Episode Transcript
Brenton: [00:00:00] Hey guys, this is Brenton Harrison of New Money, New Problems, and I want to welcome you to this week's episode. This episode's gonna be a little different. It's gonna be more laid back, no intro, no commercials because I am on vacation. And while I've been on vacation, it's had me a little more introspective than usual. And I've been thinking about a series of conversations I've had with friends, coworkers and the like over the past several months. And many of those were centered around trying to get some of the time back in your week, things that are stressing you out, chores that are taking up time that you would like to have back. And it's very interesting because many of the people that I work with and I'm surrounded by are people who have gotten to a point in their career where they have significantly more means than they did when they first started.
That doesn't mean they're all making a million dollars. It just means that compared to what they were making when they were 24 or 25, they have seen a significant increase. And on that journey of improvement and increasing in pay, [00:01:00] in job responsibilities, there are oftentimes these periods where you go from simply not being able to afford something, to being able to afford it, but not paying for it. And oftentimes when there's a hesitance in paying or establishing those services, when I talk to my friends, it's not just hesitance. There's also a guilt that comes with paying for some things that we know would save us time. But even in spite of doing so, we feel a responsibility to do it ourselves. So in this episode, I'm gonna interview three people and I'm gonna first start with Courtney Hale, who's been on the podcast in the past, and we're starting with Courtney because a lot of this has to do with increasing your human capital.
So I want him to kick it off, explain to us what human capital is for the second time, and then transition into some of the things that we should be paying for, but have guilt in doing so and how it impacts our life.
Courtney, welcome back to the podcast.
Courtney: Yeah. [00:02:00] Thanks for having me.
Brenton: Courtney, I wanted you to, I think I've shared it on the podcast in the past, but I wanted you from your perspective to share what is, what does human capital mean to you?
Courtney: Yeah. So for me, human capital is all about recognizing that you are an asset, right? So typically when we think about assets, we think about our cash, our investments. But we as people, as individual, we're capital. And the same way we want to make good decisions with our money and where we invest it and who we choose to manage it.
We also have to manage ourself as an investment as well. I get a question frequently. It's like, when am I ready to start investing? Like, when can I be an investor? What do I need to do? And my answer is always the same. You are your first investment. So the first thing that you can do to increase the value of your first investment is to take care of yourself as your first investment.
And there are multiple parts of that. There's the [00:03:00] physical piece of it, which is making sure you're not eating meat in a can and making sure that you're exercising and drinking water, right? You want to be healthy because you can't Earn any money if you're in a hospital bed in most instances. But the other piece where the, where this term really has value for me is how you increase your knowledge and your skills.
We are more marketable when there's something that we can offer that has value. The point is you have to have a skill in order to be marketable and make money, and increasing your personal human capital is all about expanding your knowledge and your expertise.
This economy that we are in now it's so important to have additional skills where you can pivot and bounce back, recreate yourself or expand your financial [00:04:00] capabilities.
Brenton: Oh no man, I get it. We've had conversations. Where, you've talked about human capital and I've talked about establishing your personal hourly rate.
And, always striving to increase that hourly rate, whether it's through extra classes, whether it's through networking the power of your skillset. And to me, I just think it helps dictate so much of the things, number one, that, that are in front of you professionally.
But also in terms of the tasks that you pay people for. So I'll ask you, is there anything in your life that has surprised you, where you have found it has been worth it to trade your money, to get back your time for something where it's like you're paying somebody a lower hourly rate than your hourly rate to take something off your plate.
Courtney: Yeah. Two things off the top of my head. That I paid somebody for on a regular wash and fold and cleaning services. I think most people will be blown away at how cheap wash and fold services are. [00:05:00] And I should have been going more. But instead I would let everything pile up and I would take about 60 what about 60 pounds of laundry to get washing fold?
It would cost me like a hundred bucks. Like a hundred bucks a month. That's one thing. The other thing is cleaning. And beyond the money, like beyond the, forget the money.
