Jason Pfeiffer
Appearances
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
grown up and on to their own lives and careers. And he sees me, young dad, young kid, in this stage of life. And it makes him think wistfully back to the good times with his kids. And he's telling me to enjoy every minute, which is what he would like to be able to go back and enjoy those times. And I always want to turn to... I never did. I always just say thank you.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
But I always wanted to turn to him and said... If you enjoy this and do you want to come change this diaper? Because I don't. I think that it's okay to acknowledge that some parts of this phase are not satisfying. You can't enjoy every minute. There are plenty of moments to enjoy. There are plenty of minutes to enjoy. I just took Fen, my nine-year-old, to a Pokemon convention in Orlando.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
It was great. He had a blast. It was very satisfying having that experience with him. It was great. I would like to do that. But I don't want to change another diaper in my life. And I don't want to pretend like that was a moment to enjoy.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
Welcome back to Help Wanted. Let's get to it. so this is the funny paradox of everything that i just said which is that i spend a lot of time focused on and being stressed like a lot of just internal monologue time in my life focused on and being stressed by all the things that i can't do because i'm a parent i have a long list of them jen has heard it too much and yet my career has accelerated
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
I would say, faster and stronger in the years in which I have been a parent than in the years in which I was not. Now, part of that is that you just get smarter as you get older. I was a parent on the latter parts of my life, not the earlier.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
But another part of it, I think actually very interestingly, is that when you have kids, you are forced in a way that, at least for me, I never otherwise had to experience. be incredibly rigorous about how you spend your time. Whereas I used to be a lot more leisurely about how I spent my time, I am now regimented.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And when my kids get out the door in the morning, I know exactly what I need to get done in the hours before they show up back home. And I obsess over that. Now, there's still a downside to this. Yesterday is a good example. I had a lot of work to do yesterday, and I really wanted to take a walk. I hadn't gotten out of the house.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
I was anchored to the computer, just taking a walk and listening to a podcast. is a way to just feel calmer for me. And I kept watching the time tick down and it was like 3 p.m. And I would say, oh, I got a little more time left. I got to get a walk in 4 p.m. Oh, I got to get a walk in 5 p.m. And then I got to 6, which is when I'm on as dad. That's the rule here is 6 p.m.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
is when like pencils down. And I never got the walk-in. Now, if I didn't have kids, I could have worked a nice full workday and put things down at 6 or 6.30 and then a lovely walk and maybe met a friend for dinner. And I can't do that. Instead, it's like I'm on dad duty. And I was actually telling Jen about that. And she was like, well, why don't we take a walk as a family? And that's what we did.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And I'll be honest.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
because the kids were complaining like crazy the whole time. They were on their scooters. Colin, of course, fell halfway through and was screaming his head off. Jen and I can't have a conversation, but the kids are like constantly coming back and forth. I physically walked, but I wouldn't say that it was the relaxing experience that I wanted. But, but it's made me more efficient.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
I am a more focused person than I was before. Number two, having kids allows you to relate to other people who have kids, which is actually a really useful business skill. Because talking about your kids is just like often a thing that comes up. I found that to be useful. I am sure that it has created in me some of the things that people say that parenting does.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
It makes you a more patient person, more understanding, something. I don't know. I don't know how to evaluate or identify that. Having kids does introduce you to other interesting people. My friend Matt, Matt Elblanc, who's also my book agent, I met him on a playground because our sons had become friends.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And I've met a whole bunch of other people who I really, really like, who sometimes are very useful, both personally and professionally. And I don't mean useful, like whatever, good friends and they become good colleagues through having kids. So yeah, there are upsides, but it's still, it's like upsides that live inside of attention.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
Yeah, sure. I was. And like anybody, I think you are more refined in your talents. You have a stronger network, just like however much older you get. But having kids certainly didn't hold me back from... I feel... I don't even know how to say it. Maybe a life in which I was able to say, yeah, I have no kids to come home to. So I will just fly around the world doing speaking engagements nonstop.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
Maybe I wouldn't like that life. Maybe the quote unquote bigger life is not one that I would actually enjoy or appreciate. There's no way to know, right? This counterfactual thinking is not actually helpful, but it's certainly a tension that I live with.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
I wanted kids. But I don't think in retrospect that I had really spent that much time thinking about what it meant. I think that I just grew up in a healthy family with two kids, knowing a lot of other healthy families with kids. And having kids was the only vision I had of a life. Jen is literally texting me right now. We need more bread so we can make the kids lunches.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
This is just the things that you got to think, right? Like I got to make, can't I just focus on my own lunch? No, I make the kids lunches. I don't know what to think about this. I don't know what to think about this thing that I'm about to say to you. Maybe you'll have some thoughts. When we decided to have kids, I had a different idea of how my life was going to turn out.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
I was a magazine editor and only a magazine editor. And to me, all the things that I wanted to accomplish could be mostly accomplished by sitting in front of a computer. I just dreamed of writing things that people read. And the idea of starting companies, multiple companies, flying around the world, and being invited to the incredible event, that wasn't on my radar. I didn't have that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And that didn't show up until I had... Two kids or one kid or something until I had kids. And so I almost wonder what would have happened if I had a different set of career opportunities at the time when we were making decisions about kids and whether or not I would have wanted to sacrifice those.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
