Lacey Filipich graduated as valedictorian in chemical engineering before starting work in the mines. Since then, she’s accomplished many things including becoming financially free, giving a TEDx talk, writing a book called “Money School” and founding a company by the same name.
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Content
00:00 Lacey Filipich
00:23 Intro
00:55 The Start of Lacey's Financial Journey
02:02 Lacey and Financial Independence
09:21 A Break from Work and Overseas Travel
16:27 How did Lacey restructure her life?
21:17 How to start your financial journey
26:19 Learning to run her own business
30:51 Saving More or Earning More
39:56 Asking for Pay Rises
50:01 Lacey's Advice for Graduates
58:14 Connect with Lacey
59:01 Outro
Lacey Filipich graduated as valedictorian in chemical engineering before starting work in the mines. Since then, she’s accomplished many things including becoming financially free, giving a TEDx talk, writing a book called “Money School” and founding a company by the same name.
Graduate Theory Newsletter
https://www.graduatetheory.com/29-lacey-filipich
All links in one place
https://linktr.ee/graduatetheory
Direct Links
https://www.graduatetheory.com
https://www.graduatetheory.com/buzzsprout
https://www.graduatetheory.com/instagram
https://www.graduatetheory.com/youtube
Content
00:00 Lacey Filipich
00:23 Intro
00:55 The Start of Lacey's Financial Journey
02:02 Lacey and Financial Independence
09:21 A Break from Work and Overseas Travel
16:27 How did Lacey restructure her life?
21:17 How to start your financial journey
26:19 Learning to run her own business
30:51 Saving More or Earning More
39:56 Asking for Pay Rises
50:01 Lacey's Advice for Graduates
58:14 Connect with Lacey
59:01 Outro
And even if you don't get to that goal, even if you don't reach the point where your assets are paying you enough to cover your living costs, you're still going to be in a much better financial position than if you didn't, your life will be easier and less stressful. So why wouldn't you take the shot?
James:Hello and welcome to graduate theory. Today's guest is a financial educator, founder speaker, and chemical engineer. She graduated as valedictorian from chemical engineering before starting work in the mines. And since then she's accomplished many things, including becoming financially free, giving a TEDx talk and writing a book code money school at the county and company by the same name, please welcome to the show, the financial guru Lacy filled bitch.
Lacey:Yeah. Hi James. Thanks for having me.
James:That's great to have you on the show and I'm excited to talk about yeah. Everything to do with finance and kind of your own financial journey. Uh, perhaps we can sort of wind back the clock to, to the start of this journey that you've been on. And I wonder if that was, if there was a moment when you first started taking your finances a little bit more seriously and kind of realizing the potential that was.
Lacey:Yeah, I'm going to sound really strange right now and say it was when I was 10, so that's quite young, but that's when I first learned about compound interest. And I learned that money makes money when it's in the bank. My mum had told me breeds like rabbits and my eyes just lit up. And from that moment I started saving half of every dollar I've ever earned. So that's nearly 30 years ago now. So that'll dive me. Um, but yeah, that's a long time to be saving, but I put that as the start of when I started getting interested in money and realizing that money could be wasted or used sensibly for a specific purpose. And so I thought, well, I'm going to. It's been the half with impunity on what I want to spend it on it. And the other half I'm going to save and make the most of it.
James:Great. We ads pretty young age to get exposed, to like the idea of saving it and things like that. So it suddenly it's, you know, it's like compound interest idea. It helps to get started early and to get, you know, getting started that youngest is really cool. Um, really cool. And I want to ask it yet again a bit more because you have been on this huge financial journey. So when was the moment then from you'd gone from just saving and then to realizing, Hey, I can actually, you know, put my assets in my savings to work and I can actually kind of set up a life for myself where perhaps I don't have to work if I don't want to. I mean, what was that kind of the transition like that?
