AOA 070: Colin Ryan on Money Psychology, Emotion and Humor

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“Money is barely about money at all. It’s about the person. It’s about the emotions they struggle with or feel. It’s about the things they don’t say.”

— Colin Ryan

Guest Colin Ryan speaks to college-age kids nationwide and shares humorous anecdotes to help them grapple with money. He also encourages parents to see their children as the heroes of their financial stories, understand their kids’ unique perspectives and personalize conversations to foster connections. During his podcast appearance, Colin and host John Lanza discuss the concept of “earning by saving,” the role of money modeling and technology’s impact on financial well-being. They also chat about personal finance’s emotional and psychological facets, finding success and contentment in a consumer-driven society, social media’s power, vulnerability’s importance and the value of connecting through shared experiences.

Colin Ryan is a comedic financial speaker, an author and an award-winning storyteller who has been featured everywhere from NPR and PBS to The Moth Radio Hour and Reader’s Digest. He was named one of the top ten finance presenters in America and has spoken to over one million students and adults. He is also the author of A Comedic Guide to Money and the founder of the Public Speaking for Leaders Podcast. As a speaker’s mentor, Colin is dedicated to helping talented leaders and public figures become fun, memorable and impactful communicators. He now lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife, Lindsey, and their dog, Remy.

Links (From the Show)

Show Notes (Find what’s most interesting to you!)

  • Colin’s journey to become a comedic financial speaker [3:40]
  • Colin discusses the biggest challenge to engaging college-age kids in money-smart conversations. [6:07]
  • Bridging gaps in the money conversation [9:57]
  • Compartmentalizing luxury: a unique approach to addressing spending [12:33]
  • Colin explains that people aren’t rational when it comes to money. [16:15]
  • “People are doing more right than they think they are.” [17:46]
  • How Colin learned that money is more nuanced than a binary [19:16]
  • Young people as the heroes of their stories [23:08]
  • Colin explains his “earning by saving” concept. [26:50]
  • Zombies and consumerism [31:33]
  • Are we overcomplicating personal finance? [39:02]
  • How do we help kids navigate the temptation to consume? [43:50]
  • Confident vulnerability [52:11]
  • The pitfall and goldmine of comparison [58:12]
  • “Don’t win the point but lose the person.” [1:05:53]
  • Money empowerment as not being structurally alone [1:08:47]
  • Thoughtful listening [1:09:33]
  • Understanding your definition of wealth and success [1:10:31]
  • Our new podcast theme [1:11:24]
  • Colin’s money-smart book recommendations [1:12:18]
  • Colin on the web [1:14:36]

Click here for the full transcript.

If you liked this episode …

Want to dive deeper into the emotional and psychological journey that often accompanies the money-smart one? In her episode of The Art of Allowance Podcast, award-winning financial educator Veronica Dangerfield discusses overcoming emotional ties to money to learn to use it as a tool. Tune in at 30:30 to discover how daily habits can help you control your mind to control your finances.

Worried that your past money mistakes prevent you from being an effective guide for your kids? Stacking Benjamins Podcast co-host Joe Saul-Sehy shares how he approached money with his children after his own financial faux pas. Start streaming his episode at 25:14 for his advice on working previous failures into money conversations.

Need more ideas on how to engage your children in meaningful money conversations? Check out John’s chat with financial advisor Tom Henske. He offers a slew of strategies during his podcast appearance, like avoiding “tell me about your day” language [4:06], asking older kids for help to teach them the money lessons they still need to learn [30:10] and relying on mail as a conversation catalyst [56:49].

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Full Transcript

This transcript is from The Art of Allowance Podcast, Episode 70, featuring host John Lanza and guest Colin Ryan.

00:00:00,340 [John Lanza]
Hello, and welcome to Episode 70 of the Art of Allowance podcast. I’m your host, John Lanza. And I have a favor to ask you. If you enjoy this podcast, I could really use your help. Could you leave me a rating or a review for the podcast? You know why? It helps other people like you find the podcast. I really appreciate it and now, on with the show.

00:00:29,659 [Colin Ryan]
You mentioned mistakes earlier. I think that mistakes are actually an amazing connection point and an opportunity for shared understanding and learning.

00:00:41,259 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

00:00:41,719 [Colin Ryan]
And I think that’s a great thing we can model is, whether you get it right or get it wrong, great. Both are great. You know, let’s talk about both. And- and I think…

00:00:56,319 [Colin Ryan]
My- my vision is that as adults we can be that- that wingperson, that trusted mentor, that safe friend they can come and talk to, and you don’t want to lose that, right? You don’t wanna lose that space in their life. So to me, I think that’s where it’s really great to just, like, be checking on them and be asking them how they’re doing and getting a sense of how they’re- how they’re feeling about how they’re doing.

00:01:30,999 [John Lanza]
In this episode I speak with Colin Ryan. Colin speaks to college-aged kids nationwide and shares humorous anecdotes to help them grapple with money. He also encourages parents to see their children as the heroes of their own financial stories and understand their kids’ unique perspectives and personalize conversations to foster those connections. Colin and I discuss the idea of earning by saving, the role of modeling and technology’s impact on financial wellbeing. We also chat about personal finance’s emotional and psychological aspects, finding success and contentment in a consumer-driven society, social media’s power, vulnerability’s importance, and the value of connecting through shared experiences. Colin Ryan is the author of A Comedic Guide to Money and an award-winning storyteller who has been featured everywhere from NPR and PBS to The Moth Radio Hour and Reader’s Digest. He has spoken to over one million students and adults and was named one of the top 10 finance presenters in America. Colin lives in Durham, North Carolina with his wife Lindsey and their dog Remy. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Colin Ryan.

00:03:07,359 [John Lanza]
Today I am speaking with Colin Ryan. Welcome, Colin.

00:03:12,579 [Colin Ryan]
Hi John, thanks for having me.

00:03:15,439 [John Lanza]
Well, I’m excited to have you on the podcast. It’s been a long time since we last saw each other at, uh, one of those, uh, NYIB, National Youth Involvement Board, conferences. I think so long that they’ve morphed into a whole different organization.

00:03:28,099 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah, it’s a different name. [laughs]

00:03:29,839 [John Lanza]
[laughs] Credit Union Financial Education Network, or CUFEN.

00:03:33,339 [Colin Ryan]
That’s right, CUFEN.

00:03:34,779 [John Lanza]
Um,

00:03:35,919 [John Lanza]
but that’s enough about conferences. Uh, we’re here for you, we’re here for you to enlighten us. So just tell us a little bit about yourself, Colin, what you’re doing now, perhaps a little bit about the path you took to get there, and, uh, let’s go from there.

00:03:49,819 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah. So my name is Colin Ryan. I am a comedic financial speaker. I started speaking in high schools 13-something years ago and found right away that I could really connect with students, I could have a really genuine, authentic conversation with them. And I think, like you know, John, and so many people discover, money is barely about money at all. It’s about the person, it’s about the emotions they struggle with or feel, it’s about the things they don’t say. And so for me, teaching finance really just became a way to

00:04:30,619 [Colin Ryan]
help younger people feel seen and feel validated and give ’em a chance to share their questions and then just guide them a little bit in the right direction.

00:04:41,619 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:04:42,279 [Colin Ryan]
Um, so I did that. I started in high schools and I went to colleges and, um, I now speak at colleges and companies about money and it really is about

00:04:53,279 [Colin Ryan]
the emotions of money, the psychology of money, what are good habits I should be building and habits I should be breaking? And along the way we just try to have a really good time and just be ourselves and, you know, there’s no gurus here, we’re just figuring this out as we go, and, um, it’s… People always really inspire and impress me, so, I feel lucky I get to stand in front of ’em and try to share something useful.

00:05:19,199 [John Lanza]
Yeah. Well, I’ve seen you speak and, uh, and- and though you weren’t speaking in the same context because our- our conferences were different than what you do normally in front of, uh, college students, you do have that way of just connecting with folks because you’re not coming at it… You’re kind of… I mean, we share a similar background in the way we approach this. Neither of us is, are financial, um, experts. Uh, we’re on this money-smart journey, right?

00:05:42,659 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm.

00:05:43,119 [John Lanza]
And, uh, we’re taking that journey with our- our audiences and that’s why I think this will be a fun conversation to have, because there’s so much that overlaps but there’s also so much knowledge that you have, um, that I think you can kind of impart from just having these conversations and giving us perspective on what’s happening as these kids kind of leave the nest and head off to college. So…

00:06:06,159 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah.

00:06:06,279 [John Lanza]
Um, with that, what, what is the biggest challenge… and it could be challenges too, that you face engaging with college-aged kids and getting them to think smarter about money?

00:06:18,200 [Colin Ryan]
Well,

00:06:19,559 [Colin Ryan]
the biggest challenge, I think, I think is a challenge a lot of adults will

00:06:25,559 [Colin Ryan]
recognize themselves in or resonate with, which is just, “How do I relate to young people and how do I earn their trust? How do, how does this not become another boring lecture?

00:06:38,159 [Colin Ryan]
How does this actually become a conversation?” And so for me,

00:06:43,299 [Colin Ryan]
that’s almost more important than anything I can teach you, is to try to get you to a place where you actually want to know what I might offer, or, um, you, you feel safe around me to ask your question. And so I think… I mean, I would ask you, John, I, I feel like for me growing up, people did give me advice about money sometimes, and I, I definitely did not follow it. [laughs]

00:07:11,340 [John Lanza]
Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you straight up because it’s, uh, I dedicated my book to my grandfather.

00:07:16,059 [Colin Ryan]
Uh-huh.

00:07:16,399 [John Lanza]
And there are times where I’ll think back and I think, “Why didn’t someone tell me about the importance of compound interest?” Like, that’s exactly what he told me-

00:07:25,039 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

00:07:25,459 [John Lanza]
… the day I graduated college. He said, “Life is very simple.” He’s like, “Understand the power of compound interest and live beneath your means.” And really, it’s come full circle because I, I, if you understand those two things-

00:07:39,059 [Colin Ryan]
Right

00:07:39,120 [John Lanza]
… because wrapped up in the compound interest thing is the idea of saving a portion-

00:07:42,760 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm

00:07:42,960 [John Lanza]
… of what you, uh, are earning. I, I’m not sure that there’s a lot more that you need to fully understand.

00:07:49,519 [Colin Ryan]
Right.

00:07:49,679 [John Lanza]
So, uh, so, yes, to, to, to having that, uh, to, to, getting the advice but not necessarily following it.

00:07:56,399 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah. Oh my gosh.

00:07:57,679 [John Lanza]
That’s one of the challenges.

00:07:59,039 [Colin Ryan]
Well, thanks for sharing that story. I think that’s, it, it is super relatable. And-

00:08:04,379 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:08:04,499 [Colin Ryan]
… that was kind of what struck me in my adult life when I got this job, basically talking to teens about money, was, “Oh, I sound like my dad,” or, “I sound like everyone’s dad. Why is that?”

00:08:17,599 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:08:17,619 [Colin Ryan]
And, and just trying to go in the other direction. And so I think if there’s a topic I’m as interested in as financial advice, it’s just how do we have hard conversations and how do we build trust and shared understanding, right?

00:08:34,459 [John Lanza]
Hmm.