Maybe the answer is that you just are never fully satisfied and it doesn't matter what life decision you make. I was just reading, I don't know if you saw this, but Michael Strahan, a former football player, is now on Good Morning America and on every television show. Michael Strahan is now talking about retiring from television because he's done a lot of it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And he wants to spend more time with his kids. Mark Cuban is leaving Shark Tank to spend more time with his kids. And these are not like politician excuses where you're stepping down from something, but because somebody's forcing you. But I think these are genuinely like, they did it. And it was great. And now they're done with it and they want to refocus on this other thing.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And so that's another thing I have to keep reminding myself. I don't know what another parallel version of my life is like, but I can also pretty much guarantee that if I at this moment in my life cannot recognize and be satisfied with the successes that I do have, then I don't think some other set of successes would have made me feel any more satisfied.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
It probably would have made me just feel like there's something else to accomplish. My kids are great, right? We've spent almost no time talking about that in this conversation. And that's fine because that's boring. Everyone talks about how great their kids are. It's so boring. Just trust me. They're great. They're great kids. They ask interesting questions. We have fun experiences.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
This is Help Wanted, the show that makes your work work for you. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
They're great. Getting them cereal in the morning sucks. I'd never want to do it. I definitely never want to wipe an ass ever, but they're great.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
The things that come out of their mouth are usually great, even though I don't want to deal with the things that come out of their butt.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
I would say- Great parent with a great kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, everybody's life circumstances is going to be different. As you were saying that, the first thing I thought of was make sure you have great communication with your partner. But not everyone has a partner. I have friends who are single parents and they're making it work and are entrepreneurs. You can make anything work.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
I think that my advice is simply to tell you, you can make it work. It just requires a lot of thinking and communication and gritting your way through things. There are parts of it that are gonna be hard and they're gonna get easier. And you're not even gonna recognize that they're easier because there are other things that are hard. This is my life right now.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
It's actually really useful for me to see someone who has an 18-month-old, my least favorite time, here's my advice, hang on, one to two and a half is my least favorite time. And the reason is because that is when they are mobile but incoherent.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
So that's when they're like walking around but they don't understand anything and they're like grabbing at everything and they have zero survival instincts and they're trying to stick things in sockets and they want to cook anything that could be brought down to the ground, but it's awful. You cannot sit down anywhere because they will not sit.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
Try going to a restaurant with a one to two and a half year old. Not possible. They want to walk around the restaurant. Try flying anywhere. They want to walk up and down the aisle. I hated that time. And then you know what? They grow out of it. Then they grow out of that time. Then they're not that anymore. And now they're able to focus and play and eventually ask you interesting questions.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And on Thursdays, I give you one way to improve your work and build a career or company you love. And it starts now.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And it just changes. And you have signed yourself up for a life of... change. And if I've learned anything, like my whole thing about my career, like the thing I've actually based all of my speaking on and my writing is all about how change doesn't have to be bad. It's not bad. Change is just different and it is what you make of it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And so make the best of it, but do not for a second think that you're doing something wrong. If you are standing in in a public restroom and you're changing a diaper and some old person walks by you and thinks that you should be having a great time and you're not, don't think that you're doing anything wrong because you're not.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
Tell them to change that fucking diaper themselves.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
Yeah. Yeah. Let's see how to podcast and how to co-host.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
Uncle Jason. Oh my God. I'm so happy for you. What I'm happy for is that I spent the last hour talking about how difficult parenting is and you have a big smile on your face and I did not ruin your life by talking about this, which means that you're like as ready as you possibly can be. I love you. I love you guys. This is great. To go into something eyes wide open,
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
and know that the thing that you're going to do is hard and you want to do it anyway, that is literally as much preparation as you can have. Everybody, before you have kids, should sit down with someone like me and just talk to them for an hour and have them bitch and moan.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And if you still want it, then you want it. Right. If you still want it, if you're like, great, got it. It's going to be really hard, but I can manage and I've processed all this. The only thing that you can do as a parent is to have eyes wide open. And that's it. That's the whole thing. So I declare you ready. Not that you needed me to do that. Thank you.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And I'm glad because holy shit, if you were four months pregnant and at the end of this, you were like, I have made a terrible mistake for myself. Help Wanted is a production of Money News Network. Help Wanted is hosted by me, Jason Pfeiffer.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
Well, here's the thing. When you have kids, the first many years of your life as a parent is defined by poop management. And that's just that is the nature of it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
Oh, I didn't sign up for that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
I was actually just thinking about this recently because I have a nine-year-old and I have a five-year-old. And the five-year-old just graduated pre-K and In pre-K, the teacher can't wipe a kid's butt. Kid's got to go wipe his own butt, which means that the kid's got to start doing some wiping. It's probably not very good, but it's a half-assed effort at it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And so I know that Colin, I know that Colin, I know that you know that, Nicole, but for everyone else, Colin's- I have two kids, Fen and Colin. I know that Colin is developing some skills at wiping his own ass, but I am still wiping his ass at home, and Fen has long since taken care of his own ass. But I was wiping Colin's ass this morning, and I was thinking to myself, will I know...