Lacey:Well, this is really interesting point. So the idea of, um, becoming financially independent. So that's like the goal that? a lot of people aim for, which is where your assets. So you might have properties that pay rent or shares that pay dividend, or even, even cash in the bank that pays interest. You might have bonds that pay a coupon. All those things are what make you financially independent. So all of a sudden you make enough money from those assets and you don't have to work anymore. I didn't actually do anything. They got me to financial independence thinking about that goal, which sounds ridiculous. Right? I just magically ended up there. That's not quite the case. It wasn't magic. It wasn't an accident, but I didn't ever have that in mind as my objective to be able to choose not to work while I was doing it. So I think that's really important for people to understand. It's great if you haven't got that goal, but it's not why I did it. The reason I did it was because I wanted to make the most of my money. And I'm an engineer, chemical engineer and engineers hate. Waste is our enemy. I just didn't want to see any of that money get rid away. So of course I'd learned about compound interest from us young. I had money in the bank and remember, this is back in the nineties when interest rates on savings were hitting nine and 10%, not compared to the couple of percent you get right now. So you got really quick growth compared to what you've got right now. So I'd seen that happening. And my mum and my teens had helped me put some of that money instead into a mutual fund, which got better return than interest. So I was aware that you could invest, but I hadn't been very active. You know, you just stick money in a mutual fund and it pays results. And then they, they take a fee. Um, what had happened was when I was about 17, we went to. And it was given for free at our local pub. And usually when you go to these seminars, their sales pitches, but somehow we were just super lucky. My mom and I, we went to this seminar and this guy was just talking about how to buy property. And he's general principle, which has stuck with me to this day is buy quality undervalued properties. That's what you're looking for. Good quality paying less than the market price. And that was when I was 17. So it started learning about that. My mum gave me the rich dad, poor dad book, which like, I love that book, not. a massive Kiyosaki fan. He's not my favorite person in the world. I would not recommend you go out and follow his advice anyway, but that books. That book, the principles in it and the way he explains the story, which apparently he's made up, um, very effective way to learn. So that had all happened in my, you know, as I was leaving school. And then when I was 19, I had quite a whack of savings. And my mum, I was telling her that I was going to go buy a nice car. Cause all my friends, I don't know, uni students is still the same. I'm assuming they are. We all drove terribly old, ugly, very cheap cars. That was pretty much the priority. You know, if you spent more than$1,500 in a car that was an expensive car. And I was going to go out and buy something flash, you know, and I said to my mum, Hey, look, I'm going to go buy a car. And my mum said, you know, that could be a deposit on a property. And I went, oh my gosh. And that's when I started. Thinking back to all that stuff. I've been learning over the last couple of years about how property investing worked and how you use leverage and leverage is debt, right? You're borrowing money, pretty risky decision at 19 years old. Now I look back at it. I go, wow, that was gutsy. Um, it's kind of, uh, it's going to one of those things that you do when you're naive that you might not do if you had too much information. But the fact that I did it at the time that I did, it was 2001 in Brisbane. I was just before we had property. I bought a little property, a little, two bedroom, one bathroom apartment. It was hideous. So ugly. Oh my God. Brown everything, brown carpet brown, brick walls, brown sailing across. And when I got the case and I got inside and I was like, wow,
James:Oh, well,
Lacey:disgusting. Um, and 50 square meters Tawny. Right. You know, but it was the first property I bought in. I just got in before this boom. So the probably pressed doubled in two years, just luck that, that timing, if I'd waited two years till I had finished university and I had a steady job, because of course at the time I was only working, you know, during the week, about 12 hours a week and working about 30 hours to 40 hours a week on the S on the holidays at uni. Um, but I was getting paid reasonably well, Back then, you got paid about a hundred bucks a week as a, um, student engineer. That was pretty good, you know, at 20 years ago. And. That was the decision I made. And that was the beginning. And then, because I had seen that experience, I was about 21, my property prices doubled some equity had doubled and I hadn't taken out a very big mortgage comparatively speaking, cause I had a great big deposit. Um, and I was paying the mortgage down. And so this is how it works. So that was really, I think the point at which I could, I realized I could do more with my money than just leave it in the bank and earn interest.