00:08:34,479 [Colin Ryan]
And so, you know, I, I work with a lot of financial professionals on how do you talk to Gen Z, younger millennials, you know, the oncoming Gen Alpha, about, about this stuff, and it’s kind of like-

00:08:47,199 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:08:47,219 [Colin Ryan]
… how do you talk to anyone really? It’s learning how to listen more than you talk, show respect, share something about yourself, and be curious about them. And so, yeah, I think there’s kind of become these, these sort of two things for me have emerged. One is teaching finance and the other is just looking at how do we, how do we teach it in a way that feels memorable and, and not just, uh, the same lecture that we got-

00:09:15,999 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:09:16,079 [Colin Ryan]
… when we were kids that we totally ignored. [laughs]

00:09:20,079 [John Lanza]
But, okay, so go deeper on that because you’re in-

00:09:22,319 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:09:22,419 [John Lanza]
… front of a bunch of college kids, right? Talking to them.

00:09:26,179 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah.

00:09:26,199 [John Lanza]
And how does that not… I mean, there’s, how does that not become a lecture? Like how

00:09:33,199 [John Lanza]
do you talk to them in a way that maybe parents who are listening to this can think about talking to their own kids, whether they’re probably more at the high school age?

00:09:42,039 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah, absolutely. Um, I actually wrote up this guide that I can point your, your, uh, listeners to.

00:09:50,699 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:09:50,839 [Colin Ryan]
That, I call it, you know, Five Ways to Talk to Young People About Wealth or about Money. And

00:09:57,819 [Colin Ryan]
it’s because of these problems that I saw, th- these kind of gaps that we have immediately. And so the gaps are that money f- So imagine you’re a young person, okay? And, and an adult is talking to you about finance. I, I feel like there are five problems. Number one, it’s abstract. Like, “This doesn’t apply to me. I’m not gonna make the mistake you did, so it doesn’t matter.” It’s boring,

00:10:22,559 [Colin Ryan]
self-explanatory. [laughs]

00:10:23,719 [John Lanza]
[laughs] Yeah.

00:10:25,019 [Colin Ryan]
It’s con- It’s confusing, right? There are so many terms-

00:10:27,679 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:10:27,699 [Colin Ryan]
… even compound interest, mortgage-

00:10:30,079 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:10:30,159 [Colin Ryan]
… amortization, APR. You say these things and I think even as adults we start to glaze over a little bit. On top of that, it’s depressing. I think more and more as we look at our economy and we look at outcomes that we’re able to achieve, it is discouraging at a lot of points, and I think it’s good to validate that. And then the final one is just that it’s easier said than done, you know? Sure, you know, start a budget, sacrifice fun now for a great payoff later. It’s very easy to say, very hard to do.

00:11:03,779 [John Lanza]
Yeah. Yeah.

00:11:03,819 [Colin Ryan]
So to me, I think the answer to your question, John, it’s a great one, is to just to try to acknowledge those things as cleanly and clearly and immediately as possible. Just be like, “Hey,

00:11:17,819 [Colin Ryan]
if I get too into this, like this is gonna sound like a really boring grownup kind of thing to be excited about.”

00:11:24,059 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:11:24,079 [Colin Ryan]
And to just acknowledge that, right?

00:11:26,299 [John Lanza]
Yeah. Yeah.

00:11:26,359 [Colin Ryan]
Or when I use a term to immediately give a synonym or an explanation for it without making them have to raise their hands. So I’m, I’m, I’m knowing what they’re thinking and I’m just trying to map money to that. [laughs] I don’t know if that answer made sense. I feel like I got a little lost in it. I think the easier way to say that is I just try to get them involved, ask them questions, and highlight their knowledge and their personal connection. And so-

00:11:58,139 [John Lanza]
Yeah. Yeah

00:11:58,579 [Colin Ryan]
… the more I feel like they can do that, the more I feel like they’re gonna wanna c-… continue down that road once we’ve started the conversation.

00:12:06,351 [John Lanza]
Well, when I was reading your book, uh, in prep for the conversation, which I have to admit, time-wise, I did more skimming-

00:12:13,131 [Colin Ryan]
[clears throat]

00:12:13,192 [John Lanza]
… than I did full reading, but it was-

00:12:14,412 [Colin Ryan]
Didn’t, didn’t you get it three days ago, John? You’re not expected to- [laughs]

00:12:17,831 [John Lanza]
[Laughs] Uh, uh-

00:12:18,312 [Colin Ryan]
… read the book in three days.

00:12:20,131 [John Lanza]
But I wanted to kind of cover, I got a good sense of-

00:12:23,131 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:12:23,271 [John Lanza]
… kind of who you are as a, as a, uh, w- how you’re coming at this. And one of the things that I, I’m thinking, like if I’m in the audience, so my, uh, w- when you talk about money personalities, and I think this is important-

00:12:36,071 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:12:36,152 [John Lanza]
… is I think there is people have certain money personalities, and, and we can certainly change, but we come at it, let’s just say that we’re coming at it from a certain point of view.

00:12:44,551 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm.

00:12:44,611 [John Lanza]
I definitely have more of a spend-first mentality. I feel like I’ve always had to try to overcome that issue. I don’t g- I get the sense that you have a very save-first mentality. Like, you-

00:12:55,291 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm

00:12:55,451 [John Lanza]
… you talked about, you know, the amount of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that you could-

00:12:59,652 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

00:13:00,091 [John Lanza]
… eat instead of going out to dinner, right? [laughs]

00:13:02,231 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah.

00:13:02,531 [John Lanza]
I’ve never made that calculation, right?

00:13:05,011 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

00:13:05,651 [John Lanza]
And so I’m thinking if I’m in the audience, and I’m looking up there at Colin, I’m like, “Well, yeah, okay, but you are already a saver, so you’re just trying to get people to…” th- like, how do you connect with the people? Because I think this is the, one of the big issues for parents is, if you are spend f- if you have a spend-first mentality, I think it’s tougher to have the conversations. If you’re a save-first mentality, then you can come across as boring, um, almost abstract to the person who’s thinking spend first. So, how do you connect with that kid in the audience who can’t seem to keep money moving from their pocket into the hands of retailers?

00:13:47,211 [Colin Ryan]
Meaning that kid is a spender or a saver?

00:13:50,092 [John Lanza]
Spender. Yes, yes, yes.

00:13:51,151 [Colin Ryan]
A spender, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um-

00:13:52,971 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:13:53,031 [Colin Ryan]
Oh, I love this. I think that when

00:13:56,871 [Colin Ryan]
you have somebody who loves to spend, I think it’s, again, it’s about just play, play it out a little bit. What do you imagine most people tell them? What’s the most-

00:14:06,051 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:14:06,131 [Colin Ryan]
… obvious kind of advice they get is, you know, “Stop that. Cut it out. Get it under control.”

00:14:14,311 [Colin Ryan]
So a, a way to approach that that’s unique is to say, “What’s the thing you love to spend money on the most?” What’s kind of, you know, if we look at a budget, what’s that category? Great. Let’s leave that alone. That’s fun.

00:14:29,591 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

00:14:29,611 [Colin Ryan]
That’s for you.

00:14:30,951 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

00:14:30,971 [Colin Ryan]
But let’s figure out when it goes from fun to sort of starting to stress you out.

00:14:37,191 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

00:14:37,451 [Colin Ryan]
And either that means we need to bring that number down a little bit, or we need to-

00:14:42,731 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:14:42,751 [Colin Ryan]
… find some other category of your budget that, you know, it’s not as emotionally meaningful for you, uh, to think about, we’ll cut there, right?

00:14:51,611 [John Lanza]
Hm.

00:14:51,631 [Colin Ryan]
So I think just by doing that, I’m flipping on its head the idea of a budget is the end of fun, you know, sit in the dark, don’t go out. You know, I think that’s, I think that’s why a lot of people either don’t start a budget or statistically don’t maintain it.

00:15:10,911 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:15:10,931 [Colin Ryan]
Is because they look at, at this as this very

00:15:14,651 [Colin Ryan]
self-punishment style, sacrificial type of a thing. And I think it’s more about clarifying what do you value the most? And let’s make space-

00:15:24,291 [John Lanza]
Right

00:15:24,311 [Colin Ryan]
… for that. Let’s, let’s-

00:15:25,711 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:15:25,751 [Colin Ryan]
… protect that. So that’s how I would-

00:15:28,351 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:15:28,371 [Colin Ryan]
… I would look at that, you know, from a different angle that’s more putting them at the center of the story, and the advice is to help them instead of to curtail something they like.

00:15:40,711 [John Lanza]
Yeah. Yeah. I think that makes some sense. It, it reminds me of, you know, Ramit Sethi, um-

00:15:46,911 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm

00:15:46,931 [John Lanza]
… I Will Teach You To Be Rich, ’cause-

00:15:49,291 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:15:49,371 [John Lanza]
… he talks about, you know, he’ll say, you know, he has his, you know, 2005 Honda Accord ’cause he doesn’t care, but he spends a lot of money on his trips over- abroad, right? And, and on his family trips and such, and stuff like that. Uh, so the idea of compartmentalizing your luxury.

00:16:05,991 [Colin Ryan]
Absolutely. Yeah, I, I think that’s…

00:16:09,371 [Colin Ryan]
The, it does not work if it’s not a system that you’re gonna use.

00:16:14,851 [John Lanza]
Yeah. Yeah.

00:16:15,191 [Colin Ryan]
So, let’s throw out the notion that people do things because it’s rational. [laughs]. It’s not.

00:16:23,611 [John Lanza]
[laughs] Right.

00:16:23,851 [Colin Ryan]
We don’t, we’re not motivated by that-

00:16:25,611 [John Lanza]
Right

00:16:25,631 [Colin Ryan]
… at all. In fact, I think that’s one of the unconscious jokes of economics is that it’s based on these models where people were called rational actors, will behave-

00:16:36,511 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:16:36,571 [Colin Ryan]
… these certain ways in patterns. And it’s like, people are not rational. You know, we get good advice.

00:16:42,451 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:16:42,471 [Colin Ryan]
We don’t follow it. Um, we assume it won’t happen to us, when statistically it will. And so, what I like to play around with John is what drives this young person? What do they… First off, how do they wanna feel when we talk about money? Like, let’s not even overlook that.

00:17:04,491 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:17:04,511 [Colin Ryan]
If I can share a bad habit that I have with money, with a smile on my face, and laughing about it, and I agree it’s funny, then that’s gonna make that much safer for that person to feel like they can share too. So it’s, it’s a, it’s avoiding the kind of the, let’s call it the, the pedestal? Yeah, like s- sounding like I’m on a pedestal, and I’m talking down to you.

00:17:27,791 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:17:27,811 [Colin Ryan]
Instead, like, let’s get equal.

00:17:30,071 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:17:30,091 [Colin Ryan]
So that’s the first part. And then with that, it’s going, “Well, like what do you do that works for you? How do you create a system that works? How do you create a habit that, that sticks?” And, and put that-

00:17:41,851 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:17:41,971 [Colin Ryan]
… young person in the driver’s seat. A- and, a, like, I didn’t realize this when I started, but this has become kind of a philosophy of mine over the past [laughs] few years, is that people are doing more right than they think they are, and money is very guilty of this, I think.

