Money Musings 💭 my regret meeting Warren Buffett
A few weeks ago, I shot a video with Yahoo Finance on imposter syndrome. 70% of us experience it. It’s characterized by feeling inadequate or unqualified despite our evident success. It’s feelings of self-doubt, that we’re undeserving of our success, or that we’re actually “frauds.”
Even extremely successful people like Tom Hanks experience it (even after 70+ movies and 50 awards!).
I continue to feel it all the time, but the experience that has stuck with me the most was something that happened in college. I was in the Warren Buffett Club (yes, I know that’s really nerdy!) 😂 and as part of the club we took a trip to Omaha to meet Warren.
We were asked to submit questions in advance and if your question was chosen, you could sit in the front row and ask Warren directly. I was SO intimidated. I was sure all the other members of the club would ask very smart, technical finance questions. I had just transferred schools and knew nothing about finance, so I submitted this question: “What drives your passion for investing?”
My question was chosen! Despite that, I still felt my question was inferior so on the way to the event, I asked another student to ask my question for me. I proceeded to hide in the back row. When the other student stood up and asked my question, Warren said “that’s the best question of the day. I love that question.”
What?! I was kicking myself in the back row. 😡 You can imagine how things like this can impact our careers. I didn’t get the visibility, the credit, or the opportunity to talk with Warren. My question was chosen. That should have been enough of an indicator that it was worthy.
Luckily, I got to ride over to lunch in his Cadillac and talk to him as we took pictures. But, I will never forget that day.
Have you experienced imposter syndrome? How has it impacted your career?
Money Move of the Week
Find your Dream Team. One of the biggest negative repercussions of not talking about money is that the people in our lives who love us the most and spend the most time with us can’t support us in our money goals. They can even unknowingly sabotage them! How can they support us when they don’t even know what our goals are?! 🤷
We can get support by sharing our goals and our excitement about them with our Dream Team. Our Dream Team is made up of the people we share and make money decisions with – they are our partners, families, close friends, and work wives.
Having these conversations can be scary. Start with the person on your list who feels the easiest to have the conversation with. Don’t be surprised when she reciprocates and shares her money goals with you so that you can support her!
You Gotta See This
As of the end of last year, 2.1 million federal employees will get paid parental leave. Both parents will have access to twelve weeks paid leave under the new bill. Why is this important? "Right now, we are one of only two nations in the world that does not provide our workers with any form of paid family or medical leave," said Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, who helped write the bill.
While this doesn’t change that, the US government is the largest employer in the nation. There’s hope that this big win for these 2.1 million employees will encourage other employers to follow suit. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 17% of civilian workers in the US had access to paid leave.
This bill is a huge win for women, and especially women of color, who make up 1 in 5 government workers and due to pay disparities and wealth gaps have a much more difficult time saving for unpaid leave. Paid leave for the 60% of government workers who are male is also a win for women as women earn 7% more over the course of their careers for every month of parental leave their partner takes.