James:Yeah, certainly. I think it's a, that's a really cool story. And, you know, I guess a little bit of luck involved there, but you know, you're really cool and certainly shows the power that you can do the things you can do with your money. Cause especially at the moment, like putting it, perhaps when you were looking at stuff too, you know, the, the interest rates at the bank, you know, on the best. So it's certainly, it's it, it's important to look at other other avenues and you know, places to put your money. So it's not just getting the 0.0, zero five or whatever the interest rate
Lacey:As hot it's hot, straight. So I'm going to go up, but it is, it's this awful thing because you'll never know what's going to happen when you do the thing. I could only look back in retrospect and go, wow. My timing was great. The market could have stayed low for another two years and I might not have built that equity. Um, it could have gone backwards as property does do. I was very lucky, but what, what luck actually ends up being is circumstance plus being prepared. So you can't control the circumstances in a lot of ways, we can't control the life we're born into. We can't control. Um, our starting point, we can't control what the economy is going to do, whether there's going to be a war or a pandemic, we can't control all of these things, but you can be prepared to grab an opportunity when it comes to. If you wait until the opportunity's there and you're not prepared, it's much harder than to get ready in time before the opportunity passes. That's I guess what I've learned in the, in retrospect, the fact that I was prepared and able at that time to buy meant that I could do it. And it was still a risky decision. It's not necessarily something that every university student should consider doing. There's certainly a lot of risk involved with it, but it paid off and I was lucky. Um, and so those two things together are what adds up to getting ahead, um, could have gone the other way, but it's really important that you make sure you're prepared because if you can be prepared, then maybe the opportunity won't come along and that's okay. But if the opportunity does come along, then you're ready to jump on it and you don't lose the time that you would learn all those new things about to be able to be ready. And then the opportunity is gone. So that's probably the learning I've had from that.
James:Yeah, definitely. No, that's really cool. And that's pretty good advice. Definitely. Um, I want to ask too about your, so you went, you were working full time for awhile. I know you mentioned this in your, in your Ted talk, right. You're working for a bit, you're kind of getting a little bit better out from working so much. And then you kind of one of these, this big trip, uh, you know, trying to almost escape work for a little while, you know, uh, talk to me about that and kind of the reasons why he went and then, and what you liked and what kind of reflecting on while you're awake and how that impacted you when you were coming back.
Lacey:Yeah. So I think everybody has a moment at some point in their life when they realize they're not invincible anymore. A lot of your listeners probably haven't had that moment. And maybe those listeners are saying it'll never happen to me, which is normal, by the way, that's human nature to think it won't happen to me. But at some point in your life, you'll have this moment of crisis where you go, wow, I could die or I could get really sick or, you know, I don't have complete control over my body's response. And I think having that happened to me in my twenties, That's quite young, have that moment. And a lot of people don't have it until they're later in life. Some people have it earlier. Some people are confronted by it, you know, in their youth. But, um, for me, it came in my twenties and what had happened was I had been working to. Which sounds ridiculous. Doesn't it I'm completely the opposite now. But at, at the time I was doing a job that was really, really intense. It's called change management as a broad brush sort of thing. But my job was basically to go to mine sites and help them make more money with more money without spending money. So they had to make more tons to produce more it's optimization, business improvement, all that kind of stuff. But when you're dealing with a workforce that might've been there for 30 or 40 years, it takes almost like a force of personality to convince them to change. Like the, the big work is in sitting down with people and persuading them to do something that they've done the same for 30 or 40 years to do it differently. And it's hard and it takes a long time. And when I say a force, a personnel, you really do need it. You need charisma, you need persistence. You need to be so annoying. Um, which turns out something I'm very good at anyway. So. I had done really well in this role and I was getting promoted and, um, they had decided to make me an internal consultant, because of course you pay a lot of money for consultants to do that. And the mining company I worked for wanted to have an in-house team and I was the