00:17:59,351 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:17:59,831 [Colin Ryan]
I think we’re kind of programmed to feel like we’re behind, like everybody else gets it.And we’re either good with money or we’re bad with money.

00:18:10,651 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:18:10,892 [Colin Ryan]
Right? Those are stories that we tell ourself that have actually very powerful impact on us, that, you know, they keep us out of the game, they keep us from feeling confident or making changes. So to me, it’s

00:18:27,892 [Colin Ryan]
just inviting that young person to, to sort of start to externalize that and identify that. What, what is my money personality? What, what are my beliefs about money? Does money make me feel good? Does it make me feel bad? Does it make me feel scared or stressed, you know? Um, or like I’m out of control. You know, all of these things-

00:18:49,012 [John Lanza]
Hmm

00:18:49,032 [Colin Ryan]
… I think are

00:18:51,152 [Colin Ryan]
interesting places to have a really unique kind of conversation that, I hate to use the cliche, but personal finance is personal. Each person is gonna have a very different kind of mix and a different, um, approach to this. So I forgot the question, but, uh, you got, you sparked to that thought in me [laughs], I wanted to share.

00:19:11,111 [John Lanza]
Yeah. Well, I like that thought. I actually would like you to dig a little deeper into that-

00:19:15,071 [Colin Ryan]
Okay

00:19:15,171 [John Lanza]
… thought because I think any time we are thinking binary, uh, we’re probably not thinking clearly.

00:19:21,491 [Colin Ryan]
Yes.

00:19:21,551 [John Lanza]
So one of those, so, so this idea that you’re talking about you’re either money smart or you’re money stupid.

00:19:27,351 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah.

00:19:27,451 [John Lanza]
Um, that’s almost certainly not gonna be true. So go a little deeper on the nuance there. I think that would be helpful.

00:19:33,291 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah. Well, I’ll, I’ll go deep and I’ll tell you how I learned it. Um, in my mid 20s, I went to a therapist for the first time. I was struggling tremendously with depression. I’ve struggled with depression m- my whole life, and-

00:19:48,531 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:19:48,691 [Colin Ryan]
… I’m much more in charge of it now, but it’s something-

00:19:51,571 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:19:51,671 [Colin Ryan]
… that I live with and have to navigate on those days when you don’t wanna get out of bed. And, and at this point in my life, I’d, I’d seen my first therapist. And one of the things I was wrestling with was I said, “I, like, I love movies so much, John.” I know you and I have talked about-

00:20:09,431 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:20:09,571 [Colin Ryan]
… like, but I’ll watch movies all day. So I go to this therapist and I’m like, “I’m in, I’m out of control. I’m not doing, I’m trying to write a book, I’m not writing a book, I’m just watching movies.” So

00:20:20,371 [Colin Ryan]
he goes, “How was yesterday?”

00:20:21,411 [John Lanza]
[laughs]

00:20:21,451 [Colin Ryan]
I said, “It was a bad day, Sam. It was a bad day.” And he says-

00:20:24,791 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:20:24,831 [Colin Ryan]
… “What does, what does that mean when you say a bad day?” “Uh, I just, I watched t- too many movies.” “Okay, well, how many hours did you spend watching movies,” right? So he’s moving me to quantify it, and I end up saying, “Three and a half.”

00:20:41,651 [Colin Ryan]
And I was like, oh my God, like the charge of saying three and a half was so minimal and manageable-

00:20:49,731 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:20:49,751 [Colin Ryan]
… compared to bad.

00:20:52,271 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

00:20:52,691 [Colin Ryan]
And so th- this is what I’m getting at, is like

00:20:56,571 [Colin Ryan]
we unconsciously tell ourself stories that f- just totally overwhelm us and shut us down. And I think that when the story you tell is, “I’m bad with money,” what gets lost is all of the evidence that you’re actually, like, you’re pretty solid, you know?

00:21:16,531 [John Lanza]
Yeah. Yeah.

00:21:16,891 [Colin Ryan]
Like, we all have room to improve, but when, when the story is, “I’m bad,” then, then you might miss some of those really cool things.

00:21:26,351 [Colin Ryan]
So that’s, yeah, that’s how I look at that.

00:21:28,331 [John Lanza]
Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. I, uh, parents do this too. We, uh, I d- I’m guilty of it. You know, you-

00:21:34,931 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm

00:21:35,091 [John Lanza]
… you bucket your children. And then when, once you’ve had that story, you know, the only book you can pick up about them is the book that says they’re the spender, and the other book-

00:21:45,851 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:21:45,891 [John Lanza]
… is the, the one that says, you know, this one’s the saver. And, you know, so much of it is, is, it’s, they’re, they’re really part of this novel that’s your whole family, right?

00:21:55,831 [Colin Ryan]
Right.

00:21:55,851 [John Lanza]
So it’s, we, we really do need to kinda, we, we need to be aware of the stories that we’re g- that we’re making out of whole cloth, really, um, to some extent. I mean, th- this is the t- tough part, is that there are personalities. Like, I, I mean, I started off by beginning this, I began this conversation, uh, or this thread with this binary, which is, “I’m more of a spender and you are more of a saver,” right? So-

00:22:20,191 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:22:20,211 [John Lanza]
… which, you know, now we’re getting at the reality, is that, you know, you have to make, you have to, it, uh, it’s not, for someone who’s a saver, there are challenges too. Like, we tend to think that they got it all figured out if they’ve, they’re saving. But, you know, at some point, I’ve, I’ve heard this with people who have achieved, say, financial independence, and they’ve been saving for their whole life, it’s not all of a sudden now that they have plenty of money that they can just go start spending it, right?

00:22:50,451 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm.

00:22:50,991 [John Lanza]
Um, and that’s a good problem to have. But it’s, it is some, it is a challenge, I guess is the best way to-

00:22:57,711 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm

00:22:57,731 [John Lanza]
… to put it. So, um, I like this idea of, of thinking about all the different types of challenges that we have. And I, I think really when it gets at, and you talk about this in your book, is we have to try to see the world from the, you know, the, the, the person, the, the, from the, uh, point of view of the person that we’re talking to, right?

00:23:18,271 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah, I think so. I think-

00:23:19,951 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:23:20,011 [Colin Ryan]
… you know, I’ve been a public speaker a long time, and if there’s one thing that helps me improve is I just keep asking what I listen to me.

00:23:29,011 [John Lanza]
Mm. Yeah. That’s great.

00:23:30,731 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs] And I’d, and I’d say that because, like, it’s not actually about me. This is kind of a funny thing you discover. You stand in front of a room of people, everyone’s looking at you, everyone’s, quote unquote, listening to you. People are barely thinking about you at all. They’re thinking about themselves.

00:23:45,831 [John Lanza]
[laughs]

00:23:46,291 [Colin Ryan]
I mean, they’re thinking about other stuff too, but when they’re-

00:23:49,011 [John Lanza]
Sure

00:23:49,031 [Colin Ryan]
… listening, they’re thinking about, they’re taking it in through their own experience.

00:23:55,011 [Colin Ryan]
Uh, they don’t relate to your plot, but they relate to the emotions that line up, that sync between you and them, right?

00:24:02,931 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:24:02,951 [Colin Ryan]
And so I just mangled this quote I just learned [laughs] about something like, “People don’t relate to the plot of your story, they relate to the emotions of your story.” So I’ll try to at least-

00:24:13,031 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:24:13,051 [Colin Ryan]
… say that correctly. But I think…So my circumstances may be different. My background is different. My identities are different. My time period is different, but I know that I can connect to them through honest emotional exchange of just, like, “Here we are. Here’s me. Here’s you. I see you. I see you as the hero of the story.”

00:24:37,079 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:24:37,099 [Colin Ryan]
“I’m not here to look down on you or to highlight your flaws. I’m here to, like, help you move the ball a little forward up the field.” And I know you have a lot of parents who listen to this, and so I think it’s fun to say, “Listen, I’m somebody… I speak at scale. I speak to thousands of students, but I speak to them as individuals.” And I think this-

00:24:59,199 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:24:59,220 [Colin Ryan]
… is the only game we can play. I think when you look at a stat about how few adults budget, for example, you know, I think it’s like 30% or something like that, okay?

00:25:11,659 [John Lanza]
Yeah. Yeah.

00:25:12,679 [Colin Ryan]
So I s- I don’t get to take that into my conversation with you

00:25:17,719 [Colin Ryan]
and

00:25:19,119 [Colin Ryan]
that means I know everything about you ’cause I know that’s a… obviously, right? [laughs] It’s funny to-

00:25:24,519 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

00:25:24,559 [Colin Ryan]
… to- to call it out, but now you take that same idea and you put that on children, and it’s like, “Yep, well, that’s how they are.” You know?

00:25:32,019 [John Lanza]
Yep. Yep.

00:25:32,599 [Colin Ryan]
They all say this slang word, or they all like this type of TikTok stream, and it’s like, no, I mean, y- your- your kids, your community, the- the- the young people you care about, like, they’re the heroes of the story and each of them is very distinct. And so I- I just wanna validate for parents, like, how fun is that? This is the game you’re playing.

00:25:54,899 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:25:54,919 [Colin Ryan]
This young person,

00:25:57,899 [Colin Ryan]
they’re the hero, and you get to just play around and figure out with them, like, what helps them tick? What helps them get motivated? Here’s one of my favorite quotes on motivation. N- uh… I’m gonna, I’m gonna mess it up. Uh, I don’t know how to say it word for word, but the idea is that no one is unmotivated.

00:26:17,239 [Colin Ryan]
Everyone is motivated. You just have to find out what-

00:26:20,099 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:26:20,219 [Colin Ryan]
… their motivation is.

00:26:22,139 [John Lanza]
Yeah. Yeah.

00:26:22,219 [Colin Ryan]
It’s gonna be different for different- for different people.

00:26:24,579 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

00:26:25,679 [John Lanza]
Well, you’re in the right place for quote mangling because-

00:26:28,319 [Colin Ryan]
Okay. [laughs]

00:26:28,679 [John Lanza]
… I routinely mangle.

00:26:29,739 [Colin Ryan]
It must be that time of day. I don’t know.

00:26:32,539 [John Lanza]
I routinely mangle quotes.

00:26:34,699 [Colin Ryan]
Do you? Well, good.

00:26:35,379 [John Lanza]
Uh, so [laughs]-

00:26:36,439 [Colin Ryan]
Good eye.

00:26:36,459 [John Lanza]
So… But the point is, I- I get that-

00:26:37,839 [Colin Ryan]
I knew I was in good company. [laughs]

00:26:39,859 [John Lanza]
I get what the po- I get the point you’re trying to make, which is, uh-

00:26:42,819 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:26:42,939 [John Lanza]
… which is a very good one. I mean, that’s, uh, it- it makes a lot of sense.

00:26:46,559 [Colin Ryan]
Hm.

00:26:47,099 [John Lanza]
All right. So let’s, let’s go down a- a slightly different thread. Like, can you-

00:26:50,459 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:26:50,479 [John Lanza]
… explain what you mean when you say earning by saving?

