EP 199: Leading with Speed, Structure, and Self‑Awareness

Rebecca Palmer grew up moving constantly, an experience that taught her to adapt fast and focus on finishing what she starts. Those instincts now shape her work as co-founder and head of financial guidance at Fruitful, where she helps people turn good intentions into automatic progress.

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Transcript

Welcome And Meeting Rebecca Palmer

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Hey, hello everyone. Welcome to the show. Uh today we have Rebecca Palmer with us. And Rebecca is the co-founder of Fruitful, co-founder and head of financial guidance. So, Rebecca, thank you for joining me on the show today.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

I am super happy to be here. It's gonna be fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be a great time. Um, so where are you from?

SPEAKER_00 1:06

I am from all over the place. I am a uh mutt when it comes to geography. I've lived on the East Coast, the West Coast, the middle of the country, abroad, um, all over. But right now I am outside of Washington, DC.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

Yeah. URJ. Right in my neck of the woods. So yeah, you're uh we're about 15, 20 minutes away from each other. It was really nice meeting for coffee. And uh where was it? Was that like Falls Church or where exactly were we?

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Mm-hmm. That was in Falls Church.

SPEAKER_03 1:33

Yeah. At um Northside Social. They they their first um location wasn't that the one in in Arlington and like Plarendon, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yeah, they have another one in Arlington. I actually bought a painting off of the wall of that coffee shop.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Really?

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Yeah, that I thought my husband would like. They they sell art there too, so you can just buy them if you just I had no idea that that was a thing there. Yeah, yeah, it's fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

Wow. Was the Arlington was the first location, right? And then I guess they expanded, or did they always have the one in Falls Church?

SPEAKER_00 2:04

I do not know, but I feel like the Arlington one has been around for a while.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

It has. I think I like the one in Falls Church better. Seemed nicer.

unknown 2:12

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

It is nice, yeah.

Efficiency Mindset And Moving Fast

SPEAKER_03 2:13

Anyways, that was fun. Um, well, cool. So so you you moved uh around a lot as a kid. You said that that was like formative because you developed certain skills uh based off those experiences of moving around. Um, could you tell us about what you learned from those experiences?

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Yeah, so we happened to move almost every two years, um, never intentionally, it just kind of kept happening that way. And so I saw my parents' model just like a really great attitude and uh approach to efficiency to deal with that, right? Because if it takes you a month or two to pack up and another month to unpack, like you really can't dawdle, or you'll just be living in boxes and stress like constantly when you move that much, which is no. Um, they have a really no-nonsense attitude about like, hey, what are the things that need to be done? You can't live in an unfinished state all the time. You just have to do it. Don't give yourself excuses, do it and do it right now. Um, and so that translates not just to like packing up rooms, but also like reply to that text, do it right now. Book the dentist appointment, do it right now. Choose the house, reply to that email, talk to that person at work, like just do it right now. Um, no excuses really. And it uh it feels funny. Like, I don't know if other people are like this, but it feels like like a mental mode of extreme optimization. Like I'm always thinking about how to optimize things, and I have a hard time not doing this. So, like if I am making dinner, I literally am thinking about how many times I'm opening and closing the refrigerator. Oh wow, can I open and close the refrigerator fewer times? Yeah. Or uh or like when I'm drinking water, I'm like counting the number of gulps I drink. Maybe that's like extreme. Yeah, it's it's real. I do it. I don't I don't know why, but uh yeah, my uh my mom would do this thing and she would tidy up the house where we each had a stair on the staircase, and like if we left our stuff around, she would put our stuff on that stair. And if you are going up the stairs to your room, you better grab your stuff that's going to your room because you're going anyway. So why not be optimally efficient and just like take it right where it needs to go?

SPEAKER_03 4:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:30

That's funny. You know, it's funny, like the uh is it every yeah, I would say like literally every single successful entrepreneur that I've met is incredibly responsive. Like you're talking about responding to the text right now or getting like that. Is a a trait that I've I've seen pretty consistently across the board to the point where it's something that I've uh I'm I try to model um and accelerate like anything. It's like whenever I I say, like where my brain goes, like, oh okay, I can I can do that later, later today, an hour from now, later today, tomorrow. I have trained myself to be like, can I just do it right now? We obviously need to prioritize and we can't just get distracted at every single thing. But like more times than not, I've just learned throughout my career, like, why are we doing it tomorrow? Just do it today, or be responsive. Like being responsive to people should be a priority, right? Like, as long as we're, you know, it's I guess I suppose it's like you know, you know, relevant to what we're trying to do. But I I would say it's um it is like we can't underestimate the importance of just being like highly responsive and just getting things done quickly as entrepreneurs, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yeah, I I call that eating the frog. I don't know if you've ever heard that saying.

SPEAKER_03 5:44

Okay, you gotta explain that one to me.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Yeah, well, I actually I don't want to have any more explanation other than that. Like it's the last thing you want to do, like right. You're like, oh, I know I need to do that thing and I'm putting it off. Like, because you have that feeling, that is you have to, you have to do it because you have to get over that the fear or the overwhelm or the anxiety or like whatever it is that's making you want to avoid that thing. Uh, if you want to grow and be able to manage bigger teams or grow a bigger company or achieve different things, like you have to eat the frog. You can't just do it fast.

SPEAKER_03 6:16

Yeah. That that's actually something that um you know I discuss with my team a lot. I think we I told you when we met in person that I'm I have a um building a go-to-market team here in Ruston, uh, Virginia. And like speed is something that we we discuss. Like we we discuss like speed a lot, and we talk about like we actually had a conversation earlier today about problem solving. And um I I have a phenomenal team and they're incredibly bright, um, junior level staff on the on the GTM uh motion, like 23 years old, and they're incredibly bright and creative. Uh and and when it comes to problem solving, one of the things I discuss is like just like solving the problem, acting incredibly fast, and executing a solution. So a lot of times, like in a go-to-market stand-up, it's like, here's the problem, we define the solution, go. Like, let's today, right? Let's get it done. Um and I I kind of like it explains like, okay, like our job is problem solving. Like, and and I'm okay with problems, they're always gonna come up. But the one type of problem that we cannot tolerate is a problem that we had a month ago that we still have today. Like that, you know, we got to act fast, take action, and solve, right? Like it's that speed is just so important as like a startup founder.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Yeah, and speed is one of your only advantages, right? When you're when you're looking at like your incumbent companies, like the the fact that they can't move as fast um is an opportunity for you. And you're like, you're you're never gonna out-resource them, you're like you're not gonna out-solution them, probably, but you can listen to the customers more closely and you can build stuff faster, which means you can iterate faster. Um yeah, and you know, nothing is ever going to be perfect. Like, so if you wait until it's better, or if you're like, uh, it needs to be just like this before we release it or before we tackle that thing, um, it's like compounding interest, but the reverse. It's like the compounding slowness, uh, and you won't you won't get it done.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

And like the what I've been surprised with just throughout my career is like how fast things can compound in the right direction if you're moving fast. Like if you force yourself to act today, like I feel like there's been times where when I've when I learned that lesson that like in a month, in three months, in six months, things have compounded like so much faster for me than I I could have even anticipated by just like holding myself to like a higher standard when it comes to speed.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:42

It's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yeah, some of the reasons why people don't do that, I think is be kind of related to the eat the frog thing, is because it gets so big and scary in their head. Um, and something that we do a lot um at Fruitful, and I do a lot in my life when I'm feeling you know overwhelmed or something, is I I take this big nebulous problem and I break it down into like, no, what do I actually have to do today? Like, what are the actual things that need to get done? It's not usually a lot, right? And those like little things, you can do them quickly and you can do them today. And then you don't have to worry about the big cloud because it will sort itself out if you keep doing the little stuff.