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
the last time that I have to do this? And can I capture it? Can I film myself right afterwards running out into the street and being like, I have wiped the last ass, which would make me so happy. I don't know. But that's the thing about parenting is you never really know when you're in or out of something. It's all just a big mush.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
Oh, that's happened so many times. Yeah. The one that I thought was funniest was when I was interviewing the CEO of Zoom on Zoom and my kid came in and interrupted us because that was such a classic Zoom moment. Everyone has been on Zoom and had their kids interrupt them. So to do that with the CEO of Zoom was perfect.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
But yeah, I'm excited to have this conversation with you today, Nicole, because this has shown up in many of our conversations. And I'm sure I've even made reference to a bunch of this stuff on Help Wanted before, but we've never just looked at it directly. So... This will be fun is talking about what are the challenges of
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
doing all the things that an ambitious, work-focused person wants to do while also having kids, which is a really hard balance. And I have come to this belief, and I appreciate you recognizing it, that somebody needs to talk about it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
I think that most parents are afraid of talking about it because there is this expectation that parents just love being parents and are grateful for the family and are feeling hashtag blessed. And so much so that I even need to caveat at the beginning of this, like whatever else that I'm going to say during this conversation. I love my kids. They're great kids. But it's really hard.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
It's really hard and often very frustrating. And I am constantly thinking about all the things that I could have accomplished differently.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
either professionally or even just in the other things that I want for my life personally, the amount of travel that I would love to do that I haven't done, the amount of time that I wish that I could spend with my friends, the way in which just before we were recording this, we were talking about your wedding and how I'm going to fly out from the East Coast to LA and back in the span of less than 24 hours because I really want to be there with you to celebrate and I'm so excited to do it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
But And that's not leisurely. I would love to be there leisurely. I'd love to come out for multiple days. And I can't because I got kids at home. And I think that to bottle that up and to act like that's not attention in my life is to make it worse. And the thing that I have found that makes it better for me is to be open and talk about it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And what I found is that when I do, some parents get really uncomfortable because I think they're I'm saying things that they had trained themselves not to directly engage with or speak. And then other parents thank me because it's a conversation that almost no one else will start. So I'm here to start it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
I don't think that there's any one answer here, right? Like there are friends of mine who are parents and being a parent is the center of their identity and they love it and they won't relate to any of this. And then there are other people who fall at other parts of the spectrum.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
So I don't want to say that like anything that I'm going to say here is universalized, but I do think that what you just said there is relevant to a whole lot of people. You make a life choice, whatever that life choice is. And then you want to feel like it was a good life choice because otherwise you're living with a lot of regret.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And I think that a lot of parents get uncomfortable when being confronted with the possibility that their life choice wasn't perfect. I think that it's fine to acknowledge that maybe your life choice wasn't perfect. I saw somebody on TikTok say recently, they're like, a lot of people criticize me for not having kids or something like that, or say they don't understand me, that I didn't have kids.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
But I want you, if you're a parent right now, to close your eyes and picture your perfect Sunday morning Now, let me tell you something. Your kids are not in that picture, are they? And it's true. Perfect Sunday morning, Nicole. weekends are exhausting with kids. They're so exhausting. Like your life goes inverse when you have kids where like weekends and summer used to be this flexible time.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And now it is the inflexible time. Now it's the time where you're spending the most time on kid management. And it's actually like work time and like the school year where you have the most free time as an adult with small kids, at least. And like, My ideal Sunday morning does not involve my kids.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
It doesn't because to be spending Sunday morning with my kids is to be stopping them from fighting each other or being like running a restaurant in my kitchen and trying to get them food.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
My ideal Sunday morning would be going out to brunch with my wife and having a nice leisurely stroll somewhere or just catching up with friends or just doing something where I feel like I have freedom of movement as an adult in the world, which is not what I have with my kids. But to say that is to indeed challenge some of the life choices that I've made.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And I just don't think that should be a scary thing. We all make life choices and it benefits us in some ways and it subtracts something in other ways. As I'm talking about this, I'm talking about the things that I've lost, but I've gained things with having kids too.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
We could talk about that, but I think it's just fine to live in the complexity of having lost things as kids and that the life choice that you made was complicated and that's okay.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
Yes. Anybody who has older kids wants to reach into this episode right now and say, It gets easier. It gets easier. Little kids are really, really hard. And that's true. And I've heard that over and over again. And every time people tell me that, I'm like, I hear that. I'm waiting to see it. But it's also disingenuous because a nine-year-old and a five-year-old is way easier than like a...