00:26:54,819 [Colin Ryan]
Earning by saving. Okay. So this is in my book [keyboard clicking] that I wrote, uh, six years ago. [laughs] So,

00:27:04,199 [Colin Ryan]
uh, let’s see. What did I mean by earning by saving? I think that what I meant… Oh, I remember now. Yes. Uh, saving is a very boring concept. In fact, it is a… It’s kind of the least attractive of the financial,

00:27:19,799 [Colin Ryan]
uh, education principles to a young person.

00:27:22,859 [John Lanza]
Yep.

00:27:23,199 [Colin Ryan]
We- They wanna know about-

00:27:23,959 [John Lanza]
Yep

00:27:23,999 [Colin Ryan]
… investing. They wanna know about earning. They wanna know about spending. Saving is, like, bottom of the list.

00:27:30,079 [John Lanza]
Yep.

00:27:30,099 [Colin Ryan]
And one of the ways that I thought was kind of a cool way to reframe that was that saving is actually a secret source of income.

00:27:38,799 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

00:27:38,899 [Colin Ryan]
Everything you don’t spend in that one moment of impulsivity, that’s money that you now have for something-

00:27:46,279 [John Lanza]
Right

00:27:46,299 [Colin Ryan]
… down the road. So I was trying to give it the energy of an action instead of a non-action.

00:27:53,959 [Colin Ryan]
And I would say that, for me,

00:27:58,019 [Colin Ryan]
that is a big part of how I ended up becoming my own boss, he- becoming an entrepreneur was, I had this job. I was teaching personal finance to high school students. This is around the time, John, you and I met in the credit union world.

00:28:13,259 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

00:28:13,279 [Colin Ryan]
I don’t know if you knew this, but I was hired on a two-year grant and in my interview, I think, they said, “Don’t get comfortable ’cause th- this is, you know, this is two years. Like, this is not a sustainable position.”

00:28:27,779 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

00:28:27,799 [Colin Ryan]
“We wanna try this. We hope you have a great time, but this is a two-year opportunity.”

00:28:32,719 [John Lanza]
Aye.

00:28:32,859 [Colin Ryan]
After I started,

00:28:35,299 [Colin Ryan]
I sensed the importance of this subject for young people and I was kind of

00:28:43,159 [Colin Ryan]
improving my own financial situation to some degree, I’d kind of had a steady paycheck and I, you know, had a job that I realized I really cared about, and I thought, “How can I make this a longer term thing?” And so-

00:28:57,599 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:28:57,819 [Colin Ryan]
… I personally slashed all my expenses. I didn’t buy new clothes. I drove a really pathetic, uh, car. It was a Dodge Neon that nobody was ever impressed with, and I could give you reasons why.

00:29:14,099 [John Lanza]
[laughs]

00:29:14,599 [Colin Ryan]
Like the roof that was crumpled by snow, and I just punched it out and kept driving. I mean, it was really… You know, it was a little grim. But the- those decisions were part of a larger pattern of me trying to save as much as I could so that I could go out on my own and do this as a business. And-

00:29:34,679 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

00:29:34,859 [Colin Ryan]
… I think it’s important to say

00:29:38,659 [Colin Ryan]
as a

00:29:40,979 [Colin Ryan]
white man in my mid-20s who is single and no kids, I think I got the best benefit of these habits in terms of being able to save and being able to- to launch a business, and I recognize that now, but I think the principle under- underneath it is still valid, which is that I saved and saved and saved, and over time, I created a chunk of money that allowed me to go out on my own and launch this business. And-

00:30:08,679 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:30:08,819 [Colin Ryan]
… thank God I did, because starting a business is really hard, and I made a lot of mistakes.

00:30:14,919 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:30:14,939 [Colin Ryan]
And so I think that saving is kind of a…… a form of mobility. It’s a form of freedom. There’s a tremendous payoff to this very boring habit, and that’s, so that’s what I mean by earning by saving. [laughs]

00:30:32,128 [John Lanza]
You’re, uh, the, the thing that is important here is that you’re kind of living what you’re talking about, right?

00:30:38,088 [Colin Ryan]
Yes. Mm-hmm.

00:30:39,227 [John Lanza]
And, uh, and, and, and people, and I think that the modeling is really important. It’s one of the things we talk about, uh, as a parent, is even if you have come at this and you’re not sure how you can talk to your kids about it because you feel like you are a money disaster, it’s a perfect opportunity to just change things that you’re doing-

00:31:01,547 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:31:01,567 [John Lanza]
… right? And I know that’s-

00:31:02,508 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm

00:31:02,548 [John Lanza]
… not, that’s not necessarily easy, but

00:31:05,787 [John Lanza]
when we have kids, many people describe it as one of those kind of real lightning, um, uh-

00:31:12,327 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:31:12,467 [John Lanza]
… moments where you do, your perspective changes, and that might give you the impetuous to make the changes that will make you a better model. And frankly, you don’t have to be an ideal model. I share my mistakes. You can share your mistakes, and let’s, let’s all kind of get… Let’s just get better as money-smart consumers. And-

00:31:33,127 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:31:33,267 [John Lanza]
… I actually kinda wanna jump into the consumerism side of things just because-

00:31:36,967 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm

00:31:37,167 [John Lanza]
… I think we’re dancing around it, and I think it’s w- I think it’s really the, you know, if you’re gonna talk about saving, uh, you’ve gotta talk about the, you know, the w- the elephant in the room, which is, uh, consumerism. And so-

00:31:52,267 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:31:52,387 [John Lanza]
… I wanna start with i- in your book, I love this ’cause you s- you, you said the original zombie movies, which I did not know-

00:31:58,827 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

00:31:59,227 [John Lanza]
… were meant to satirize consumerism, so it made perfect sense. Open mouth shoppers-

00:32:04,867 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:32:04,967 [John Lanza]
… wandering through the halls of the temples of capitalism. I grew up in New Jersey, so I wandered through the halls of the temples of capitalism-

00:32:11,387 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

00:32:12,247 [John Lanza]
… which was, which were the malls of the ’80s, right?

00:32:14,527 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah.

00:32:14,827 [John Lanza]
Um, and I don’t know if you know, but so Marshall McLuhan, who was a, uh, incredibly prescient media critic back in the ’60s. He said, “What may emerge as the most important insight of the 21st century is that man,” or woman, “was not designed to live at the speed of light.” And

00:32:37,747 [John Lanza]
he said this way before-

00:32:39,547 [Colin Ryan]
Wow

00:32:39,807 [John Lanza]
… social media, right? I mean, a- an-

00:32:41,967 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm.

00:32:42,267 [John Lanza]
Just, just think about that, that i- that, that idea that we may not be designed to live the way that we’re living. So

00:32:51,627 [John Lanza]
in, in the zombie movies, all this came before-

00:32:53,867 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

00:32:53,927 [John Lanza]
… McLuhan, right? And-

00:32:55,187 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:32:55,307 [John Lanza]
… if we’re honest, like, that is what many of us are addicted to and many of our kids are addicted to. So-

00:33:02,527 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm.

00:33:03,027 [John Lanza]
I’d like… Can you kinda give us some strategies to offer hope to parents to help their kids or the younger generation to help themselves to deal with, um, this reality that we… Like, our Paleolithic brains and modern technology are at odds with each other.

00:33:23,887 [Colin Ryan]
Well, first, snaps to you, John. That was, uh, br- brilliantly said, and, um, a fascinating quote. I was not familiar with that quote from McLuhan. The idea of living at the speed of light. That’s fascinating. Yeah, I think-

00:33:39,807 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

00:33:40,227 [Colin Ryan]
You know, you wanna look at another person who is a, let’s call him a… I guess he might be a m- He’s a younger millennial, but a version of McLuhan would be the comedian Bo Burnham.

00:33:51,387 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

00:33:51,527 [Colin Ryan]
And he makes this type of joke throughout his specials, and he kinda got… He was one of the early YouTube famous

00:34:00,107 [Colin Ryan]
entertainers, now a comedian on Netflix. I’m sure people know who I talk about when I mention him. But he talks about-

00:34:06,947 [John Lanza]
Sure

00:34:07,207 [Colin Ryan]
… this idea that the internet taking over every aspect of our brains and our attention and our interests and all of it is, you know… He goes, “Maybe that’s a bad call,” you know? [laughs] It’s like-

00:34:22,267 [John Lanza]
[laughs]

00:34:22,427 [Colin Ryan]
Who knows, you know? And so I think, I think… I’m not sure what to add to your question. I think this is the challenge that we face, is every time we are offered a device that will save us time, that time is then required for something else. And what I will tell you is that when I wrote the book, I called that consumerism because that was what I was understanding at the time. I now understand consumerism to be just a function of capitalism. Consumerism is how-

00:34:58,707 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:34:58,727 [Colin Ryan]
… the economy grows, the, how the economy runs. And I think what I’m really interested to learn from young people about now is that

00:35:11,227 [Colin Ryan]
Gen Z in particular are growing up in a reality where they kinda see what’s happening way faster than any generation before them has. And through-

00:35:22,487 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:35:22,507 [Colin Ryan]
… uh, s- major social media platforms, they’re able to exchange their knowledge. And so I would be fascinated to know

00:35:31,167 [Colin Ryan]
what young people think about growing up only with the internet, growing up only in a world of consumerism, and I think they’re actually starting to tell us. I think they’re starting-

00:35:43,527 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:35:43,547 [Colin Ryan]
… to say, “Hey, you know, I don’t wanna work every hour of the day just to scrape by,” like, as a young person. And I think it’s, it, there’s k- kind of like a meme thing here, which is to make fun of young people and be like, “Look at this TikTok video. They don’t care about anything, or they’re lazy.”

00:36:02,367 [John Lanza]
Right, right.

00:36:02,907 [Colin Ryan]
It’s like, I don’t think that’s actually in any way true. I think that they, uh, first off, that’s a generalization. [laughs] So-

00:36:11,407 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm, yeah

00:36:12,047 [Colin Ryan]
… you know, maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. We’re still talking about millions-

00:36:14,907 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:36:15,087 [Colin Ryan]
… of people, but I think-

00:36:16,607 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:36:16,647 [Colin Ryan]
… what a lot of them are trying to communicate to us…… is their honest experience, and I don’t know. I don’t, I’m not sure I have a brilliant answer for you on this idea of your, your brilliant question, but I think that decade after decade of spending as our primary activity, I think, is leading us to a new conversation. And I think that kids are trying to tell us something. Uh, I think we feel it too.

00:36:48,576 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

00:36:49,016 [Colin Ryan]
I think we are,

00:36:51,335 [Colin Ryan]
we’re, I think we’re in a, a world that is almost too obsessed with money and money is involved in every aspect, everything is transactional, and I think it’s kind of, I think it’s weighing on us, it’s weighing on our mental health. So yeah. I think, uh, I say all that to say when I have these conversations, I’m trying to be as curious as, and respectful as I can of where they’re coming from and what they want to share with me-

00:37:20,955 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:37:20,975 [Colin Ryan]
… because a lot of the things that you and I teach, you know, they can learn those very quickly, uh, searching online. So what-

00:37:29,575 [John Lanza]
Right

00:37:29,595 [Colin Ryan]
… what can we learn from them?

00:37:31,135 [John Lanza]
Yeah. In fact, this gets to a question I wanted to ask you-

00:37:35,515 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:37:35,615 [John Lanza]
… because I [laughs] like my f- sense of this, uh, ’cause so much of, uh, financial education is this kitchen sink approach. Like we have to make sure we cover, and, and it’s great.

