16

You got the answer. You got it right.

Alexis Booth 48:20

This aligns very much with the financial healing. One of the things that I think back to when I go back to my childhood, I would have probably been around sixth grade. My dad had gotten laid off from a job. Uh, they did a big restructuring, and he took this as an opportunity to start a business. So he was a very avid art collector, and he was like, I'm gonna start an art gallery. It wasn't his own work, it was stuff that he was collecting. And he opened up this beautiful gallery in this really vibrant part of Chicago that there were all of these different art galleries in. And less than a year in, I think it might have even been only six months into this, there was a fire across the street and another building burned to the ground. So his didn't, his stuff was still there. But all of the sudden, the foot traffic stopped. And this was in 1990. This is before the internet as we know it existed in any real sense. Foot traffic was the only way that you were going to get business.

Alexis Booth 49:24

And he wound up having to shut down the shop, and he had put a lot of money, effort, and everything into it. But there were two things that I wound up internalizing out of this.

Alexis Booth 49:36

The first one was my dad, my amazing dad, who was so great, couldn't succeed at his own business. He tried entrepreneurial work, didn't work. If he can't do it, how could I? So when I think back to earlier in earlier in my career, I was also dabbling as a musician. Um, there were a lot of reasons that I didn't pursue music ultimately, but I do think that this was one of the things in the back of my mind, which was, well, I'll never succeed anyway because I can't. Like it's not, I'm not destined to do so. My dad couldn't, I can't. So that's one that I still work through on even now, now, that I'm like aware that exists. And so he wound up basically being kind of pushed into retirement at that point.

Alexis Booth 50:25

And my mom became the breadwinner. It's not to say that we were, you know, not well off, but when I think about who was making the money at that point, it was my mom. And I internalized the idea that I needed to be the breadwinner in my family. So I got married, I had kids, and I like it really just got very tied into that idea of needing to be that. And that was one of the things when I wound up quitting ultimately that I had to work through real hard. And originally, actually, I wasn't gonna be the one to quit. Originally, my husband was gonna step aside from work, but we had this whole discussion where he actually didn't want to. He was really enjoying working. And I was like, well, actually, if you're gonna why don't we switch this around? I actually want to do these other things, invest my time here.

Alexis Booth 51:15

But then it took me two months to actually commit to making that decision. And that was the other part of this identity crisis. I had to break this deeply, deeply held belief of who I needed to be because of what I grew up in. I think everyone carries these weighty things from their childhood. Most people are not necessarily even aware they exist. And so when you're talking about your financial healing work, I imagine that these are probably a lot of the types of things that start coming up. And people are like, oh, wow.

Leslie Mallman 51:50

Absolutely. Listening to your story, you have a lot of insight into events that have happened in your life and how they impacted you and how you internalize that. And it's fantastic that you dove into figuring that out and exploring where that's coming from for you. And I think that clearly, you know, has really been serving you to be where you are today.

Alexis Booth 52:12

It's because of the podcast that I've dug in and actually evaluated some of these things. It's what really just resounded so much of the healing work that you're doing. I love that you're doing

Insights from Leslie's financial healing class

Alexis Booth 52:23

that work.

Leslie Mallman 52:23

I work with people one-on-one through Five Oceans. I also teach this group class. And there's two reasons for people to take the class. One, it's more economical. And two, even for people who could afford to do one-on-one work, I often encourage them to take the class because I think there is so much healing in talking about money with other people and just getting other people to reflect back to them what is happening with them. Like, for example, hearing your story, I think is really healing. Anytime we're talking about it, people are learning more about it, feeling more empowered. I had a class where a woman talked about, um, she was very emotional about having clipped coupons growing up. And she had a lot of shame around that. And at least half the class, including myself, was like, Oh, yeah, we clip coupons. And she was like, Really? Oh, I to I still use coupons now.

Alexis Booth 53:13

I love coupons.

Leslie Mallman 53:14

An d it's not rational to think

Alexis Booth 53:16

I get like a thrill using coupons. I feel so excited when I get to

Leslie Mallman 53:22

Definitely!

Alexis Booth 53:22

Dopamine rush.

