← The Stacking Benjamins Show
The Stacking Benjamins Show
Elevate Your Career (with Lorraine Lee) SB
01:06:19
Build your brand. Make better decisions. Thrive through uncertainty.
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- [00:00]
Joe Saul Sehi
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- [00:40]
Doug
This episode brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Shifting a little money here, a little there, hoping it all works out well? With the name your price tool from Progressive, you can get a better budgeter.
- [00:56]
Joe Saul Sehi
And potentially lower your insurance bill too.
- [00:58]
Doug
You tell Progressive what you want to pay for car insurance and they'll help find you options within your budget. Try it today@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.
- [01:15]
Joe Saul Sehi
I look out my window and I see my neighbor Doug. Poor, lazy, deplorable Doug.
- [01:29]
Doug
Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and remember that zoom meeting where one person sounded like they were underwater and another had a horrible camera angle and the third tried to pretend they were at work but you knew they were really at the zoo? Well, here to help you hone the tactics to avoid your career from becoming a circus, we welcome Lorraine Lee. Plus, in our headline, what if you had a big financial move you were considering and now with tariffs and the threat of a recession, you aren't sure what to do? How do you pull the trigger? We'll help you sort through several big moves to strategically make the best decision. And don't you worry yourself even a little bit, because you already know, don't you? You know it. I'm gonna swoop in halfway through all this goodness with the most goodnessy part of it all, my trivia. And now two guys who were relieved to find out that career branding had nothing to do with a hot iron. It's Jo and O Jaja Juju G.
- [02:46]
Joe Saul Sehi
Thank goodness for the clarification. I appreciate that. Hey everybody, welcome to the this Is Going to Hurt A Lot Less than we Thought podcast. I am Joe Saul Sehi and welcome to the Stacking Benjamin Show. Sit back and relax because, man, we've got, you know, What? Actually today you might want to grab a sheet of paper or your favorite note taking device because Lorraine Lee is bringing.
- [03:08]
Doug
Okay, Boomer, grab some chalk and a.
- [03:12]
Joe Saul Sehi
Slate, grab your abacus because it's time to start doing the math on all of this career branding. Lorraine Lee is just a dynamo and I cannot wait to get her advice on making your career better. I know that hopefully after today's episode, well, some of you are going to score some raises, some of you are going to make a little more money. Maybe a lot more money. Og imagine if we help people make a lot more money. You think that they'll. It's like tipping the server. They'll come and they'll tip us.
- [03:44]
Lorraine Lee
Yeah, probably be tips like buy low, sell high.
- [03:47]
Joe Saul Sehi
Don't drink your bath water.
- [03:49]
Lorraine Lee
Don't eat yellow snow.
- [03:50]
Doug
I've never heard the one about bathwater. Is that a thing?
- [03:53]
Joe Saul Sehi
Really? Don't drink the bath water. Who. Who knew that you shouldn't do that? Apparently not. Die.
- [04:01]
Lorraine Lee
Settle down. Portage, Michigan.
- [04:07]
Doug
Whole communities in south central Michigan are up in arms.
- [04:10]
Lorraine Lee
Holy cow, the things you learn about Joe's upbringing on this show. Don't drink the bath water again.
- [04:15]
Doug
Joe, that's seriously not a phrase. I think that was just something your parents had to say to you.
- [04:22]
Lorraine Lee
I've never heard that, ever.
- [04:23]
Joe Saul Sehi
It was southwest Michigan, by the way. We don't associate with those mid Michigan people.
- [04:28]
Doug
You're in Michiana.
- [04:30]
Joe Saul Sehi
Very close to Michiana. Not quite. Lorraine Lee is a top rated global keynote speaker, consultant and instructor at little university called Stanford. She also works at LinkedIn Learning. She's recognized as LinkedIn Top Voice and has more than 300,000 LinkedIn followers and over a decade of experience leading editorial teams at the world's top tech firms. She has been a trainer and a guest speaker for Zoom, Cisco, Amazon, little company called McKinsey and others. Named a top virtual speaker by Read Write was a finalist for global conference speaker of the year by Women Tech. Also named a top 15 link expert in San Francisco by Influence Digest. But today she is teaching us how to make sure that we're not passed over for that next raise that we deserve. It's not just about working hard. Our stackers always work hard. It's about making sure that you get noticed. So here with the tactics to get you noticed. In just a moment, Lorraine Lee. First we got a couple of sponsors that make sure that this is free and you don't have to pay a dime for Lorraine's presence here. Get it? Her presence, Unforgettable presence. Maybe.
- [05:44]
Doug
No, we're keeping this joke going for Monday.
- [05:47]
Joe Saul Sehi
Yeah, I have no idea. But Lorraine Lee coming up next, let's hear from them. And then the Lorraine Lee this episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. We know just how fast your life moves. You've bills to pay, mouths to feed and not a lot of free time. That's why we created an all in one banking experience that lets you keep on baking on. It can save you time and money with new lightning fast direct deposit setup and it offers checking accounts with ATM refunds and no service fees. Plus whether you've credit or not, you can build your credit score. With the new ability to report on time bill payments and with personalized financial insights on my making sense, the ability to view all your accounts in one place, custom notifications and 247 fraud protection, you can get a full picture of your finances. So if you want an all in one banking experience that lets you keep on banking on, sign up today. Learn more@navy federal.org Navy Federal Credit Union Our members are the mission insured by NCUA this episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice. Progressive loves to help people make smart choices. That's why they offer a tool called Auto Quote Explorer that allows you to compare your progressive car insurance quote with rates for from other companies. So you save time on the research and can enjoy savings when you choose the best rate for you. Give it a try after this episode@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy and I'm super happy we finally have this woman coming down to the basement. Lorraine Lee is here. How are you?
- [07:49]
OG
I'm doing so well. Thank you for having me.
- [07:51]
Joe Saul Sehi
I am so so so happy because I love this idea of taking control of your career, taking control of your brand. But I think the best place for us to start today after everybody heard about you on Monday and a lot of these concepts on Monday. Tell us your story because really I think that this whole project has a lot to do with your own personal journey when you started at LinkedIn.
- [08:15]
OG
It does, yes, I share my own personal journey about my early career was at LinkedIn. I was there for six years. I worked on some really high profile projects and initiatives and things many people I think would recognize and use today. LinkedIn newsletters on that news module in the top right hand corner of your feed. I moved to Hong Kong for a year writing those stories. Folks in the US would Wake up to fresh news. A lot of things. LinkedIn influencers. And I loved my job there. I loved my coworkers. Everyone liked me. And as hard as I tried, though, you know, I'm an ambitious person. I was in the middle, mid level of my career. I really wanted to get promoted. I wanted to be viewed as that senior leader. You know, I was there for six years. As hard as I pushed, I could not get that promotion. And I couldn't figure out why. You know, I was like, I work hard. I'm delivering results. People like me, what's wrong? And after six amazing years at LinkedIn, ended up moving to a company called Prezi. And it was only at that point where I started reflecting a little bit more, realizing, oh, maybe I wasn't doing things in the best way. And I was at LinkedIn, I wasn't really advocating for myself and promoting my work in the best way. And I wasn't making it clear what I wanted. Even though I worked on important projects, I was someone who executed, said yes all the time, was less strategic. It was through a lot of conversations, a lot of reflection, that I realized, okay, these are the things I want to improve in my next role, because I do want to reach that next level. And went into my new role at Prezi, really thinking of myself as a CEO of my own career and realizing I need to take my career into my own hands and be really proactive and intentional about it, much more so than I was early on in my career.