00:37:48,895 [Colin Ryan]
Hm.

00:37:48,915 [John Lanza]
I mean, the, you know, the newest survey of the states is out. We have-

00:37:51,915 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

00:37:51,935 [John Lanza]
… I think there’s 35 states that now require on some level, uh, a course to be taken-

00:37:58,315 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:37:58,415 [John Lanza]
… um, in school, which is, which is great, right? But I feel like, uh, uh, that’s great, but we also don’t know what those course-, you know, what is actually-

00:38:08,955 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm

00:38:08,975 [John Lanza]
… getting taught in those courses, right? And is- one thing that I’ve learned is that as things scale, they don’t necessarily get better. Right?

00:38:16,015 [Colin Ryan]
Hm.

00:38:16,555 [John Lanza]
Um, and, and if you look at, uh, if you look at studies that, and, and there’s really basically kind of one study that they look at, uh, to show that, uh, that teaching leads to improved s- uh, behaviors. Right?

00:38:30,975 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah.

00:38:31,815 [John Lanza]
And so we don’t really know how well

00:38:36,415 [John Lanza]
teaching in schools, uh-

00:38:38,255 [Colin Ryan]
Hm

00:38:38,275 [John Lanza]
… affects behaviors. Like obviously if they take a pre-test and then they take a post-test, they’re gonna see an improvement. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything because if you do any course, if you take a pre-test, you take the course, and then you take a post-test, you’re going to improve. Right?

00:38:52,835 [Colin Ryan]
Hm.

00:38:53,015 [John Lanza]
So the issue is, is there gonna be behavior improvement? And, and there could be that, but I guess what I want to get at here is, uh,

00:39:00,535 [John Lanza]
is,

00:39:02,135 [John Lanza]
is there a simpler way to go about this? Like ’cause if we keep your money goes-outas below our goes-intas, this is, uh, I think a Beverly Hillbillies, uh, set of terms that-

00:39:10,955 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

00:39:11,095 [John Lanza]
… I learned from my stepfather.

00:39:12,235 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

00:39:12,595 [John Lanza]
So goes-outas which means getting, goes out of, and then-

00:39:15,875 [Colin Ryan]
Okay. [laughs]

00:39:16,175 [John Lanza]
… goes-intas are goes into, if we keep our goes-outas below our goes-intas, which means our, you know, income is greater than our expenses. If they have their, you know, their goes-intas taken care of and the- and they’re able to make sure that their goes-outas are under control and-

00:39:32,395 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm

00:39:32,415 [John Lanza]
… then they’re saving a portion of those goes-intas, how much more do they really need to know, I guess, is the question. Right?

00:39:39,315 [Colin Ryan]
Hm.

00:39:39,515 [John Lanza]
Are, are we, I guess, are we over-complicating? I mean, this is over-simplifying it, uh, obviously, but do we t- is part of the problem that we tend to over-complicate-

00:39:51,395 [Colin Ryan]
Mm

00:39:51,615 [John Lanza]
… uh, what we need to achieve basic financial independence? That’s really my kinda question.

00:39:58,315 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah. I mean, I, I think you’re absolutely right in the sense that

00:40:02,235 [Colin Ryan]
th- these are kinda the only two numbers that matter is what do I, what’s going out and what’s coming back in. Um…

00:40:09,355 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:40:10,235 [Colin Ryan]
And I think that

00:40:12,775 [Colin Ryan]
in general, personal finance should not be rocket science. It should be a series of behaviors that over time lead you to the right results, and you’re either-

00:40:24,995 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:40:25,155 [Colin Ryan]
… improving them or you’re backing them off and you’re kind of playing with that mix. I think an area where w- we can help ourselves is to manage the, uh, let’s call it the emotional and the psychological

00:40:41,135 [Colin Ryan]
journey that goes along with that, because we can get into fear, fear of not having enough, fear of running out of money, fear of competition. You know, what if, uh, I can’t keep up and I fall behind? And I think in those spaces, we can actually rob ourselves of the success we might actually be having. And I say this-

00:41:03,955 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:41:03,975 [Colin Ryan]
… this is something that I’ve experienced. You know, I’ve been an entrepreneur a long time and there have been times where

00:41:11,115 [Colin Ryan]
on paper by the end of the year everything worked out, I live to fight another day. But during that year, I may have had a lot of mental wrestling and fear and anxiousness about whether or not it’s gonna work. And I-

00:41:29,235 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:41:29,295 [Colin Ryan]
… I- just wanna maybe acknowledge that, that

00:41:33,195 [Colin Ryan]
that’s the part that’s probably a little bit more complicated. I think the actual financial situation the person is in, I think you’re right. It comes down to basic habits repeated over time can lead you to the right result. Definitely. But I think it’s-

00:41:50,115 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:41:50,135 [Colin Ryan]
… also, I think something that I think is a shame is how, and that’s why I love your podcast, I, eh, it’s a shame how little we actually openly talk about money, and I think it-

00:42:03,335 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:42:03,395 [Colin Ryan]
… contributes to these problems. So

00:42:07,435 [Colin Ryan]
the answer I’m kind of landing on for you is to make space for that, to make sure that-

00:42:13,135 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:42:13,295 [Colin Ryan]
… you know, you’re, you’re able to have those safe, open conversations, and that yourself or your young person is not feeling like it.I can’t talk about this. The, I made a misle- you mentioned mistakes earlier. I think that mistakes are actually an amazing connection point, and an opportunity for shared understanding and learning.

00:42:37,807 [John Lanza]
Hmm.

00:42:38,248 [Colin Ryan]
And I think that’s a great thing we can model is whether you get it right or get it wrong, great. Both are great. You know? Let’s talk about both. And, and I think

00:42:52,847 [Colin Ryan]
m- my vision is that as adults we can be that, that wingperson, that trusted mentor, that safe friend they can come and talk to. And you don’t want to lose that, right? You don’t want to lose that space in their life. So to me, I think that’s where it’s really great to just like be checking on them and be asking them how they’re doing and getting a sense of how they’re, how they’re feeling about how they’re doing. And-

00:43:22,687 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:43:22,867 [Colin Ryan]
… that’s, th- so that’s kind of where my

00:43:26,027 [Colin Ryan]
interest and my expertise goes to. So I think there are better minds to answer the question of like,

00:43:34,447 [Colin Ryan]
you know, better resources on wha- where all the jobs they can find and the ways they can earn income. But I think what I would like to invite your listeners to think about is just, “Am I having open, safe, genuine, conversational, you know, experiences with them?”

00:43:50,367 [John Lanza]
It’s really more about navigating the world. Because I think-

00:43:53,527 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:43:53,547 [John Lanza]
… well, I think when these college kids have this opportunity to talk to you, that’s really what you’re getting at, is this idea of like how you kind of navigate this craziness. Like, for example, the, it’s not an easy thing. I, I know the same thing. Like we have, uh, w- we have, our cars are paid off.

00:44:14,007 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm.

00:44:14,367 [John Lanza]
But they are, they’re arguably crappy cars, right? I see a really new, I see a new car and I’m like, “Hm, that’d be nice to, to have that, you know, new car.”

00:44:24,047 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah.

00:44:24,127 [John Lanza]
Um, but I also know now, is like, but I really don’t want to finance that car.

00:44:29,007 [Colin Ryan]
Right.

00:44:29,027 [John Lanza]
So I’m okay with it.

00:44:30,247 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

00:44:30,987 [John Lanza]
So my, so my question is like for you, I imagine you, you know, you’re gonna go through the same feelings. So how do we help our kids navigate those feelings?

00:44:44,587 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm.

00:44:44,947 [John Lanza]
Because they’re so there. Is there, they’re front and center obviously in, um, on social media. And they’re front and center just in their conversations. Because they’re, when they are college students, they’re, they’re aspirational. They should be aspirational, right?

00:45:01,587 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah.

00:45:02,247 [John Lanza]
And, and so a lot of that as- aspirational, um, moves towards kind of living rich lives.

00:45:08,627 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm.

00:45:08,967 [John Lanza]
Um, and I think what Morgan Housel talks about, this idea that it’s like they think they want a rich life, a rich lifestyle. What they really ultimately want is wealth, right?

00:45:19,067 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm.

00:45:19,267 [John Lanza]
So but you can’t see wealth.

00:45:21,527 [Colin Ryan]
Right.

00:45:21,547 [John Lanza]
And you can see rich, right? And so we, I think, I think it’s good for kids to realize like we all have, we’ve all looked at that, right?

00:45:30,867 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm.

00:45:31,287 [John Lanza]
And some of us, you know, achieve richness. Some of us achieve wealth. Some of us ach- achieve both. But it, I guess the question is, how do we help kids, uh, navigate through this, uh, the, I think Margaret Atwood called it, like, it’s like the valley of consumerism, right?

00:45:50,787 [Colin Ryan]
Hmm.

00:45:50,827 [John Lanza]
To come out the other side and live a fulfilled life.

00:45:54,207 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah. I mean-

00:45:55,167 [John Lanza]
Um, I’m, I’m probably mangling that quote too. So take it away, Colin

00:45:57,927 [Colin Ryan]
That’s okay. [laughs] That’s okay. You’re a quote machine.

00:46:00,207 [John Lanza]
[laughs]

00:46:01,167 [Colin Ryan]
Um, you’re paying tribute, right, to these great thinkers. So we’ll take it.

00:46:06,707 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:46:06,827 [Colin Ryan]
I,

00:46:08,667 [Colin Ryan]
I think these are, this is a very important question. I, [sighs] I wish I had a simple, a simple formula. But I think, I think this is what we’re all kind of working through, is

00:46:24,267 [Colin Ryan]
whether we want to admit it or not, we live in a, in a framework where we are, see thousands of ads every single day.

00:46:32,267 [John Lanza]
Yep.

00:46:32,867 [Colin Ryan]
And we have social media platforms that we enjoy that collect our data to show us even better and smarter ads.

00:46:43,367 [Colin Ryan]
And so

00:46:45,087 [Colin Ryan]
I think,

00:46:46,987 [Colin Ryan]
I think that in this sense any generation is having the same challenge. Which is-

00:46:52,407 [John Lanza]
Sure

00:46:52,607 [Colin Ryan]
… like, “What is contentment to me?” And this is a quote that I love, uh, which is that, “Contentment is…” I’m gonna mess it up. [laughs]

00:47:03,247 [John Lanza]
[laughs]

00:47:03,467 [Colin Ryan]
I think you’ve jinxed, you’ve jinxed me, and now I’m like, I anticipate getting it wrong. “Contentment is natural wealth.” That, that, that’s the frame. I think it’s Socrates or Plato or one of those smart guys.

00:47:16,527 [John Lanza]
Yeah, yeah.

00:47:16,547 [Colin Ryan]
But I love this idea that contentment is the way off of the treadmill.

00:47:22,707 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:47:22,967 [Colin Ryan]
And what we have to acknowledge is contentment is the thing that the ads and the, the tools are playing with. They’re trying to re- reduce our contentment.

00:47:35,587 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:47:35,607 [Colin Ryan]
But it is up to us to choose. And there’s a great book called Happy Money where the author talks about how we scientifically do get greater happiness when we spend money on experiences. Travel.