Leslie Mallman 53:24

And it's not rational to think that you were the only family that was clipping coupons. And she knows that, but that was her experience. And I wonder, I don't know if it perhaps her mother was like, don't tell people that we're doing this. Maybe her mom had shame about it.

Alexis Booth 53:38

Or she went shopping with a friend who didn't use them and suddenly she realized, oh, wait.

Leslie Mallman 53:43

There's something wrong. And when you're that age, you don't you just want to be the same as everybody. And so that's just one example of how talking about things in a group can be really transformative. Or even with just with a friend.

Alexis Booth 53:55

I don't talk about money with anyone. And so this is why this podcast episode is really weird. I don't, I don't even talk with my parents about this stuff. I don't talk with my siblings, I don't talk with my friends. Like I'd be open to it, but it's also it's there's a few times I've brought money up in discussions with people and it goes real weird, real fast.

Alexis Booth 54:18

So absolutely, having a safe space to explore these things with other people and vibing off of like, I here's my story, and then someone gives back another story, and you're like, whoa. I mean, I can imagine that that would just be so profoundly insightful and valuable. I mean, all of us struggle with this kind of stuff. No one's alone in this, but we don't

Leslie Mallman 54:43

No one's alone.

Alexis Booth 54:44

But we've but we are alone because we're not talking about it. It's so hard. All right.

Alexis Booth 54:49

One of the other things I wanted to dig into through the podcast, I talk a lot about this concept of power moves. So the idea of a power move is it is something you did in your past that wound up changing your trajectory. But the thing is, it has to be in your past because you never know which things are actually going to wind up changing where you're at and how you've and where you've become or who you've become.

Power moves that changed our financial fitness

Alexis Booth 55:15

Alexis Booth 55:15

Can you think about any power moves that you've made yourself or that you've seen any of your clients go through that it's related to financial well-being?

Leslie Mallman 55:24

You know, related to myself, um, I'm pretty boring. So I can't say that I have any unexpected moves. Uh so this might not, this doesn't directly fit your definition of power moves, but I would say my power move has been spending less than I earn and always saving when I've been working. And that allowed me to leave a toxic job, um, to not be stressed when the startup I was at when out of business and things like that, which is important. I don't know, there's a better word there.

Alexis Booth 55:52

I wouldn't classify that as boring. I agree it's very powerful. That's awesome that you were able to go through those periods and actually feel at least safe, if not comfortable or confident around where things were going. I'm sure that there was some uncertainty in there.

Leslie Mallman 56:10

Of course.

Alexis Booth 56:11

They were unexpected changes.

Leslie Mallman 56:12

Yeah. I can't say that I was like, oh, this is the best thing ever, but I wasn't, I didn't have to freak out about where was my rent going to come from.

Alexis Booth 56:20

Yeah.

Leslie Mallman 56:20

And it gave me that cushion and that time to transition, for example, to create the financial healing. I had time to and space to come up with that. I would say some power moves that I've seen people, you know, I knew somebody who invested in Bitcoin in like 2012. That was a real good power move. That's where you want to have the time warp is to I work with a lot of entrepreneurs and people who have started their own businesses. And that can often be a big power move. Obviously, it's very risky. I myself went to an early stage startup. I loved it. I don't regret it. And financially it did not, you don't see that reflected in my bank account. Um, but obviously there is the opportunity for that to happen when you're starting your own business and and and taking that risk.

Alexis Booth 57:09

When I go back and think about my own, I think one of them was the process of digging out of debt. And I wound up hunkering down. I had been living in a studio by myself in New York. It was, it was rent stabilized, it was awesome in so many ways. And I had I actually had a back patio and I had to move out because I could not afford it. And I moved in with friends. I, you know, I got a - it was it was still a great place, but it was in a very different part of town. And I skipped out on some weddings, I skipped out on some other really big things. I made a lot of very big intentional changes in my spending habits, and it was not fun.

