#61: Julie Rains: The Essentials of Growing Wealth

Intro: 0:02

Welcome to Creative spirits unleashed where we talk about the dilemmas of balancing work and life. And now, here's your host, Lynn Carnes.

Lynn: 0:20

Welcome to the creative spirits unleashed Podcast. I'm Lynn Carnes, your host. My guest for this episode is Julie Raines, author of growing wealth, essential money lessons from my garden to yours. You are going to love this conversation.Because Julie is one of those people who has a real knack for getting down to the essentials of the thing she is learning about and the thing she is teaching. In this case, she is teaching us about growing wealth, but also sharing her journey on learning to garden.And in both cases, how she found the essential elements that make a difference in both domains.There were several things in this conversation, everything from how to learn how to ask for help and learning how to stay balanced, how to recognize how to create a given take, for example, and things like spending and saving. There's just a lot of wisdom packed into just a very practical conversation. The voice you hear in this conversation is very much like the voice you will read when you read her book because Julie has a very practical, sensible way of going about her business. So who is Julie Raines. She is a writer and investor. She has worked as a financial analyst and accountant for Fortune 500corporations, and as a freelance writer for individual clients and media companies. Her work has focused on analyzing financial information and crafting narratives to make sense of the math. Julie earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a concentration in finance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Years later, she returned to study communications and undergraduate level certificate in technology and communication from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She and her husband Tim raised two sons now grown, they live in North Carolina, just down the road, by the way from me, where she attempts to grow vegetables, and fruit riser bike and occasionally organizes group hikes. I know you're gonna love this conversation, and enjoy it with Julie rains. Julie rains.Welcome to the podcast.

Julie: 2:36

Thank you Lynn

Lynn: 2:38

you're here to hear I know, I we spend a lot of time already on phone calls or Zoom calls together. Yes. So I'm having to get my head around it for people who are listening to you and I are having a different kind of conversation than we normally have. Because it's for the benefit of the people listening. And one of the things that I want to ask you about because it's not my forte is gardening. So you are the author of growing wealth. Tell me the subtitle again. I think of my from my garden to yours. But there's something else

Julie: 3:17

yeah. Essential money lessons from my garden, two years

Lynn: 3:21

essential money lessons from my garden two years. I don't have a green thumb. How did you develop a green thumb because you talk about in your book that you're learning to garden? But how did you develop a green thumb? Or do you have one,

Julie: 3:34

right? Well, I'm not sure if I have one, I feel like I'm a lot better than I was before.And one of the issues that I had on trying to learn to garden is I didn't know how to like, I don't know how to do things.It's somewhat of a learning disability. If you give me a math problem, or something involving finance, some basic finance, I'm great. My memory tends to remember numbers, but as far as like looking at how somebody does something and then doing it, like I need written instructions instead. And so when I've thought about gardening, I wanted to do it,but I didn't know where to start. And you know, I think I tried a few things that never seem to work. I didn't know how much to water something or not water something. I think I mentioned you know, in the book,you know, a cactus died, I tried to ground cover. I didn't you know, I didn't you know, and then when you ask people in addition and sometimes saying I wish it's easier you just do it or whatever. I couldn't I just couldn't figure out where to start or how to think about it.And there's like and they or if they if they tell you a lot of things if they do tell you something they start rattling off like a million rolls about things and people even told me like a planet some I'll go back to how I started by playing with some peach trees a while back. I had somebody plant those I decided to do an orchard in my backyard. So we got about 10trees out there. And people started telling me all the things that go wrong And I hadn't even I mean, it hadn't been up there, here. And so there's like, you know, 20things that could go wrong. And it's like, what do I need to start dealing with those things?And it's like, well, maybe, you know, this isn't like my source of my income or my livelihood,I'm just gonna see what happens.And then correct this to happen.But, but the way I ended up getting started was I decided to set a goal, yes, finally gotten into setting goals as an as an adult. And one day, I just said,Okay, I'm gonna learn to guard.And I already asked people for help, didn't get any help. And so then I back the time with LivingSocial. And those, like Groupons was a big thing. And I got an email with the beginning of the year saying, hey, learn to learn the gardener's discount. So sign up for this class, this lady in about an hour away. And she had, she had been a Master Gardener, and she taught gardening and she grew her own garden, she had all these sorts of skills, which I had no idea, I just knew she was offering this. And it was like$25. And so I went over there.And in the course of that she was such a good tea. She said,there's a, she gave me a framework, or she offered a framework. And she said, you need you know, three things,good soil, water, and sunlight.Those are the three elements you need to think about. And that gave me a framework for understanding what to do. And she one thing that she said that stuck out was, if you don't have good dirt, nothing else matters.And so it was like, okay,instead of worrying about these millions of other things that people tell me, I can focus on that one thing.

Lynn: 6:36

So I have to, I have to, I have to catch something before we lose it. Okay. You said two things about this learning. One was I asked, and nobody, nobody was able to help me. But then I set a goal. And then all of a sudden, somebody is offering a gardening class near you. And my bet is before you set that goal there, there might have been somebody offering classes prior,you wouldn't have noticed. But you noticed, once you set the goal,

Julie: 7:09

right. And you know, I had a friend and right out of college that was a horticulture major. She was like, That was her work. But she has a master's degree in horticulture. And I never thought to ask her, it never occurred to me. You know,it was like a whole foreign thing to me. But you're right.And I'm sure that community college, which I have taking other classes at the community college, I'm sure they offered classes that were more at that point, maybe more, or at one point, they were quarter. And now either semesters is a big commitment to do that. But definitely, there's other places to learn.

Lynn: 7:41

Well, and it just what,what strikes me about that, and then I want to care more about how you got back to this framework, because that's the other thing I'm noticing is, a lot of times when we want to do something, we don't recognize how much help is offered. Once our eyes, our filters are opened, right? Like things that have been there all along. Like it's like going to buy a car,you know, they call it the yellow Volkswagen syndrome. You know, if you start noticing things, people say, well, when's the last time you saw yellow Volkswagen? Never. And it's like, well, now that we've talked about yellow, Volkswagen,see how many of you see, Chris,I see them all the time. Because my filters are open forum. So your filter became open for gardening. And there it was. And a lot of times when I'm working with people who are looking for,they've set a goal, but they say they can't make it happen. It's because they're not noticing all the moments of serendipity that are already coming their way.And you grabbed the moment of serendipity and took this woman up who sounds really smart,because then she gave you a framework instead of 20 things that can go wrong.

Julie: 8:44

Right. Right. And I think I think I have noticed that sometimes I would tend to notice the things that go wrong.Before, you know, the people that did turn me down, yes,instead of that is saying the things that are that are going to be that are going to connect me to what I what I need, but it was very much, you know,serendipitous to see this person because she was such a good teacher. And, and I've started to notice, on that line, I've started notice when people are good teachers, you know, some people are just not are not good at that. And people that have a friend as she's organized as a bike rides, and she'll sit there and, and she she has some other skills as well. And she put she'll lay things out and kind of break things down, give you context, and then tell you what you need to do and then kind of follow up if you don't understand. And I'm not sure if she how she cultivated that. But there are some people like that they just seem to intuitively know what the questions might be and and are able to break it down.

Lynn: 9:40

Yes, I really appreciate a good teacher. But also I appreciate a good learner and like you decided to learn and you know how you learn. So you found somebody who could teach you the way you learn. That's the other. It's important. Yes.Yeah. So she gave you this framework. soil water, sunlight and you decided to focus on the soil. So then I'm sure, I was gonna say it didn't go perfectly did it? I never does. Well,okay,

Julie: 10:13

so this is kind of funny.So I don't have many very good visual skills. So I don't remember things that well. So one of the things that had happened was that we had had a lot of like a volunteer trees that come up and weeds and stuff that I just never even paid attention to, or didn't think I would be good at 10 days or whatever. And so about that time, or maybe like a year before, my husband decided he wanted to kind of clean up the yard. And so we took down a bunch of these volunteer trees on the side of the house. Well,all that composting, and what I call neglect, kind of turned to my advantage, because it was like the perfect conditions for growing a garden. It also happened to have full sun, which I didn't know what was before.And then I learned that, you know, if you can get a lot of sun, certainly not every vegetable, but like tomatoes,it's a thing people want. I love tomatoes, right. And those are so hard to get you know,homegrown, or if you're going to the store, you know, they're usually not very good. Right?Now, maybe it's more farmers market. So you can go out and get one but there's nothing like the homegrown tomato. So and I learned like that that particular spot happened to be perfect because it got full sun,and it had this kind of decaying dirt. So I kind of had already without doing a lot of work other than just getting rid of that some of those trees kind of hit a great place to start putting to put the garden and then I'm also a little bit of a,you know, filled this force of I feel like nature knows what it's doing more than I do. So, so I just figured, you know, it'll rain, you know, it'll rain at some point and stuff as a husband would go out and water things. If he thought that you know, it's not going to have a lot of rain. But because, you know if catch a lot of rain there, so I didn't, that all kind of came together that one little spot came together as well. So and I did focus, I knew that was dirt, or assumed at that point, I thought it was going to be good dirt based on what she had told me and what I had observed. So that seemed like a good spot.