SPEAKER_03 9:17

Yeah, I remember when we met for coffee, we were talking about like the concept of burnout. I think you said something around like you think it typically comes from people getting like overwhelmed essentially and not breaking down things they have to do into manageable tasks. Didn't you say like that? I think you said, if I'm remembering correctly, it was like the number one reason you see people kind of like struggle with burnout when you do see that.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:43

Is that right? Did I say that correctly?

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Uh yes, yeah, I think so. I think um one, only people who care burn out. So like it's a it's a problem for people who try a lot and work really hard. Um, but in my experience with with myself and and what I've seen generally is that they're um often feeling like there's so many things that I have to do and they're all big and they're all nebulous, and I need to do them all, and I can do them all. Um and you you can't, like you have to prioritize, right? Like that is completely true. You cannot do them all in a vague nebulous form. Like they will feel insurmountable. Um, you have to figure out like what balls do you need to drop. Sometimes the answer is you have to drop some balls and pick them up later. Um, sometimes the answer is you like pick a small bit of the problem. Sometimes the answer is like delegate that problem. Like you don't need to be doing that. Like someone else can be doing that for you. But you have to take it out of the nebulous and into the what do I actually need to do? And then it doesn't feel as overwhelming. And when your day doesn't feel as overwhelming, you don't burn out.

SPEAKER_03 10:48

Yeah, it's um I think you're right though, because if we are overwhelmed, like a lot of the times it's like maybe there's okay, there's a lot to do, but there's like one immediate next step that you have to do. So, like, okay, it's a big project, but like today, right? Like there's this one thing. I think it's what's interesting is like on the flip side, I don't know, like this sort of reminded me of another thing that I see a lot is people will get overwhelmed when they feel like I've tried everything and I can't like get the result. And what I've learned just as a leader, and just like for my own internal, like you know, just just checking myself when it comes to that or when I see others, it's like, okay, well, what what is everything? And then you find out it's like, okay, we've tried like two things, like like like we haven't tried everything. If we tried everything, we would have figured it out, you know. Um but we let things kind of stack, I think, right? And we're not like if we just focus on like one thing at a time and just like executing and iterating, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:40

For sure. Yeah, and the other reality is that like life is always part of it too. And we can't we can't always solve you know the life parts for our team, we can only solve the the work parts for them. Um and so you know, I don't think we can we can be too hard on each other when people are feeling overwhelmed or burdened out because there's always something else, and we just have to give them space. And if they're fabulous people, which they are because we hired them, right? Like we give them the tools to get clear and get stuff done and get moving and get feeling better, and they do. And we have to help each other and yeah, 100%.

Moscow School And Learning By Doing

SPEAKER_03 12:18

Yeah, it's um I'm already really enjoying this conversation. It's awesome. I I I want to double back to um like when you were growing up, because you mentioned you were moving around a lot. You had also mentioned that you moved to Moscow not once, but twice. I'd love to hear more about that.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yeah, I lived in in Moscow twice as a little girl. Um, my I'm American, my parents are American, but we lived uh there for my dad's job twice. And the funniest thing that happened while we there, were there is that um because my dad didn't work for the embassy, unlike a lot of our other American friends, we didn't go to the English-speaking international school. They just put us straight into private schools in Russia, like in Russian. We didn't speak any Russian, not a word, couldn't even count to 10. So like I was the second time I was um, let's see, eight or nine years old, I think, uh probably nine when I went, was there from like nine to eleven, maybe. Um, and we just like walked into a classroom and sat down in a foreign language. And we had to figure out how to like do math in Russian and listen to history and less in Russian and go to art and play with kids on the playground. Um, and that was such a valuable experience for me because I don't think I don't think there's anything I couldn't learn if I had enough time or enough immersion, right? Like everything is very figure outable. Um the other thing it taught me is that you just have to be willing to embarrass yourself to learn and to grow. Uh, you know, like the first time you say that word, you're gonna say it wrong. The first time you try to build that thing or sew that thing or make that thing or cook that thing or build that thing, like it's not, it's not gonna be pretty, but if if you let that stop you, you're never gonna get anywhere. Um, and so being forced to stumble my way through school in a language that I didn't speak was like a master class in just do it. Like you'll figure out entrepreneurship. Yeah.

unknown 14:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:14

Yeah. It's like it's kind of cool because it's like as learning more about like kind of different experiences you have. It's like, oh, okay, it makes I can see you as like the those is the it's like the foundation entrepreneurship in a sense, like because so many of the things that you learn kind of it, it seems like in a sense, like almost prepared you for where you are today with roof.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Yeah, I think that I think that happens with everyone. It's so ingrained in me. I actually will do this to my kids when we're driving around, like if we're if we're driving by a really, really tall building in um in DC or something, and the kids are looking at the building. I'd be like, hey, guess what? Like someone built that. Like there was a person who built that. There's a person who financed that. There was a person who designed that. Like it was just a person. Like you could do that. Like you could build that tall building, you know? Um, and it's fun to like break things down to that human level, right? It doesn't matter how big the business is or how big the skyscraper is or the bridges or the social impact is like it's just a person doing it.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

So yeah, I think just it's it's like from a mindset or a you know, a psychology perspective. I think it is important to remember it's like when we're building stuff, particularly as an entrepreneur when you're building stuff from scratch, or with with kids, or even I suppose adults like building confidence and thinking about people's abilities. It's like, look, like when you look around at the world around you, literally everything that you see, like everything like man-made that you see, man-made, everything that you see started off as an idea in somebody's head. Everything, right? Like this mic, you know, everything in my packed, all of it. All of it was somebody's is an idea that didn't exist in the natural world that was then brought into existence by just a regular human brain being that had the same, you know, you know, two hands and you know, like a brain like ours. I mean, like nothing like particularly different, right? I mean, we're all different in, I suppose, some ways, but um, you know, essentially, you know, very similar in a lot of ways. And and uh I I think that that's a really important foundation for people to kind of understand, right? Like all of this is was it's just made up stuff from like just different ideas that people had, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Yeah, there's just people making it up. And every single one of those people had people around them that either didn't care or didn't believe they could do it. Like, and you have to, I think part of building something is just very relevant to what we're talking about here in terms of talent and people, is that like you gotta do stuff and you have to do it fast, but you can't build anything alone. And so the sooner you involve other people and find those other people that don't think it's impossible and that believe in what you're doing, the the faster it's gonna come to life.