00:47:51,207 [John Lanza]
Yes.

00:47:52,127 [Colin Ryan]
Treasured memories. Things like that. Than we do on products. The joy of buying a new car versus buying a used car, i- it’s not enough of a difference for what we end up paying in that, you know, for that different number.

00:48:09,247 [John Lanza]
Right. Right.

00:48:09,267 [Colin Ryan]
And so to me, I think it’s that. It’s, it’s, “What does contentment look like to you?” You know, this is a question. I mean, it’s hard ’cause I, I wanna like give you straight answers. But I’m, as a speaker with, for young people, I’m a bit of a agnostic. It’s, it’s not my job to tell them, like, “Here’s the basic advice.” But I-I want them to tell me and to tell themselves like, what matters to you? What does contentment look like to you? How do you define success? I think these are questions-

00:48:39,759 [John Lanza]
Right

00:48:40,119 [Colin Ryan]
… that are really interesting to ask because success is something that we give, we’re given a definition without even knowing it, which is success-

00:48:51,359 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:48:51,519 [Colin Ryan]
… is clout, it’s influence, it’s easy money, it’s beautiful people, right? It’s like we have this-

00:48:59,699 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:48:59,720 [Colin Ryan]
… like preloaded definition of success. But something that I love, John, is I did this job and spoke to more and more unique types of audiences, people from different backgrounds, different, um, you know, regions, different attitudes, different like grouped by different ways, is you would learn like that’s not how they define success, you know?

00:49:22,959 [John Lanza]
[laughs]

00:49:23,299 [Colin Ryan]
Uh, one example would be I think most people think of success as the people who they care about the most, being able to ensure a good life for those people. People care about-

00:49:35,319 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:49:35,339 [Colin Ryan]
… things like pets, which make no financial sense, but bring-

00:49:40,359 [John Lanza]
[laughs]

00:49:41,040 [Colin Ryan]
… right? But bring joy and meaning to our lives. And so I think to me, again, it’s figuring out

00:49:49,599 [Colin Ryan]
what is their version of contentment? What is their version of success? And then saying,-

00:49:54,240 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:49:54,500 [Colin Ryan]
… “Great, what if we do this budgeting exercise to get to that?”

00:50:00,139 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:50:00,159 [Colin Ryan]
That’s our north star. Let’s get there with some, with some habits.

00:50:06,039 [John Lanza]
Uh, I understand your frustration on that side of the mic wanting to give an answer. And I, I don’t mean-

00:50:11,999 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs] Sure

00:50:12,219 [John Lanza]
… to be putting you in a position to give me-

00:50:13,580 [Colin Ryan]
No, no

00:50:13,600 [John Lanza]
… some kind of quick answer to it because I, I think part of the issue is when you’re talking to college kids is they’re still, you know, still forming that frontal lobe and now-

00:50:24,199 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm

00:50:24,219 [John Lanza]
… I’m getting way out of my, uh, out of my lane here because I’m, uh, not a, uh, not a psychiatrist. What I like about what you’re saying is as a parent, we wanna have conversations with our kids. And we do have these conversations-

00:50:38,299 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm

00:50:38,319 [John Lanza]
… in our house about this, which is, you know, you just have to f- you have to f- you, you have to sort through

00:50:45,359 [John Lanza]
life, right?

00:50:46,319 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah.

00:50:46,339 [John Lanza]
And you have to figure, a lot of this stuff you have to figure out by yourself. And very often that’s by making mistakes, you know?

00:50:52,639 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm.

00:50:53,199 [John Lanza]
Um, and I’ve shared that, uh, one, one of the, one of the mo- one of the, uh, mistakes that I made that really helped me was buying a comp- when I bought a computer on a credit card and then had to pay that off over a course of time, so I think it was roughly a year.

00:51:08,019 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm.

00:51:08,179 [John Lanza]
A $2,000 computer ended up costing me $3,000, but after that, I never knowingly carried a balance, right?

00:51:15,819 [Colin Ryan]
Hmm.

00:51:16,259 [John Lanza]
Now, I also, but I’m not exactly sure why that’s true. That’s the, that’s one of the funny things is that because it can also go the other way.

00:51:25,879 [Colin Ryan]
Hm.

00:51:25,979 [John Lanza]
It can go the other way where you’re like, “Oh, this is great. I paid it off now.” And I, you know, I, I know people who will then just, you know, just blast through their credit cards and that’s the way that it works, right?

00:51:36,299 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm.

00:51:36,439 [John Lanza]
And so, um, for our kids, what I appreciate you saying here is that

00:51:42,279 [John Lanza]
you, we just want to make them as reflective as possible about this process.

00:51:47,999 [Colin Ryan]
Totally.

00:51:48,479 [John Lanza]
And then, uh, I would say on the social media side, it’s just trying to get acro- I, I think you’re right about the fact that they’re probably more aware of it than we realize.

00:51:57,839 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm.

00:51:57,939 [John Lanza]
The asymmetric nature of the fact that, you know, what’s being s- what’s being sent to them is really designed to fire off, uh,

00:52:08,959 [John Lanza]
their pleasure receptors, right?

00:52:10,799 [Colin Ryan]
I wanna tell you a, a, a story that kind of has really shaped my career, which was in the early days, I kind of identified this idea of people really feeling shame and feeling judgment about mistakes they’d make. You know, everyone, every adult has like a credit card horror story, and so I noticed that theme, right? So, I’m, I’m new at this and I’m looking for themes and I’m seeing that, but because I’m also in a m- more of an emotionally intuitive type of brain, I noticed the-

00:52:43,659 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:52:43,739 [Colin Ryan]
… energy around it, too is like regret and a little bit downcast.

00:52:49,679 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:52:49,699 [Colin Ryan]
And so I thought, “Oh my God, I don’t want people

00:52:52,419 [Colin Ryan]
to listen to me talk about credit and then walk away feeling like what’s my problem? Why can’t I just, why did I do that thing?” So I just-

00:53:00,739 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:53:00,899 [Colin Ryan]
… asked a group of students once like, “Who in here has made a mistake with money? Who’s overspent money?” And I, and, um, and I’m trying to think of the example. I, I asked a, uh, no, it was an educators group. These are financial educators. So I ask this question all the time, and this is the one I’m thinking of. I said, “Has anyone here ever l- learned something the hard way about money?” And every person kinda like nodded, you know?

00:53:29,419 [John Lanza]
Right.

00:53:29,619 [Colin Ryan]
And one woman shared that she had got a credit card early on. Uh, her parents cosigned with her, and she did not really understand the terms or the t- the timelines and they didn’t have good communication about it, and she got into a real hole.

00:53:49,219 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

00:53:49,279 [Colin Ryan]
And it ended up hurting all of their credit, so her and her-

00:53:53,919 [John Lanza]
Right

00:53:53,939 [Colin Ryan]
… mom and her dad.

00:53:55,839 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:53:56,459 [Colin Ryan]
So now this woman is sharing this story and this is like nine, 10 years later and she’s an educator, too.

00:54:04,199 [Colin Ryan]
And you could really feel from her like a real sense of shame. And so I said, without thinking, “Raise your hand if you relate to her story in some way.” And I say without thinking ’cause what if like no one raised their hand? [laughs] And I’ve, I’ve, I’ve like kicked her while she’s down, you know? And I, I kinda had this-

00:54:24,719 [John Lanza]
[laughs]

00:54:25,199 [Colin Ryan]
… I had this moment of like, “Oh, no.” And then every hand goes up. And so what that woman, her name is Jessica, what she illustrated is w-… the people around you are more like you than you think.

00:54:40,616 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

00:54:40,636 [Colin Ryan]
You making a mistake is not making you odd or behind. It’s actually like that’s most people’s experience. And just having the guts to talk about that can be really valuable. And that woman emailed me a few days later and said, “Because you had me voice that, and because people said they related, I realized I’d been carrying this shame about it.”

00:55:09,595 [John Lanza]
Hm. Yeah.

00:55:09,755 [Colin Ryan]
“And I think for the first time in years, I felt like maybe this is something I can let go of.”

00:55:16,696 [Colin Ryan]
So, you know, as a speaker, as an educator, like, this is what we dream of, is just one person to say-

00:55:23,956 [John Lanza]
[laughs]

00:55:24,276 [Colin Ryan]
… “Anything you said

00:55:27,415 [Colin Ryan]
made any kind of a difference,” right? And I feel like I, I won-

00:55:30,336 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:55:30,356 [Colin Ryan]
… the lottery in, in this moment.

00:55:33,555 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:55:33,595 [Colin Ryan]
And so I just have continued to ask that question as often as I can. And so one of the things that I, I, I wanna name as a tool, whether people think of it as a tool or not, is vulnerability.

00:55:50,495 [Colin Ryan]
And if you’re a man or you’re prideful in a way where you don’t like vulnerability, let’s call it confident vulnerability.

00:55:58,595 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

00:55:58,615 [Colin Ryan]
It’s you choosing to share something

00:56:04,115 [Colin Ryan]
that might feel a little bit devaluing-

00:56:07,795 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

00:56:07,955 [Colin Ryan]
… and then noticing that it just makes everybody feel better. [laughs] Like, it-

00:56:11,575 [John Lanza]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah

00:56:11,955 [Colin Ryan]
… it totally creates a sense of relief and safety. And I think that for parents, for adults, when talking to young people, being willing to share those types of stories,

00:56:25,495 [Colin Ryan]
that’s gonna be a way to go deeper, like we’ve been trying to in this conversation. Like, let’s go deeper into these ideas than just the immediate answer on the surface. Um-

00:56:38,075 [John Lanza]
Yes. Yes.

00:56:38,675 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah. So that’s, like, that’s my, like, gospel, I guess, as a person who’s had this weird job where I, I talk to strangers about the most taboo subject, and I talk to young people as an adult, and instead of, like, crickets and discomfort, what ends up happening is we laugh and we relate and we find shared ground, common ground. And that’s possible for any of us really. It’s, it’s just being willing to

00:57:09,435 [Colin Ryan]
play, like, show your cards a little bit, you know? Like-

00:57:12,655 [John Lanza]
Yeah. Yeah.

00:57:13,815 [Colin Ryan]
Te- tell them your story. Tell them your hard story, what you learned, and,

00:57:20,235 [Colin Ryan]
and show them that it’s okay to not feel shameful or embarrassed about it. S- like, it happened, it’s fine. I’m here. I’m here because of it, you know? [laughs] Like, s- we learn… Sometimes we learn really good money skills by screwing up horribly,

00:57:39,395 [Colin Ryan]
and then, like, if you look back, you go, “Oh, but I never made that mistake again.” Well, there you go. That, that’s the benefit. Yeah, you messed up, and that stinks, but then every time since, you didn’t do that. So it was actually overall a benefit to you. You just learned it in an embarrassing, you know, regrettable way.

00:57:58,975 [John Lanza]
So the key point seems like you, you just have to be somewhat self-effacing, right? And-

00:58:04,395 [Colin Ryan]
Mm.