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
five-year-old and a one-year-old. So my life has gotten easier. I am able to move around more than I used to. I don't get woken up by screams in the morning, which is what happens when you have a kid that's just like three. And I suspect that when my kids are older and they're not exhausting in the way that they are now,
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
and I have more freedom of movement as an adult in the world, maybe won't even have much of a memory of the kinds of things that were frustrating me at this point in my life. So yeah, I think that it's a scale. And So my wife, Jen, she always tells me a lot of this comes down to the expectations that you set for yourself.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
I always complain about family vacations because they're not the kind of vacations that I like to take. I like to go to a city that I've never been to before, and I like to spend the entire day walking around and just discovering random things and eating random things and meeting random people. You can't do that with kids at all, 0%. You cannot do that with kids. So what can you do with kids?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
You can go to the beach or you can rent an Airbnb with a pool. I don't care about these things. I don't like these things. And then, of course, you're dealing with, you're going to fill the kids' time. You're going to entertain them. And that's not to say that this is unenjoyable. Yeah, it's fun spending time with the kids, but it's not the way that I would want a vacation.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And so my wife keeps telling me, when we're going on these vacations, you have to understand that this is not the vacation that you would love. This is a different thing. This is family bonding time. And that's going to come with different... roles and different outcomes. And that's true.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
If I go down Sunday morning from my bedroom and I think, I'm going to get a lot of work done this Sunday morning, that's going to be great. It's going to make me feel less stressed. And then I'm trying to work and my kids are constantly interrupting me.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And I'm frustrated by that because they want another bowl of cereal and they won't get off their butts and do it themselves, even though they can, which is a constant conversation. Then I'm going to be really frustrated. But if I went down and I was like, I'm not going to get any work done right now, so I'm not even going to try. And that is all true. Jen is completely right about that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And I'm working on that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
And the challenge is, I don't know. And I'm hesitating on saying this because I don't want to sound like a bad person. But that's the whole thing about this kind of straight parenting talk is that you keep walking this line of being judged. I'll just say that. And then I'll say, I don't know how to find joy in getting my kids the cereal. It is not a joyful task. It's an annoying task.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
It makes me feel like I'm running a restaurant in my house where I'm constantly being asked, hey, can you get this? Push me in. I want another one of these. And that's not fun. There's nothing fun about that. And there's no way to make it fun. And I think that the answer is that you do it knowing that you don't have to do it forever. I don't know that there's another answer to it, right?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
They won't need that from me forever. They need that for a certain number of years. And so the thing that I have to remember is... If this is not a joyful task for me, which is just constantly getting food for my kids, then I just have to make sure that I don't, in my head, equate my experience of parenthood with the annoying things that won't last forever.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
This is the good thing about kids versus a dog. A dog... doesn't grow up but kids do eventually i know everyone tells me there will be this time when they don't want to spend as much time with me or any time with me and so i'll tell you one other anecdote that everything that i'm just saying here reminds me of which is when my kids were in diapers
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
and I would need to run into public restrooms to change them, which, as anyone knows, is just an at-any-time kind of thing. You're in the airport, you're at a restaurant, you're walking down the street, and suddenly you've got to find the nearest public restroom and change this diaper.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Can I Be a Great Parent AND a Great Entrepreneur? Help!"
When I would be in public restrooms, larger public restrooms, so there's people coming in and out, this thing would happen all the time, which was that some older man would walk by me And he would see me changing this diaper, and he would say, enjoy every minute. And I understand what's happening, which is that he's seeing... His kids are probably...
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Defining FSAs & HSAs and How To Make Them Work For You
Nicole, I'm going to rant to you, and you can feel free to use this on the show if you think that it would make for a good episode subject, or not, or just delete it. But I'm going to rant to you anyway. Why am I supposed to use an HSA, health savings account? My employer has these account offerings where I can put a certain amount of money in for health and for childcare and for transit.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Defining FSAs & HSAs and How To Make Them Work For You
And they're like arbitrary, random amounts of money, right? It's like $5,600 and something and some smaller amount, whatever it is. And so I got to deal with the small amount of money. And then it doesn't roll over after a year. So I have to use it during the year. And there's like one more account that I have to find.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Defining FSAs & HSAs and How To Make Them Work For You
And then every time I use it, it's like incredibly burdensome because I have to hold on to these receipts and often upload them to this... terrible website that was built in 1994 and they give me a debit card. Yes, but half the time they still need the receipt. So then I use the debit card. I have to think to use the debit card.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Defining FSAs & HSAs and How To Make Them Work For You
So I have to carry around the debit card and then I use the debit card and then I still have to hold onto the receipt and then upload it two weeks later to this website from 1994. It makes absolutely no sense. And the thing that I can't understand is, am I actually saving enough money to make this unbelievably burdensome and stupid process worth it?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Defining FSAs & HSAs and How To Make Them Work For You
So you tell me, should I continue to suffer through this or should I just say, screw it? I hate this thing. I'm just going to pay all this stuff out of my own pocket. That's what I want to know.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
It's great progress. As we're eventually going to talk about how to think through what may be your next career change and what you want to do, do you have a number in your head of what you want to reach?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