- [09:58]
Joe Saul Sehi
But it's funny, most of us, especially when we first start out, Lorraine, I think that we think, well, a, I don't want to brag. B, I want to be a team player because it's the team player that everybody likes and everybody wants. And I think you do a great job, though, of saying, listen, you can promote yourself and still be all those things.
- [10:16]
OG
Yeah, a lot of it's a mindset shift. Of course, we don't want to be that person who's bragging all the time, and it's like, me, me, me. But there are ways that you can talk about your work that still benefit the rest of the team. Right. Frame it in terms of learnings. Here's what I learn and here's what might apply to you as well. Or there's like, language adjustments you can make that make it seem more collaborative, but also are still highlighting your achievements and accomplishments.
- [10:42]
Joe Saul Sehi
It's wild because I know there's a portion of our audience that when they first were introduced this subject, they kind of roll their eyes and they're like, a personal brand. I don't need a personal brand. You kick off this whole project with this great statement. You have a personal brand already. Like, it's either a really crappy one or it's a good one, and you get to choose, but you have a personal brand, whether you know it or not.
- [11:04]
OG
Exactly. And I call personal brand career brand, because to your point, I feel like when we hear personal brands, sometimes we're like, ooh, that sounds kind of slimy. Or I'm like, selling something. Or it's just for brands or just for companies. But a brand is essentially a reputation and what people can expect when they work with you, when they meet you. And so career brand, I think maybe a little less disingenuous sounding. And it explains, like, your brand is in service of your career. And so we need to be intentional about it, because we have one, like you said, and it's either of us to define it or others are going to define it for us.
- [11:37]
Joe Saul Sehi
It reminds me of that old CEO at General Electric in the 90s, Jack Welch, who always said, control your destiny or somebody else is going to. And I love your phrasing of being the CEO. All right, you have these maxims. I kind of want to walk through these. In the old days, you might have said, hard work alone will pay off. In the new days, the new way, the Lorraine way of thinking about this, if nobody sees my work, it'll be like, I didn't do anything. I need to share my accomplishments. So can we address that one? How do you share? We brought this up a little bit earlier. Earlier, Lorraine. But how do we share without bragging? We see these people online and they're so braggy. And as you know, it just lands so flat sometimes.
- [12:16]
OG
I like to share this analogy, the analogy that's like, if a tree falls in a forest and no one's there to hear it, did it happen? And I feel like that's, like, hard work, right? Like, if no one sees it, like, what's it all for? Does it matter? And so it's really important to keep that visibility piece in mind. And so the first thing I would think about is, you know, if you're worried about sounding like you're bragging, if you have strong relationships with the people with whom you're sharing the work, that is very important. Relationships are the foundation of business. And if people know you and they know your intentions and they know your personality, it's very unlikely they're going to think, okay, Joe or Lorraine are bragging. All the time about themselves. Oh, they're just trying to be helpful. So that's one is that you want to lean on your relationships and building those relationships at work as the foundation. Another thing you can do is use more collaborative language. There is this data in Harvard Business Review that shared that people who use we, us, our to describe their accomplishments versus people who use I statements a lot. So the we, us, our people were actually viewed as more senior and the I people were viewed as more junior, which is very interesting. So for people who are a little bit nervous about sharing their work, there's good news, right? You frame it in terms of team and we're sort of all raising the bar together and uplifting each other together. And I think that's a really maybe more genuine way to share accomplishments, especially for any introverts out there. I'm an introvert. So yeah, attention on yourself. So it's like, oh, the whole team, like we worked on this together, but people know like you're leading the charge or, or you had a big part in it.
- [13:48]
Joe Saul Sehi
There's a, I think a wonderful sidelight to this too, which is I think the more you talk in terms of we, Lorraine, I think the more you are a we player. You know what I mean? Like if you're always using we language, you're thinking about how can I lift other people up. Which really, on a LinkedIn post or wherever it might be, is a huge thing where you're helping other people.
- [14:06]
OG
Exactly. I think the best leaders are those who lift others up and those who help.
- [14:11]
Joe Saul Sehi
You mentioned relationships. Old way of thinking. Lorraine writes, my network will grow naturally. New way of thinking. I need to make sure I'm actively building relationships, not just when I need something, which seems to be all the time when people reach out to me. Hey, Joe, I need your help. You. Yeah, hey, I've talked to you six years ago.
- [14:29]
OG
Sure, sure.
- [14:30]
Joe Saul Sehi
But this seems to speak to some sort of career CRM. For people who don't know what a CRM is, like a client relationship management thing. Is this like a CRM? Because we tend to forget people sometimes, Lorraine. How do we make sure that we are out in the world building these relationships?
- [14:46]
OG
You can use something as elaborate as a CRM. And I interviewed content creator Corporate Natalie and she mentioned she has a network tracker. I don't have something like that, but it is really important to have those one on one conversations with people at work. It's not just I'm talking to you because we're working and I need something. But hey, let's grab a coffee or let's go out to lunch. Let me get to know you a little bit more. Just be, you know, it doesn't have to be like you need to know their whole life story, but a little bit more beyond the surface level talk and the work talk. And so I think that's very powerful. And then it's about checking in with your, with your network, however it makes sense for you. So for example, I actually have this yearly holiday newsletter. And so anyone who I meet, who I feel like I have a connection to, I will add them to the newsletter. They will hear an update from me about once a year. And then I also ask them, like, tell me about what's going on, I want to hear about it. And so that's a very light touch. Way to stay top of mind and to keep that connection going.
- [15:41]
Joe Saul Sehi
Boy, that's fantastic. The other piece I like about that, you mentioned being an introvert. I'm an introvert. I play an extrovert on the podcast.
- [15:48]
OG
But I wouldn't have been able to tell.
- [15:50]
Joe Saul Sehi
Yeah, I always need two days. I need those two days alone, you know, after.
- [15:54]
OG
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [15:55]
Joe Saul Sehi
But seriously, grabbing the coffee, coffee I think makes it more comfortable for the introvert instead of transactional business. If I know you, it's gonna make me exude less energy to have this relationship.
- [16:07]
OG
And introverts are very good at building those relationships in a one on one setting because they are really good listeners because they're empathetic. And so that's the introvert strength.
- [16:17]
Joe Saul Sehi
Third on your list. Feedback comes during annual reviews. That's the old way of thinking. Of course you change that. Feedback should be ongoing if I want to grow. This is also a tough thing for introverts. Lorraine, how do we ask for feedback? When we look at our boss and people around us and they seem so.
- [16:33]
OG
Busy, it's really important to have that regular feedback because we don't want to wait a year to find out that something's wrong. Or we should have been working on a skill that would have gotten us promoted. Like, that's too long. And so again, becoming the CEO of your own career, you have to take things into your own hands. You may have the best manager in the world, but to your point, like everyone is really busy. And so what I think is important to do is to make it really clear what your goals are and carve out time. Right. Ask your manager what makes sense, you know, given both our schedules. So at Prezi, I had a, I believe it was monthly to start A monthly career conversation chat. So separate from our one on ones. I was like, I want to get promoted. I want to become a director. I'm going to set aside this time for us. Does that work for you? And then eventually it changed cadence. Right. But to start, I, I was very intentional. I wanted to talk each month, check in, how am I doing? Learn about my manager too.
- [17:28]
Joe Saul Sehi
Like, I think your manager would love this, by the way, would love this. Most managers because they know that you're engaged.
- [17:35]
OG
Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. And I got the promotion. I feel like we were both always on the same page and there was never a doubt what my goals were. She knew.