Lynn: 12:20

And so I'm anxious to hear about your first tomato crop.Because I've gone through this thing of growing tomatoes actually grew, I grew tomatoes,in pots on my deck behind my house, and almost destroyed the deck. Because I didn't realize that all the water coming off and so forth was going to run over and then rot the wood and make it look horrible and all of this kind of stuff. So my husband put a kibosh on that when we realize the unintended consequences of growing tomatoes in pots, they were awesome. So I had to move to a different location. Then my dog, my last harvest of tomatoes, my dog ate the green tomatoes, like I had maybe 30 Tomatoes left, and she ate every last one of those green tomatoes, Who ever heard of a dog eating great tomatoes.But she ate them all the time.So that she didn't, she didn't get sick. It was so weird. It was this was my older dog that had arthritis. And we were really limiting her diet to keep her weight down. And I think she was willing to just eat anything that looked like food besides what we were feeding her. But it made me really sad because you know that you go through this harvest this bounty, there's too much, but then kind of towards the end, you're just happy for every ripe tomato that comes off the vine. And I didn't get any.I was very sad. But anyway, tell me about your Tell me about your experiences growing tomatoes,because those are like the thing. Right?

Julie: 13:54

So I think the first year that I grew try to grow some my tomatoes did not grow. I think it was probably the second year,for whatever reason they did.And I had been buying seeds. And I've still done that bad seeds from like a seed company. There was a subscription service that I signed up for. And I got seeds from them. And I think probably that first year they didn't grow and there's edit net, there's like a million different varieties. And for whatever reason, one season, they started growing up, I never I never figured out there's some setup and grow up and they put him on trellises. But I haven't figured out how to do that yet. Yeah,that's one of my goals to to understand how to I mean, I put trellises up, but they didn't grow to this village. And then I tried to tap and do the stuff but I didn't. So it's probably something I need to go out and study. But for whatever reason the plants that are that I grew started, or that the seeds that I planted started going away and I just had a really nice It was,it's only been one season I've tried to plant a few seasons,they had some small cherry tomatoes. But one year I had these big tomatoes and it was just so wonderful to go out there and see those tomatoes and, and grab them and be able to cook them right there and never seen those and saying, oh,you know, I've I've made it because that's what a legitimate gardener can do. They can grow tomatoes that

Lynn: 15:22

grow tomatoes. Well, they mine would always fall over I'd have to get the steaks. And then one day after I'd been growing them for like 15 years, somebody said, Well, aren't you're not pulling this little suckers off.And I was like, Oh, what, and I learned about determinate and indeterminate tomatoes and taking off those little extra things, and so forth. And of course, none of this applies anymore. Because my stomach has said that you as much as you love tomatoes, I don't like my stomach doesn't like my mouth does. So I'm not eating tomatoes anymore. So I'm not growing them. But yeah, but the tricks of which ones need to be staked,which ones should grow on trellises all of that there's a lot to this is the point, you had to learn a lot to get there.

Julie: 16:08

And I realized now how much more there is to learn. But I really felt like I needed to have this foundation, before I started adding all these little nuances and, and things like that, that I you know, and now I know, okay, I can go out and I can research. You know how to different tomatoes and how to do the trellis and all that. And there's a lady, so I go to a local church and they develop they they're developing a community garden in order to, to give away, you know, produce,and she's got a whole trellis system. And I'm like, Oh, I get to learn how to do this, or I have somebody to ask now how that works. And I don't feel quite similar, I would feel intimidated when people would start telling me things about how they were doing things that it just, it would frustrate me.And I would hate to admit a mistake that I made or, but now I feel more open to asking questions and learning and understanding.

Lynn: 17:01

Yeah, well, you know,okay, so you that you just hit on something else, it's very interesting, because when we first bought mystic waters, we set up a place to have a garden,and we were looking at what to grow and like how to set it up and things like that. And this is when I realized that group,no amount of googling will actually give you what you need to do, to learn how to grow a garden, because it's very local.And what we recognized is the value of this passing on of knowledge that, actually, you know, when you said nature knows what it's doing more than I do.Like, you've got to learn what nature knows what it's doing from other people to some degree, like your woman with the trellis. And I feel like it's something about modern society has taken us away from that natural way of learning from other people.

Julie: 17:57

You know? Yes,definitely. And I think, yeah,there's like this independent,the idea of being very independent and not wanting to ask questions, and then if you do ask questions, but if you're shut down, you feel like, well,maybe that, you know, that's taboo to ask a question or something. But yeah, I think definitely, I think the idea of teaching other people has been taken away from us.

Lynn: 18:21

And was expected, you know, because we do think we should be able to get it all,quote, unquote, all the information is out there all the knowledge in the world, you know, you should be able to get,but indeed doesn't work that way. And we found that the place that we got the most knowledge was the local places that like,there's, like in these country roads of North Carolina, there's like these little you know, kind of have it all shops, they have everything from gas, you know,to pecans, to honey to garden soil to, you know, it's like the little hub of all these little,little rural communities. And that was with the folks that knew best, you know, they would carry all the different brands,for example of things to augment your soil with. But then you'd say, Okay, this is what I've got going on. They said, This is what you need, and they'd be right.

Julie: 19:14

Got an ethic with that is, there's the idea of getting started to know what questions to ask. Because if you just say,How do I do it? It's hard to flex I'm very fortunate, this woman gave me this fret framework because nobody ever gave me a framework. But and now what I've tended to do is talk to friends, or people that I know is it's interesting to see where they you know, what things they struggle with, and then what things that they've mastered or figured out. Yeah,there is actually so I recently found out a Facebook group.There's like a million Facebook groups. They have like a local North Carolina gardening,backyard gardening. Yeah, I've been following that. That's been interesting to see. But people but it's also interesting to see people just saying, Hey, what's wrong, you know, what about Done. And sometimes it's you know, I think it's, it's more intuitive to what they're doing.But sometimes it's such a broad question, it's hard to answer the hard to answer them. And maybe that's what my friends kind of have had problem with.

Lynn: 20:15

So this is the idea of Facebook groups, I am in several myself for different things. And it's like learning how to sort out the wheat from the chaff,right? Where is the like nugget of information that you definitely need that you can definitely use, versus somebody who just is I call them a keyboard warrior, happy to give you their opinion, but probably didn't have any useful knowledge for you, and how to figure out which of those things. So having our own sensibility about what how we're learning, and you know, I'm actually thinking, How funny is it that we're talking about gardening at this level,when our grandmothers probably are for sure, their mothers,they knew how to do this, like the back of their hands. Right.And in talking with my dad, he was talking about that, you know, they everybody had a garden, and to the notice how they had a garden and then they

Julie: 21:10

eat it was also kind of a shear and it was almost like a wood, they might grow something,even though they had a very tiny yard. They might grow something and then you know, give it to do some trading or give it to other people. He grew up in downtown Charlotte. So even though in the20s it was still small yards back then I grew up in a big farm. Yeah, but even in their small little house, because this does, yard they had, they had a garden,

Lynn: 21:39

everybody had a garden and they could do a lot with a little In fact, the first time I tried to plant a garden, and I had a friend that had been gardening for years and she's like you are this is way too big. Like you'll never be able to manage this. And I was like well, it hadn't been that hard.I got it planted, you know, and she's like, oh, yeah, the planning is the easy part.