Alexis Booth 57:52

I was able to get through it, and not only was able I able to get through it, once I had paid off all of the debt, I had gotten into really good habits about not spending and being able to make intentional choices. So it started to be saving. First it was in a savings account, then it went wound up being in a money market, because I remember my mom talking about money markets are great. I guess this was before high yield savings accounts, so it was probably the equivalent of what you would get out of that. Anyway, but you know, that was a really, really big transition and it wasn't easy. I made I made really big changes and choices, but eventually that was the beginning of me getting into a much more stable place financially.

Alexis Booth 58:33

Another power move was um when I started dating Geoff, who is now my husband, but early on in our relationship, I put money on the table to have a discussion, and it turned out he was in over $20,000 of debt. I helped him come up with a plan so that he could pay that off, but that was something that he worked on before we got married. And that was a really big thing for me. As part of me being comfortable about joining our lives together was actually being on the same financial page. I think that I mean, you you talked about money is the heart of arguments. It's not like we never argue about money or have disagreements on it. But I do think that that was something that helped us really set the bar that I think set us up to have much more relationship success. That was a really big pivot point in terms of us having joint goals as opposed to us being off on our own.

Leslie Mallman 59:30

Those are some real strong power moves.

Alexis Booth 59:32

I'm flexing for everyone who can't see me.

Leslie Mallman 59:39

Her shirts ripping. Yeah, I mean, talking about finances at a relatively early stage with somebody that you are considering tying your life together is really smart. And there's

Alexis Booth 59:54

It was hard.

Leslie Mallman 59:54

I bet.

Alexis Booth 59:55

I mean, those were some real hard discussions that we had. They were loaded.

Leslie Mallman 1:00:01

Oh, I mean, society has so many messages for us about how it should be and all the things. And but to be having that conversation and to be walking into, you know, at a, I don't know, somewhat cross-level marriage is a big finance, the biggest financial agreement of your life. And if you marry somebody who legitimately, you know, has just such a different viewpoint on money than you do. And, you know, if if you view I can't, I feel anxious unless I have three years of spending saved and you are partnered with somebody who thinks it's silly to save because what are we saving for? Let's live life today, that's going to be very challenging. And so having that conversation, at least to see are you at least, you know, reading the same chapter of the same book, even if you're not on the same page.

Alexis Booth 1:00:48

Is that something that's come up either in work that you've done as a financial advisor or in the healing work you've done?

Leslie Mallman 1:00:55

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Helping people, helping couples navigate um whether or not, you know, I've had both um members of a couple take my class or obviously when they're clients, both of them are clients, and helping them explore and land on something that feels comfortable for both of them. In one case, had one client who was a saver, one who had come into the marriage with some debt and helped them, they were to their credit very upfront about it and um, you know, navigated through that and setting up like, okay, these were the uh goals and the expectations for the person who was in debt and how to how to move out of that.

Alexis Booth 1:01:34

That's amazing to think about having the opportunity to help people through those types of things. I mean, I imagine there's some real tough conversations, but once you start seeing progress and really by the end of it, that must be so rewarding.

Leslie Mallman 1:01:49

It really is. Yeah, it's hugely rewarding. And you know what I love about having working with a couple or having a couple in my class is that they then have the same language for talking about it with each other. And also for just simply understanding where somebody else is coming from of like, wow.

Leslie Mallman 1:02:06

You know, maybe one spouse grew up with where money really flowed easily and, you know, they had an allowance from a young age and took fancy vacations and the other one grew up and that doesn't that situation doesn't mean that you're gonna feel abundant about money. But let's say that there's somebody who feels abundant about money and somebody else who's really sharing why they feel so much scarcity to really understand that and know where your partner's coming from and how how their nervous system is reacting to money.

Alexis Booth 1:02:36

There's the emotions, but there's also the norms. If it's normal to do things like this is what you're used to. Yeah. That that in and of itself just really sort of sets the bar for almost like expectations. A hundred percent the emotions are are a different thing. They're another layer on top of it. You may feel different things about those expectations, but both of those are totally uh internalized things that I think many, many people are not conscious that they're carrying that that weight around quite honestly in many cases.