Because Sean, I will tell you, Nicole and I both experienced this and continue to experience it, which is that no matter what your accomplishment is and no matter how much money you make, it suddenly does not seem like enough because there's always more that you could get. So at some point you have to know what you're actually aiming for. Do you have that in your head?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
The point that Nicole is making is that you can't tell this negative story of yourself where the punchline of it is and now you're stuck or now you've wasted so much time. Rather, everything that you did served some kind of purpose. You were pursuing passions. You were interested in things. You learned a lot about what you want and what you don't want. And
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
it now informs the next decisions that you make. The question now is, starting from right now, what do we do? Stick around. Help Wanted will be right back.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
Welcome back to Help Wanted. Let's get to it. Now I want to think through how you make more money. When you reached out, part of your wonder was, is it time to just make another career change? Just do something totally different again. And look, Maybe it is if you want to totally just optimize for money.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
But also, before you do that, I would want to step back and say, all right, what do I have here in the world of paralegal? Can I look around and see what other paralegals are making and where and what it takes to get there? Maybe some sacrifices do have to be made. You, for example, have said that you don't want to drive into Boston.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
But maybe if you start pushing yourself closer to Boston and taking a longer commute, you it translates into more dollars and ultimately the balance there is better.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
Or maybe some of the skills that you've picked up in paralegal work actually translate really well to some adjacent field that doesn't require a full reboot of what you do, but that ultimately does pay better or gives you access to better paying employers or something like that. So have you looked into any of that? I have not.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
Nicole makes an excellent point. You know how to do a lot of different things. The story of your career is actually one of accumulating a lot of skill sets. And you haven't actually stepped back and said, how do these things snap together in a way in which they're all useful?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
Sean, here's something that I think you should do. You should look around and see what problems you can solve for people. Perhaps part of the reasons that you feel insecure is because if you don't know the problems that you can solve for people, then all you're doing is showing up and demanding their attention.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
And you don't know if they're busy or if they have a need or why they would care about you. But if you know the problems that you can solve... Then suddenly you see a role for yourself. So what would a problem be that you can solve? I don't know that much about the legal world, but I do know this because I've heard it from friends who are lawyers or who work in law firms that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
Lawyers do not know how to write in a way that is not a complicated legal brief. They struggle with communication. And communicating in a way that is not a legal brief is an important thing that people need to know how to do, and that includes lawyers. And that's the reason why a lot of law firms actually hire outside consultants to teach their lawyers how to write like regular human beings.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
Now, here is you, someone who has worked professionally as a communicator in a plain English kind of way, who also has developed the skills of a teacher to teach skills to other people, and you are sitting in a law firm, or you're at least sitting in an industry, I can't speak to your specific firm, these are people who are
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
probably very aware that a shortcoming of theirs is their ability to communicate in a non-legal way. Now we have identified a problem and you as a solution. And it might be worth even just volunteering or coming up with some kind of system or something that you can introduce to at your firm, see if people like it, maybe you become much more valuable there.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
Maybe you take on a totally different role there. Maybe you create a whole department there. Or maybe you become really valuable in a way that they love but aren't going to pay you for. But now you have something that you can take somewhere else and say, ah, I am doubly valuable. I'm a really good paralegal. And also, I run this program teaching the lawyers how to write.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
And now somebody is going to pay you a lot more. That is how you take somebody's problem and connect it to the snapping together of the skills that you have accrued.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
This is Help Wanted, the show that tackles all the big work questions you cannot ask anyone else. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
You haven't quite figured out how to make the boundaries of what you think work are more flexible. I realized that getting ahead and making the kind of money that I wanted required doing multiple kinds of work at the same time. The Gardner News was the only job, that first job that we worked at, the only job I ever worked at where I just did that job.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
After that, I have always, including right now, freelanced on the side of whatever full-time job that I had, always. And that was where my extra income came from and that's where my advancement opportunities came from because that's what got me in front of the next set of people that were gonna create the next set of opportunities.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
The helpline is open. Nicole, do you stalk any of your former colleagues? Like stalk, stalk? Not in a illegal way, but you know, you pay attention to them on social. They don't know that you know what they've been up to for the last 20 years.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
And the reason we got to where we are here today is because in all of these cases, the answer doesn't start externally. It's not just about make this one other decision. It's internal. The work has to start internally, which is why what we did is we spent a lot of time trying to understand what your goals were and what your skills are and where your interests are and then what matters to you.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
Because once you know that, you can start to construct an actual answer. I appreciate it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
I was very proud of it. They're called 419 scams, those Nigerian 419 scams, where somebody emails you and they tell you that there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and all you need to do is help them get there. Their whole thing is to scam you into trusting them so that you will send them money. But this means that this...
