Money Tales

Many people dream of receiving a large inheritance—more money than they could ever imagine. And in those dreams, all problems disappear. In reality, some inheritors feel guilt, shame and that it is wrong.

It is extremely difficult for Ann to discuss money because she was strictly raised not to. In order to feel more comfortable speaking to us in a raw and honest way about her experience as an inheritor, Ann has asked us not to reveal her identity.

The mixture of family wealth and dynamics have led Ann to have a complicated relationship with money, which she discusses in great detail. Among other tales, Ann speaks about what it was like for her in college when her grandfather contributed money to her university and they named a business school after him, revealing her family’s wealth to her circle of friends, peers and instructors. Ann also talks about being a beneficiary of a trust as well as a trustee. In the former role, she had to be in many uncomfortable conversations with her father.

Despite or because of all of this, Ann feels the most secure living a frugal lifestyle and has a difficult time indulging. Ann has worked very hard on her own journey with money. She shares so much about that in this conversation and puts herself out there so that others will benefit from all that she has experienced and learned. Ann is also a very accomplished professional in a field that she is extremely passionate about.

In our conversation, Ann mentions that she is the beneficiary of different trusts. If you are curious about how trusts are used by families to transfer wealth from one generation to the next, be sure to stick around after the interview for our financial insight.

Paul Ollinger says there is a myth in America that striking it rich early and not ever having to work again is enviable. We explore this topic and Paul’s stark realization that you get a lot more from work than a paycheck. He was an early employee of Facebook and left after a successful number of years to test the myth. Paul shares the pros and cons of his choice to retire early, including the opportunity to move closer to his parents and being there for them during the sunset years of their lives. We cover a lot of ground with Paul, including the concept of knowing how much money is “enough.”

In this episode of Money Tales, our financial insight focuses on the concept of “enough” and what is “enough” when it comes to your money number. Stick around to the end of this episode for this discussion.

Paul is a nationally-touring stand-up comedian, writer and podcaster. After 15 years selling advertising for companies like Yahoo! and Facebook, Paul launched the creative career that has taken him all over North America, opening for top comics like Dave Attell, Norm Macdonald and many more. He has performed at invitation-only, national comedy festivals, including the Laughing Skull, Asheville and Big Pine.

Paul is also the host of the Crazy Money podcast in which he explores the connection between money and happiness through conversation with prominent authors, academics, celebrities and everyday people. Paul and his guests come at finances through the lens of philosophy, psychology and practicality. While “money” is in the title, the show is not about how to make a million bucks, how to beat the stock market or how to save money by clipping coupons. It is about how knowing what we want from money will help us live our best lives.

A graduate of Rhodes College and Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, Paul lives in Atlanta with his wife, two ‘tween children and French bulldog, Colonel Tom Parker.

Back in the 1990s, Jennifer Risher went to work at Microsoft and met her husband, and when they were expecting their first child, her husband decided to go to work for an entrepreneur who had an audacious dream to sell books online. As part of this transition, they walked away from valuable Microsoft stock options in exchange for stock options in this high-risk business.

Jennifer covers this adventure and many others during our conversation. And, if you have not figured it out yet, the business her husband joined was a little-known company at the time called Amazon.

Jennifer is the author of “We Need to Talk: A Memoir About Wealth,” which tells her story and explores the impact of wealth on identity, relationships and sense of place in the world. She was born in Seattle, Washington, grew up in Oregon and graduated from Connecticut College. She joined Microsoft in 1991, where she worked as a recruiter and then as a product manager. She and her husband David have two daughters and live in San Francisco, where David is CEO of Worldreader, a nonprofit he cofounded offering digital reading programs to keep kids learning. When COVID hit, Jennifer and David launched the #HalfMyDAF challenge to inspire more charitable giving.

During the course of the Money Tales interviews, our guests talk about areas of personal finance that we believe listeners might want to learn more about. In this episode of Money Tales, the financial insight is about stock options. Stick around to the end for this financial insight.

Our guest, Marlis Jansen, is founder and CEO of Graddha. There, she uses her experience as a licensed psychotherapist and member of a multi-generational financially successful family to help clients navigate their financial and emotional worlds. As Marlis discusses, she has always been fascinated by where wealth meets psychology.