Julie: 22:00

Even like the weeding there might be

Lynn: 22:02

Yeah, the maintenance Well, I've don't even I hate pulling weeds. So this is this is like a kick my Achilles heel for gardening. I hate pulling weeds. I don't know why it just makes me I'd get dirt under my fingernails it gets in my shoes.I don't like killing things. I feel like I'm killing a perfectly good plant even though it's taking away the nutrients of my other plant. I don't know it's probably some kind of weird blind spot in my personality but I hate pulling weeds

Julie: 22:30

I don't think it's fun if they're easy to pull out but a lot of them are and then there's a whole idea of is this a weed or is this something I planted there's this one thing that took a picture of last year and I kept thinking that a plant this it looks sort of like something I planted in it you know and I've still have question marks about it looks like it was a little kale it's like it was a Nightshade. I can't remember nightshade which I that was like a no new term I had to learn it just doesn't I think I planted a plant maybe that's what that is.And then this year, they came up again I thought maybe that's kale, it looks like a little baby kale. And so when I'm the same way it's difficult.

Lynn: 23:13

Yeah. Yeah, I can't get over people who have these drive down these roads and I see these gardens and I'm like, Those are beautiful and I don't know who's pulling those weeds. But it's just perfect. I've never had that

Julie: 23:27

I haven't either and I've I've experimented with some things I need to experiment some more. One of the ideas was covering up during the offseason which is covering up with landscape fabric and we ended up had another project we had to pull some of that up but it still didn't kill the weeds. So I might try that again and just and then plant within the have things come up or some adult you know, put little holes where I want the plants to the vegetables to come up. Right but my garden looks awful right now.But I do have so I didn't have it but just because of I've had heard about this, I was telling my dad to stay and so that's been taking a lot of my extra energy. Yes. And so I've somewhat in and also planted this this orchard and so that's taken so as kind of like okay,I've got that growing. I've got some blueberries and I've got some peaches coming again possibly some something else.But so I could have a local local farmers that I buy food from and it's also Gordon has helped me appreciate the local farmers a lot more. So they've expanded some and they actually sold some tomatoes and some like already plants. I've never done this at website. I have done it before but I've never successfully done it before. I have bought plants before I tried to plan them and then nothing happened. They died pretty quickly after that. But I trusted them because I bought all my you know a lot of my produce from them and they had these beautiful lettuces and a tomato I just bought one tomato plant. I should have brought more. But I planted planted. So I've got those. Yeah, I've got some cilantro that's bolted,which actually know what that what that means now and what happens after doing some research and I have a friend over that told me what it what kind of what it meant. And then I looked it up and said, You're gonna

Lynn: 25:17

have to educate me now and everybody else. Okay, you said it's bolted,

Julie: 25:22

bolted or bolted, I think and so what does that mean? So what and I learned some of this from the local gardening on Facebook. So it just is like one day? Well, first off, when I'm playing the cilantro, it didn't come up the first year. And then it came up the next year,suddenly, for some reason. And it's, so it grows normally, like you might get to see it in the store. But then it grows really tall. And it's like little small, little, like really thin little pieces. And I was like,like seems you're kind of come as I guess there's also things that kind of goes to seed. So it both I think it obviously is like it grows really fast, but not so tall. And it's like Lane over and so apparently alarm. So one of my friends said, okay,that means it's going to see like this, okay, okay, it's to me, it's like it wasn't going to see a good thing. And it can be interpreted as it's creating,it's creating more seeds. So it'll grow again. I mean, this is my second season with this.So it's growing more seeds. And then the little things are really thin, they still taste okay, what are friends so that sometimes it can be more bitter.Oh, and I haven't tasted, I hadn't noticed that. But what I read in the local gardening page was that when it gets hot that cilantro needs cooler weather,and when it gets hot, it's trying to survive. And so and this is where nature so it's trying to survive. So it creates it seeds, it grows so high, and then this creates more seeds, so it'll plant for the next season.So that's a certain survival technique.

Lynn: 27:01

You know, trees do that,too. Like, there'll be more pine cones when the tree is under stress. Or they'll grow the barrels on the side when they're under stress. And I think that like back to your really wise comment, you know, nature knows what it's doing more than I do.You know, it is amazing to watch how nature sort of takes care of the survival of the species, if you will. Right. And yeah, I thought that was come along and interfere, you know?

Julie: 27:31

Yeah. And I, you know, I guess I don't they tell this in biology class when I was in high school or not. But yeah, and I missed or whatever the subject would be button or whatever. Um,but yeah, it's fascinating to think about, okay, that's the reason and that kind of helps me know what to do with it right now. It's just, they're just laying there just out that it.Yeah, hopefully, it's planted seeds. But,

Lynn: 27:51

yeah, well, it's just the fruits of stress. You know, the seeds are really the fruits of stress. And, you know, we all try to stop stress. And it's like, no stress is really actually the thing that makes us stronger. So, you know, I'm, you know, me I'm a big fan of pressure is the thing that makes you stronger?

Julie: 28:09

Yeah. And I haven't really thought about that.You're right. Yeah. It's interesting to see that, that fruit of how nature works and how it decides itself. And like I said, how stress works.

Lynn: 28:19

Yeah. So so what, what I found fascinating in reading your book was how well you drew parallels between gardening and finance. And not only were you really good at drawing those analogies, but you're, I think your principle of getting a good foundation, like the foundational knowledge you had for gardening was in your foundational knowledge of finance. So tell me how you came to understand and get that finance because this is something you and I do share is the background in finance, you know, I was an accountant. I call myself a recovering digit head, but I was a CPA, you know,got my degree in accounting spent 20 years in banking, doing bank Finance and Investment Banking and so forth. So I have that understanding. But how did you get your, your bait your fat? How did you build that foundation of understanding

Julie: 29:22

money? So I honestly feel like that's partly the intuition. I think some people are green thumbs. I mean, I think people can learn things.But some people seem to have an intuition by looking at something. And I felt like I had a lot of intuition about money,just from the start. And that was reinforced. This was reinforced and kind of learned.So we know from my parents, my my parents grew up during the they were children during the Great Depression. And so just hear the ideas of not spending too much and reserving resources and just kind of now natural thing to be more to be frugal,because you just don't know what's going to happen next.

Lynn: 30:05

Well, especially Yeah, but those of us who have parents that were raised in the Depression, they very much got the sense of everything can go away tomorrow, and it's good to have your reserve

Julie: 30:15

reserves. Right. And so I definitely and so that's not necessarily pause, I would say,there's a very positive side of that. But there there has been,for me a sort of a miserly part of that, that I've had to kind of unlearn. But yes, things could change. You know,sometimes abruptly or suddenly and for no, you know, for no reason that you caused it wasn't because you were lazy, or you know, something, you made a bad decision or whatever. It was more of a an economic condition that occurred that had nothing to do with you personally.

Lynn: 30:48

Well, that's the tide principle, right? A rising tide lifts all boats. And by the same token, a falling tide grounds all boats. Right. And so yeah,there are things that are outside of us. But being aware of those cycles and so forth.But you you hit I want to pick up on something you said,because I think a lot about how we need to react to what's going on around us that we have no control over, because that's where our power is, is how we react. And you said I've had a miserly thing or two to unlearn.And that, is that sort of idea of even overreacting to a frugal mindset, if you will. So how have you learned to calibrate and tune in your reactions to the external world? So that it's not so either to too much spending or not enough spending?if you will? Have you learned to do that.

Julie: 31:44

So probably two big things, I'd say. One is just kind of going through it. And realizing that, you know, things will change, you know, they'll they'll change for the worse,and then they'll change for the better. And honestly, part of it is more of a motional that I've learned to manage. And then part of it is just very practical,you know, I have extra cash, or I've paid off the house or things like that, that I feel like I've put together and that yes, I can do some discretionary spending. But I also can kind of pull back from that if I need to. So try to keep that fixed expenses low. If you have any kind of a more practical safety net. And there is sort of a mental game when things go go bad. I mean, I think I've written a book and it says, I just didn't even look at what was going on.