I'm the type of person to where when I have tasks in my head that have to get done, it weighs on me. So like I carry the weight it like increases my anxiety. It's like I have to do A, B, C, D and then E is wash, dry fold and clean the house. You get rid of that stress immediately. And those are two things for me to, for person personally that I do. There are probably some things in my business that I pay for as well.
I Managing my email is something that I don't, I really don't do anymore. And part of that was because I [00:06:00] was awful at it for a long time. But the other reason is like I can focus on more higher earning tasks than me sitting down and responding to emails for two hours a day.
Brenton: Now, let me ask you this.
When you signed up for any of those services, wash and Fold cleaning, was there ever any guilt or any hesitance to signing up for them? And if so, why?
Courtney: Why? Yeah, ab absolutely. Absolutely. I grew up in an era where men is oh, I can do this myself. I can change my own oil, I can cut my own grass.
And it was like a pride thing to be able to do things on your own. And so now we getting into this age to where it's more so about efficient life plans and most people don't understand that.
And honestly, the only people really talking about it are like, Busy business people and entrepreneurs, there's still just a whole community of people who don't get efficient life plans. And so when you're [00:07:00] talking to, maybe friends or family, and you're like, yeah, I pay somebody, 40 bucks to come and cut my grass every other week, or I pay for washing fold, there's this guilt, like this societal pressure that comes from it.
But. It makes me better, it makes me happier. It allows me to focus on the things that matter the most.
Nah, for
Brenton (2): sure.
Brenton: So that was Courtney's perspective. And after he shared talking about washing fold and cleaning, I actually went to LinkedIn and I asked some of my connections on LinkedIn, what are some of the things that they do to trade money to get time back, and if there was any guilt that they had associated with those purchases.
And I'll tell you, one of the things I found out is that apparently my family is one of the last that is not paying for wash and fold, but we also had a number of responses saying that. They needed to use a cleaning service and that, uh, when they grew up, there was not somebody who cleaned their house.
So it took them a while to be comfortable with this service, but eventually they came around to it. Grocery delivery was [00:08:00] another huge one that we saw where before the pandemic, it wasn't something that people were willing to pay for. But when you realize how much time of your week is spent going to and from the grocery store, it became an expense that they thought was worth offloading to another company. So after I got those responses, I thought about more conversations I'd had, and one of those conversations was with our director of operations at New, Money,, New Problems, Danielle Alexander. So you all haven't heard from Danielle before, but if you follow us and have seen our social media, or you're a client of our firm, Most of the things that involve anything other than sitting down and talking are completed by her.
So I ask a lot of her. She does a lot for the firm, and I wanted to ask her about a purchase that she and her husband decided to make and how it has impacted their family.
Alright, Danielle, welcome to this side of the stage on the podcast. I've given a brief rundown of what you do, uh, but [00:09:00] I have you on to recap a conversation, uh, that we've had a couple of times, and it centers on the fact that you and your husband, and your brother and your sister-in-law, you share a nanny.
Is that correct? Yep.
Alright. And then what was the conversation like amongst the families when you were deciding that you all would would like the support, was it to help you all run errands more consistently, to be able to work more efficiently? What was that conversation like? Yeah,
Danielle: we all, for one, we all moved to Tennessee and knew that we were like gonna do life together. So we knew we wanted them either in the same school or a nanny share, which me and my brother and both of our spouses, we didn't grow up with nannies.
So I think immediately we looked into schools and. No schools like provided the hours that we needed. So really it was like our next, it was not our first option to think about a nanny share. But yeah, it just, it really, we all worked from home and we needed someone to come in [00:10:00] and have our kids, but we all worked
Brenton: from home.
Yeah, that makes that makes perfect sense. But, this episode is about like things that may make perfect sense, but still make us itch a little and Yeah. And we've had conversations where we'll be coordinating like, Hey, we need to meet at X time or y time. And you have said, you started to say, oh yeah, that's fine, because the nanny will be here at that time, but you always hesitate.
And instead of saying the nanny, you stop yourself and you say her name. And I asked you, Why you are so hesitant to refer to the nanny in her capacity as a nanny? Yeah. Yeah. Can you tell me why you think there's a level of hesitance there?