Earlier in life, Marlis observed parts of her family being torn apart by money disagreements that became personal. From this, Marlis learned the importance of putting values and relationships in front of money matters. That is why Marlis is laser-focused on the meaning of one’s life and how wealth fits into the picture.

During the conversation, Marlis shares what it was like to first learn about and interact with her family’s family office. If you are wondering what a family office is, be sure to listen to the financial insight at the end of this podcast.

Marlis is trained in wealth psychology and a sixth-generation member of a family of stewardship. This combination of professional training and lived experience gives her a unique perspective on the nuances and complexities of owning financial wealth.

Prior to founding Graddha, Marlis worked for several healthcare startups and spent a decade as a stay-at-home mom. As a product developer in the healthcare information technology space, she designed strategies to maximize trust and safety for patients to help them take ownership of their health decisions. Marlis also served as Director of Business Development and Director of Product Development in a couple of health care startups. Her experience as a mom inspired her to contemplate how we ascribe value to people and work.

Marlis holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology from Harvard University, a Master of Arts degree in Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies and a Graduate Certificate in Financial Psychology and Behavioral Finance from Creighton University Heider College of Business.

She is an active member of the Purposeful Planning Institute, Financial Psychology Institute and the Financial Therapy Association. She serves on the Board of the Stone Age Institute and, since 2009, has served as Vice President of The Springcreek Foundation, her family’s private philanthropic foundation.

Marlis speaks French well and is proficient in Spanish and Norwegian. She loves to enjoy home-cooked family dinners, hike Mt. Tam with her family and dogs, travel in unfamiliar countries and cultures, and stay up late playing board games.

In this episode of Money Tales, we talk with New York Times best-selling author, leadership expert and nationally acclaimed speaker, Tommy Spaulding. Tommy discusses the idea of having a money mentor, how he and his wife approach money in their family and the importance of spending his time and money helping youth become impactful leaders.

Stick around for the financial insight we have for you at the end of the interview. The insight picks up on the conversation with Tommy about some ideas for how to approach financial parenting.

Tommy Spaulding is a two-time New York Times bestselling author, world-renowned thought leader, inspirational speaker and leadership coach for over a 1000 organizations around the globe. Tommy is the founder of Tommy Spaulding Companies, a leadership development, speaking, training and executive coaching firm based in Denver, Colorado. Over the last 20 years, Spaulding has spoken to thousands of organizations, associations, educational institutions and corporations around the globe.

Tommy’s first book, It’s Not Just Who You Know: Transform Your Life and Your Organization by Turning Colleagues and Contacts into Lasting, Genuine Relationships, published by Penguin Random House, quickly climbed to the top of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today’s national bestseller lists. His latest book, The Heart-Led Leader, also published by Penguin Random House, is a New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal national bestseller, and was also listed on Inc.com’s Top 100 Business Books.

Tommy rose to become the youngest President & CEO of the world-renowned leadership organization, Up with People. In 2000, he founded Leader’s Challenge, which grew to become the largest high school civic and leadership program in the state of Colorado. He is the Founder & President of the Global Youth Leadership Academy as well as the National Leadership Academy, a leading national non-profit high school leadership development organization.

Previously, Tommy was the Business Partner Sales Manager at IBM/Lotus Development and a member of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program. He earned a B.A. in Political Science from East Carolina University in 1992; an M.B.A. from Bond University in Australia in 1998, where he was a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar; and an M.A. in Non-Profit Management from Regis University in 2005. In 2006, Tommy was awarded the Outstanding Alumni Award by East Carolina University (ECU) and in 2007, he received an Honorary PhD in Humanities from the Art Institute of Colorado.

Tommy Spaulding was named by Meetings & Conventions Magazine as one of the 100 MOST FAVORITE SPEAKERS in the nation. Tommy’s genuine love of people has led him to a lifetime of teaching others the value of building deep, lasting and authentic relationships. His heart-led leadership philosophy will inspire leaders and organizations to build cultures of serving others while achieving unprecedented results. Tommy’s new book, 80,000: How the Power of Positive Influence can Change the People we Love and Lead…and the World, will be released by Penguin Random House in the fall of 2021.