Guinea pig. So it started sending me to different sites. So you're going to all these sites that are like really intense, it's really full on work. And I just didn't have a holiday for about 18 months, about a year in. I was like, I'm really tired to my boss. I'm like, I think I need to have a break. And my boss said to me, well, we're doing this six months turnaround. You can't, you can't have a break now. Sorry, you've got to keep pushing through. So I sort of knew I was feeling tired and I was like, oh, well I better do it. You know? And at this stage, I didn't really understand. Um, I guess I was still coming to terms with what it's like being an employee and a. And how the company's needs come before yours in some cases. Now my boss was at had a very good explanation. I know you are listening to it, be able to see this, but it's, you know, imagine two hands crossing fingers and joining together that you have to go hand in hand, the employees needs, and the bosses needs the boss representing the company has to go hand in hand, but in this case, my needs couldn't be met. And as a result, I got really sick. I spent five weeks in bed, which at like 26 years old is quite shocking. And it was because I got a virus and so unavoidable. It's not like I got chronic fatigue or anything, but the. hit me for six, because I was so rundown because I hadn't been eating well. I hadn't been exercising. I was all work, work, work, work, work. And that just really made me think, well, my gosh, like four weeks of lying in bed, surrounded by tissues, I was lying there going, am I ever getting out of bed again? Am I ever like, is my life ever going to be normal again? Um, and that was enough for me to go, oh my gosh, I really want to do this. So yeah, I did run away, uh, you know, came back to work for a few weeks and I was better to tidy up and handover. And then I went for three months to south America with my partner. Who's now my husband. And that was my moment of trying to get better and recuperate. And I spent a lot of time thinking and it was during that trip that I was like, this is stupid. Why would I work myself to death? Why would I. Like, yeah, they'll pay me a good wicket, but life's too important for that. So that's where I started thinking about, I don't really want to Southern my guts out and look, I was on a, you know, they talk about the, um, high-performer program. It was on the high before former program. I was EMF to be a vice president within five to seven years. So, you know, like you want to hit these targets and they motivate you mostly through money, uh, effectively. Um, and I was like, this is not worth it. It's not worth it. And I looked around at all the people who'd reached general manager level and vice president level. And I was like, this is about time served. Um, they're the last people standing, other people tapped out. And when I can't keep up, uh, much more than your capability. Uh, so I sound very cynical. I know,
James:no.
Lacey:but that's what happened to me. And there's lots of people who can do that. Well, there's lots of people who. They promoted or do high stress work and they can manage their personal life. I'm just not like that. I'm a campaign worker. When I work, I work intensely and I'm very focused and then I have to stop and take a break. And that's what I've learned about myself. I need to, I can do the intense work for a period of time, but I have to allow recuperation time. And Monday to Friday, 48 weeks a year, I ain't going to accommodate that. So I do not suit working as an employee anymore. Um, so it was a big thing to realize when I was in my twenties.
James:Yeah, definitely. Well, yeah, we had, I know that, you know, male as well, and she had a similar. Uh, recently, you know, she said like a similar thing, she was just working so much and it just, you know, just everything kind of fell down after that. And she had to kind of put things back together. Um, but yeah, I think that's, that's really important to know and important for people to realize that you gotta pay attention to what's going on as well. It's fortunate in some ways that you got, um, you got sick and were able to sort of realize what was going on. Um,
Lacey:Yeah, the silver lining for every cloud, right?
James:yeah.
Lacey:was pretty, pretty like, oh my gosh, my career plan to get to CEO by the time I'm 40, just disappeared. Do I don't do that anymore? Um, what am I going to do? So it felt awful, but you're right. It's pivotal. And that does open so many other options that I hadn't even considered. And when I look back now and I think I could have been slugging my guts out, putting my kids in childcare from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM, what would be the point? Well,
James:yeah.
Lacey:going to do that, so I know, that I sound very judgy. There, there are people who that works for and they want to do that, but that's not what I want. I want to be at home with the kids. I want to see them grow up. I want them to know me. um, and I want more satisfaction than, Um, just knowing that I helped some shareholders get an extra two or 3 cents on a dividend.