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
asshole wherever they are in the world is also, if you know that they're scamming you, is really now your plaything because you can just create increasingly ridiculous and complicated demands of them. And they'll play along because they think that they're leading you to the scam. And so that's what I did with this guy for who knows how long. He promised me his sister.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
But I'm not still in touch with the sister. Let's just be very clear. Yeah. And then I put it all on the Internet and it was a lot of fun. And you're probably the only person in the world who still remembers it. But I am touched that you do.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
Yeah. But you know what? I didn't make a single dime off of that thing.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
Oh, I didn't sign up for that. All right. Well, talk to you soon.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
Yeah. And I think that what you just said there, the comparison is the thief of joy is perfect because that's exactly what can happen is that here you are, you were at the same moment in time as someone else and then paths diverged. And it's so easy to look at what they did and maybe think, oh, did I make the wrong step?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
Career sliding doors. And that is exactly what we're going to hear today because I got an email recently from a guy that I worked with at my first job 20 years ago, who I have not talked to since. And we're about to talk to him because he feels like he wishes he made some of the decisions that I made.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
I don't think we're going to get into that, but let's hear from him. Sean, here's a thing I wouldn't have said 20 years ago because it didn't exist 20 years ago. I don't think podcasting existed 20 years ago. Welcome to Help Wanted.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
I really appreciate you reaching out and being that honest and vulnerable. And I think that what you're describing is something that a lot of people relate to. So you had originally reached out to me with a kind of summary of what had happened over the last 20 years.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
So why don't you share that with us so that we understand what you mean by you hadn't always made the best career decisions and where you are now so that we can start to talk through what matters to you and what to do next.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
You were at the paper. You were very committed to it. At some point, you must have made a decision to leave because of some reason. Tell us, why did you leave and what did you decide to do next?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
Yeah. You know, it's funny, Sean, just for what it's worth is that if we're tracking the two careers, I remember making $20,000 in that first job that you and I worked at together. And then my next job paid $40,000. So if you were getting 50, then your next career move was more financially savvy in a way than mine.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
I'll just fill in because I know what happens next because you told me which is that you ended up leaving teaching and then you became a paralegal. And... You told me in your message to me that you were disappointed when after studying to be a paralegal and getting a job as a paralegal that it wasn't paying as much as you had hoped that it would, right?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
So that's the moment that you're in right now is that you've made a shift, got into the arena, and then discovered that there wasn't as much money as you wanted. Just to put a fine point on it, right now you said you're making $26 an hour, which I think translates to an annual salary of about $54,000 a year. Is that right?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
When you told me that you were a paralegal and that's what you were making, I went onto Google... And I just Googled average paralegal salary in Massachusetts. The first thing that came up told me that the average paralegal salary in Massachusetts where you live is $58,000, which is not that far off from what you're making.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
Had you done any of that kind of research to know what you were getting into before you did it?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
I wonder if part of the reason that you're doing this in the way that you're doing it is because of the fear of not having a plan and therefore feeling lost. Because what you have told us throughout this story of being a journalist and then being a police dispatcher and then being a teacher and then being a paralegal is that
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
it sounds like what you did was you felt like you needed something else, something presented itself, and then you just ran towards it, which is totally understandable because the alternative is to say, oh no, I don't know what to do, and then spend a lot of time thinking about it and researching it and talking to people and marinating in this lostness of not knowing where to go.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
And that is a hard place to be. An easier place to be is to say, ah, I'll go over there. And then, of course, the problem is that you discover what you didn't know when you're already there instead of before you went there.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
Again, I don't want to... No, it's a good memory. Yeah. I think that this is an important thing that you bring up that I know Nicole can speak very intelligently to. So say what you're saying because you're right.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
You are absolutely correct in that I grew up with two very supportive parents. My dad was a dentist, made good money. They did not... roll out the red carpet for me on everything. But I knew that I could take risks in my career. And if something didn't work out, that I had a safety net. That without question enabled me to act bolder than I know some other people were able to.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Behind in My Career. Help!"
So Nicole knows exactly where Sean is coming from.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
I have thoughts on this too. Oh, I didn't know I have strong feelings on all these subjects.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Yeah, that's a nice thing to do is to be clear about it. And if you're taking notes and people know you're taking notes because you care about what is being discussed, then it's like, whatever, there's a little clacking and that's fine. But a couple of things to say. Number one, you can always mute. I do that often.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
If someone's going to be talking for a few minutes and I'm typing, I will just mute myself and then type away. But also, shout out, we are not getting any money for this, though we probably should. I have been using Fathom. Fathom is an AI note taker. It joins my meetings. I think it's fathom.video is the website. And it is awesome. It's just there in the background.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
It transcribes all your calls, but it also does this great job of organizing all the main points using AI. It's really impressive. So now I have it in all my calls, and now I don't need to take as many notes.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
I actually think that this is a really good move for anybody, which is to think about how other people perceive seeing you on the phone. So if you're in a meeting and you pick up your phone and you're taking notes, it's worth saying, sorry, I'm just taking notes. And that way people don't think that you're sexting or texting the dog walker.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Like when you do it when we're recording or whatever? Yeah. I always assume you're dealing with something and it's fine because you also... Again, this comes back to like what have you earned and what's the set expectations? I know that you're not going to pick up your phone and disappear into it in the middle of a conversation. And therefore, if you pick up the phone, it's not like a problem.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
But when my eight-year-old son, Fen...