Lynn: 32:33

Well tell me, you said something critical. And I actually had one of my longtime colleagues one time said to me,he had become a, he left banking and became really a full time investor. And when I was at the bank, I sort of started talking about emotional literacy in the finance world. And I was really seen as a pariah sometimes that I was talking about the impact of emotions on our financial decisions, especially on our underwriting decisions. And he,this was after we hit both left banking, but he said, Lynn, I have come to realize that the biggest problem I have with investing is my emotions. And I was like, well, it's about damn time. So say more about what you've learned about how your emotions influence, this ability to swing back and forth between when to spend and when not to spend, when to invest, when not to invest, and so forth.

Julie: 33:31

I'm hesitant, because I think probably what I do might not work may or may not be relevant to other people, but that's not. So the thing as far as the investing side is, a lot of times, I wasn't the kind of I'm not the kind of person that panics and sales, I've never been that kind of person. But I have been the kind of person that just gets distraught over all of that, that that was, and I think that's part of the, you know, if you if you're I think now that I'm looking back certain times of that, like if you know, you're you've got a great job and you're still investing, you know, even when the markets slow, that's a perfect time to still to keep investing. But if you're in a situation, sort of enter maybe sort of a semi retirement phase.And you know, when the market was down, we know that there wasn't practical implications for me because if I needed to sell stock that was how to sell on it. And lo and that dislike hurt. Yeah. But just kind of getting over over that, that anyone to look at the stock market and say, oh, you know,look at that everything's up. I must be smart. And then look at,you know, when it falls, well,you know, does that mean I'm stupid? It's like, no, it's just the way it works.

Lynn: 34:45

But they say that's so important because we personalize that rising tide. Somehow we did the rising tide, but we don't want to have to own the falling tide. And it's like, you don't have to own either part of it.This is a cycle. I mean, you just have to understand that there are cycles And I Heard Warren Buffett say something really important. At one point during one of the down cycles,he said, when it's raining buckets of rain, he said, when it's when it's raining gold, get out the buckets. And he was talking about the down market being the time to buy when everybody else is selling,that's when it's time to buy.But our emotions get caught up in it. And we think, well, the world is coming to an end, so I can't buy. Because all I'm doing is getting money, you know,taking money out of my pocket.

Julie: 35:33

Yeah, and if you don't have money to buy, then that can be frustrating for one thing.But yes, I think you're right,the opposite of what is happening, the markets really high. That's not what that's all people will get back in to the market. Yeah. And then, and they're paying too much for something.

Lynn: 35:51

That's right. Well, I love2008, I did really well, in2008, when all my other stocks were down, because I followed his advice. And I was like,Well, this is what I need to buy. And I have it you know,when things start getting high,I know they're going to turn around, I know that we're coming and you know, I probably leave money on the table by by going to cash when things are high,but then it gives me some dry powder when things are low. So I think in the long run,

Julie: 36:16

I'm okay. Right. And that's one thing I've learned to do to have that available to to either to have cash available to either spend, so you're not drawing down, you know, you're not drawing down your, your numbers, or you're not drawing down your wealth, or having that money to be able to invest during those down times. And I think I will say that, that's some of the studies that I've read is that people that it's,it's not just a myth, or to me,it's like, Do people really take their money out when the markets falling? Apparently, they really they do. And I didn't know how common that was. But that's one of the reasons people don't have, you know, good returns is because they're taking the money out. And one of the ideas is to be able to put the money back in, you know, maybe when it's gonna start rising, but it's,but things just happen. So, you know, nothing is linear, not not does it go up like this straight little line, it just is so volatile, and something can happen in one day, and change everything? Well, look,

Lynn: 37:18

you know, remember back in March of 2020, and especially April 2020, the market really wonky. And I know a lot of people who made some crazy decisions at that in that timeframe. You know, because it looked like something we had never seen before. So it's like this could last a really long time, I need access to my money.I don't want to watch my wealth disappear. Whatever. And I kind of looked at it and said,Alright, do I have I my my rule has been instead of six months cash on hand, it's more like I'd like to have a couple of years.And I know that's really fluffy for a lot of people and hard to do. But that gives such if you know you have a couple of years of cash, all your investment decisions can be based on wisdom, not based on fear.

Julie: 38:11

Right? Yes. And that was kind of the position what that's something that took me a while to learn that. Yeah, that's that can be in any year, right? It can't be hard for people to develop that cash. thing, but once you do it, it can it is definitely a game changer. But I think going back to 2008 2008was so hard because so many people lost their jobs. Yes. And so the economy wasn't just the market went down, people were losing their jobs. And that made it difficult. And COVID was I mean, kind of it was scary, too.Because, you know, we never had,we had never our generation had never experienced this kind of this thing and to think about the amount of travel that people do. Just seemed like it that would accelerate some of the problems.

Lynn: 38:57

Well, as far as Think about how many people in COVID got stuck. You know, I know somebody who made it back to the states from another country on the last flight, and they were like, they're shutting us down.Get on this plane we're getting out of here. And, you know, I that's been one of the things that made me not want to travel is I was stuck in Canada during911. And, you know, I actually this was very catastrophic thinking, but I remember thinking that I think the towers fell on either Monday or Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday,I'm still stuck in Canada staying at someone's house that I didn't even know. And I started thinking am I going to just have to live in Canada and I ever going to be able to get home. And it made me not ever want to be gone, you know, in a way that I couldn't drive home.

Julie: 39:52

Right. So I was out of the country to during like March we came back March 21. Oh wow.We were In New Zealand, and we,you know, we planned a longer trip. And so we went over there,it was like some rumblings. And then things started getting heated up. And but I didn't change, it didn't change any of my travel plans. That's how I wanted to change it. It was to one or two. But when things got kind of crazy, I think they were looking crazy coming back into the country. I thought, let me just let that settle down a little bit. I didn't want to control my trip anyway. But let me let say that so and it did kind of settle down, they probably didn't have some stricter controls than they should have. But that's another I mean, that's, you can debate that. It's easy to look at things in hindsight. But we didn't wait. But but now that you mentioned that, so I was over in England, and I flew back the day of the air traffic controller strike. And I guess it was at one. And so I've had that experience, where that you slip when you say catastrophic thinking, because I was planning another trip out over the country. And I was like, this isn't, you know, I just can't do this. Because it was COVID ended up lasting longer, the restrictions lasted longer, and I was kind of panicking. And so it is hard, because that's your that's your direct experience.

Lynn: 41:16

Well, that's, that's it,and you just don't realize how much you don't want to have to go through that again, until you've done it. And one of the things I often have to remind myself and my clients is, but you did do it, and you've you have succeeded, and you'll be fine. If it happens again, you know, you've actually already shown you can handle it. So that's another way to look at it. The problem with me is I don't like I just don't like I actually realized what I could have done was walk across the border in Canada, rent a car and then drive home. Because that there was no way I was going to drive across the border, it was a 12 hour wait. Like there was a humongous line getting back. And this is a 911 base. And of course in COVID days, there were times you couldn't cross the border at all period. Like they just weren't allowing any crossings.

Julie: 42:05

Right. Yeah. Yeah, to try to figure out it's a good point as far as figuring out some more resilience as far as trying to navigate crazy situations. But the other thing, so I was I didn't have a chance to sell anything, or even pay attention to the market. And it was already decimated by the time we came back.

Lynn: 42:23

Yeah. Yeah. And rates surprisingly bounce back very,very quickly. I mean, once speaking of resilience, I would say the American economy showed itself to be incredibly resilient and has been for the last few years, which is really a testament to what we've done.Although I do always feel like there's another big crash coming around the corner. That's my catastrophic, thinking about the market, as I'm always looking at it, like this stuff is knitted together. And everything depends on everything else. So disruptions can lead to, you know, a big drop.

Julie: 42:56

Right? And then we, you know, had another big and I was surprised by that other big drop, though everything's fine now. And then,

Lynn: 43:01

yeah, yeah, that's the time to go by.

Julie: 43:05

That's sure. Well, at some point, at some point, I was kind of able to separate myself.And one thing I'll insert here,you asked me, I'd mentioned a couple things. Some have two signs. And one of them is like me very much a saver and, you know, good with numbers and investing. And the other one was always a spender. And it used to drive me crazy. But I learned from him that you know, it is okay to spend. I mean, because he was so persistent and his his desires, and so much more creative than I had it. So he kind of helped change my thinking about spending to say,you know, you don't know what tomorrow is gonna look like,anyway, whether it's as far as the economy doesn't mean go out spend. I mean, it's still hard,but it's still it made me realize, you know, I can't spend to enjoy and to, it's okay to it's okay to do it.