Tommy resides in the Denver metro area with his wife and children.

Our Money Tales guest, Tiffany Shlain, knows a thing or two about success. She also believes a healthy dose of failure at a young age helped her in her future pursuits and successes. Tiffany graduated college with enough exuberant confidence to start a feature film … 40 locations, 100s of actors … and she totally failed. Tiffany ran out of money and the way she got out of debt was to work in technology, which was another passion of hers growing up. So, she went into debt and had too much pride to ask for help. She went through a really difficult time and fell into periods of depression. This experience grounded her in such humility that she can still taste today. This is just one of many stories Tiffany shares with us in her journey and how money has played a role.

Tiffany Shlain is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker, founder of the Webby Awards and author of the national best-selling book, 24/6: Giving up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection, which recently won the Marshall McLuhan Outstanding Book Award. The book came out in paperback the week of October 19th. The Museum of Modern Art in New York premiered Tiffany’s one woman “Spoken Cinema” performance, Dear Human, in February 2020. She lectures and performs worldwide on the relationship between technology and humanity.

Tiffany has received over 80 awards and distinctions for her films and work, including selection for the Albert Einstein Foundation’s initiative Genius: 100 Visions for the Future, being on NPR’s list of Best Commencement Speeches, and being named by Newsweek as “one of the women shaping the 21st century. During quarantine, Tiffany has been writing weekly newsletters, giving online talks, working on a film for the election and is hosting a #ZoomChallahBake with special guests and people from all over the world. For information on her book, baking, films, lectures and her newsletter Breakfast @ Tiffany’s, visit tiffanyshlain.com and follow Tiffany on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

During our conversation, Tiffany talks about how meaningful it has been for her family to keep her deceased father’s home. This inspired today’s financial insight at the end of the interview where we cover considerations for when you want to keep a home in the family for future generations to enjoy.

Imagine you’re 21 years old, your dad is diagnosed with cancer, he dies six weeks later, and you find yourself inheriting a life changing amount of money. You are also in charge of managing investments and a foundation, and you’ve never had any training or experience in these areas. In this episode of Money Tales, Sandi and Cammie talk with Kristen Heaney whose life took this very sharp turn when she was in college.

Kristen Heaney is a Wealth Legacy Coach and Consultant with Legacy Capitals, serving successful families and their advisors. Her passion for this work is colored by her own experience of being a young and unprepared inheritor after her father’s early death. Kristen’s training includes a Masters in Social Work from the University of Michigan, a Board Certified Coaching credential, and a certificate in Family Wealth Advising from the Family Firm Institute.

Kristen’s book, "In Three Generations: A Story About Family, Wealth, and Beating the Odds" is a fictional family leadership story, offering a great starting point for those considering a more purposeful approach to handling family wealth. She has been a featured thought leader for the Purposeful Planning Institute, Family Firm Institute, as well as legal, financial, and philanthropic firms across the United States and Canada, focused on topics including rising generation preparation, effective family meetings, wealthism, combating entitlement, and more. Kristen was born and raised in the Metro Detroit area, and currently lives with her husband and two sons in South Florida.

During the course of the Money Tales interviews, our guests talk about areas of personal finance that we believe listeners might want to learn more about. In this episode of Money Tales our financial insight is about private foundations where we’ll provide an overview of what they are and how they’re organized.

What does dumpster diving and bathing in cash have to do with the Money Tales podcast? We will get into this and more with our guest Rabbi Ryan Bauer during our conversation.

Rabbi Ryan Bauer serves as a Rabbi at Congregation Emanu-El, the largest synagogue in San Francisco. Rabbi Bauer’s focus on humanitarian issues includes the Syrian refugee crisis, communities ravaged by wildfires, and homelessness. Rabbi Bauer’s numerous published articles and podcasts have received international recognition including in the Financial Times and 929.

During the course of the Money Tales interviews, our guests talk about areas of personal finance that we believe listeners might want to learn more about. In this episode of Money Tales, the financial insight focuses on the ins and outs of charitable giving – and how best to support the charities you’re passionate about. Stick around to the end for this financial insight.