Leslie Mallman 1:03:10

And you know this is reminding me too that one thing it's not necessarily related to the couples. One thing during my classes and sometimes working with clients as well, you know, talking about money and even listening to this podcast can really bring up a lot of emotions for people. And so if you're listening to this and you're feeling activated or like you haven't done enough or you're not sure where to start or it's feeling a little bit overwhelming, just like giving yourself the opportunity to take some really deep breaths. And um one exercise I like to do is if your body is wanting to make them in a make a motion, go ahead and and do that movement. And but do it really slow and really big. So like if you're feeling like flapping your hands would feel really good, maybe do some of that, but then also like slow it down and make it slow and big and that can really help the nervous energy help you ground you a little bit and um and move through that.

Alexis Booth 1:04:02

I totally agree with you.

Advice to improve your financial health

Alexis Booth 1:04:04

Alexis Booth 1:04:04

So let's do one last question here. Let's say someone came up to you and said Leslie I am totally lost when it comes to money what should I do? What would you tell them?

Leslie Mallman 1:04:15

I would say start by exploring where you are. There's lots of great books and resources out there, but I don't think any of them are helpful unless you're actually looking at your money. And one framework that a coach of mine has recommended that I really like is what's the one next best step? You don't have to do it all today. You don't even have to do it all this year, but what's one step that you could take and that could be looking at how much you're spending, looking at what you're spending it on. What are you saving? And if you aren't saving, starting to set aside what you can and what kind of life do you want and staying focused on that even when there's so many things around you that might be telling you to do it differently.

Leslie Mallman 1:04:50

In terms of tools, you know, personally I like a very basic spreadsheet. I like putting the numbers in myself I like working with them. That's what really works for me. Some people really like YNAB, which stands for you need a budget. I know some people that love that site. There's a bunch of different tools out there and I think it is finding what works for you. There's also a website that I wanted to mention called Queerdco and this woman covers finances for neurodivergent people and she really gives an angle and resources for people who have neurodivergent brains.

Alexis Booth 1:05:24

That's really cool.

Leslie Mallman 1:05:25

Yeah. Again I like that practice of just taking one small step and what's the one thing you could do today to know your money better. And then keep taking one small step.

Alexis Booth 1:05:35

I love that. Financial fitness or financial health I do think it all starts with what are you actually trying to do and being clear on that. When I think about my own past I feel like there's three main phases I've gone through in terms of those goals. The first one was and I love alliteration so I use three S's here the first one is so is there stable, saving and self-sufficient.

Alexis Booth 1:05:59

So the first one's stable this to me was when I finished college and I went off on my own. I really I wanted stability. I wanted to be able to be self-sufficient and and like cover my own bills and everything, but I wanted to live in comfort without accruing debt. That was really where I was trying to get to in most of my 20s. And I think the biggest actions that you could potentially think about doing there budgeting or figuring out your cash flow, rethinking your spending habits, or if you're if it's possible finding a better paying job because more income means that there's more to work from but be careful when you get the new job don't just start changing all your spending habits and then like use all of it up. Keep the old spending habits and then just have more money coming in the door. That's the ideal situation.

Alexis Booth 1:06:49

Second when you're thinking about being in that saving place. So this is where you're prioritizing putting money into saving, starting really with an emergency fund. That's kind of the general recommendation. Or if you have other target goals like going on a big trip or planning for a wedding those are things that you can have savings goals. I know that those were definitely things that I went through. And eventually retirement so thinking about much more longer term savings. For me, I it was I was probably about 30 when I when I hit this maybe maybe late 20s and I'm still in this stage right now. Biggest actions that I would think about you might want to take here are figuring out what investment vehicles where you can actually put the money there's you know an emergency fund you should have in a high yield savings account. It's very stable you're not at risk of losing money. But then starting to think about okay do I want to invest? Do I do stocks? Do I do bonds? All these other things it's like a whole world that's it can be very daunting and scary. So I I would like give yourself some kid gloves there and like take care of yourself. You know and eventually thinking about retirement planning and maybe at some point you start thinking about when you have enough money in here thinking about tax strategies, you know, 401ks or HSAs or other tax efficient vehicles where you can save money. You don't really need to start going into there until you've actually got the basics and you're starting to set aside the money. I think those are different steps and like don't overcomplicate all of it. Take it take it one bit at a time.