Faith, Values, And A Bigger Lens

SPEAKER_03 16:53

Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure. You also um talked about like a big part of your foundation being uh grown up in like it sounds like somewhat of a religious household with Christian values um and thinking about morals and things of that nature. Can you tell us more about like the impact that that's had on who you've become as of today?

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Yeah, I think um the way I understand my life is that it's not entirely self-serving, right? Like I'm here to help other people or to do some good in the world. Um it's kind of like the you know, when the Boy Scouts are are in the in the woods camping, it's the idea is like leave no trace. It's kind of like beyond that. It's like leave a positive trace, right? Like we were here, we we made we made life better for people, for our kids, for people in our community in some way. Um, I think just this idea that like I am held to a higher standard and like someone is judging me, like God is judging me, it means that I can't um in any part of my life, if I'm alone, if I'm with people, like I need to act in a way that is in alignment with my values. Um, and that has been absolutely foundational. Like everything that I think about and everything that I do in my life um pivots around that kind of like center of gravity. Um, and it also brings a lot of peace because then you know whether you're out of alignment or in alignment. If you feel like you have like a clean conscience, then I'm like, I'm doing my I'm not perfect, but like I'm doing my best, then uh I feel like it takes down the noise of of stress and anxiety a lot because you know what you're aiming for.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

I do feel like just throughout my life, I feel like people that I've met that have like a strong sense of faith like tend to be happier.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

Yeah. For me, I'm just like such a massive skeptic.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:47

I just like I have such a hard time like accepting, you know. Like I think like morality in and of itself is fundamentally good, right? There is such thing as a fundamental intrinsic good. Like we all have this like sense of what's right and wrong, right? There there could be, I suppose, some differences, but I think like often we we sort of just inherently like intuitively know. Yeah. Um, and I think that can be independent of religion. Uh that being said, like I think, for instance, I think you can be moral for the sake of being moral, um, right? Like, I do believe that because I like that's I think more of myself, but I just I do when I because I notice and I see people and I meet people that have like a high degree of like faith, and always one, it really impresses me. And two, it is like a consistent thing where I'm like, okay, they seem more centered and happier. I'm like, I should, I should figure that out because I think I probably could be happier if like I could get myself to having more like um faith and like more being more in tune with like religion and and and my faith in God and and things of that nature. But it's it's interesting, it's just been interesting to see like in people, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:56

And like differences in their personalities and yeah, it's probably probably what you're seeing is the difference in perspective, right? Like if even if you're thinking about it kind of generically, if you're looking at a problem and your entire perspective is relative to this individual problem, then of course you're gonna be miserable and of course it's gonna feel like the end of the world. But when you take like a a larger perspective, um, maybe it's this week, not today, maybe it's this month, maybe it's this year, maybe it's like eternity, it's like the largest perspective, right? It uh it helps you um have more hope and like not take things so seriously sometimes, I think.

Builder Energy And Startup Initiative

SPEAKER_03 20:31

Yeah. And you've always been like a pretty intellectually curious person too, right? Like we talked a little bit about hobbies, and you you told me like 10 different different things that you like yourself taught. Yeah, yeah, you did. Um so yeah, could you can you tell us a little bit about like different different hobbies, different things that you've like learned along the ways, like a kid, adult, like because you I know you've done a fair amount of things outside of work, just different interests. You're sort of like a sounds like sort of like a renaissance woman.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Uh I think I just don't like to be bored. Like if I at all, if life is too quiet. Again, this is probably related to like the moving all the time, but like if life is too quiet and too um too known and too expected, I'll look for something else to do or look for something else to build. I really, really love building things. Um, and I think that's that's one of the through lines we see it at everyone at Fruitful, everyone who we've hired is they're all builders. They would do it for fun. You know, even if they were financially independent, they'd probably still be tinkering on something because they just like to. Um, but I have done everything. I taught myself how to sew. Um, I turned that into a little like uh Amazon business that actually is still running and is still profitable. Um, I taught myself a bunch of different instruments. I got into uh interior design at one point and like we we reorganize our houses and our rooms every time we moved. Um I love to garden. Um I'm trying to think of what else. The one thing I don't really like to do and have never really found interesting is cooking. But like anything else, anything else is probably something um that I've dabbled in. Uh I'm really into organization. At one point I started like a little custom planner company. Um, another time I I like built a website that scraped uh clothing inventory from different department websites and compiled it because I was trying to find a thing and I couldn't find it. I thought other people were having the same problem. Um I just like to tinker. It's it's probably a problem sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

Well, it's it's uh I think as entrepreneur, it's like every time it's like I think you had mentioned too, it's like every time you identify a problem or something to learn, you're like, well, there's a business around this. Right, right. Before you know it, there's like five businesses to build your I know.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

You have to just keep like a notepad off to the side. Like future business idea, like don't have time for this now. Someone else do this. I would be a customer.

SPEAKER_03 22:52

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And you um, even before you started Fruitful, you were involved in a couple of different startups, right? I think the first one was when you were in college, if I'm not mistaken.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

Yeah. So I was fortunate to be connected as a college freshman that had this program. You could like sign up for a class, and the class was an internship, and they would like match you with a local company. Um, and I just happened to get matched with a local startup that uh was uh is a software tech startup that was doing some really cool, interesting things in fields that I was um interested in. And I think what struck me at that, about that experience was that the the founders of this company um were just students. They were not, they weren't different than me, they weren't smarter than me. One of them was an engineer, so you know they had some skills that I didn't have. But um but I was like, oh, there's there's nothing different about these people like me. They just decided to build something to solve a problem. And this company was like funding their education, like it was like it was profitable. And um that just made me realize that you should if you want to do something, you should just start it. Like people do it, you can do it.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

Yeah, it's nice when you can like surprises you when you you start to to be able to get in circles like of other successful people and you realize like, oh, okay, like they aren't like superhuman, right? Like they're just humans that make mistakes. And usually if if folks are further along, it usually is, I think it often more often than not, it does come down to behavior. Um, of course, like intelligence does play a role, like it is just it is important, like, but like we can never underestimate like the the importance of like behavioral fit and thinking about behavioral traits and not even traits from the perspective of like what you're kind of like where you are today or have acted historically, but being intentional about our behavior like moving forward. Like we we were talking about like with speed, right? Like that's you know, being incredibly proactive is a behavior, and maybe it comes a little more naturally to some people than than others, but it's something we can model, we can look at really successful people and work on that, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, yeah. I wonder if there's ever sometimes I wonder, I feel like there's kind of like a you're either a consumer or you're a producer. Yeah, you're you're probably like predominantly more one than the other. Uh I don't think it's all good all the time. Like I definitely feel like a producer. I'm actually really not good at consuming things. Like I'm really bad at like enjoying things.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Uh, and just like slowing down and consuming them. So I think in an ideal world we'd be 50-50. But um, but it's interesting to see like where people lean and and kind of what gives them energy.