Danielle: Initially in my head I'm like, she has a name, so I like to refer to people as their names.
But really, if I think about it, like it was uncomfortable for me. To refer to her as our nanny. Like it was, I just, again, I didn't grow up with a nanny and so talking about this person who [00:11:00] comes in and takes care of my kid, like in my head, the least I could do is refer to her as her name, but it was just, Yeah,
Brenton: I don't know.
My, my response was, I definitely understand treating people with respect, but if you had a plumber that came over, who was paid well and doing their task, you would not say Hey, Steve's in there. He's available at the time, you would say, Hey, there's a plumber here. So like to me, when you talk about a nanny, I think That for some people there are two things at play.
There is the hesitance or like the guilt associated with what you're talking about from not having had one. Mm-hmm. Especially you have several siblings. There also is, when you say nanny, like an implication that you have a certain financial status. Yep. And I feel like some people feel uncomfortable with that as well.
Yep. Do you think it's both? Either
Danielle: or. I think I actually would argue that mine is three parts, and I would say societal for sure, like it puts me in a certain status that I have a nanny.[00:12:00] But that would be backed by like my upbringing and we didn't have nannies and so society would put those people who had nannies in a certain demographic of people.
And third I would say culturally is our nanny specifically is older than me. And so culturally, like I would refer to that person at, with their name and it's not often that services are provided by someone older than you in our culture. Like you would have like your elders serve you food or do something in that respect.
So culturally I also think it like made me really uncomfortable to refer to her. As someone providing a service to me because she's
Brenton: older than me. And can you share what is that culture?
Danielle: I'm Pacific Islander, so I am Samoan and yeah. Yeah, that
Brenton: stuff hits deep.
So that was Danielle and all of this stuff is so interesting because it's almost like you want to call it the guilt of privilege, but in many cases you heard in their example, all four of them [00:13:00] work from home. So it's not even necessarily privilege as much as it is a necessity, but we still in so many cases, have some.
Guilt associated with either paying for something or in the case of Danielle, even referring to the thing that you're already paying for in a certain type of way. And she mentioned cultural influences, and I agree that is a very strong pull in the case of many people. And when she said cultural influences, it reminded me of my friend Isaac.
So Isaac will be the last person that we talk to, but Isaac has a thousand different hats that he wears at once, and we had a conversation recently that I wanted to share a snippet of on the podcast as well, so welcome Isaac.
Alright, Isaac, thanks for hopping on the podcast.
Isaac: Hey, thanks for having me, man. Love what you do and and glad to be a part of it.
Brenton: Oh man, I appreciate it. Well, I only gave your first name, so if you could give me your full name and give me a full accounting of all of the things that you do professionally right now.[00:14:00]
Isaac: So I'm Dr. Isaac Addae based in Nashville, Tennessee. I do quite a bit of different things, man, and, and it probably explains it, it it'll make sense when, when I tell you my, my journey. I'm a first generation American. My parents are immigrants from Ghana, west Africa. I'm the first person in my family born outside of Ghana.
I'm grown up in the south, so I'm a southern guy with no accent who lived in black America within a Ghanaian enclave. So I grew up in a very diverse background and, and community I. Uh, I started my corporate career as an engineer. Went to Tennessee State, completed my bachelor's, master's in computer engineering.
Spent about seven or eight years in the corporate world, made the transition into academia. Since 2015, I've been on faculty at Tennessee State University, where I teach business strategy and entrepreneurship. And this year I also started teaching in the M B A program at the Vanderbilt University Business School.
I'm the Chief Strategy [00:15:00] Officer at Pivot Technology School, which is a ed tech startup in Nashville. I'm a member of the Black Chamber Board, the Super Money Kids Board, um, the Health and Education Facilities Board, as well as corner to corner. I'm a member of Alpha Alpha Fraternity.