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
picks up his ipad in the middle of a conversation i know we have fully lost him to roblox and therefore we got to pull him back but when i go and i give a talk uh like a keynote somewhere oftentimes i'll see people on their phones and then they will come up to me afterwards and they will show me the notes and they'll be like i i'm sorry if it looked rude that i was on the phone i was taking notes like they want they want to show that and i think that that's a good instinct
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Yeah, exactly. Right. I hope not. We are really hoping that the other people that Fenn is interacting with on Roblox are also eight, but it's possible that they're 50 and at a convention listening to me give a keynote talk.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Just really awkwardly. Just glare at each other.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Oh man, I'm sorry about that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Because you had to do all the small talk, Morgan. What was your question?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Do anything good this weekend?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
All right, I'm going to give it to you. Here's the solution. This is the solution. The solution is this. Tell a story. So this is what I always do is if I'm on a call, I share whatever the latest amusing or random thing is. I just start telling that to people.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
And the reason I do it is because I know that everyone on this call hates Zoom small talk, but also will feel obliged to do it unless somebody just fills the void. Somebody needs to fill the void. And I, you know, I know that I, for better or for worse, a thing I can do is fill a void. And so I'll just start talking. I'll just start, I'll just tell some random story until everyone's there.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
And then I will exit the story and we'll get on. And it's like, look, as long as you know that you're not, you didn't just launch something.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
your own private version of the moth and like people aren't there for your stories so they don't want it any longer than necessary but like you know if you tell a story and then as soon as the last person shows up and the meeting is supposed to begin like wrap your story up and move into the thing everyone will love you for it
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Yeah. You know, I mean, another way you could solve this for people is put interesting things in your background, and then people will ask about them.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Like a money roll, yes. Nicole's got a giant money roll behind her, like a physical statue of money. But then you need something amusing to say about it. And I found this to be the case often when I go and call somebody and I was like, oh, I like your wall of hats. And then they'll be like, oh, thank you. And then they'll start telling me about the hats and it fills whatever time is necessary.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
I usually have, depending on the angle that I'm in my room, I either have a large old timey typewriter behind me, which was my grandma's. And so I have a whole couple of things to say about that. Or there are some guitars hanging on the wall that people ask me about. And then I say some things about that. So Have something that starts a conversation. People will ask about it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
But now it is your duty to have some at least mildly engaging thing to say about it that can last 60 to 120 seconds.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
What percentage of time when you are on a Zoom call, for example, you listening at home, what you don't see is that we are recording. We're all in a Zoom together right now, me.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Nicole's looking at herself and has checked her phone a couple of times. But we're also recording locally, which is why the audio quality is better. Anyway, point is, on this call or on regular calls, what percentage of the time have you spent looking at yourself? Morgan, how much time have you spent looking at yourself instead of me and Nicole on this call?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
I was going to go a little higher for myself, like maybe a third.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Oh, yeah, that's this is at the end. Right. So there's a there is a just for context. There is a we're going to take another episode after this one. There is a guest for that episode. That person is in the waiting room waiting for us. But also Morgan had created a list of questions for this episode. And the shrimping was at the end. What the hell is shrimping?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
This is Help Wanted, the show that makes your work work for you. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Explain. Yeah, describe that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Right, so this is, it is 95% background. It's just like your head at a terrible angle, which is what it always is. And just like as a little nub in the bottom middle of the, everybody has seen that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
100%.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Oh, really? I forgot about the white cord.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Right. Yes. Yeah. Nicole is policing what is happening in my... But yes, that is completely... You know, if you want to appear better to people in meetings and probably even be taken more seriously, two things... improve the video and improve the audio. And both are very, very easy. I will tell you what I have. Again, I'm not getting paid anything for this. I have a Logitech Brio.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
It is a 4K camera. It's just it just attaches to sort of sits on top of my laptop. You plug it in. Instant giant improvement in video quality. It also handles lighting better. So like even if I'm in a semi dark room, it looks better. And then I have for like important meetings that I take, I have a lav, which is just the kind of little microphone that clips to your clothing.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
And it plugs directly into my MacBook. It's called a Clip 2, Clip 2 something. And it is great. It's so easy and it makes my audio much better and you get taken more seriously. So I think that's very important.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
And on Thursdays, I give you one way to improve your work and build a career or company you love.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Help Wanted is a production of Money News Network. Help Wanted is hosted by me, Jason Pfeiffer.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Oh, I didn't sign up for that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Oh, I didn't even notice that. I will take it. What a big deal I am on this show. That's exciting. Morgan, welcome to my show where Nicole occasionally appears too.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
My wife is very obsessed with that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
All right. I like it. It's like the digital age Emily Post.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Here's a question back to you. Has your boss followed you on Instagram?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Ah. Ah.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
I think that it depends upon the kind of relationship that you have with your boss. My boss's name is Bill at Entrepreneur. I thought I did not follow him, but I just checked Instagram and actually I do and he follows me. So maybe it's not so bad because Didn't even notice.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