SPEAKER_03 25:43

Yeah, that's an interesting way to think about it. I'm gonna have to give that some more thought too. Um yeah, that's that's that's really cool. And then you get involved with another startup in California, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Yeah. So while uh I had had a couple jobs out of college, I was working in private wealth management at the time, but we had moved to California um because my husband was in business school. And we would just, this is in Palo Alto, and so we would attend like pitch nights for fun, because that's what you do in Silicon Valley, is you you go to all the venture capitalist offices and they have great uh events going on. And at one of these pitch nights, um, a startup was uh was in the competition that pitched their company again in an area that was like particularly interesting to me. And um, this guy's name is Rich and he like walked out of the room at the end of the pitch night and was like clearly trying to go somewhere, like trying to kind of escape the crowd. And I was like, this is the coolest thing I've ever heard of. Like, I'm not letting this guy leave this room until I talk to him. Uh, and so I literally chased him down and I stuck out my hand and shook his hand awkwardly, and I was like, hey, like you don't know me. Um, my name is Rebecca, but like I'm gonna work for you for free. Can I have your email address? It literally said that to him. And he was like, uh, okay, like what do you say to that? No, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Right, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Like, kind of weird, right? Um, but he gave me his email address and I emailed him and I did end up doing a lot of just like research and customer interviews and just fun. I was young, like just a lot of fun stuff uh for this um tech company, and probably would have ended up working for them officially if they hadn't um moved on to New York on the other side of the country. But it was such a fun experience. I would do it all over again.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

I love it. And um, so now you've been at uh you started Fruitful like how many years ago? Is it a few years ago, I think?

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Around four years, yeah.

Hiring For Courage In Fintech

SPEAKER_03 27:33

Four years? Okay. So I'd love to get into talking a little bit more about okay, based on where you are today and the experience you have, um, kind of like some some top takeaways, top lessons learned. And I I would love to start with um hiring and and then people in general. Um, you know, I think we already actually we covered some of this um already. We talked about, I think we already talked about like being super proactive, uh being really good problem solvers, but you also talked about like what was interesting is so you said proactive, problem solver, and the third thing you mentioned to me was courage, which I thought was like it really stood out to me. I was like, okay, so um mentioning courage like as one of like the core like pillars in a sense, right? Um could you tell me like why you feel that's so important and just your thought process behind that?

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Yeah, so we're um particularly with Fruitful, we're we're building something that has never been built before. The jobs and the roles that we're hiring for don't exist. So we're like hiring people into a role that they've never actually technically done. Like it's really similar in in some ways to some things that they have done, but completely new and completely different in other ways. Um, and so they're stepping into a thing that they've never done before. And so I think it's it's just really important to me that they seem brave and like courageous and unafraid. Uh, because the flip side, if someone is like timid or unsure or or insecure, like that's not gonna fly in a startup, right? Some place where things aren't clearly defined, where they're always moving, where you have to like adapt really quickly, just jump in and figure it out. Um, I think courage to me is just like this this clear-eyed attitude of like, I don't know, let's try. Like, let's try it. Um, I think also with uh with fintech in general, it's like it's a highly, highly regulated space. Um we have we have FINRA on the banking side, and we also have the SEC on the um on the advice side. And so when you're doing something that has never been done before, uh, a lot of people that come from like financial backgrounds, they could be like, oh, that's not how we normally do it. Or like, can like, are we allowed to do it that way? That's not how it's done, right? We we always charge AUM or we always hire this way, or we always build this way, or we always run our advising process this way. Are you allowed to do it any differently? Um, and of course you are, right? Like, of course, the the end rule is that you just have to act in the best interest of the consumer. And that is exactly what we're trying to do, even though it's a little bit different. So we need everyone at the company uh to be brave.

Remote Alignment Through Clear Expectations

SPEAKER_03 30:15

Yeah, maybe it's yeah, I think it's like that's really, really well said. And I I think again, it like just tying into the behavioral fit. Like one thing that I've I've learned over the years is it particularly for a startup, like you can never compromise on behavioral fit. Yeah, it's always proven itself to me. Like honestly, it's like but when it comes to courage and like being proactive, like that type of individual. Like I call it like one thing say do ratio, hundred percent say to ratio. If we say we're gonna do it, we do it. And if we can't get it done when we say we're gonna get it done, we proactively communicate it, right? Like again, pro again looping back to proactive. Um, so it's somebody with like high-level follow-through say to ratio and the proactive, like that combination, like it's like the clear expectation setting. And because you had also actually expectation setting. So you had mentioned that um one of your professional takeaways, this is actually this is really cool because like I everything kind of ties together, which is really awesome. Um you said most problems are caused by misaligned expectations, which sort of ties into if you have the person with the right behavioral fit, then this doesn't happen quite as much, right? Because it's like you're proactive and you do what you say you're gonna do, like that combination. But give me, let's talk more about that. So most problems are caused by misaligned expectations. Can you can you explain that to us or maybe even give us some examples?

SPEAKER_00 31:36

Yeah, misaligned or misunderstood expectations, right? Like most problems are communication problems. Like before you assume, you know, someone is doing something intentionally or someone isn't good enough at something, or someone can't do something, like in reality, what's probably happening is like you're understanding things differently. Um and so if you get just really, really clear on the expectations, like what you're supposed to be doing, what they're supposed to be doing, what the company is doing, what the sprint is doing, what's included, what's not, like just being really crystal clear on the expectations usually solves all the problems because then people are like, oh then everything else makes more sense. Like, oh, I understand the decision making now, or like I understand how you were asking me and expecting me to do this, but I was doing this because I understood it to be uh something else, um, which is a vague way of explaining clarity.

SPEAKER_03 32:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:33

Are you so Rebecca? Are you is everyone in your company remote or in do you have an in-person location as well? Like how does it how does it work?