- [17:43]
Joe Saul Sehi
That's fabulous. Which brings up the. When you brought the promotion, promotions and raises happen with enough time. That's the old way of thinking, new way of thinking. And you just referenced this. I need to advocate for myself. We also fear Lorraine, our differences. I love this woman. You pointed to, Linda Tong, I think is a great early story in the book because Linda really, I think exudes this point that sometimes our differences can be our kick ass strength.
- [18:09]
OG
Yes. I love Linda's story. So Linda is the CEO of a tech company called webflow and she used to work at the NFL and she's an Asian American woman. And so I was asking her about whether she's faced bias or like how you can leverage perhaps your differences to stand out. And she said like, yeah, I'm sure sometimes maybe there were negative stereotypes being an Asian or being a woman. But instead of kind of dwelling on those and being like, oh, these are blockers to me getting to the next step, she instead flipped it on a 10. She said, okay, you might have these assumptions about me, but I'm going to prove you wrong. And I'm going to show that I'm the biggest NFL fan and that I have opinions and I have expertise in this area. And it almost becomes a strength because you're defying people's perhaps lower expectations of you. And so that to me was very powerful. And also another communications expert, Vinjiang, said something similar in that people said, faces like you, we don't see those on U.S. stages. And he said, I'm not going to dwell on that. And instead I'm going to be the best at what I do and I'm going to, I'm going to show you all that's fabulous.
- [19:14]
Joe Saul Sehi
That's fantastic. Because between our ears we get focused on our differences. We get focused and we think it's a weakness when it can be your superpower.
- [19:22]
OG
Yeah.
- [19:23]
Joe Saul Sehi
All right, let's start building this foundation. You talk about having an epic career brand. What is epic career brand?
- [19:31]
OG
Epic stands for experiences, personality, identity and community. And these are the four ingredients that are very important to think about when you are reflecting on. Okay, what do I want my career brand to be? What is it right now? And so experiences. These are going to be experiences both personal and professional, that have got you to where you are today. Personality. So, for example, we are, Joe and I are introverts. And some people might be extroverts. More serious, more playful. The energy, you know, funny in the group. Identity. These can be your cultural background or values. This is also work values. So what's important to me, how do I operate? So, for example, relationships are super important to me. And also being someone who is reliable. And when people come to me and I say I'm going to do something, they know Lorraine's going to get it done. And then the fourth piece, community, which I think a lot of people, this is where they forget, is, okay, I might have the EPI all set in my head of what I want people to think of when they think of me. But if your community is not seeing you in that way, there's a disconnect. There's that alignment that needs to happen. You can't have a brand where you're almost shooting too high from where you are right now. And your community sees you as maybe a more junior person, but you're like, I'm the C suite level. You know, like it has to kind of align. And then you sort of bring them up with you as things change and transform during your career.
- [20:54]
Joe Saul Sehi
When I talk to new podcasters and I'm giving them advice about how to start their show after I tell them, don't the when I'm diving into it with them, they always say, well, I don't know what to talk about. I don't have anything to talk about. And to your point, your experiences is yours, your personality is yours, your identity. And you talk about starting there, like being 100%. And I know the word authentic is overused, Lorraine. And some people roll their eyes, but truly it is about being authentically who you are showing up as, who you are. Again, not being this braggadocio person on LinkedIn or wherever you're meeting your audience.
- [21:31]
OG
Yeah, I think a lot of people get in their heads and they think, oh, if I'm going to say something or have a brand, I need to be the smartest, most unique person out there. But, you know, looking at EPI out of epic like, we all have our own lived experiences and there's always going to be people out there talking about similar things. I say this a lot on LinkedIn, that there's tons of people talking about similar topics to me. But we all have different stories and we all have a different approach and we all have different backgrounds. And so that's that connection. That's what people resonate with. And to not, not worry about being the most original out there, but being you, because people connect with people so people will want to learn from you.
- [22:08]
Joe Saul Sehi
Specifically, let's talk about some differences between the sexes. And we talked about promotions earlier in raises. You've seen the studies much as I have. Women don't advocate for themselves enough. Studies show your boss wants to give you the raise. You don't want to rock the boat. Men have trouble being vulnerable. Lorraine. So when you talk about your experience, how much vulnerability when you're on social media, advocating for yourself is the right amount.
- [22:35]
OG
You always want to keep it professional. Still when you're on LinkedIn, I love that. I've been seeing a lot more personal stories on LinkedIn and I think that's really what people connect to. So talking about a layoff or talking about trouble getting promoted, or talking about how you negotiated the raise or how you perhaps didn't get a funding round that you wanted, I think those are all things that we can connect to. It's like a common human experience. Right. Failing quote, unquote. But these are all learning experiences, right? I don't like to call them failures. Like, each quote, unquote, failure leads to a learning that gets you to the next point in your life. I think showing vulnerability is great and you just want to keep it professional. You don't want to get, like, too personal, but I think, like, you use your best judgment. Right. I think those personal stories really help people get to know us and then connect with us and want to root for us.
- [23:24]
Joe Saul Sehi
I love the start of that. You're implying listen to social media, not your therapist. Yeah, but there are some times, frankly, when I've seen people, I'm like, I think you need help. I think you really shouldn't be sharing this here. You need to share someplace else. This is a big point that you make, which is where you show up is important. How do we decide where we're going to show up and talk about our career brand?
- [23:50]
OG
Mm. The where piece of presence is so important. And I was really excited to include this in the book. So what I'm doing is I'm, I'm Redefining what presence means. So a lot of people, they hear presence, they think executive presence. How I show up in a boardroom. Right, Right.
- [24:05]
Joe Saul Sehi
I walk into a room and I puff out my chest.
- [24:07]
OG
Yes, I'm on that executive presence. But I think executive presence is just one piece of the puzzle. So I like to call it professional presence more broadly. And what it means is how and where you are seen. And so the how piece, a lot of us do well, but as you said, like, the where piece is really critical, especially in our new world of work, where we're all over the place, some of us are remote, some of us are going in person. Like, there's a lot of places now where we can connect with each other, get to know each other. And so we want to make sure that we are showing up in those spaces and we're being seen by the right people. Right. And so to be on video calls and have a strong virtual and video presence, to be on LinkedIn and have a LinkedIn presence and have people be able to form an opinion about you and an impression of you even before meeting you, like, those things are very powerful and should not be discounted, especially given the way that we work now. So that where piece, I mean, you can have one part of the formula, the how, without the where, you're not going to be seen as much. You can have the where, but if you're not doing the hard work and you're not delivering, that will only get you so far as well. So you really need both parts of that formula.
- [25:14]
Joe Saul Sehi
I got really excited reading about this, I have to say, because I've messed up a lot of stuff during my career. But one thing I did really well was when I was doing interviews, I believe in modeling, and you model the way that you want people to perceive you. So I would model Lorraine rock stars in interviews. And you are Rolling Stone magazine and I'm Joe Badass. And then I get this confidence, you know, not necessarily overly cocky, but I get this confidence. I get this whatever. And I would generally get the job because I would exude this confidence, which, frankly, sometimes I didn't really feel. But the second piece of that, I think clips along with that. Great. Which is, if I'm a rock star, I'm taking my show on the road and which venues I play are going to influence the entire arc of my career. If I show up at this meeting, if I skip this meeting, and just the fact that you're thinking about that again and you're engaged, your higher ups see that how Much. You're engaged in the right place.
- [26:12]
OG
Yeah. Oh, I love that analogy.