But I think that the real issue here is how much should you be thinking about people that you know professionally when you are posting on social media? And I think the answer to that is all the time. Because even if your boss doesn't follow you, they could see something that you post. So you should probably act like your boss follows you regardless of what you do.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
You can follow. Right. There's like a whole ton of them.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Better not. That's fair. I think that the blocking is an aggressive move. So you'd want to be careful about that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
I would say default to no too. I would also say it shouldn't matter because the things that you're posting on social media are so work safe that anyone can see it. And this is why you should just create group chats with friends where you can really do all your shit talking.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
No, no. I actually make a very specific point of this. I do not follow colleagues unless we have hung out and that colleague relationship has turned friend-like. Otherwise, I leave it alone. I do not follow them. I don't want them thinking about me when they're posting stuff. That is an intentional decision that I make.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
So, yeah, here's a non digital scenario that I expand into all of this stuff. When I became the boss. I realized that my presence at a after work happy hour took on a different meaning. I think that people might want to talk about me. They might want to talk about some annoying thing that I did. And that's their right. They should.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
And when I was there, now they all have to defer to me in some way because... His highness. But that's how I always feel. If anybody is above me in a hierarchy, I add this level of deferentialness to just general conversation just because I don't ever want them to be annoyed at me because that's the thing.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Even if it's a social setting, an annoyance in a social setting can now translate to the work setting where that person now has some... They can lord over me. Anyway, so I just thought... I now don't belong here after a certain amount of time. So maybe if everybody from the office goes to the bar, I don't belong here after the first drink. And then I should leave.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
And I take that mentality and I apply it to everything with social media. If my presence... makes you think twice about anything because I am no longer just a neutral party in your- You're not a wallflower. Life. Yeah. Then I should remove myself. So that's why I don't follow people. That's why I don't go and like their stuff or whatever.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
I remove myself because I understand that everything that I do or don't do is going to be perceived differently. And I just want to leave you alone and let you do your thing. Thank you, Your Highness. You are welcome.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Great.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
I've done that. I've brought out Indian food on work Zooms. Here's my rule. I have a very specific rule for this. The rule is... So first of all, it depends on the Zoom, right? If it's a client call or some important call, no, obviously not.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Oh, all hands. Well, sorry, I'm exploring all the options. So...
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Eat on this call. That is fine. We give you permission. So if I need to be presenting totally professionally, obviously there's no food. If it is just internal and it's casual enough, then my rule is very specific. The rule is no food goes into my mouth on camera. I will lean off camera and take a bite and then come back on camera.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Why? Because it's, I find it unpleasant to see. And this is, you know, like whatever you go out to dinner, it doesn't matter. But like, I don't like watching cooking, like TV, like the food network or whatever. I don't like seeing people eat. Why do you want to see people take food and put it in their mouth? That's not a pleasant thing to see.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
But that's what people do. Like you watch Guy Fieri and it's just like him shoveling food into his mouth. I don't understand.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
The food is, and I just lean out of frame and I take a bite and then I come back in frame. This is, I've always, this is what I've been doing for years now.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Yeah, see, I've probably done it with you guys.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
That is true.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Right. Nothing. Does it taste like anything? For context, for people who don't know, I literally genuinely do not have a sense of taste. I cannot taste food. So people who know this ask me a lot of questions.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Stick around. Help Wanted will be right back. Welcome back to Help Wanted. Let's get to it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Oh, I have strong feelings about this too.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Yes. Or when somebody else is naked. I used to work from my bedroom and my wife would come in after the shower and she would always be like, is the Zoom off? And I'd have to turn it off. So I feel like companies, I feel like I'm going to deputize everyone listening to slowly, slowly try to drive your company culture towards camera off.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Yes. Camera off. We don't need this. We don't need to be on camera all day to see each other.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Well, that's wonderful for, for filming, for making podcasts and stuff. But like, you know, if you were just talking to colleagues all day, I just don't think that you need to see their faces. And whenever I have a meeting and I tell people, you know, we don't need an, you don't need another zoom meeting in your life. I am sure we can do camera off. They always say, do you know what they say to me?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
They say the same thing every time. When I say, I'm sure you don't need another Zoom meeting in your life. We can keep the cameras off. What do they say?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Thank you. They always say thank you. Thank you. Because they don't want it. Nobody wants it. I have found that entrepreneur, there were a couple colleagues who just started showing up with their camera off. Shout out Deepa. Deepa's camera's off and off. And it inspired others. It created permission for other people to keep their cameras off.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
And now most, in a lot of meeting settings at Entrepreneur, cameras are all off. I think that is wonderful. Cameras off.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Oh, I think it's entirely dependent upon the existing set of expectations. If this person works well and shows up and there's just never a question about whether they're working... Deepa is a great example of which. It's just a colleague of mine, Deepa. Deepa is the Swiss army knife of entrepreneurs. She does everything. And there is never a question of whether or not Deepa is on it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Deepa is always on it. And as a result, nobody cares if Deepa's camera is off because... She's there. Everything will get done. There's just no worry. So in a way, you almost have to earn the camera off.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"Should I Follow My Boss On Instagram?" and Other New Workplace Etiquette Conundrums
Yeah. Safety first.