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Yeah. So from from my team, all the financial advisors are remote. We do have a little hub of people here in Northern Virginia. Um, and we do have an office in New York, um, in Midtown. So we have a group that works out of there, a small group that comes into the office occasionally here, but by and large, the company is is mostly remote. Um, and that has so many pros, uh, but it also comes with some nuances. Okay, you know, uh, if you're only interacting on Zoom, what does that mean? And um, if you don't see each other during the day, like you have to you have to manage the team a little bit differently in a remote world, I think. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 33:24

There's there's a ton of benefits. I would like one of the challenges that I see is like alignment on when it comes to expectations, like alignment and and speed at times. Um, so I'm wondering like how do you approach that with like remote team members? Just genuinely curious to get your because I my my company is both as well. Like we have our in-person office in in Reston, and then my um so a Secure Vision services company's in Ruston, then I have a small office in uh Alexandria for my software company, uh, because that's my technical co-founders out there, so that's how that happened. Um yeah, but um but a lot of my company at Secure Vision, like they're the my senior staff is remote. Like there, we have people throughout the United States and Latin America and Europe. Um I think the reason the way we can make it work is that we have like really clear performance metrics because they're like in recruiter positions, so we can see pipeline metrics, it makes a little easier, and they're senior, they have like 10 years of experience. Yeah, and then the way we do is like go to market team, junior. Also, it's like building emotion from the ground up, like zero to one. So we're like in person full time, um, but I'm curious like how you see remote and like how you keep things moving really fast at a startup speed and maintain alignment in like kind of a remote leadership capacity.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Yeah, I think you have to overcommunicate excessively, everyone has to. That's not just like leadership needs to overcommunicate, like everyone needs to be over-communicating. So, um, because you're not, you know, for example, sitting next to a person. So you're not gonna be sitting next to the new hire and just notice that they're doing this one thing that actually they don't need to be doing, and that's gonna save them two hours a day because they don't need to be doing that thing. They have a sh-we have a shortcut for them. We have a different way to do it, right? You're not gonna you're not gonna see that. We usually solve that with um asking for a lot of communication. We solve that by doing a lot of like virtual practicing and like shadowing uh when people join. So they watch other people do things, other people watch them do things, literally like share your screen and do this, and that helps a lot. And then I think the other thing that we do is we we make it smaller because with a remote company, it's kind of like being in a huge crowd in a weird way, even if the team isn't enormous. We have like around 45 people in the company right now, but there are a billion Slack messages flying all the time. There's like a lot of noise, and there are a lot of product releases and new features and changes and announcements that won't absorb unless you're like over-communicating important things. But then you also have to break people down into smaller groups where they can actually talk and actually listen. So, for example, on our guidance team, we um we break down the financial advisors into groups of like four or five people, and we have an advisor lead the group, kind of like a manager. And so in this like much smaller setting, they review all of the changes, all of the new stuff, they practice things, they answer questions. Um, like you're never gonna get anything understood and done and aligned on like a 20-person Zoom call, in my experience, at least in our roles. Um, so you have to kind of like replicate smaller rooms in efficient ways, which means that you need champions in the company and your team because you can't do all that, right? Like I can't do all that. Um, so you need your people who like understand everything as well as you do and can go be your guys, right? To make sure everyone is up to speed too.

Sleep, Discipline, And Quiet Time

SPEAKER_03 36:55

Yeah, that's it's really well said. Well said. And you said you also talked to me a little bit about like top takeaways personally or holistically, because I think it applies to work and personal life. Um, kind of like where the root cause of most of our problems also like you see comes from you said two things, uh, a lack of sleep, or two, like personal ownership, right? Was that the second one?

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Yeah, this is actually, I saw this from someone else. Um, it was a blogger, I think her name is Layla Law, or she's not a business person, not a startup person. She's like a um homeschooling mom of like eight kids or something. Anyway, but she said this, and I was like, you know what?

SPEAKER_03 37:39

That sounds like an incredibly hard job. That sounds hard as entrepreneurship personally.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

Right. She, you know, she knows something about grit um and achievement. But yeah, she said, um, essentially I'm paraphrasing, but like most of your own problems in your life are probably caused by lack of sleep and or lack of discipline. And I remember reading that and I was like, oof, she is right. Like, one, if you're not like physically taking care of yourself, you're never going to be in a mental state to be able to handle things, right? Like you have to have to sleep, and that's hard with with little kids and you know, life sometimes. And but we do our best. And on the discipline part, there definitely have been times in my life where other people that I love and respect have said a similar thing to me, and I like didn't listen to them because I um I feel like I recoiled from truth. I was like, no, it's not me. It's not me, you know, it's like this other person or this other situation. Um, and of course, with some distance and perspective, I'm like, ah, they were totally, it was me. Like it was totally me in that situation. I wasn't doing things that I could have been doing to make things so much better. Um, so I it's uh it's much easier said than done, like we were talking about. But I feel like I tried to approach problems or situations that need to be improved or things that aren't going well with first the question of like, am I the problem? Or like, how am I contributing to this problem? Are there other things that I need to be doing or could be doing that would make a big difference here? Um, before you start, you know, looking externally or finding excuses or throwing blame on other people. Um we are usually our own roadblocks.

SPEAKER_03 39:21

I uh I I don't do you do you use any wearable tech?

SPEAKER_00 39:26

Yes, I I think we have I have an aura ring.

SPEAKER_03 39:28

You have an aura ring? Okay, so I do too. So I I found out at like 32 that I'm not a great sleeper.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Oh no.

SPEAKER_03 39:35

Yeah, I guess I should have known. I mean, in hindsight, but it it's like in relation to other people, I didn't realize that like my quality of sleep was not like I really struggle with like deep sleep, and so I'm like kind of doing this like research now of trying to get into how to optimize sleep.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Yeah, yeah. But the best, the most deep sleep I ever get is two hours, like REM sleep, right?

SPEAKER_03 39:56

Deep or RIM?

SPEAKER_00 39:57

Oh gosh, now I'm confusing it.

SPEAKER_03 39:59

Which is there's the RIM sleep and then there's the deep sleep on the aura aura ring. I'm usually good on RIM, yeah, but it's the deep sleep where I'll get like 15, 30 minutes. You're supposed to get like an hour, hour and 15 minutes, like something like that.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

Really? I think that's the one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:14

That's the one I struggle with, like the the deep sleep.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

Has anything helped? You found any good hacks?

SPEAKER_03 40:20

I mean, I don't know. I so I take a lot of magnesium, a lot of glycinate. Um, I take like more than the recommended dose, which hopefully I'm not like because I just I feel like I need it, like because I it's like the glycinate, like helps relax uh the nervous system and like your muscles, and so I take a lot of that at night, and I also take um three and eight, which is um another type of magnesium, like magnesium three and eight, and that crosses the blood-brain barrier more effectively, so it's better for cognitive performance, so like working memory and just overall like brain health. So I I do take a lot of that and it I think it helps. Um, but the issue for me is like my body just adapts to like whatever I'm taking, and then it's just like, okay, now we're right back to it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Well, it's hard if you're if you're someone who has a lot to get done and is really good at getting stuff done and likes to get it done right away to actually like shut off the computer at the end of the day when you when you know you need to. Um, do you want to know a funny tidbit I just learned today, speaking of random side things, um, about magnesium? So flour, like the flour that is in the bread that you're eating, or even the flour that you buy at the store, when it's um milled, like in a normal mass manufacturing way, it strips out all of the magnesium from the bread. So if you compare like freshly milled flour, like you just literally just ground it up yourself, versus regularly milled flour or things made with regularly milled flour, it has like six times more magnesium in it, uh, tons more fiber in it, like has all of the nutrients and the the germ is still there and all that stuff. So to some extent, I'm kind of like, yeah, a lot of the conveniences in our life are probably contributing to yeah, you know that doesn't help.