00:58:05,115 [John Lanza]
Um, and as a parent, that can be, that can be fairly difficult. It reminds me of, um… So W- Will Rainey, who was on the podcast-

00:58:14,635 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:58:14,775 [John Lanza]
… he talks about, he has a book about, uh, building wealth. It’s a really good book, and it’s just, it’s a fable. And, um, and he posted this picture of… So it was, uh, I don’t know if you saw this, but… So first it’s The Rock, who’s a big guy. The Rock is probably 6’4″, 6’5″-

00:58:34,015 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm

00:58:34,175 [John Lanza]
… standing next to, uh, I think it’s Se- standing next to, uh, Kevin Hart, who’s not a big guy-

00:58:40,215 [Colin Ryan]
Right

00:58:40,335 [John Lanza]
… 5’4″, right? So Rock looks big. Then there’s a picture right next to it, and it’s The Rock standing next to Shaq-

00:58:47,455 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

00:58:47,695 [John Lanza]
… and the Rock looks tiny. And then you have Shaq standing next to Yao Ming, and Shaq looks tiny-

00:58:54,435 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

00:58:54,635 [John Lanza]
… right? And Shaq is gigantic. And the p- his point was that there’s always something bigger-

00:59:00,555 [Colin Ryan]
Hm

00:59:00,575 [John Lanza]
… right? And so as parents, there are parents in our friend group that are monumentally more economically successful-

00:59:08,555 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm. Yeah

00:59:08,855 [John Lanza]
… right, than I am. Um, and that, and, and, and the kids know it, and you as a parent kind of feel, because getting at what you were talking about earlier, you know-

00:59:20,375 [Colin Ryan]
Right

00:59:20,395 [John Lanza]
… economic, you know, your economic value tends, is, is something that is so highly valued in, in our society, but it really does play… It, it can play kind of, it can play havoc with your ability to get honest, [laughs]-

00:59:38,355 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:59:38,475 [John Lanza]
… with yourself and, uh, with your family sometimes-

00:59:41,715 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

00:59:41,815 [John Lanza]
… right? I, I don’t really know exactly where I’m going with that, but I think it’s, it’s getting at this… But, but even the people that you think about, right, say that person’s making, uh, 10X what you make-

00:59:53,695 [Colin Ryan]
Right

00:59:53,855 [John Lanza]
… they’re, they may be looking at the person who’s making 10X what they make, right? And they almost certainly are, right?

01:00:00,075 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah. Well, well, if I can jump in, uh, this is where-

01:00:03,475 [John Lanza]
Yeah, please, please.

01:00:04,155 [Colin Ryan]
… this is where we’re all on the same page. We’re all in the same battle, no matter what age we are.

01:00:11,475 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

01:00:11,495 [Colin Ryan]
Is that there’s always somebody who looks, who’s further up the road than us, who we, if we’re not careful, we wanna be like them. And I think-

01:00:20,575 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:00:20,735 [Colin Ryan]
… you know, this is another thing that was interesting in my life, was as a function of doing standup comedy and public speaking and things like that, I’m a kind of a creative, artsy type of person, I got into storytelling. And the thing I noticed right away about storytelling is I didn’t have to be funny. I didn’t have to be a motivational speaker. I could just be totally transparent about something.And so I started messing around with like, “What are the things that are hard for me to talk about?

01:00:50,775 [Colin Ryan]
Like what if I just told them to an audience?” It sounds nuts-

01:00:53,855 [John Lanza]
[laughs]

01:00:53,876 [Colin Ryan]
… but it made sense in a way, because it’s like the structure, you know? It’s Tuesday.

01:00:58,535 [John Lanza]
Yeah, yeah.

01:00:58,775 [Colin Ryan]
It’s 7:00. Do I want to do this? Here’s what I want to talk about. So the reason I s- I set that up that way is because one time I told this story about, uh, jealousy.

01:01:09,975 [Colin Ryan]
And it felt really

01:01:12,255 [Colin Ryan]
vulnerable to talk about-

01:01:14,015 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

01:01:14,755 [Colin Ryan]
… my struggles with jealousy. I, you know, was doing comedy at that point, and there was another comedian who was way more successful than me, and I just couldn’t, I couldn’t get it out of my head, you know? And ev- it’s like the more everyone loved him, the more [laughs] it just drove me crazy. And I didn’t like that I felt this way.

01:01:37,895 [Colin Ryan]
So I tell this story,

01:01:40,235 [Colin Ryan]
and you could just feel like it was a cool f- thing to acknowledge. Like, y- people weren’t pulling back. And then at the end, a bunch of people were like, “I have that too. I have, I have that person for me who just drives me crazy, and who…”

01:01:55,475 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

01:01:55,755 [Colin Ryan]
And so the reason I’m, I’m telling you this is because

01:01:59,775 [Colin Ryan]
something I have learned through the, the luxury of standing in front of audiences is

01:02:08,035 [Colin Ryan]
it’s okay to be your ugly authentic self. I know that that’s not easy. I’m not saying it’s easy.

01:02:15,176 [John Lanza]
Right.

01:02:15,236 [Colin Ryan]
I’msaying there’s actually magic in there.

01:02:17,795 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

01:02:17,815 [Colin Ryan]
And so for you as an adult to talk to a young person or to another adult, a human, any human, any human, and say, “This person has this car, and it’s killing me,”

01:02:29,935 [Colin Ryan]
it, it, it actually takes some of the power away from that. And it allows you-

01:02:34,496 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:02:34,555 [Colin Ryan]
… to see it in a more objective way. I think there’s something very important-

01:02:39,895 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:02:39,915 [Colin Ryan]
… about naming it. And

01:02:43,235 [Colin Ryan]
I just say that to say, like,

01:02:46,175 [Colin Ryan]
money is fairly straightforward, like a lot of things are straightforward, but humans are complex. And-

01:02:52,415 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:02:52,596 [Colin Ryan]
…

01:02:54,055 [Colin Ryan]
let’s love that. Like let’s, let’s, let’s acknowledge that, I guess. A- and so to me, when I think about comparison, I don’t see it as an ugly emotion or an ugly experience or quality if you listening to this struggle with that. I see it as your absolute goldmine to connect with another person.

01:03:16,275 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

01:03:16,436 [Colin Ryan]
If you want it to be, or it can be-

01:03:18,495 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:03:18,515 [Colin Ryan]
… a gross feeling. But for me-

01:03:20,695 [John Lanza]
[laughs]

01:03:21,916 [Colin Ryan]
… it was really life-changing to sort of try to d-

01:03:24,335 [John Lanza]
But it can be, it can be both those things, right?

01:03:27,015 [Colin Ryan]
It can be both, yeah. Absolutely. Abs- oh, very true. Very true. [laughs]

01:03:31,716 [John Lanza]
Yeah. I, I feel like I may have cut off your final-

01:03:35,216 [Colin Ryan]
Nope

01:03:35,456 [John Lanza]
… thought there. Okay. Because I think there’s two things. One, it is both those things ’cause you’re leaning into really… There are a lot of these things that end up being cliches, but they are cliches because there is some truth to them.

01:03:48,255 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm.

01:03:48,415 [John Lanza]
And that is leading into finding the things that are uncomfortable and just leaning into those-

01:03:52,855 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm

01:03:53,035 [John Lanza]
… um, things. The other thing that, uh, I thought of when you were talking about the, the feelings and such is, like Morgan Housel talks about this in his book, Psychology of Money, is like, you know, Richard Feynman, the fa- the physicist said, uh, said something to the… I won’t even try to attempt the quote, but the quote was basically, you know, physics is, you know, is easier to study than something like money because, you know, electrons don’t have feelings. And, uh, I think there’s, there’s-

01:04:17,935 [Colin Ryan]
Right

01:04:18,115 [John Lanza]
… certainly something to that idea. Um-

01:04:20,235 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

01:04:20,335 [John Lanza]
… because humans are just… Humans and money, uh, I feel like we’ll be talking about this. We could be doing this podcast in a thousand years, and we wouldn’t nesse- necessarily have stumbled-

01:04:31,335 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

01:04:31,455 [John Lanza]
… upon anything [laughs] that is… Uh, other than I think the, I think the most important thing is this… is for pa- for us to have conversations with each other-

01:04:43,375 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm

01:04:43,635 [John Lanza]
… w- to the point where we can then walk, both walk away and be reflective of those conversations. So it’s-

01:04:50,795 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

01:04:50,895 [John Lanza]
… less the parent telling and more the parent opening up and allowing the child to open up. Which, you know, I, I, I recognize that is not an easy thing to do when you’re a parent and you have a teenager at home.

01:05:03,735 [Colin Ryan]
Right.

01:05:04,295 [John Lanza]
Um, but it’s, it’s, it is more about that. Not providing the answers, but providing, you know, either the, some of the vulnerability and some of the-

01:05:13,175 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm

01:05:13,195 [John Lanza]
… issues that you’ve made as a way of saying, “Listen, if you have questions, you can ask me as you go through the, through the process.” Um, but ultimately, they are gonna learn through their own experience. We can help, you know, goose those experiences, obviously easier when they’re younger. You know, set an allowance and they start-

01:05:30,455 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

01:05:30,575 [John Lanza]
… learning by using their own money. Um, it gets harder as they get older. But I like what you’re saying, your approach of just it’s, it’s really about, um, connecting with, with them, and, uh, I think opening up that conversation to some extent. I think you said it better than I did.

01:05:48,475 [Colin Ryan]
You’re telling me that I, I got the idea across, so that’s good.

01:05:53,055 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

01:05:53,075 [Colin Ryan]
I think that

01:05:55,455 [Colin Ryan]
this is always the challenge w- with the people you’re in relationships with, is

01:06:01,915 [Colin Ryan]
there’s gonna be a time when you disagree with their decision, and you’re gonna be faced with a very difficult choice. Which is, “Do I tell them they’re wrong,

01:06:14,555 [Colin Ryan]
or do I make sure they know that they can come to me

01:06:18,395 [Colin Ryan]
if it goes badly?”

01:06:20,715 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

01:06:20,735 [Colin Ryan]
And I think that’s

01:06:22,575 [Colin Ryan]
not easy to do. That’s not been easy to do-

01:06:25,015 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:06:25,035 [Colin Ryan]
… in my own life. But I think… I’m glad I chose the second one, because it’s like…

01:06:32,975 [Colin Ryan]
He- here’s a, a pithy way of saying it. Uh, don’t win the point, but lose the person.

01:06:39,835 [John Lanza]
Hmm. Yeah.

01:06:41,455 [Colin Ryan]
Win the person-

01:06:42,095 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:06:42,175 [Colin Ryan]
… every time. I mean, obviously. Like when you say it like that, like we wanna win the person every time. And so I think-

01:06:47,855 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:06:47,875 [Colin Ryan]
… that’s, that’s the idea…. I feel really strongly about, is like just make sure whatever you’re doing, you’re also being safe harbor for them so they can talk to you. ‘Cause what if your kid, you co-sign your kid’s first credit card, and they don’t know what they’re doing, and they don’t feel like they can talk to you? You know, like these things happen all the time, and I think

01:07:09,503 [Colin Ryan]
better to create an environment where they’re like, “Man, I don’t feel good about sharing with you what I did, but I know-“

01:07:16,583 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:07:16,704 [Colin Ryan]
“… you’re not gonna murder me.” [laughs] You know?

01:07:19,363 [John Lanza]
[laughs] Right, right.

01:07:20,923 [Colin Ryan]
I know, I know that you’re g- you’re not gonna shame me or talk down to me, like we’re gonna figure it out together.