- [26:14]
Joe Saul Sehi
It is so, so fun. Well, speaking of zoom, let's end today, if you don't mind, by getting tactical. And I love a lot of the tactical stuff that you do here, but can we talk about zoom? Because all of us are on zoom calls. And you know. Well, you clearly know because you talk about this a lot in your book when you're talking about video. Oh, my goodness, Lorraine. Some of the people, the way you show up, you're like, if you thought about this for 30 seconds, you could do better. So talk to me about video. What's important to make sure that that zoom experience is really good and you kind of show up. Well, from a technical aspect, of course.
- [26:47]
OG
I'm so glad you're asking about this, Joe, because to your point, like, people sometimes are like, video. Like, we all know video. It's been many years. And then you get on calls with people and you're like, whoa, it's been many years.
- [26:59]
Joe Saul Sehi
And you still, still, still.
- [27:01]
OG
Yeah. And so I talk about this framework called the T method, and T stands for tech, energy and aesthetics. These are meant to be the three key criteria to think about before getting on any video call. It's not meant to be overwhelming because you can get really fancy with it, but I don't think you have to to make a strong impression. And so tech, making sure you have an external microphone, an external webcam that you have the relevant software that you need to make sure that you're showing up. Well, sounding good on camera is very important. The energy piece, making sure that you are engaging with the person at the start and not giving into autopilot conversations, as I call them, and building that connection and knowing how to show up with energy and really a little bit more energy than you probably think is necessary because we have this barrier of the screen now that we have to break through. And then aesthetics. So you want to make sure you're looking good on camera, and so that means making sure that you have the right framing so you don't want too much space above your head where it looks like my head is towards the bottom of the screen. And then it looks like you're looking down on me, Joe. Or and I'm looking up at you, or vice versa, where I'm looking down on you, or you're seeing, like, up my nose or under my chin. Like, you want to make sure you have the right framing. It's straight on. You want to make sure that you're showing some of your torso so that you can use your hands on camera, because hands on camera is a very positive thing. And then you want to have the right lighting, curate your background, your environment. So a lot of pieces to it. They're not hard, though. So, like you said, like, take 30 seconds, you know, a few minutes to kind of go through the checklist in the book, and you'll make some quick adjustments, and it'll make a big difference.
- [28:37]
Joe Saul Sehi
Yeah. And every little piece matters. I know that sometimes I interview people and they just don't have that external mic, and they're on this nationwide book tour or media tour, and I'm like, why wouldn't you spend $100 on your career? Like, the microphone piece alone? And then to your point, the lighting, I mean. And you know what, Lorraine? Let's just. For people not watching us on YouTube, I'm going to describe it, but your background is not elaborate, but it is attractive. And you've got just a bookshelf behind you with a photo on one side, plants, and then your book strategically behind your head. It's very nice. And I would bet that didn't cost you much money to create a nice, aesthetically pleasing background.
- [29:21]
OG
Yeah, not at all. I get comments on it all the time, and people are like, is that a fake background? I'm like, no, this is real. But thank you.
- [29:27]
Joe Saul Sehi
Yeah, it just. I think it takes more thought than money to make that happen. Guys, we just began digging into all of the lessons in Lorraine's new book that came out yesterday. Unforgettable presence, get seen, gain influence, and catapult your career. Thank you so much for mentoring our stackers today. Lorraine. This is available everywhere yesterday, correct?
- [29:47]
OG
Yes, it is. And I'm so excited for everyone to start reading it.
- [29:50]
Joe Saul Sehi
Thank you so much. And hopefully you just help our stackers stack a few more Benjamins.
- [29:55]
OG
Lorraine, thank you for having me.
- [30:02]
Doug
Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And how about Lorraine Lee, huh? You're sure to score that promotion. Now, Lorraine mentioned she was a junior executive with LinkedIn, and so let's ask that question, which big company owns LinkedIn? I'll be back right after I go update my LinkedIn profile to say that I'm busy. Wait, how would Lorraine Lee upgrade that statement to make it sound more professional?
- [30:26]
OG
Why?
- [30:26]
Lorraine Lee
No.
- [30:26]
Doug
Oh, I got it. She'd have me type that. I'm engaged, you know, in. In the making of this show. All right. OG is gonna definitely promote this guy.
- [30:39]
Lorraine Lee
You're the owner of a small business which means you're also the tech guy and HR and personal assistant and head honcho and intern. You could use another pair of hands like the experts you'll find at Verizon's Small Business Days, April 21st through 27th. Get a FREE tech check, special deals and more. Call 1-800-483-4428 or visit verizon.comsmallbusiness to book your appointment. Verizon Business.
- [31:10]
Doug
You know that feeling when someone shows up for you just when you need it most?
- [31:14]
Lorraine Lee
That's what Uber is all about. Not just a ride or dinner at your door. It's how Uber helps you show up.
- [31:20]
Doug
For the moments that matter.
- [31:22]
Lorraine Lee
Because showing up can turn a tough day around or make a good one even better.
- [31:27]
Doug
Whatever it is, big or small, Uber.
- [31:30]
Joe Saul Sehi
Is on the way.
- [31:31]
Lorraine Lee
So you can be on yours. Uber on Our way.
- [31:39]
Joe Saul Sehi
Don't miss your chance to spring into deals at Lowe's right now.
- [31:43]
Doug
Get a free 60 volt Toro battery when you purchase a select 60 volt Toro electric mower.
- [31:49]
Joe Saul Sehi
Plus buy three 19.3 ounce vegetable and herb Bonnie plants for just $10. It's time to give your yard a grow up. Lowe's we help you Save. Valid through 423.
- [32:01]
Doug
Selection varies by location while supplies last. Discount taken at time of purchase. Actual plant size and selection varies by location. Excludes Alaska and Hawaii. Hey there Stackers. I'm engaged guy and man who's very confused about all of the accolades I'm receiving. Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. I mean, you tell people you're engaged and immediately they write confusing stuff like who's the lucky lady with a question mark? What? Well, people must assume that when you use professional language, the ladies love you. I guess that's gotta be it. Today's question was about Lorraine's first employer, LinkedIn. I just told OG that I heard that LinkedIn had a house band called LinkedIn Park. He replied that in the end, it doesn't really matter. It's a pretty brutal response, og. But the trivia question for today was this. What ginormous company owns LinkedIn? That would be the Windows company, Microsoft, and now here to help you upgrade your operating system. For your money, It's Joe and OG.
- [33:02]
Joe Saul Sehi
I think, Doug. To be fair, OG's reply was, but in the end, it doesn't really matter.
- [33:08]
Doug
Oh, it just occurred to me. You were singing a LinkedIn park song, weren't you?
- [33:11]
Joe Saul Sehi
Oh, geez. All about the LinkedIn park, huh?
- [33:14]
Doug
I didn't put those two things together. Good stuff for Helping.
- [33:17]
Joe Saul Sehi
Speaking of good stuff, thank you so much to Lorraine Lee for helping us get our Zoom presence taken care of and getting that career technically aligned. Let's do a headline.
- [33:29]
OG
Hello, darlings.
- [33:31]
Lorraine Lee
And now it's time for your favorite.
- [33:32]
OG
Part of the show, our stacking Benjamin's headlines.
- [33:36]
Joe Saul Sehi
Today's headline comes to us from the Wall Street Journal. It's written by Veronica Dagger, who's been on this show, Joe Pinker and Oyen. Oh, and I think I messed up Oyen's name as.
- [33:47]
Doug
No, you never do that.
- [33:50]
Joe Saul Sehi
Interesting piece. Because what they peel off here, Og, all we're reading about right now is that there's so much stuff going on with this thing called tariffs. Not sure what that is. Never hear about that lately at all. But with all of the uncertainty, how do we make major financial decisions? And so they peel off a bunch of different decisions. Veronica and company. Right. Suddenly, all the usual rules of how to save, invest, and spend seem like they're up in the air. Uncertainty about the economy in a new area of extreme, unpredictable swings in the markets are making us all rethink decisions about everything from paying for college to buying a car. So let's go through a few of these, OG and get your take.