SPEAKER_03 42:12

The other thing that gets me like when it comes to like sleep is I'm so busy throughout the day, I'm like usually back to back to back to back to back to back to back. Like not so and then it like starts like often we'll start before work because like I I have a daughter, so it's like on the days that she's with me versus like at her mom's, it's like you know, so it's just like it so a lot of times I don't like I'm at an all at the office minimum till 6 30. A lot of times till 8 30, unless my daughter's with me. So it's a lot of times I'll get home at like 8 p.m. and I'll need to eat. Like I have I've hardly eaten all day, and then I'll have like a big meal, which if you have a big meal before bed, apparently like that really disrupts your sleep. So it's just like okay, you know, keeps your heart rate up.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

I know you gotta get some easy, easy meals and just stick them in your office fridge.

SPEAKER_03 42:55

Yeah, yeah, I don't know. So I'm what I'm tracking, like all I get this aura ring now, and I like part of me loves it, and part of me is like, you know what, I'd be better off just not like I don't need to.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

I uh I had an Apple Watch for a long time, didn't super love it. I love the aura ring because I cannot hide from myself anymore. Like it's so digestible and so in your face. I'm like, yeah, you're right. I did I did have ice cream at 10 p.m. last night. I think that's why I like heart rate was so high. Like um, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:25

But like that's like the also like the worst part of like is you're you know not in your 20s anymore and you're in your 30s, and you like have a glass of wine and then you see like your metrics for the next week like tank. You know, like you're like, I was just like, What come on? Like it's not like or just like ice cream or something, or you eat too much like peat, like just you know, you have something that like you're like, oh, it's not a big deal. Then you see like all your metrics like day after day decline, you know, it's kind of funny.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

It's it's interesting that I feel like especially when you're in this mode where you're juggling all the things, right? It's like it's set up, it's kids, it's family, it's day-to-day life, it's like who even knows how much laundry you have to do still right now. Um, if you aren't proactively disciplined, you will flail, right? Like this happens to me all the time, right? Like the discipline isn't in the reaction. It has to be like, I don't need this yet, but if I skip doing this thing now, two days from now, everything's gonna fall apart. So like I cannot skip doing this thing. That's what I need to work on.

SPEAKER_03 44:29

Um I think we all feel like particularly if it's a priority, then you always like I always feel like I need to do it more like there's never I mean, I think like balance is important and and not every like as you said, because I'm sort of also obsessive on optimization too. But then I'm like, okay, I still want to like. You know, have some time to relax or whatever. And um, but yeah, it's like you like like I feel like at this point in my life, I had to be so insanely consistent, like with my health and my schedule, like my sleep schedule, my work, my responsiveness. And I really am trying to be like super dialed into like the benefits of doing it and how quickly I see things start to fall off, like from speed or progress, like when I'm not incredibly consistent. Like we have to, I feel like you have to be so much more disciplined than like what we see in society, like in general. Like way more.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

And you have to figure out you don't have to do all the things, that's too much. Yeah, um, but you have to figure out the things that actually make the biggest difference for you. For me, that's going on a long walk in the morning, so like after the kids get on the bus. That's great, like with a weighted vest, like a grandma, like right on like 45 minutes, like really tire you out. Um, I'm a I'm a different person if I don't do that for two days in a row. It's just you're like, I'm like the oxygen, the exercise. I don't know what it is, but for whatever reason, it's that.

SPEAKER_03 45:55

Yeah, I mean it's yeah, working out is it makes such a huge difference, right? Like in my productivity and just mood in general, I think. Like energy levels.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

Yep, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_03 46:09

Stress and yeah, and yeah, just outlook, general outlook, like significantly, significantly better. Yeah, it's um it's like investing in yourself is like one way to think about it, right? Like taking the time to invest in ourselves with sleep and working out and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 46:26

Yeah, um, yeah, and this all I feel like we're making this all sound like go, go, go, all the time, all the time, all the time. But like there have to be spaces of quiet in your day, you know, otherwise, like usually when I'm on that walk, I'm not listening to anything. Sometimes it's a book or a podcast for music, but most of the time I'm like, oh the birds.

SPEAKER_02 46:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

Yeah, there are birds, it's spring.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

Um, and that that helps a lot. So sometimes it's not, sometimes it is. You need to do more, and sometimes it's like you need to strip away stuff. There's too much noise, there's too much distraction in your life. Like you need to strip some of it out.

SPEAKER_03 47:05

I agree. Particularly when you are really busy, constantly listening to stuff, like consuming stuff versus just like being, you know, like what you were saying, like listening to the birds versus like music. Because like at the end of the day, I feel like anything we consume, even if it's like music or I mean, it's all stuff that's like activating different parts of our brain, leaving different impressions on us. And it's like, okay, if you're already running a million miles per hour with a startup and kids, like your brain needs time of not consuming information constantly, right?

SPEAKER_00 47:38

Yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah. I'm not gonna tell you how often I read the news because it's very rarely.

SPEAKER_02 47:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:45

But uh yeah, one thing I also noticed in people, I feel like I noticed this a lot in young people or people who are getting started, um, who like want to start something, start a business, start a thing, build a thing. Um, they get into this mode of like wanting to consume everything related to building, which I feel like is good to a certain extent, but past a certain extent, it's just procrastination, right? Like you can listen to 500 startup podcasts, and like if you never actually do anything, right? It doesn't like you're not actually you're not actually making any progress. Like you have to you have to do the thing and do it poorly. Like just, you know, just start. Um, but sometimes when I when I notice, like, am I am I in the mode of like massively consuming information? Am I up like am I avoiding doing something? Like, do I need to just get something done um instead of try to learn, learn, learn, learn, learn constantly? Because at a certain point you have to you have to put the learning into practice, right?

SPEAKER_03 48:46

Yeah, you gotta run experiments, right? I mean, even scientists, right? Like they don't just stick to textbooks, like they're out like running experiments. Like, I mean, you gotta like get out there and take action. Yeah, yeah, you do see that. You do see a lot of people do that, you know. Yeah, it's well intentioned and can be super helpful, but I think it also can become like a comfort zone for people where they feel productive because they're just constantly learning, but like getting out and executing and doing it feels really uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_00 49:17

Right, right. It's like how I feel when I'm I go to the nutcracker like once a year. I'm not like a ballet person. It's gonna make me sound like a ballet person, but like when I'm watching uh a ballet performance, I'm like, wow, like look at those muscles, like look at this like incredible feet, and then uh I'm not dancing, right? Like, no part of me is performing any of that, but it feels like I've like, I don't know, like absorbed some of the achievement just by listening to it, um, which I haven't. So you if you want, if you want to you gotta dance, if you want to be able to do it, you have to dance, right?