Lynn: 43:57

Well, that's huge. I've actually really experienced that in some of it's because I'm in my 60s now. So, you know, I should, this is why I've saved all this money for all these years. And I am a very, I've always been a saber. But to be able to take that money that I've saved and use it for something that's really pleasurable. And do it guilt free is amazing. You know, it's really different than, like,well, this might I'll be gone tomorrow, or I might need it or whatever was like, I don't know that I have tomorrow. And you know, when we moved, we actually moved to like lower Ross was in his late 30s. I was in my early40s. So that was way young to be moving to a retirement community. And I walked away from pretty significant stock options and so forth at Bank of America when I came here. And there was a part of me that was like, boy, I really screwed up because I'm kind of prematurely living in the retirement community. But I remember sitting on my deck one night and I was out of the city and I Out of the bustle and starting to sort of find myself again, after being caught up in that rat race, thinking, you know, I would rather have to scrap a little bit and live this life,then save a lot of money and live that life. And so that's where the spending sort of that your idea really hit me.

Julie: 45:21

Right. And, and I, and I've got the same thing as I've gotten in the 60s also. And so now it's like, well, I don't want to I don't want to ruin Well, you know, older years,but, you know, we don't know. So it's, it's fine to go ahead and spin and I didn't realize you've been in like, we were that long.

Lynn: 45:37

Yeah, we moved. I left the bank in my early 40s. And so I had the freedom to work from home, and came to work, you know, had started with a small startup. And so the other night,we were at a concert, there's a music festival here now. And there was lots of younger families, because we now have a school here we didn't have before. And we were looking around, and Russ, and I kind of looked at each other and said,Oh, now we're the old people. We were always them. And now we're something else. But to have been here, you know, what is that?Like? It's 2023. We've been here24 years?

Julie: 46:21

That's a long time. I mean, yeah, so that's a long time. I know, things have changed in the mountains, Mark oppression, traveling through is it has been a lot more development in the past. Yeah,20 years. So that was a very bold move. I think that my impression is it was a bold move for you guys, we were

Lynn: 46:38

way way ahead of the curve, and especially to be working remotely like we actually did are working remotely on dial up. And Russ worked for Oracle. So we both had to, you know, have good internet, quote unquote, good internet. But several years ago,he had the wisdom to the local internet company is willing if you're willing to pay for it to run a fiber line to your house.And we did that. So we've been ahead of the curve, and there's still people moving here to work from home. And we're, you know,we're in Jurassic Park, it's hard to get signals here, where people don't have effective internet to this day. So, you know, it's like, they leave the city and go, Wait, you don't have internet everywhere? No, we don't. So they have to work on figuring that out. But you know,this, this idea of, you know,I'm thinking about, there's two themes that I think I've seen in your writing and in your work.And it's this idea of saving versus spending, that's an idea of balance. You know, how do I balance? What I'm taking in what I'm spending out? How do I live a balanced life and the other one is learning. And I there was one specific line at the beginning of your book, but you talk about learning throughout your book and about the learning curves. But you said let me say I think it's exactly this. Let me say this about learning curves. I don't like them. So you got against your not liking learning curves nature to learn a lot. How did you do that?

Julie: 48:10

So really, the one of the big things that happened was Alex mentioned in the book about when my son was like in third grade. I had no because you always that your child is you know, growing up. And he still does test scores and math are really high. I found out I had to ask, they do a lot of testing. And they used to do some testing to put them in like a gifted program. And he had found some other sources and discovered that it's good to ask for, like a, they might like the tip of school might give you a test how they'd have done on a standardized test. But it is wise to ask for a breakdown of that. And now I've learned since that some schools didn't give me a breakdown automatically, but some don't. So I asked for a breakdown. And I found out that he was really scored really high in math, and pretty good in some of the other ones but not not great not enough to get him into this program. And I was okay with that. In general. But one of the things they were starting to introduce was writing in the schools. And I noticed his writing was really poor. Like he could read, you know, he might be reading, you know, sixth grade books, but he couldn't string together a two letter,you know, he couldn't say he ran he couldn't even write that. And so I was really concerned that he might struggle and the writing part. So I was trying to search for answers for what he might might do to improve that and I was I've always enjoyed writing. And so anyway, this kind of led me down this road of talking to one of his teachers and his teacher said we know you might want to do like independent testing. You She had no idea what that was. And apparently, like, there's whole batches of moms that know all about this and, and use this to,to get their kids the progress,but I had no idea and I'm gonna have to get back to it to these apps like, what does that, you know, in the Yellow Pages? Where do I look? Right?

Lynn: 50:15

Exactly. We didn't have Google.

Julie: 50:19

So it apparently I think they're called educational psychologist or something I don't know. Anyway. So she didn't want to give you too much information, because it wasn't,you know, she didn't want to show some favoritism. But anyway, I finally pinned down who to talk to, and I made this appointment and said they, you know, take tested my son. And when they came, when he came back to give us a report, he was saying, Yeah, you know, he's really good at, like, receiving the information. And really good at numbers, really, you know, he actually was off the charts as far as some of the just the math computations and but he doesn't understand like, common sense things. He doesn't think, you know, he has to if he's less,it's really repetitive. He can't like figure things out. He's not very visual. And he's very literal, which extremely literal and I was just like listening to that. And I was like, yeah,that's, you know, that's, that's normal, right. That's how my family is or that I've perceived that they are and, you know,and, and then he said, I will,this represents 1% of the people, whatever else, like,What are

Lynn: 51:29

you talking about? That's my whole world.

Julie: 51:33

And so I was like, and so it just, it just totally made me think, to, like, get into my other son was like, this is very hands on. And I was like, he was always just totally wild. And I saw this kid, the other kids crazy or whatever. Yeah. And I was like, Oh, this kid, the other was normal. And we're not like that. Okay, so. So that gave me insight and understanding. And I've always had kind of had questions about women, you know, I see that would see things differently that other people wouldn't see.And I mentioned, like, when I was a kid, the teacher taught the compound interest story, you know, it was like, third grade or something. And so yeah, that like, dude, Ford my whole life.And I didn't know that everybody else was not walking around thinking about compound interest. Or if I save this,I'll have this much money later.

Lynn: 52:23

Yeah. That's it. That's awesome.

Julie: 52:28

So but one of the things he said that you need very explicit instruction, and verbal instruction. And so that's when I started looking for that kind of instruction. So that made me think, Oh, I could benefit from instruction, and specific types of instruction. And it took me a while to kind of figure out how to ask questions, and how to tell people it says, I would just tell people, like, I can't look at that, or I'm not skilled at this. And so you need to kind of help me with this. And that was difficult. But I started doing it more to say, you know,I just said, they say, Yeah,I've kind of noticed that about you. And so that helped me and that was one reason why I said okay, I need to find a teacher for the the garden needed to and I start like said ask for help,but then found somebody to to help. So that that has helped me now. And also, and I was always kind of knew that I knew I can't learn. And I don't know, this might be other people as well.But I'm not very good at learning things superficially,some people can be told one thing and then do it. They might not understand what they're doing, but they can kind of survive. And I can't do that.Like, I have to study things really hard to understand how to do this really basic step. But I've learned to accept that and then just keep to keep

Lynn: 53:39

trying. Yeah, well, I think what it's done is you being such a good learner has made you a good teacher, because your book is very much this is how to do it, and you draw nice parallels. So it's like, what's cool about the idea of growing wealth, the connection to nature, and the connection to money is I've always, I've always felt like that money has an energy that there's an element that, you know, there's a there's a flow to it. It kind of like an ebb and flow, much like the tide, that that kind of mirrors nature, because it's markets are bigger than any one individual, for example. And nature is bigger than any one individual. So I feel like your book does a great job of connecting those two concepts in a way of creating like a linkage between nature's world and the modern world, people's world, if you will.