Alexis Booth 1:08:20

And then the last one is being self-sufficient. Or if you listener are into the fire movement, which is financial independence, retire early, I'm largely thinking about what it would take for you to stop having active income and you can you can now actually get your income through passive channels, whether it's investments, whether you've created intellectual property you've been talking a lot Leslie about entrepreneurs and having a grandfather that created something that's mailbox money, those types of things you know the the kind of the idea of what the fire movement talks about is having FU money. I don't swear in this show so I'll let you fill in the the dots there. But you know I think what's also very interesting about this and a lot of a lot of the journey that I'm still on right now is trying to figure out what the line is of self-sufficiency. There's like there's all these stories of people who saved and saved and they they they held off from spending money on things and they retire and like right away they have a major illness or they they pass away or or some other catastrophe happens and they're never able to actually realize this thing that they were holding off on doing.

Alexis Booth 1:09:36

I feel privileged to be in the position of being able to think about what is that balance of you know what do I need now? What do I what am I holding out for? But I do think that that's another part of this whole journey. You you know people with like tens of millions of dollars who are feeling like they don't have enough that's that's like incomprehensible for me to like I understand the mindset to be clear. They're not bad people and I can understand where that comes from but I wish for them and I wish for everyone that you're able to find some form of balance in being able to enjoy, choose and enjoy where you are spending money and choose where you're going to be saving and setting money aside for a rainy day or your long-term future is finding the balance in all of those things. It's hard

Leslie Mallman 1:10:26

It's a really great and important message and makes me think of I was in a panel. I wasn't on the I was attended a panel of entrepreneurs this was at some point during business school and there it was a panel of entrepreneurs and someone in the audience asked one of the panelists how did you weigh the risk of becoming an entrepreneur when you certainly could have gone to work for Goldman Sachs and very quickly earn a very high salary. And instead you chose to go through entrepreneurship where maybe you'll make zero dollars and maybe you'll make right maybe you'll go into debt. Yeah and maybe you'll make millions and millions.

Leslie Mallman 1:11:06

And this entrepreneur I thought had the best answer and he said what's the risk that we're talking about and he said because I could go work for Goldman Sachs and for sure be miserable. And yeah I would have a lot of money but that's not what excites me that's not the work I want to do. Well what's the money for yeah or I can go work in entrepreneurship and really you know put out create something in the world that I really want to see out there. And maybe I make a lot of money and maybe I don't but I'm doing work that I really believe in.

Leslie Mallman 1:11:37

So yeah. So I think there's so many different elements to this conversation too, you know, of if you have three kids and you have parents who don't have assets and you want to take care of them that maybe it is worth a trade-off to go work at Goldman Sachs in a job that perhaps you don't love. Some people also genuinely love working at Goldman Sachs, but it really is again just coming down to what is the right path for you.

Alexis Booth 1:12:02

The path is important but there's also even what do I want today? And one of the other things that I've also gotten caught up in I can get caught up in like I'm doing this is like my next three years or next two years. My experience is that two years from now I'm gonna be a totally different person and I'm probably gonna already want something different anyway. So I think there's also value in thinking about what do I need today or what do I need like actually literally tomorrow or next month. There's multiple time horizons that you should be thinking about in the context of what do you want.

Alexis Booth 1:12:38

So well this has been such a lovely and fascinating discussion. Thank you so much for being here today Leslie and for sharing all of your wisdom with our listeners.

Leslie Mallman 1:12:49

Thank you for having me. I really such an important topic I love talking about it. So thank you for having me on.

Alexis Booth 1:12:55

Well before we close out this episode a request I do have for you listeners if you enjoyed this episode please subscribe and leave a comment about the show or you can head on over to my site breakoutbooth.com where you can sign up for my newsletter. It's a small thing that you can do that makes a really big difference for me and for the show.

Alexis Booth 1:13:16

And as always I will share links to the notable references from here but I'll also include in the notes some links for Leslie so that you can find her if you want to learn more about her. Or if you think that she might be able to help you in your own journey would love to make sure that I make that connection for you.

Alexis Booth 1:13:34

With that I wish you a very fond farewell and I look forward to catching up with you next week.