- [34:31]
Lorraine Lee
I hate this kind writing. It's such. Every time people like, I don't even want to talk about this. This is just.
- [34:41]
Joe Saul Sehi
Let's say that I plan.
- [34:42]
Lorraine Lee
People are trying to keep their jobs by writing sensational on the Internet. Like unprecedented market swings. I mean, unless you count five years ago when this happened, exactly like this. Only three times as worse. Then, yes, this is unprecedented. Okay. You know people are rethinking how to pay for college. No, they're not. Like, your kids still going to college next year. It's not like, well, sorry, junior, the market's down 4%. Guess you're out of luck. Nobody's rethinking college. So dumb.
- [35:13]
Joe Saul Sehi
Let's say that I planned on buying a house this spring. Mortgage rates have been inching up, OG and people are worried a little bit.
- [35:24]
Lorraine Lee
About market interest rate rises. You mean they.
- [35:28]
Joe Saul Sehi
They.
- [35:29]
Lorraine Lee
They skyrocketed from 6.75 to 7.05.
- [35:33]
Joe Saul Sehi
Er, McGurd, if interest rates go higher, what do I do about.
- [35:39]
Lorraine Lee
Make a bigger down payment.
- [35:41]
Joe Saul Sehi
Buying the house.
- [35:42]
Lorraine Lee
Make a bigger down payment.
- [35:43]
Joe Saul Sehi
So then you wait. Because often people are struggling to come up with that down payment in the first place. You're saying wait, yeah, make a bigger.
- [35:50]
Lorraine Lee
Down payment if you gotta wait. Or just lower the price by a smidge. Because I would bet that that's somewhat commensurate. It depends on where you live, right? Obviously there's certain areas of the economy, certain areas of the country rather that housing prices are not having any issues and the interest rate changes are not having any effect on market demand. But to kind of give you an idea, people will freak out about this, right? And say like, oh my God, the interest rates went from six and a half to seven and a half. I'm totally screwed. The difference on the payment for a $400,000 mortgage over 30 years is like 250 bucks a month. Now I'm not saying that $250 a month isn't any money or a lot of money or not a lot of money. It's a number. But if your budget is so tight that $200 makes the difference, you shouldn't be buying this house anyway because frankly, the windows could blow in or the roof could cave in or the water heater can take a crap or whatever. We just had a $200ac repair that seems like we're repeating pairing every 15 months. And when I said it to the guy, I go, huh, the capacitor again, huh? He goes, yeah, these things just, you know, you live in Texas, man. This thing's running 20 hours a day in the summertime, non stop. You know, it's basically non stop for nine months out of the year. It's gonna die at the rate of about once every year, you know, And I'm thinking, okay, all right, you know, it's not a budget item, but it wasn't in the budget, right? It's like 200. And if 200 is going to make or break it, you should buy this house. Anyway, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago. I don't understand why people think that, you know, I think the phrase is don't compare your beginning to somebody else's middle, you know, and it's like you hear these things like, well, I'm 25 years old, I can't buy a house. It's like, okay, so wait till you're 30, save more money, live in a cheaper area. I don't want to sound ultra insensitive, but, but there's no rule that says you have to buy a house when you're 25. And so if the interest rate change makes an impact that you can no longer afford it, then you were too close anyway.
- [37:49]
Joe Saul Sehi
Frankly, I love this idea. With.
- [37:51]
Lorraine Lee
Or get a different mortgage. Get an arm, get, you know. You know, I mean, there's a thousand ways to deal with this.
- [37:56]
Joe Saul Sehi
Well, and I love your focus, which is focus on the things that you can control. Right. I can control the size of the house that I buy. I can control whether I sign on the dotted line for this price for the house. I can't control what the interest rate fluctuation is going to be. And if it's close to your point, if I think there's a chance that my budget may get out of control, level debt might get out of control, then I shouldn't buy it.
- [38:18]
Lorraine Lee
Yeah. I mean, if it was $200 one way or the other, that's too tight anyway.
- [38:22]
Joe Saul Sehi
Way, way, way, way too tight. I love some advice stackers we've given in the past, which is take a look on a calculator at what that's going to cost you, what you think that monthly payment's going to be, and playtest it for a few months at a time.
- [38:35]
Lorraine Lee
I was talking to somebody the other day about this. I feel like it was at about a house purchase or maybe a house upgrade. And it was in the same vein. It was like, look, if you think that in July you can afford a $400 a month mortgage price increase, you ought to be saving 400amonth. Right. How come you can't save 400? Oh, you know, it's really tight. What are you going to do when it's due? If you're in that situation where you're upgrading or where you're moving into a new thing or you're saying, hey, I think we can afford this deal. If you can afford it in July, you can afford it today.
- [39:07]
Joe Saul Sehi
I think there's also something to be said in, you know, interest rates can be high for a long time or. And these aren't high interest rates. These are pretty.
- [39:15]
Lorraine Lee
Yeah, it's kind of normal, actually.
- [39:16]
Doug
These are normal interest rates.
- [39:17]
Joe Saul Sehi
Yeah. If you widen your view, it definitely is normal. But I love what real estate investors always say about this. Buy the property, date the rate. Right. Don't get obsessed with the fact that I got to keep this interest rate forever. I can refinance later on.
- [39:32]
Lorraine Lee
Yeah, I mean, that's not a free proposition either. And again, I just come back to like. I think we're focusing on the wrong syllable. Like, that's what Mrs. Slates used to say in second grade. The reality is you shouldn't be so snug in your budget that an interest rate change, and it's not changing by a whole percentage point, it's changing by, you know, a tenth of a percent or something that's going to matter. And frankly, you should be doing this the right way anyway. You should be putting 20% down on your house. And if that means you have to wait three more years because you need to save more cash, you want to give yourself that margin of safety. I bought a house with zero down interest only. I wish that somebody would have knocked me into a coma for five years as I was about to do that deal, because that would have been a better outcome for me. It was so miserable. Every single solitary month with not a drip of margin of safety. We bought our house in Michigan, the literal peak of the market at the time, in 2004, and by two years later, our house was worth half as much. We put zero down, so we were upside down. Every single dollar the difference was, and it was interest only. So we had made zero principal payments correctly in two and a half years. When we sold the house 10 years later, we sold it for what we bought it for and walked away with $6,000 after 10 years of mortgage payments because we got, you know, I would say we got kind of snookered into it. That was self inflicted, absolutely. But. But at the end of the day, you know, don't put yourself in a position where every single solitary dollar has to be exactly perfect. Because if you have the AC repair or you have the, you know, something wrong with the car or, you know, some unexpected travel that you have to do, mom and dad are sick and you need to go home. There's, there's, it's too stressful. Like take the pain up front. The pain up front is I need to save for another year to make a bigger down payment. But then you have a lifetime of not as much pain instead of a lifetime of pain for one year of, you know, extra house living.
- [41:29]
Joe Saul Sehi
Let's go to a slight tangent. Somebody's been in their house for a while. Oh, gee. But, you know, not in love with the interest rate they have right now. A couple of weeks ago, rates briefly dropped, literally for two days. We saw a nice drop in interest rates. Refinancing activity jumped by 35% according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. So here's the question. Should I be looking like. Apparently a lot of people have been looking to refinance.