Julie: 54:35

I and I think is some of that some of those, like similarities as analogies came naturally. And then some of those I really had to think about, because people said we need a little bit more when a people would read it. They would say, well, could you add a few more analogies, and so I kind of dug a little deeper in that. But one of the things that we're talking about, you know, seasons that kind of really struck me is that The idea of, you know, I think Wall Street would prefer a company that would just, you know, make money all year round,and make it perfectly and nothing ever happened. Right?Right. And that doesn't happen in nature, you know, you've got,like my blueberry bush, it would just produce so, so much, you know, in a certain season, and a few months, and then stop. But we don't like panic when the blueberry bushes stops producing, and try to figure out how to produce we just count like best on that season's over and then kind of move on.

Lynn: 55:35

Right? Well, that you're exactly right, because the markets have set up those kinds of expectations, the Wiser leaders are able to ride that wave. And not let that be the main driver of how they run their companies. Other people, I think, do make that their main driver, but it's, it does speak to our mindset about how we deal with the expectations of others,as opposed to understanding the natural flow of the of the world. You know, and we often times try to beat nature. And I think back to your analogy about tomatoes, we've kind of with greenhouse tomatoes, quote,unquote, beaten nature, but a tomato in the grocery store that was grown in the greenhouse ate a tomato. It's something but it's not a real tomato.

Julie: 56:25

That's a great analogy had never, never would have occurred to me that but you're right. You're trying to beat nature you're trying to be create something that's not there. And that just doesn't work or it backfires. Yeah.

Lynn: 56:36

Well, and honestly, I love eating strawberries in the winter. But the ones we have right now, there's nothing like them, because strawberry season is kind of winding down right now. But we go down Strawberry Hill, which is like Disneyland for produce stands down the road from us, you know, every year from mid April to mid June is just the most magical thing,because you get the strawberries fresh out of the field. And they taste like just an abundance of flavor. And I'll be back eating,you know, in October, I promise you, I'll still be eating those greenhouse strawberries from the grocery store, but they're not the same.

Julie: 57:13

Yeah, and I think once you've, once you've tasted the real thing, you know, you don't want to go, try not to go back,or you can do to tell the difference a lot better.

Lynn: 57:23

When you can absolutely tell the difference. The thing is that the supermarket supermarkets have allowed us to sort of have expectations of beating nature, which is like Wall Street, having expectations that we can beat the normal cycles to business. And, you know, one of the things I've learned with almost every business is that they, as businesses go through cycles,they have to actually continually reinvent themselves to stay relevant, you know, the fortune 500 of today is not the same as the fortune 500 to the50s 60s 70s. Like it's constantly changing, because,you know, a company will have its day, and then they'll hang on, and not recognize they have to create a new business. You know, right. And I'm sitting here looking, I'm looking at my phone that has a camera on it.And you know, Kodak just didn't it did not understand film is not going to be a thing.

Julie: 58:19

Right. And so this is you're saying that that's one thing. I'm, as I'm looking at my portfolio and thinking, Okay,what's next, especially with all the changes we've had in the past few years, it's like, I need to find companies that have multiple revenue streams who have been through these crisis,who have who can reinvent themselves or create, you know,understand what the market is without this. Totally not here trigger reaction, but really just to see where things are going. And yeah, and what they could do next. Yeah,

Lynn: 58:47

and how to take their capabilities to a new business without prematurely you know,calling it I think George land had a term called the S curve,which is every business kind of has to go through this, like S curve. Netflix is a great example of one that's done that,because remember, Netflix just beat blockbuster based on not having late fees, right, like Netflix made it possible just to mail you a DVD. And we don't care when you get it back to us.But we won't send you more videos till you do, but you're not gonna have to pay late fees.And at that time, Blockbuster didn't want to match that because I think their net profit was almost 100% Based on the light face. That was their business model. Well, renshi the movies, but we're going to make most of our money because we know you're going to be late.And so Netflix kind of beat them on that term. And then they you know, have reinvented themselves at least twice since then.Because they went to Alright,we're going to strain the same movies that were selling you on DVDs. And then they figured out Wait a minute. No, we're going to actually become a producer of our own content. And so yes, you can get movies on Netflix but like like we used to Blockbuster but you know, look at look at Netflix now it's a lot of its own production. So they've actually kept continually reinvented themselves.

Julie: 1:00:11

I didn't even realize I didn't even think about that as a great observations about how they did that

Lynn: 1:00:15

about, well, then they'll come back and Netflix will, you know, something will come along and beat Netflix at its own game. But I heard, you know, I am a big podcast listener as well as a producer, obviously.Because we're sitting here, I'm producing a podcast right now.But I heard I think his name is Reed Hastings was the CEO of Netflix, and what he saw with streaming and the reason he doubled down so much on that is he said, I realized, or we realized at Netflix, that this was an order of magnitude change, like the horse to the car, he, you know, horses were the primary transportation for humans until the car came along,for 1000s of years. Horses, you know, either horse drawn wagons,or riding them directly. That's how we moved and you know, kind of collapse time and space,because you could go further on a horse than you could on foot.And he said, when we went to the car that completely changed everything, and of course,airplanes yet again. But he said, we saw streaming is that kind of change. And that's why we double down on it.

Julie: 1:01:20

Yeah, and colleagues are mentioned about that. I remember when I first got that. So some of this town was raising my children, I was kind of like,not paying as much attention.But like, I went to Blockbuster,right before like, the, I got something out of it. I mean, I rented a video, and then they were closed, like the next day or so. So I missed some of that.But, but Netflix made it so easy. So sometimes, you know how hard or you know, trying to figure out even remote sometimes now I confused but like, you just push this button, and you're done. And it's like, wow,the interface was amazing. Yes,how they did that. And then the other company that these other companies just didn't even recognize it as a thing. You know, the other networks? Yes.Does its power?

Lynn: 1:02:04

Yes. Well, and that's the thing that happens. This is why I was thinking about it in terms of, like you were talking about Wall Street and the type of leadership it is, is, you know,our leaders that are running these companies willing to see beyond their own doors. When I worked at I was at Bank of America for all those years. And it was very strange coming out because we didn't even call it Bank of America, we call it the bank. And while I was in there,my thinking was so insular, that I didn't even recognize all the other companies and all the other things that were happening outside of, of the bank. And you know, that kind of Incirlik thinking can really get you in trouble there, you know, they've obviously continued to succeed.But they've had to have their own little hiccups to do that along the way. And it probably lost a lot more customers than they had to just because they were so unaware of what their customers are thinking.

Julie: 1:03:03

Yeah, and now that I'm,I'm still on this estate, I've noticed, like, I've had some of my accounts with one, you know,more startup, or newer companies that are popping out 2030 years old, but, and then looking at some of the older companies in their interfaces and how they do things, it's like, it's just bizarre, it's like, can you just maybe spend a few minutes and looking at another company's interface and how they do it,because some of their systems are so clumsy and clunky and,and unintuitive.

Lynn: 1:03:29

And, you know, just the other day, I was making estimated tax payments, it's mid June. And I'm thinking about our government. And you know, I don't dare try to do anything electronic with the government,I have to send the little voucher, write the check, make sure and track it to make sure they're gonna get it so that they don't, you know, and yet, I could on my phone last night,make an easy purchase with a couple of pushes of a button.And it's like the government is the furthest away from, you know, having easy interfaces,where they can see that I've paid my taxes, they can connect it to the right entity. But I'm going through this incredibly clunky practice, and making people wait for me in line at the post office. And I know they're just sitting there staring because it's like that woman is taking forever. So yeah, I'm I mean, you know, the thing about leadership catching on to these things, you know,one of the things I, I had kind of my own gardening analogy, or crop or farming or something epiphany. I don't know, it's probably 2025 years ago, as I was beginning my own leadership consulting business, because I started recognizing that some leaders on that balance are takers, and some are givers. And they often don't do it in a balanced way. So there's some kind of leaders that like to crack the whip. They don't care what's going on. They're going to it's like trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip. They don't do anything to cultivate teamwork they don't cultivate The attitudes are there people,they kind of just expect expect expect for things to be done because it's their job because I'm paying you. And, you know,looking at the quality of those types of teams, versus those who were overly giving, which meant,not a lot was getting done,people felt really happy and good, but not necessarily challenged and focused on a goal. And so beginning to realize that sort of idea of giving and taking is analogous to the farmer that grows the same crop every year and the same soil, it depletes the nutrients, eventually, you cannot get any more than what you've cultivated, they don't do a good job of cultivating. And thus they can't harm a student sort of like I started realizing leadership is a game of balancing that so that you can harvest but you must cultivate in order to harvest and recognizing the balance to balancing of the give and take.And so I had that same analogy for myself.