SPEAKER_03 49:54

You gotta go do the thing, yeah. So we talked a little bit about your future, and like I I know you're like very mission-driven, and I know you're also very just like career-driven. Like you're you're I think your perspective is like more holistic than that in terms of like what you're here to do. And I know there's things that are more important than that, but um you know the first thing that you you mentioned was really thinking about your future, and it I think it ties professional future, it ties into what you're doing at Fruitful, but you have a pretty cool mission. I I would love to kind of hear about like what you feel like you want to build for the future.

SPEAKER_00 50:28

Yeah, when it comes to what we're doing right now at Fruitful, um my like my end goal here is gonna sound audacious and crazy, but I want to solve personal finance for Americans, right? Like it's the number one stressor, it's the leading cause of tension in relationships. Um, people are stressed out and anxious and they don't know what to do with their finances and they can't manage them. And that's not their fault, it's the system's fault. Um, and so I really want to change that system and and flip it all on its head and be like, you know what? Nowhere in the world, like Americans are the best supported, like they save the best, they're the most financially illiterate, they're the wisest, like they build things, they're not taken advantage of. Like, I want to flip that script entirely. Um, and the way that we're doing that at Fruitball is by focusing a lot on automation, because what we found in the era of like advice um and awareness, awareness being like budgeting tools or budgeting apps, and advice being it could be like a influencer or it could be a financial advisor, like or it could be chat GPT now. Like there are plenty of ways to get advice. Um, there are plenty of tools that also give you some awareness around like, hey, where has my money been going? Like, what have I been spending it on? Um, but there really is nothing in the category of execution. And that's the problem. Like we know what we need to do, and we kind of know where the money has been going. If we put in effort, we can kind of figure that out. But it's really, really hard to actually do it, to actually spend less, to actually save more, to actually invest more. And so our entire approach is built around um money systems and automation and execution. And I think that's the only way we have a shot at um achieving that like big, big, big, big mission of helping Americans do better. Because you have the opposite happening, which is that there's so much technology and automation that is leading people down the not good path. Like it's so easy to accidentally overspend. There are subscriptions, their embedding apps, they're like all these things that make it so easy and automated to do poorly financially. If we want a shot at changing the narrative here, we have to give them the alternative that makes it so easy for them technologically to do well financially. So yeah, we talk about fruitful for 10 hours.

SPEAKER_03 52:49

Yeah, no, it was like a super interesting, super interesting business. And it's uh seems like a lot of it's based on the kind of integrations and kind of like the integration, like having almost like an all-in-one approach to personal finance, like within one application is what enables like these automatic automated like workflows to like from an execution perspective versus having all these like segmented systems that yeah, frankly, are built on like very archaic technology that don't really communicate well with each other.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

Yep. Um right now people are their own middleman in finances, like like this app tells them to do this thing, and they have to talk to like 20 different apps and they have to do the transfers and they have to remember things. You don't need to be your own middleman.

SPEAKER_02 53:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

We want we want technology to be like kind of like your your personal private banker. Like they've got it. Like stuff is moving, they're paying the bills, they're telling me how much I can spend, like, oh yeah, they already moved that money to the investment account. Um, and we can do that now with technology, which we couldn't do, you know, five years ago. So uh now is the time.

SPEAKER_03 53:54

Yeah, it's it's awesome. I I definitely encourage everyone like tuning in to check out Fruitful. Um and because you had shown me kind of like a dummy account, um, or whatever you want to call it, like uh like uh when we were meeting for for coffee. And I thought it's like really cool. And it's like it seemed really intuitive as well, like the interface and uh, right.

SPEAKER_00 54:14

Um that's one of my my other goals here is that most of the industry, this makes me so mad. Um, most of the industry uh makes things seem more complicated to make them seem smarter to make you buy something. Here's this like advanced options trading thing, or this is actually really complicated investment approach, or here's this like nuanced thing about how you buy and whole real estate or something. Like by making that seem complicated and hard, so like then you'll buy things from them. But the reality is like this stuff is actually like really simple. And so we're not trying to make any of it seem more complicated than it actually is. We're actually trying to make it seem like as simple and as straightforward as possible. So it's not intimidating, so it's super clear. And people are like, Great, yes, obviously I should do this. Like, I'm gonna push go, like done.

Family First Then Systems Over Willpower

SPEAKER_03 55:04

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like there's clear very clearly, like, there's a big emphasis on UX, like just like seeing within the app, too, like the mobile view. It's really cool. Um, so all this being said, like you know, very successful, ambitious entrepreneur, wire like an entrepreneur through and through. Uh from my perspective, like you know, from our conversations. Um, but you know, you also talked to me about a couple of like holistically in terms of your future and how you think about like your value system and what's most important. You shared a a couple of like quotes that really resonate with you as like almost lead to kind of guiding principles. Um you know the first one you said is um that I would like to start with. You said uh no success can compensate for failure uh at home, or something like that. Was that did I say it right?

SPEAKER_00 55:58

Yeah, no, no success can compensate for failure in the home. I think my parents said this on the wall at some point, somewhere. I don't know. Um but it it like resonates with me, right? Like you can you can build the biggest business in the world, or I guess I'll only speak for myself. I could build the biggest business in the world and be, you know, ultimately financially successful. And 10 generations of Palmers will never have to work again. Like, but if my like if my kids don't want to talk to me, if they don't want to see, like if they don't like each other, if we don't enjoy spending time together, if there are like relationship troubles, like it's not worth it. None of it is worth it um at the expense of of family. Um, because really, like this is something you and I were talking about when we were having um coffee was like you don't have to. Like you could have a perfectly fine life if you're not uh naturally like wired to be a builder, like that's fine. You can have a happy foam, a happy home, a happy family, being a teacher or being a whatever it is that you do in the world. And so it's it's not like you're not obligated to go and do huge big things. Um, but if you want to and if you like to, probably like most people who are listening to this, then you just have to make sure not to put the cart before the horse, right? Like just because you're into it and you're capable of doing something big, you shouldn't forget um what really matters most to you. And and for me, that's has always been family.

SPEAKER_03 57:26

Yeah, for sure. I think it's like our our health and our relationships, our health in our family, uh they have to come first. And also I think they they're typically considered like more directly responsible for our our ultimate happiness or level of fulfillment. Like I think life's work, like as an entrepreneur, I think it's like opposed to thinking things as a career, we see it as our like our life's work, which makes it from our perspective like really fulfilling. Or at least, you know, for me, like I see it as like I approach my career, I'm fortunate enough to be able to consider it's like, okay, what do I want to do with my life's work? Right, it's different. Yeah, but like health for me, it's like I have to, I feel like I have to put it first because I have to be healthy to provide for my family. Yeah, like my daughter needs me to be healthy. I can't even I should want to be healthy for me because it's like my quality of life, but I also selfishly can't like decide to be unhealthy because I I have to set an example for her for how her to you know treat her own body and prioritization, but also I have to be there. Like she needs me to be healthy, right? And so it's like I put like the health, I like family, and I feel like if our relationships are in a good place and we're fortunate enough to be healthy and take care of ourselves, like you know, we can be like really happy, um, or you know, at least like you know, like more so than if we, I guess if we didn't, is sort of like the way that I kind of think about it. In terms of like our own level of fulfillment, too. It's like I one quote that resonated with me, you might like this one is like the quality of our life is the quality of our emotional state, um, like where we kind of live emotionally. And I feel like if our relationships are in a good place and our health is in a good place, like emotionally we're gonna be in a hopefully like a really centered good place. Sort of like how I kind of it's like similar, right? Like it's sort of how I think about it too, right? Like relationships, family need to come first.