01:07:26,823 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

01:07:26,843 [Colin Ryan]
I think that’s, that’s, that’s the work, you know?

01:07:30,724 [John Lanza]
Yeah. No, I like that. And in fact, it gets at this, uh, this idea, uh, I will say of the regrets that I have-

01:07:39,003 [Colin Ryan]
Hm

01:07:39,163 [John Lanza]
… so th- they, they tend to be, and I, I think, uh, they tend to be the things that you, you can’t unsay-

01:07:47,083 [Colin Ryan]
Hm

01:07:47,103 [John Lanza]
… to your kids, right?

01:07:48,023 [Colin Ryan]
Wow.

01:07:48,403 [John Lanza]
Comes out of your mouth in the, in the heat of the moment. You’re like, “That was just, that was unnecessary.” That’s where-

01:07:54,523 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah.

01:07:54,563 [John Lanza]
And as you get older and a little bit wiser, you say less of those things, right?

01:07:59,663 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

01:08:00,063 [John Lanza]
Um-

01:08:00,763 [Colin Ryan]
Sure.

01:08:01,183 [John Lanza]
[laughs] You, you try to, um, say less of those things, but you try to make as many posi- as many deposits into the-

01:08:10,103 [Colin Ryan]
Hm, I like that

01:08:10,563 [John Lanza]
… bank of love as you can.

01:08:12,123 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah.

01:08:12,343 [John Lanza]
So that [laughs] when you do need to t- make a withdrawal-

01:08:16,203 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

01:08:16,303 [John Lanza]
… which might be some hard love, the- they know that there’s plenty of money that’s been deposited. Well, I feel like we could just keep going, Colin-

01:08:24,803 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah

01:08:24,943 [John Lanza]
… but I am mindful of your time, and I’m mindful of the audience’s-

01:08:27,983 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs] It sounds fun

01:08:28,403 [John Lanza]
… time because they might be, they may be tired of my ham-headed attempts to summarize what you’re saying. We’re gonna, uh, we’re gonna go through the gauntlet of the fast and fun round, but only if you’re prepared for that now.

01:08:39,743 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs] Okay, I’m ready.

01:08:43,083 [Colin Ryan]
Strap in, Colin.

01:08:43,943 [John Lanza]
All right, here they go.

01:08:44,263 [Colin Ryan]
Here we go.

01:08:44,863 [John Lanza]
S- [laughs] strap in.

01:08:46,183 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

01:08:46,663 [John Lanza]
Okay. What does the term money empowered mean to you?

01:08:50,623 [Colin Ryan]
I think that money empowered is feeling confident in your knowledge and confident in your support system. So if you can’t figure it out, you know there are people you can ask, and I think the number is gonna be different for different people, but I think it’s that. It’s, it’s not being structurally alone. It’s feeling like-

01:09:15,723 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm

01:09:15,763 [Colin Ryan]
… I know there are people I can, I can speak to. And, and in my life, in any checkpoint along the way, any big milestone, one of the first things I try to figure out is like, who are the pe- the experts that I need to be able to talk to about this? And when you have that, I think you are money empowered.

01:09:32,343 [John Lanza]
Thank you. Uh, what is the best investment of time or money that you’ve ever spent?

01:09:39,383 [Colin Ryan]
This will not probably surprise you. Uh, for me, it is conversations where I have listened more than I have talked. I got certified as a coach a few years ago, and the first thing you, you really learn in those programs is that we don’t listen to each other. We quickly assume we know what you mean, and then we wait for our chance to say it. And just the-

01:10:04,983 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:10:05,063 [Colin Ryan]
… art of letting go of that and just really being present with what someone is saying, that’s what allows them to really open up and go deeper, and you get to like all the good stuff. So that’s, that’s the time investment I’m most proud of is when I, like, listened as much as I could, listened thoughtfully.

01:10:27,183 [John Lanza]
I appreciate that answer. That’s a great answer.

01:10:29,003 [Colin Ryan]
Mm-hmm.

01:10:29,243 [John Lanza]
Um, next one. Uh, what advice to your audiences, uh, do you most hope that, uh, they will heed?

01:10:37,023 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah. I, I would say the number one thing is to understand your definition of wealth and financial success and to

01:10:50,083 [Colin Ryan]
notice when you’re slipping into fulfilling other peoples’ definition. Like stay true to you, and

01:10:57,823 [Colin Ryan]
understand that along the journey a really good skill is just to ask for help, ask questions, get vulnerable, admit mistakes, just ask for help. And so I think that’s what I would say really is

01:11:13,223 [Colin Ryan]
know what your success looks like to you and get good at asking for help, and you’ll just keep, you’ll keep needing to do it, so it’s a good skill.

01:11:22,843 [John Lanza]
It’s a great skill. If you could transmit a message that everyone would see, so sky-written on a billboard, wherever that-

01:11:30,223 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

01:11:30,423 [John Lanza]
… message would be, what would that me- y- I can assure you that everybody will see this message.

01:11:35,723 [Colin Ryan]
Okay.

01:11:36,023 [John Lanza]
What would that message say?

01:11:36,863 [Colin Ryan]
Okay, great. Well, this is my favorite thing to say. Um, this is sort of like my life philosophy is everyone you meet is a success and a mess, and that includes you, and that includes the most impressive person you know also.

01:11:53,963 [Colin Ryan]
So understand that, like, we can be both. We can be really good at things, and we can be really clumsy at things, and

01:12:03,943 [Colin Ryan]
it’s okay.

01:12:05,623 [Colin Ryan]
Don’t-

01:12:06,043 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:12:06,203 [Colin Ryan]
… put too much pressure on either. They’re both gonna happen.

01:12:09,043 [John Lanza]
I think you just gave us the theme for this podcast-

01:12:12,083 [Colin Ryan]
Oh, okay

01:12:12,323 [John Lanza]
… right there.

01:12:12,803 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs] Good, good, good.

01:12:15,183 [John Lanza]
‘Cause that seems to… Yeah, I think that sums it up pretty well. Okay, so other than your own book, of course-

01:12:20,343 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

01:12:20,483 [John Lanza]
… what is the one, uh, money smarts, we’ll say a piece of media, book, podcast or whatever it might be, that you go back to, or that you gift the most often?

01:12:31,043 [Colin Ryan]
Well, yeah, so for gift, I gift my book, just because-

01:12:35,783 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:12:35,863 [Colin Ryan]
… I have a bunch of ’em, and I like giving ’em to young people because I feel like, man, I wish I had read a book on money when I was a teenager. I think just, just that alone-

01:12:46,643 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:12:46,663 [Colin Ryan]
… would’ve been a huge, a huge step forward. Um…Yeah. Other books I like to recommend, I like to recommend a book called The Index Card. It’s from a few years ago.

01:12:57,015 [John Lanza]
Hm. Okay.

01:12:57,076 [Colin Ryan]
Makes it really simple, it’s kinda, like, 10 rules for your financial life, kinda thing. Like, no more than 10, just really simple. There’s a really funny-

01:13:07,355 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:13:07,375 [Colin Ryan]
… book from a few years ago called How To Be Richer, Smarter, and Better Looking Than Your Parents.

01:13:13,775 [John Lanza]
[laughs]

01:13:14,115 [Colin Ryan]
In addition to being a great title, I think it’s just got a ton of great advice, uh, personal finance advice. Um, I’m trying to think. There are probably others. I’m excited about, there’s a book out called Mind Your Money by Yanely Espinal-

01:13:31,095 [John Lanza]
Hm

01:13:31,115 [Colin Ryan]
… who I know-

01:13:31,676 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:13:31,795 [Colin Ryan]
… and who I’ve gotten to just cheer for as her career has taken off and her impact has taken off. And I haven’t read it yet, but she sent me a copy-

01:13:40,695 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:13:40,715 [Colin Ryan]
… and it’s, I can’t wait to read it. She’s such a great perspective. So that, maybe that’s a-

01:13:45,275 [John Lanza]
Uh, that’s nice

01:13:45,576 [Colin Ryan]
… a final piece on my answer to that is

01:13:50,576 [Colin Ryan]
there are books on money written from all different perspectives and different backgrounds.

01:13:55,535 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

01:13:56,176 [Colin Ryan]
And authors with different identities and ways of seeing the world. And so, like, take heart. You know, if, if, if you wanna find a book by somebody who you feel like really gets you, that book definitely exists. Um-

01:14:09,596 [John Lanza]
Yep.

01:14:10,035 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah. We’re, we’re doing a lot better than we were, you know, 10 y- years ago when it really felt like a, a Wild West. I mean, it really didn’t feel like there was, there was much in the way of resources. And, and we didn’t have The Art of Allowance then. Can you imagine?

01:14:24,155 [John Lanza]
[laughs]

01:14:24,376 [Colin Ryan]
Like, what a, what an awful world. What were we doing, John?

01:14:28,415 [John Lanza]
Shame. What were we doing? What a, what a… I don’t know. I don’t know how people coped.

01:14:33,255 [Colin Ryan]
[laughs]

01:14:34,415 [John Lanza]
All right. I appreciate the shameless plug. Um, how can people find you on social media and the web, to the extent that you want them to find you there?

01:14:42,255 [Colin Ryan]
Yeah. [laughs] So, you know, my main thing that I do is I go and I speak at colleges and speak at companies. And so my website is colinryanspeaks.com, and I’ve got video of what I do there and stories from the audiences and that sort of thing. And, and that’s something I love to do. I’m personally writing a second book that is on mental health, so it’s a, a bit of a step away from personal finance, but it’s all the same approach. A real kind of an, an everyman writer perspective on-

01:15:19,075 [John Lanza]
Yeah

01:15:19,215 [Colin Ryan]
… a very tough subject that affects all of us. And so I’m, I’m almost done writing what will be a very honest and also very funny book on things like depression and anxiety and… ‘Cause I think we need that book. Um, and so you can find out about that on my website as well. So yeah. That’s what I’m, that’s what I’m up to.

01:15:40,435 [John Lanza]
Well, fantastic, Colin. This has been a really interesting, enlightening, uh, conversation. I appreciate you taking the time. And I’m, I’m glad we dug into some of these topics. Appreciate you taking your time to kinda share your knowledge and insights with us.

01:15:56,715 [Colin Ryan]
It was a pleasure. Yeah. Thank you so much, John.

01:16:05,375 [John Lanza]
I really appreciate you taking your valuable time to listen to this episode. I hope you found it useful. You can find detailed show notes for this and all past episodes at themoneymammals.com. That’s T-H-E M-O-N-E-Y-M-A-M-M-A-L-S.com. Just click the podcast and blog link at the top of our homepage to discover our entire podcast archive. And if you like my work here, please, please leave a rating, or even better, a review on whichever service that you use to stream these podcast episodes. You are part of our Money Smart movement, and this podcast plays an important role in that movement. Your rating and review will help other people like us find this material. And lastly, if you’d like three ideas to help you raise money smart kids delivered directly to your inbox each week, I think you’ll really love my weekly newsletter. Just click on the little purple circle with the chat icon at themoneymammals.com, and select Get Our Newsletter. Of course, please consult with an investment or financial professional before engaging in any decisions that might affect your financial wellbeing. And until next time, don’t forget to enjoy the journey.