Julie: 1:05:58

And you know, I hadn't thought about it. And so I've I've not, I've done a little bit with my garden, as far as new soil. But I've realized that I am now starting to learn to hear about this idea of different kinds of cultivating different things and putting that more replenishing back into that. So I appreciate you bringing that back, because it is sort of a reinvention. It is sort of a constant, a constant reinvention. And I heard the blueberry bush that I've done pretty well, and somebody was telling me, I met this lady on a bike ride. Turns out, she's into agriculture. She's like a scientist or something, and has a specialty in blueberries. And she was like we had there's this what is it that you need, when you trim, don't just trim randomly. There's different,like a blueberry bush might might produce for 30 years. But different things she caught on canes, but different canes will only produce for three to four years. So you want to you want to you want to trim those back and take those canes and kind of let the new things grow. So that is a good, that's a good business, nature analogy to see,to know how things work. And when something's ready to be pruned. Yes, not just to prune randomly, but to know what what to be able to put energy into the new growth, because you're the energy, there's energy that's going to go into the plant, you just want to make sure you're not growing, make the energy go to the wrong place.

Lynn: 1:07:31

Right, the branches like you all that watering and good soil is going for the cane that you left that's already done,it's three to four years versus the new one that will produce for you and knowing the difference between those two.And you know, this is also true of people, you know, they have their they serve their time in companies. And then they they have you have to know which ones to let go. And back to you know,and I haven't had a percent figured out how to make this an analogy for leadership. But you mentioned something about the decay of that area that created the good soil for your first garden, you know, because it is the decay of the leaves. Like I look at the leaves around here.And I think of them as future dirt. Because when I've left a pile of leaves is dirt. It's like, oh yeah, this is where that good soil comes from. And you're not going to produce all the time there has to be a cycle. And like that recovery,it's just like our seasons, you know, winter is a time of recovery. It's a time of dropping down and letting everything rest before the big,you know, blooms of spring. And I just read the hidden life of trees not long ago, and it talked about how in the spring is when the trees just have the most water in them they'll ever have all year. And again, I have a hard time looking at a tree and understanding it's got20,000 pounds of water in it but it does. You know, and if you tap maple syrup, you see that you put you know, put the tap on and water starts coming out.

Julie: 1:09:00

Yeah, I thought about this while we have so much right there at certain times or what happens with that. I mean, I just thought about science.

Lynn: 1:09:09

We had an we had an amazing thing happen at the camp. We have this ginormous old pine tree. She must have been there. I thought of her as a grandmother pine. She was up by the amphitheater where the Girl Scouts used to meet and shoot huge tree. One day my husband came up and he discovered up in that tree was a dead branch that was a Widowmaker it was it was as big as it was laying across other branches completely unattached to anything. The first good windstorm and that branch which was a good 12inches in diameter was coming down it would have killed somebody. And we started looking at the tree and realize that it was mostly dead. It was there was still a little bit of life in it but it was it was time to let her go. So we for safety took her down and she was on a hill and all of a sudden since then, we've had a new sort of Creek on that hill at the bottom of the road that we've never had before. And what we realized is,that's the tree that had been taking up all the water on that hill before. And with the tree being gone, now the waters down and created a little creek where the frogs and the tadpoles live,they're very happy about it. But you know, you just the everything is connected.Everything is connected.

Julie: 1:10:24

It's interesting to think about letting go of that and kind of helping it. Yeah, get rid of that. And so that can't Yeah, so that you can create the new thing.

Lynn: 1:10:34

Yeah. And it's created something else, right, like everything we let go of create something else. But that idea of like, you mentioned that the energy you have to, like in leadership or in our thinking,we have to have a given a take.And we were talking about this on our call yesterday, the idea of recovery. I think it may be one of the most undervalued skills of anybody in business,in athletics, in anything is understanding the value of arrest time, and what it can do to strengthen you.

Julie: 1:11:05

Yeah, and I'm, you know,do some running, mainly, I do cycling now, but I have been so running. And so those people, I would give people advice, and they would say, you know, what's your secret? It's like, whenever I was like this wrist? And they never, they didn't believe me.It's like, yes, it really is.

Lynn: 1:11:20

It is I mean, yes,exertion, but then the rest following it is I feel like that is actually when the exertion gets the payoff. Like it's, it's like it has to have two parts.And, you know, this is water ski season for me. And it's a very addictive sport. So it's very easy to over ski. And I was talking about this with Austin,who pulls me on our camp, he has a ski school at Mystic waters the other day, and he said you would not believe the difference in the clients who are giving themselves rest days that versus those that are coming every day,like the ones who come every day start degrading. You think I'm trying harder, I should do better? No, he said the ones that are really mindful about their risks. They're just skiing labs out. And I have found that to be true for myself. So I'm having to be mindful of when I rest as much as I want to go ski.

Julie: 1:12:10

Light but yeah, that's when they you know, they I guess when I studied it, maybe when I was younger. One other thing I kind of picked up was all athletics, for whatever reason,was the idea of, you know, your muscles rebuilt or that wrist?That's exactly right. And so that's what you're trying to do you want to kind of you want to cultivate that, that rebuilding?

Lynn: 1:12:28

Well, it's the same thing with sleeping. And when I run workshops, a lot of corporate teams have asked me to do one day things and I will totally do that. But if they want to go really work on team dynamics,true self awareness, really starting to like change the way they think I say you have to at least have one overnight.Because in the sleeping our brain start connecting and putting those new neural pathways down. And then the next day, we can reinforce that new neural pathway. But if we don't have that sleep, and they don't get a chance to reinforce it, we kind of bounce back to the steady state that we've always been in. And I've always believed people are hiring me to create actual change not to just change around the edge. So it's the same thing with our neural pathways. You've it's the building is happening in the rest.

Julie: 1:13:24

Right? Yes, I'm a big believer in a good night's sleep.

Lynn: 1:13:31

I boy I doubled down on good sleep. I mean, that's often where I start with people is are you sleeping? And if you're not,if we're not already doing that,well let's start there. So what are your tips to for a good night's sleep?

Julie: 1:13:49

Well, sometimes it is being active. Alright, activity can help. not overdoing it but but activity definitely can help. And also find if it's even middle activity is tiring. Sort of to kind of honor that that can be tiring that middle.Especially if it's something change. Like I've been having to learn how to do things lightly with the with the writing the book, and getting edited and published and all that stuff, a lot of new new information and then I'm doing this estate and we're a lot of new information but just realize, hey, I'm taking on a lot and that's tiring. And then you know and to let also to say it's okay, relax and watch this stupid television show or whatever or just kind of get your mind off of off of things. not to overdo it but just to realize that

Lynn: 1:14:40

you need rest. Yeah, just to recognize it.

Julie: 1:14:44

Personally, I like to go after kind of recognize my rhythm like I can't go to bed really likes to go to bed at eight o'clock and which is fine because the rhythm is that they go to bed at night they wake up before. That's fine. Yeah, mine isn't like that. Mine's different. And so I'm usually more like 1030 or 11 So I make sure that I keep that asleep through,

Lynn: 1:15:02

I have to do the same thing I, my husband can go to bed, I've seen him go to bed at630. But I cannot do that. And one of the trip tips I've learned in the last maybe year or two, I listened to Andrew Lieberman's podcast occasionally, and he studies vision. And what he has learned is that our, that rhythm that we're talking about gets set by seeing the sun low on the horizon. That's what triggers the circadian rhythm. So if you're having trouble sleeping,here's a tip for everybody listening, get outside in the morning. And he says, it's very important to do it not through a window, but outside and just watch a sunrise and watch sunsets. And it's like, well,there you go. That's a pretty good habit watching sunrises and sunsets, and it helps you sleep better. So, and he talks about it in science terms, but I'm like, no, just watch sunrises and sunsets, and you'll be a good sleeper. And it always made a huge difference for me doing that. So

Julie: 1:16:02

the idea of using nature,again, nature kind of knows.