I'm a husband, I'm a father. Um, man, I, I
Brenton: got a lot of hat hats. That's, that's some, that's a lot of hats. Yeah. There's some political activity you left off. Oh, yeah,
Isaac: yeah, yeah. Thank you for reminding me of that, man. So, Nashville's in the midst of a mayor election, one of the, the, the, the highest vote giving candidates is named Freddy O'Connell and I'm his treasurer and we're pushing hard to the runoff on September 14th, man.
So academic, corporate. Government community engagement. I cover the full gamut. And last but not least, I'm the author of a book called Black Boy Fly, which talks about my journey through the world being Ghanaian and being black. I.
Brenton: Right, right. So we'll, we'll put a link to that [00:16:00] in the show notes. Thank you.
Uh, so you just, you just named off like 10 or 11 different things and offline you and I were having a conversation about the fact that in spite of all this, you do not have anyone helping you manage Correct. Your time in your calendar.
Isaac: Right. Makes no sense, man. It makes no sense. I should and. I believe this year we're gonna break through.
I've been really thinking about it and processing it for years. Man, there's some guilt associated with it. I'm just gonna be honest with you, man. Culturally, growing up, you know, we were taught that you have to take care of yourself, take care of your family, and it, it was never about paying people to do things for you.
It's, you should be capable of managing these things on your own, you know? And then as I've become an adult and my financial means have increased, That has created opportunities for me to outsource things, but I still feel that pull to try to manage it all myself and not necessarily pay [00:17:00] someone else to do the things that I should be able to do for myself.
But I'm realizing, man, it's not efficient, it's not productive, and that the wealthy people have found ways to conserve their time because they know time is money and they use their money to buy back time. But man, I've just had a hard time really shifting in that way and giving the reins of my whole professional life over to someone to help me manage.
Brenton: Yeah, man. You know, we, uh, I often tell people when you get confronted with those situations to try to think about like the freedom that will come on the other side of it. Like once you finally Right, uh, pull that trigger. So let me ask you this, let, let me say that, um, hypothetically, you have hired someone tomorrow.
Uh, how many hours of your week do you think you would have back immediately, just as an estimate?
Isaac: I'd say starting out, just helping them get ramped up, probably two hours a day, 10 hours out of [00:18:00] a work week in terms of just follow up outreach, responding to the incoming traffic that hits my inbox, man, I get, I get outreach on WhatsApp, text, phone, Google Voice.
Facebook, LinkedIn, inst Instagram, and then a plethora of email accounts. And you know, it, it's, I gotta hand it over, man. I gotta hand it over to at least 10 hours starting out and, and once I start shifting that person into a project management capacity, it could probably double to about 20 hours. Man,
Brenton: so that, that's a powerful feeling.
If you can know even before you started it, that you're spending 10 hours a week doing something only because there's guilt associated with not doing
Isaac: it. Doesn't make any sense, man. It doesn't any sense.
Brenton: Bro, I, I appreciate your transparency. Um, listeners of the podcast, you will hear Isaac in in future [00:19:00] episodes, so this is your introduction to him, but it won't be the last time you hear from him.
And, and you know, I appreciate you and thanks for joining the podcast.
Isaac: Of course, man.
Brenton: So that's it. You've now heard from three different people who have shared some of the hesitance and guilt that was associated with decisions they've made that clearly add value and time back into their lives.
And when I think about the lesson for this episode, there's really not much of a lesson outside of making sure that you understand that if you find yourself in this situation, you're not alone. We've talked in previous episodes about the emotions behind how we spend your financial comfort zone, your financial neighborhood, and the things that can influence you even without you realizing it.
And I wanted to make sure that throughout this podcast we not just talk about the financial lessons, but also the stigma that can be associated with certain financial matters, the guilt, the hesitance, uh, and make sure that when you know that that stuff exists, that you don't let it hinder the things that [00:20:00] can add value into your life.
So I hope that this was a nice reprieve from the typical, uh, type of episodes that we have. I know it was a little unique. But I'm praying that you enjoyed it, and if you are looking for something more conventional, I'll be back next week in the office. Ready to give you another episode of the New Money, New Problems podcast.
I'll talk to you then.