SPEAKER_00 59:13

It's never gonna be there all the time, right? Like we were, I was um I was talking to someone about this idea of young people and um how much they're spending on wellness stuff. It's kind of like a like a new thing. Like young folks are spending a lot of money willingly on wellness things in a way that generations didn't beforehand. Um, and I think it's because they wellness is like a positive thing. Like for our our generation, I'll speak for us maybe. Yeah. Um, I feel like for uh our parents and above, like being healthy was the uh lack of being ill. Like if you are not chronically ill or injured, you're healthy, right? Like it's the if you're it's not a negative, it's a healthy. Right. But I feel like for our generation, like wellness is actually like a positive thing. It's like feeling well as opposed to just not feeling sick. And sometimes that can feel aspirational, you know, like no one's gonna feel well all the time, relationships aren't gonna be well all the time, but it's the it's the resilience, it's the return to normal, it's the kind of like how long does it take you to recover when you got that really bad news about that contract, or when you had that difficult conversation with that person um that matters the most. And you know, we're gonna be we're gonna be humans throughout all of it. But you can be you can be well without feeling well constantly, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:38

Oh, yeah, for sure. Like things are gonna come up, right? Always. Yeah, yeah. Um so you also another quote that you shared with me, it was about like all careers exist to serve the ultimate career. What what was it exactly?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:53

Yeah, I'm just paraphrasing, I think this I think this was the S. Lewis one, but it was um about how all um all professions or all careers exist to serve the ultimate profession or career, which is like homemaking. So this is like a very radical, you know, thing for him to say. It's like homemakers, the ultimate career, right? Like but um, but I don't know, it kind of kind of like resonates with me because it informs my perspective, right? Like, and it kind of makes sense, right? Like we have cars and automobiles and technology and food and buildings and education and resources, all because we need those in the home and we need those as people and we need those in our families. And so if all of these things are meant to serve uh the home and the family, then that's the end, like that's the end goals. Like happiness at home is the end pursuit. Um like when it comes to finances, like money is often the biggest point of contention um in homes. And that can come from misaligned expectations, right? Like, like we talked about before. It can come from just like the stress of being in the economic environment that we're in right now. Like, holy smokes, it costs how much to buy a house here? Like, are you crazy? Those are those are very much um realities that people face, but there's a lot that we can do to to bring that stress level down um in people either just individually or um with them in their home or their family or the relationships they have. Like money doesn't have to be the biggest stressor. Like it is it's very solvable, you know. Like let's let's solve it for people.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:31

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think it's like, you know, we were talking about discipline earlier, and like it is critically important, but I don't think we can be successful off willpower alone. Like it, we you have to build systems, you have to like talk about like obsessively optimizing, you have to have like automation. As you you mentioned, um, you taught me. This isn't coming from you guys, it's coming from Rebecca. Like, you taught me that in order to like really be successful or optimize something, you have to like you have to automate it. Um, you have to find those types of opportunities because it's like we like willpower is important, discipline is important, but like you also like you're a human being, right? Like you need systems, right? Like things that make it easier so it's not constantly pushing a boulder up a mountain. Like we need systems that automate, right? Like that's yeah, because that's the ultimate thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:22

Yeah, that's the only way that you um that it can go in the part of your brain that requires like active management and active weight to just like running on autopilot, right? Like, think about how calm you feel. Well, maybe this is the bad example. I was gonna say, when you're driving to like preschool drop-off or whatever, because you you know the route, you've driven it five million times, and like you don't even have to think about it, you don't even know how you got there because it's just so automatic for you. Like, that's what we um have set up to happen with people's finances, right? Like, you don't even have to think about it. Like, you're gonna have enough money to pay your bills and to buy groceries and like all of those goals and priorities that you have. You want to send your kids to college, you want to pay debt, you want to buy a house, like whatever it is. Like every little bit of progress that is available to be captured is automatically captured and routed. So you don't have to like actively think about it so much because that will be exhausting.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:18

Right. It it that's yeah, that kind of is right, like doing too much manually on an ongoing basis, right? Like just constantly. Like, I don't know, I I'd consider myself like a relatively disciplined person, but again, I think one thing as I've gotten older is like in a way cutting myself a little sex and being like, okay, I can't just operate off like sheer willpower. Like I can, I can do it a lot, but like I need help, right? Like I need ways to kind of outsource and to automate and to like take a world of like seemingly endless complexity and simplify like as much as I can, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:54

Yeah, we I think most of our most of our day actually is run by habits. And so Oh, for sure. Yeah, and um, and there are lots of great books out there on that and lots of great studies that I'm gonna have to talk about. But it's just really interesting. Like if you can if you can automate it, you will achieve the thing. You will.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:12

It's just a question of time. Setting course and having, yeah, just progressing towards right.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:17

It's the the analogy that we make sometimes um with fruitful is that like we've created self-driving money, which is usually usually a thing that people understand. Like you just put it in the destination. You don't even have to drive the car. Like you just you just sit there. Like it will take you where you need to go, it'll make the turns, it'll make the trade-offs. There's a road block, it'll reroute, like it will take you where you need to go. Um, which is cool. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:42

So yeah, yeah. Well, it's a it's a really cool business that you're building, and I'm really excited to see how it um continues to to progress. And um, yeah, it's uh got a lot of really exciting things going on, and I love your like just perspective and and worldview. And um it's also just like a very cohesive story, like in terms of just different things, like terms of like how you how you grew up and your values, and it it's like it's pretty cool to see like where that's led you today and where you know the direction you're heading. So Rebecca, I just want to say thank you like so much for joining me today on the show. And um, I've had a lot of fun uh recording with you and getting to know you, and um, you know, I know our our audience has too, so yeah, it's been it has been so fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:31

Um, and we are not that very far away from each other, so I think I think we're friends now. We're gonna find all the other entrepreneurs in the area and uh gather them together.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:39

Well, yeah, and I think if I remember correctly, you were um you were interested in in getting involved with uh Georgetown entrepreneurship, right? We talked about that, I think, briefly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:48

If I can do that.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:49

Yeah, yeah. Cause I think you didn't you do like you did like a cert or something at Georgetown, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:53

If I remember from your link, that's that's where I did my CFP actually, was in Georgetown.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:57

Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. Yeah, I gotta I gotta make some um some intros there too. But yeah, we should definitely work on that together. But anyways, um for everybody to tuning in, let's go ahead and wrap up. Thank you so much for joining us today, and and we'll talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:09

Thanks, James.