Lynn: 1:16:06

Isn't that where it all starts, the more we can just get back to nature and get back to our nature, the better off we'll be right.

Julie: 1:16:13

And I think that was probably one of things I can recognize when I was writing some of this not just, you know,gardening nature, but also my personal nature, how that how can I leverage that the best, or use that the best something that's inborn. Obviously, I had to fight to get some weakness and weaknesses as Biden being able to pick up on gardening,but to learn to say, Okay, I have the strength in numbers and just kind of to go with that.And to develop that. And maybe to see that in others as well,as far as leaders and be able to see what people's strengths are,

Lynn: 1:16:42

and be able to leverage those strengths. You know, there is nobody better to teach us about our finances is somebody who's really good with numbers who seem to have a knack for it,but also learn how to teach it.So I just absolutely loved your book growing well, I, what I love the most is your voice in the book is just like the one we've been listening to hear.It's very sensible, very practical, and very accessible.I appreciate that. I really appreciate it.

Julie: 1:17:18

And I will say that that framework that I came up with the three essentials, I didn't

Lynn: 1:17:24

say those three essentials for give away the book.

Julie: 1:17:28

Okay, spend less than you earn, invest some fancier than I say, and then protect yourself.Yeah, um, those and those weren't necessarily, that's just something I'll say this. I don't know if it always is probably intuitive to me. But I didn't know how to say that until I started thinking about the Guardian and how much that framework tells me, I thought,well, maybe there's a framework that could help somebody else as well, that's just getting started, because there's so much information out there. And it's sometimes it's so detailed about how, you know, the Roth versus traditional choice, or whatever,which those are important choices. But that's not really the foundation of finance,right. And so to have a foundation, that's good enough,it's going to be the same, no matter how much you know,whether we have digital banking,whether we're mailing and paper checks, or doing everything online, or whatever the same principles hold, even though things you know, the economy changes in the way businesses interact with us and the way the financial systems interact with us, we interact with them, this principles will stay the same.But that is something that was really, I didn't like go through life now thinking about that.Maybe intuitively, but then was able to think about a framework when I thought about how helpful that framework the garden teacher gave me.

Lynn: 1:18:47

Well, and one of the things I love you have a phenomenal website with resources, really good resources, it's really clean and clear, just like your book. For people who are like, Well, I'm not sure I even know how to where to start or how to start.Well, you basically say start here, and walk people through how to do the things that you describe in your, in your book.It's fabulous. And you've gone through, you know, I know the time because I'm building a resource section for my book. I know how much time this takes.And how much thought was here.It doesn't just happen.

Julie: 1:19:26

Yeah, in the resources I wanted. It helped me to kind of reinforce the idea when I was writing the book as well, to say, is this right, you know, is this the way it should work? And just to kind of I went back and forth between those two things to, to kind of confirm, kind of affirm my thinking. Yeah. And then to provide a resource for other people for people as well.Yeah, it's really

Lynn: 1:19:46

it's really fabulous. So we know you have a website. It's Julie rains.com. Correct. Right.And it's spelled Julie like most people spell Julie but ju li e r EY. Hey, I ns.com And it's got resources, he's got some great pictures of you doing the fun things that you like to do.Which is one of the benefits of having grown wealth is that you get a life that lets you do fun things like ride bikes and hike.And where's this picture? On your resource page? You've got a hike in Germany, okay, I had to make a big my screen was too.Yes, you did.

Julie: 1:20:31

14 miles. That's a long way. Yeah. So that was one of the trips actually delighted because of the COVID outbreak,like during the Christmas time,and then we went out and there's a one thing I've discovered is there's like a lot of companies,especially if there's so many in the United States now, but a lot of into Europe, and other places in the world, where you can, you know, sign up for a trip, or hiking hiking trip, or a biking trip, or whatever. And, you know, they give you like these routes, and they move your, they move your neck or your arrangements, larger hotels, and then you're kind of you're on your own during the day, and they'll move your luggage for you. So that's kind of that was one of the hikes that we did this in one country and the right it was really pretty

Lynn: 1:21:15

well, I have to say, I saw that you, you called yourself,writer, spreadsheet, designer and investor. And I have thought about myself as the spreadsheet Queen of the universe in the past, but I'm going to see that title to you. Because I think you're way ahead of me. And I can't thank you enough for doing this conversation with me, and sharing with our listeners, with my listeners about this idea of growing wealth, and really the deeper parts of it. Now, before we end, I always like to ask my guests. You know what, because this is your chance to give your wisdom to other people and what you might want to ask them or give them a piece of advice,something they can take with them. But what would be your best sort of in a nutshell,thing you would want to say to somebody who's listening this and saying, you know, I probably could be better with money, or I could maybe even learn to garden, but what would what would be your, your advice for somebody questioning their next step,

Julie: 1:22:21

the next step to learn? I think for me, it would be to break it down to like narrow down the thing that you want to learn. For example, if you instead of saying vegetable gardening, to me was like a small thing. But you could even break it down further to say I want to learn how to grow tomatoes, and just focus on that thing. And finances kind of the same thing. There's so much information out there of all the things you should be doing. And that can be overwhelming,especially if you haven't done some of those things. And most people haven't. So but you know,what is the thing that I need to tackle first? Is it is it debt or is it not? And I'm not necessarily you got can't have no debt? That's, it can't drag you down as far as your spending. But that's not you know, where do I need to figure out banking, despite basic banking and spending less than,or it may be, you know, to be more about investing, but instead of trying to learn all of those things to try to pinpoint the one thing you want to learn about? Because it's then easier to find resources for those for those topics.

Lynn: 1:23:23

You know, that's just that one step get started, just start and pick that one first step.Yeah, you were about to say something else. I didn't mean to walk over you. Where did

Julie: 1:23:36

you the second? So I was thinking about, it's funny, you talk about the serendipity at the very beginning. It is interesting once you start saying, Okay, I'm gonna learn about this one thing, this very narrow thing, then seems like you tend to walk into conversations, or you can find people that maybe we'll talk about that one thing much easier. It's just like my peach trees, for example, I had some looks like some little bugs or doing something with it, I'm not sure. And then I was talking to somebody totally different conversation, what trying to go about peach trees. And she mentioned this type of bug and this, that she had never heard she was she's like a lifelong farmer, but she'd never heard about a certain kind of bug and a certain natural treatment that you could do for it and all this unknown unknown. And so it's just interesting. Once you are tuned to this one thing, those resources seem to be easy to find.

Lynn: 1:24:26

I couldn't agree more with noticing that. You know, I believe in the principle you get more of what you touch. And I think if you have set up a filter to be open to look for the help, you'll find the help.But if you set your system up to say your mindset to say,nobody's helping me, then that's exactly what you'll get no help.So, you know, there's kind of two pieces of advice there. Just start and be open to the help that comes and what you said,That's fabulous. I mean, if you could just do that with everything life, you would be amazed at how much you can learn So, and I think I think of learning as a superpower and you have it. That's your superpower.Even though you said in your book, I don't like learning curves, I think it's your I think it is your superpower.

Julie: 1:25:15

I think and you say it was time I get started, it can be overwhelming to know where to start. And then And and I think for me, I've learned, you know,Mike start might use a resource.Maybe that's not the perfect one. And another one start another one. Yep.

Lynn: 1:25:28

Yep, keep going. Just keep going. Put what? Step one and then keep putting one step in front of the other. That's the way we get. That's the way we get anywhere. Very good. Well,Julie, thank you for being here.And everybody who's listening.Thank you for being here. If you enjoy this podcast, please share it with your friends. Hit that subscribe button. And I love hearing from you. There is a voicemail on my website at Lynn carnes.com There's a button on the right. It's a voicemail button. Send me a voicemail.Tell me what you think. And I'll of course send it with you.Share it with your friends.We'll see you on the next one.Thank you for listening to the creative spirits unleashed podcast. I started this podcast because I was having these great conversations and I wanted to share them with others. I'm always learning in these conversations, and I wanted to share that kind of learning with you. Now what I need to hear from you is what you want more of and what you want less of. I really want these podcasts to be a value for the listeners. Also,if you happen to know someone who you think might love them,please share the podcast and of course subscribe and rate it on the different apps that you're using, because that's how others will find it. Now, I hope you go and do something very fun today.