- [41:59]
Lorraine Lee
Refinancing is a very personal decision as it relates to what the terms are and the cost structure of what you have originally. I mean, for somebody who has a bunch of debt at 27%, getting a home equity line at 10 is a bargain. For somebody that's got a bunch of debt at 4, refinancing at 6 is the stupidest idea imaginable. So it's really, really particular about your situation. And I think the other piece of it is all the cost structure that goes into it. These are not zero dollar cost deals. So you have to. Even if, even if you're like, I had a seven and now I can get a six, it's like, well, but what's the cost to get the six in terms of payback time?
- [42:41]
Joe Saul Sehi
Yeah. I remember a mortgage broker telling me also that whenever you look up rates online often this is a bank's. He called it their best lie because the way that they will publish a cheaper rate is by increasing the fees when you sign on the deadline.
- [42:57]
Lorraine Lee
Yeah, everything counts in that calculation. Just because you see, well, I can get this for 5% with a $50,000 payment of fees. It's like, okay, so what does that effectively turn into in terms of the long term piece of the loan?
- [43:12]
Joe Saul Sehi
Next one they have here is, of course, as we record this, stocks have bounced off the lows. And contrary to all the things that we were telling you here, a stacker and you know, you can't take back the sins of the past. Og, you panicked and you sold some stocks at a loss. Is there a way to turn that into some tax savings maybe?
- [43:34]
Lorraine Lee
Well, so you're saying that there's somebody out there who did freak out. Like, what do you do now?
- [43:38]
Joe Saul Sehi
Did freak out. They sold their stuff at a loss. Now they're sitting on cash, number one, and the market's higher than it was when they sold off the bottom. And then number two is, you know, it's all, it's all sitting there. Can I, I don't know, can I turn these lemons into lemonade?
- [43:53]
Lorraine Lee
Well, the only thing you can do to write the asset allocation problem is to be back to where it should be. So if you made a mistake, don't compound the mistake by keeping it in cash and watching the market go ever higher. And I'm not guessing at what the market's going to do. I'm just saying it's pretty difficult to time this out correctly both times. It's hard to say whether or not you timed it out correctly the first time. If you're in cash right now, but don't try to time it out the second time and you have to buy back in. Now the problem is that if you're buying back in and you took a loss on something, you can't buy those same things back or you will not get the tax benefit of the loss. So if you had an ETF, you know, you bought it for $10,000 and you freaked out and you sold it at 9,000, you have to wait 31 days before you buy back that same ETF. So buy something that's similar but not the same one. If you had a stock and you're like, well, I had Apple and I sold it at a loss. I freaked out like, I want to get Apple back. You can't buy Apple for a month. And the big risk obviously is waiting that month in cash. Nobody knows what's going to happen. And this all just boils back down to when do you need the money? If this is long term money, if this is money for your retirement, you should have no concerns about what's going on. You're not going to remember whether or not you bought when the S and p was at 5200-500010-05400, 4900. All you're going to be happy is that you bought it sometime in 2025. When you go to take the money out in 2045, you're not going to remember the price at which you purchased.
- [45:16]
Joe Saul Sehi
So get back in.
- [45:18]
Lorraine Lee
Yeah, all in one fell swoop.
- [45:19]
Joe Saul Sehi
Get back in. Get in now. And I think the big thing, we spoke with Lorraine about tactics and we also on Monday spoke about Rory McElroy talking about how, you know, you fall to what your systems are. I think you also have to recognize you've made a mistake and then create a system so that doesn't happen again. And I think that's an investment policy statement that you create. Like, what's the system? I'm going to have to make sure that I don't pull the trigger at the wrong time. I want to ask about one area around tariffs. I think that's pretty important for a lot of people. Let's say it's that time og to maybe seven, eight, nine months from now, you think you were thinking about a new car, but now we're looking at the possibility of higher tariffs in 60, 70, 80 days on the car. Do I pull the trigger early? Do I wait longer? Where do you stand on making that big car purchase right now?
- [46:14]
Lorraine Lee
Well, if that's something that's on the horizon, I don't think it's a bad idea. Although I did just see a commercial and I don't remember the car manufacturer, but I did just see a commercial that said we are not increasing the MSRP on our vehicles one bit. No matter what happens. That's their like, promise to the consumer I think that's just such a great example of what's really going on in boardrooms while all of this chaos is going on around here, and we've talked about this a lot in the last six or eight months, that I love being an owner of these companies because everyone's interests are aligned the same. The challenging part of the tariff issue is that it's, it's hard to predict, like what you have to do. You know, Walmart a couple of weeks ago said, we can't give you any guidance on second quarter earnings because we don't know if this box of avocado is going to cost us $2.50 an avocado or 50 cents an avocado. And it changes by the hour. So we don't have any idea what to tell you people to help us figure out the math, which is unfair to them. But what it also tells us, you know, with this car commercial, is that all these people are sitting around, you know, their boardrooms and in their executive offices going, how do we solve this? So we make freaking money. Because all they care about at Walmart, the executives at Walmart is making freaking money for Walmart. That's all they care about. And if you're a little microscopic owner of that company, you have these smart people who are all lined up to do the same thing because they're in it with you. And so even though all of your net worth probably isn't all wrapped up in Walmart or Apple or Google or whatever, all of these people all are rowing the boat in the same direction.
- [47:46]
Joe Saul Sehi
Well, what's interesting about this too is they know there's only X amount, that they can raise the price and you'll accept it. They know that if the price goes up too much, it's going to smoke them. They're done.
- [47:58]
Lorraine Lee
I mean, this is the problem that everybody's trying to solve, which is how are we going to account for this new thing that may or may not happen and to what extent do we account for it and how does it affect us and how do we make money and how can we raise prices without consumers being mad and how far that like all these people are just thinking about that thousands and thousands and thousands of really smart people are trying to decide how much avocado should cost at Walmart right now. And you're the benefit of that. You don't have to think about any of this stuff. You just have to go, hey, they're trying to make us money, man. High five, guys at Coke trying to make us money. High five. Guys at Apple trying to make us money. High five. And they're all in it together. This is what's so awesome about this, by being an equity owner, by owning all these companies, is you don't have to worry about any of this crap. Now maybe you delay your house purchase or maybe you pull forward a car purchase or whatever, that's fine. But you're not sitting there going, oh my gosh, how does Walmart make money today? Unless you're sitting in one of those boardrooms, in which case you're doing that. But maybe some of your money is also invested in these other companies and you're letting them handle their business, which.
- [48:59]
Joe Saul Sehi
Is why you don't invest heavily in the company you work for.
- [49:02]
Lorraine Lee
Well, I mean, sometimes, you know, obviously you can't control that, Right. If you're an executive at Walmart, lots of your compensation is tied up in Walmart stock. But maybe you have some Apple shares and you have some Amazon and you have some J.C. penney or whatever.
- [49:14]
Joe Saul Sehi
You know, their smart people are telling them to diversify a portion of their net worth.
- [49:18]
Lorraine Lee
They're trying to do all this too.
- [49:19]
Joe Saul Sehi
Absolutely.
- [49:20]
Lorraine Lee
All of this is short term price fluctuation because of the unknown of future short term, future earnings expectations. That's stock prices. Stock prices are priced based on how much people the market believe that they're going to earn in profit over the next period of time. It doesn't have anything to do with what they're going to earn over the next 50 years.
- [49:41]
Joe Saul Sehi
I do like looking at what this individual car company saying, the type of car that you're buying, like what's their take, what's their position? Because we've seen all kinds of CEOs of these companies. I saw the CEO of United Airlines this morning as we record this, talking about what's on his mind with pricing, which by the way is a lot different than what you're seeing in the news. I love what Veronica Dagger and company right here. What about a used car? If forecast put you off a new car, she writes, the used market likely won't provide as much refuge as usual. Inventory was thin even before tariffs since supply chain woes several years ago meant fewer used cars. People scrambling to buy used cars. So now those prices over the short run, going up.
- [50:22]
Lorraine Lee
Yeah, maybe. I was at a car dealership, two of them in the last couple of weeks to get just regular car service. And I noticed a marked difference in the last time I was there. They have, there's so many cars on the lots at these Two places that have small sales.
- [50:36]
Joe Saul Sehi
They had a bunch. Huh.
- [50:37]
Lorraine Lee
There were literally trucks lined up down the service drive full of cars. Now these are all new, right? So different. But yeah, I don't, I don't know. I mean obviously things are going to be affected by short term spikes in sure.
- [50:50]
Joe Saul Sehi
But they write arguably the savviest financial move you can make is not buy one if you can manage it. But they say even that stands to get costlier. The. Yeah, the Doug move here, you don't want to do that. Tariffs on auto parts plan for may mean drivers could see higher repair and insurance bills. Which is, which is I mean Doug's justification to himself to buy the very most expensive car I can get.
- [51:10]
Lorraine Lee
Right now Doug wants to get one of those like rat rods. Yes. And you see Doug Ryan arrived.
- [51:15]
Joe Saul Sehi
But I need the 9 11. How am I going to get to work?
- [51:18]
Lorraine Lee
Actually I do need a 911.
- [51:19]
Doug
Yeah.
- [51:19]
Lorraine Lee
There's no bad example. That actually is something I do need. And if anybody has one, I would take it off your hands at a very fair price. But that goes into the decision making around car purchases in particular. If you don't shop the insurance ahead of time and you don't know what that if you're going to buy a used car. We were looking at a used car for William and I said hey, take it into the dealership and price out all the stuff that's gonna, you know, this is gonna go to a 16 year old. They don't know anything about anything. Like tell me everything needs to get fixed. It's like oh well this $4,000 worth of stuff. It's like oh well if it's a 911 that's a pretty good deal. It wasn't a 9 11. So it was not a. You know what I mean? It doesn't, doesn't make it bad. It's just you got to go into with the knowledge it was two of those numbers.
- [52:01]
Joe Saul Sehi
It was a 91.
- [52:03]
Lorraine Lee
Yeah. When it was a 91. Exactly. When you buy a new car you pay sales tax. Sometimes when you buy used cars you don't pay as much of a sales tax or any. You know, that could be a big number in Texas at six and a half percent or six and a quarter. Buying a brand new car for fifty, sixty thousand dollars is $2,500 of taxes paid. You know, not to mention the depreciation. So I think all of that stuff you have to factor into it. Just like we were talking about the mortgages. Everything counts in that calculation.
- [52:30]
Joe Saul Sehi
I'LL link to this piece. You'll need a subscription to the Wall Street Journal to read it, but it's.
- [52:34]
Lorraine Lee
Or Apple News or.
- [52:36]
Joe Saul Sehi
Or to Apple News. Yes. And thanks to Doug, by the way, for gifting us with this one. Doug's like, here's a topic.
- [52:42]
Lorraine Lee
Appreciate it.
- [52:42]
Joe Saul Sehi
Yeah, nice work. Let's meander out on the back porch, Doug, we got some stackers doing some cool, cool stuff. Or a stacker doing something cool.
- [52:51]
Doug
Stacker. I wanted to talk about super stacker Cosette, who went to Japan and packed one thing. A Stacking Benjamin's T shirt.
- [53:01]
Joe Saul Sehi
That's all you need? That's all she needed.
- [53:04]
Doug
Yeah. And she took pictures of herself in front of some interesting places. Very common place for tourists to go. She went to Hiroshima. Or Hiroshima. I'm not sure what the correct pronunciation there. But she also.
- [53:15]
Joe Saul Sehi
I think you pronounce it like South Horal Shima.
- [53:21]
Doug
But there's one picture in particular that I've been trying to Sherlock Holmes this thing because she's standing in front of a vending machine holding a can of what I can only surmise are crab legs.
- [53:34]
Joe Saul Sehi
A can of crab legs.
- [53:36]
Doug
I don't know. That's what the picture in the can looks like.
- [53:38]
Joe Saul Sehi
From a vending machine.
- [53:39]
Doug
From a vending. And they sell some crazy in Japan through vending machines, so it's possible.
- [53:44]
Joe Saul Sehi
Right? Not as good as vending machine sushi, but a nice. A nice second.
- [53:50]
Doug
But thank you, Cosette, for sending a picture she chose. I'm sure she has many T shirts to choose from. Sadly, she didn't choose the Doug 2028 t shirt she is wearing. The circus. The Stacking Benjamin's Greatest show on Earth.
- [54:04]
Joe Saul Sehi
Greatest money show on Earth. Cool green shirt. Thanks, Cosette, for bringing us along with you. And if you. If, if you can, let's. Let's keep seeing stackers out in the wild showing off the gear Base camp of Mount Everest.
- [54:20]
Doug
That'd be sweet. Let's get one of those pictures.
- [54:22]
Joe Saul Sehi
There will be. We need that one. I will be in Boston.
- [54:27]
Doug
Great joke. That sounds great.
- [54:30]
Joe Saul Sehi
Why don't. Why don't you come too? You can come to Boston.
- [54:34]
Doug
I will. Please come to Boston.
- [54:37]
Joe Saul Sehi
I will be in Boston. We don't have a home yet. I want to have a home by the time we recorded this, but stackers in the Boston area, May 20th. May 20th. We will have details to come, but we're going to do a meetup. Stacker meetup in the Boston area, May 20th. My daughter is graduating from Brandeis on the 19th. And so hopefully autumn can come along as well. She was there at our last meetup. Actually, both my twins were at the last meetup that we had in Boston. So can't wait to see Boston area stackers again on May 20th. All right, that's going to do it. Got a lot of people to thank, but especially Lorraine Lee. We will continue this conversation in the basement Facebook group. We'll continue it on Spotify where we always have some fun. And let's also continue it on the 201, which is our newsletter, stackingbenjamins.com 201. All right, Doug, what's our big three things on our to do list today?
- [55:32]
Doug
Well, Joe, first, take some advice from Lorraine Lee. Not focusing on your career brand. Others are and they might not be drawing the conclusions you're hoping for. So take charge with some simple tactics. Second, making big financial moves. Focus on the big picture and not on current events for most of your long term moves and you'll never make better decisions. But the big lesson, definitely have Lorraine Lee visit with your mom when she comes to visit you. You should see how Mom's being all nice and making the best snacks ever to suck up to Lorraine. Okay, I may have planted that seed by sharing a little bit about Lorraine's background just so she'd make the brownies with the chocolate chips. Mission accomplished. Cha Ching. Thanks to Lorraine Lee for joining us today. You'll find her new book, Unforgettable Presents. That's P R E S E N C E Joe Unforgettable presence. Get seen, gain influence and catapult your career. Wherever books are sold. We'll also include links in our show notes@stackingbenjamins.com there's no L in presence. This show is the property of SP Podcasts, LLC, Copyright 2025 and is created by Joe Saul Sehive. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You'll find out about our awesome team@stackingbenjamins.com along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello.
- [56:59]
Joe Saul Sehi
Oh yeah.
- [57:00]
Doug
And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.
- [58:12]
Joe Saul Sehi
I forgot to mention during the show that Cosette also has agreed to join us on the Stucky Adventure show to talk about that. So if you're interested in traveling and you want to hear travel stories, Crystal Hammond and I dive into people's stories about going to different places. And Cosette has agreed to share with us what she did in Japan.
- [58:35]
Doug
Can you ask her, you know, not for nothing, like, how odor resistant the stacking Benjamin's T shirts are, because if that's all she packed, I want to know, like, were people not wanting to sit next to her on the plane ride home?
- [58:47]
Joe Saul Sehi
Did it hold up?
- [58:48]
Doug
Yeah, it's Cosette.
- [58:50]
Joe Saul Sehi
She doesn't perspire. She's calm under pressure.
- [58:54]
Doug
Yeah, it's never hot in Japan.
- [58:57]
Joe Saul Sehi
Hey, I got a question about food. What is something that you make that you're very proud of? Like you make yourself?
- [59:04]
Doug
My egg sandwiches that you're eating right now. I'm eating right now. My God, I'm in it. Like, my eyes are rolling back in my head a little bit that you've.
- [59:11]
Joe Saul Sehi
Been good bragging about.
- [59:12]
Doug
I mean, I'll show you.
- [59:14]
Joe Saul Sehi
Look at what I made.
- [59:15]
Doug
Look at that thing. You get the ciabatta rolls or little square ciabatta rolls from Costco. First thing you do is you put the bacon on the griddle. You know, normal amount, like a dozen pieces, like the whole sheet of bacon slices from Costco. You put that whole thing on the griddle. Get the bacon fat on there. That's first. Get that off. Get it soaking, you know, in the paper towel to get off all that unhealthy fat. The rest of the bacon's totally healthy, totally 100% science. And then on one half of the griddle, you crack this. You separate the ciabatta ro. Put that face down in the bacon grease. So you're grilling the bread a little bit and getting it nice and crispy and soaking up all that flavor. And the other half, you crack your eggs and you get them, you know, starting to fry on one side. Put some seasoning on top. My choice is a Chilean seasoning that has lots of ingredients in it I couldn't name, but it gives it a non spicy but sort of South American vibe. And a little bit of pepper and get three of the flip them. So because you can't have the messy yoke, you got to get that yolk good and hard so it doesn't drip all over you while you're recording. And then you just assemble all of that together. Oh, it'll set you up for the day.
- [60:26]
Joe Saul Sehi
Yeah. This is the One thing that Doug makes. Doug makes two things that he's proud of. He makes this where he points to the sandwich. He makes another one where he points in the toilet and goes, look what I made.
- [60:36]
Doug
Oh, Joe, why did we have to do that?
- [60:38]
Joe Saul Sehi
No, he doesn't.
- [60:40]
Doug
Coming off as such a sophisticated piece, it was.
- [60:43]
Joe Saul Sehi
I gotta tell you, I made something last week. We got a red snapper, and it was. It was so damn good. It was so good. I'd never had red snapper before. It was very meaty. And it was cool to buy a fish because, like, you know, you. I don't know about you guys, but.
- [60:59]
Doug
I go buy the whole fish. Like head, eyeballs and everything.
- [61:02]
Joe Saul Sehi
Yeah, I didn't do that. What's funny, though, is that when I was looking at recipes, they showed it that. The red snapper, that way. Thank God mine was not that, because I. I'm. I'm not that advanced. I can't debone my fish yet.
- [61:14]
Doug
You don't need to have a conversation with your meal while you're deboning it.
- [61:18]
Joe Saul Sehi
I can't do that.
- [61:19]
Doug
So how's your day going?
- [61:21]
Joe Saul Sehi
I did it. Not as good as mine. I did have bula base in Marseille when we were there. Hold on.
- [61:32]
Doug
You said. You didn't say the L's in Marseille, but you say the L's in bula base.
- [61:37]
Joe Saul Sehi
Bula base. It's pronounced bula base.
- [61:40]
Doug
You're just making up now, aren't you?
- [61:42]
Joe Saul Sehi
Oh, my God, you're eating with your mouth full. Anyway, I was very proud of it because I got done. You know, I don't know about you guys, but fish kind of intimidates me. At the grocery store, I'm like, I can't make that. I can't make that. I can't make that. So I decided to go out on a limb and try to make red snapper. And. And we dig into it, and Cheryl's a little afraid of it, and next thing you know, she's like, this is fantastic. This is. This is. It was really, really good. Lightly breaded, some lemon seasoning, just red snapper. Have you. Speaking of foods that you're proud of. Oh, gee. I know you've been trying to perfect your brisket. How's that coming?
- [62:18]
Lorraine Lee
Well, the last time I did it, it blew my grill up.
- [62:22]
Joe Saul Sehi
What?
- [62:22]
Doug
Maybe don't use gasoline as a heat source.
- [62:25]
Joe Saul Sehi
It blew your grill up the last time you made brisket?
- [62:28]
Lorraine Lee
Yeah, I mean, the grill blew up. So he's just.
- [62:33]
Joe Saul Sehi
He's just gonna end it there, Doug, period. Okay. End of story.
- [62:36]
Doug
Well, there is. I mean, there is the rule that when a man reaches the age of 40, he has to make a choice. You either get really into smoking meats or really into World War II. You clearly chose.
- [62:49]
Lorraine Lee
40.
- [62:50]
Doug
It's. It's in that meat route.
- [62:52]
Joe Saul Sehi
It's in the handbook.
- [62:53]
Doug
Yeah. I mean, I don't make the rule.
- [62:55]
Lorraine Lee
It's serviceable. I'm nowhere near my brother's. Way better, in fact, when he comes down in a couple of weeks. He doesn't know this yet, but he'll be making me a brisket.
- [63:06]
Doug
You're here first.
- [63:07]
Lorraine Lee
Yeah, that's part of the deal. But. But he does the whole, like, lather it and beef tallow, and, you know, he's got the whole.
- [63:16]
Joe Saul Sehi
You know, Doug's done that with his chest before.
- [63:19]
Lorraine Lee
Yeah. Yes. It's irresistible, but not serviceable. I do pretty good on the grill. Smoking, not as good, but I can.
- [63:29]
Joe Saul Sehi
Get something you've made recently you're pretty proud of.
- [63:32]
Lorraine Lee
I'm a big fan of reverse searing. Tomahawk ribeyes. That's a pretty. Pretty good treat.
- [63:39]
Joe Saul Sehi
What does reverse searing mean?
- [63:41]
Lorraine Lee
You do it backwards. You sear reverse.
- [63:44]
Joe Saul Sehi
I got that.
- [63:45]
Lorraine Lee
It's generally reserved for, like, big chunks of meat that, you know, are harder to grill perfectly, so you cook it at a lower temperature to the internal temperature that you want. So you take this big slab of, you know, brontosaurus burger like they have from Fred Flintstone.
- [64:02]
Joe Saul Sehi
Yeah.
- [64:02]
Lorraine Lee
And you cook it at 250 degrees for three hours until it's 120, and then you put it on the grill as opposed to grilling it, trying to get it to 125.
- [64:14]
Joe Saul Sehi
Gotcha. And the grill is just as hot as you can get it.
- [64:17]
Lorraine Lee
Yeah.
- [64:18]
Joe Saul Sehi
Yeah. Locking in all the flavor.
- [64:22]
Doug
Well, that was great. Thanks for bringing that up, Joe.
- [64:24]
Lorraine Lee
Yeah. I had a protein drink and a yogurt this morning, so now I'm starving, and I can't do anything about it.
- [64:32]
Doug
Want a bite?
- [64:33]
Joe Saul Sehi
Oh, my goodness. He's just. He just sits here and eats in front of us.
- [64:36]
Doug
I'm just chiseling this bad boy down while you guys tell your fun stories about it. Eating the heads off snappers, blowing up grills.