James:Yeah, no, I think that's really, really cool and important to it. Yeah, really cool. Because, so how did you approach that then? You know, you've gone from working a lot, you realize you want to change things. Like, what does that look like now? Is it like, did you change jobs at that point? Or how did you kind of go about restructuring things so that you could live life the way that you wanted to, um,
Lacey:Yeah. Yeah. This is a really important, I think thing that people would need to realize, and it's this concept of mini retirements that really changed everything for me. I read the four hour workweek, a friend heard about me going, oh my gosh, life crisis. What do I do? And said, you need to read the four hour workweek by Tim Ferriss. The four hour work week is the whole premise is design a business that you work on four hours once a week. So you can live in anywhere in the world. And it becomes like he calls it a muse at this. It's just a cashflow for you. And the idea is then that you can take these chunks of time off working. If you set the business up. You can take 3, 6, 12 months off and you do that when you're young, you don't wait till your sixties. Cause at the moment we sort of think of our life is divided into three segments, right? There's education. When you're young, there's working through your twenties to sixties and then there's retirement, which is you playing golf or whatever it is. You're going to do gray nomad travel the world. Look after the grandkids, whatever is your priority when you find a start working. So this is 40 years where you're going to get four weeks, a year of leave and you're going to maybe get long service leave if you're hanging around, who does that anymore? Um, so you're basically going to be working for 40. And when you're not working, when you're on holidays, you just trying to recover from that working. Um, his idea was no, have those breaks take that, take that, you know, it could be 10, 20, 30, 40 years, depending on how healthy and how long you live, break that up into smaller chunks and take them in your youth. And that was like, oh, that's me. That's what I need to do. I need to work really hard for six months and then have six months off. That's what I want to do. I want to try that. And so that's what I decided to do. Um, it took me a while to get to that point, by the way, I came back to work for another year and a bit after, um, after I finished my holiday around south America, took me a while to sort of say, oh yeah, no, I really want to do this. But when I did resign, I resigned to take six months off to work on a business idea. Cause I was going to create this. And, um, it was, it was just recuperation if I'm honest for me. And it was the beginning though, I did write and self publisher children's book called bunny money, which is about teaching kids about money. Cause that's the thing. I was like, oh, I really should work on this area. Can you talk a little bit about how I ended up picking that later? But, um, effectively what I ended up doing was spending the next three years, I'd work six months over winter and I would have six months off over the summer. And I did that by, instead of doing my job as an employee, I became a contractor and it turned out that the company that had trained me while I was an employee had a non-compete policy. So while I was employed, they couldn't make me a job offer. But once I resigned the next day, they called me like, Hey, would you like to be a consultant for us? Um, so there's things like that, that you're not aware of that are. And so I was able to take these six month contracts now because it's intense work. And because the contractors get paid a lot more, I ended up making more than my annual salary in six months. So that was like a, I didn't know that was going to happen, but it did. And I, my pay went up very quickly. So I was essentially making a lot more than I would have made if I'd stayed in the line, but working only six months, a year, four days a week, and then having six months off. So did that for three years. And in those breaks that I was having mini retirements, we would go and live down in Margaret river, which is south of Perth. Um, and have a great time eat well, exercise, sleeping, throw the alarm clock away, um, all those wonderful things. And I would work on my idea for money school, which came about because all my friends were going, how come you don't have to work full time anymore, Lacey, because they were all slugging their guts out. And I said, well, I've been buying properties and paying down the debt and I've been investing in shares and dividends. Uh, and I've been saying. So saving 50% of everything that I've been. So like me taking time off was nothing, you know, like I could've, I could've lived for five years off my savings alone without the income. And they were going, how did you do that? And I was like, well, I started saving when I was 10 and seven 50 when I was 19, like, what have you been doing? And of course they all have credit cards that they were paying off and they had Collins, but really fancy cars. And I was driving my crappy old car. It's still safe, but crappy old car, but I didn't have to work. And they were all going, this is not fair. How'd you learn about that? And that's why I started working on money schools to try and teach people about that. So that, that will happen as I was starting to see quite a lot of wealth being developed. And I was still churning my money into that investing, but that was the point at which I was like, Hey, there's an alternative. And I wanted,
James:Yeah,
Lacey:yeah.
James:that's cool. Yeah, that's really cool. And yeah. Uh, a really cool story. Um, certainly I wonder there's a lot of like different things that I want to, I want to touch on. Um, and, and the first is perhaps like someone that wants to start, like, let's say, let's say someone is like three years into their career, you know, and they've heard this and they're like, wow, I really. Embark on this journey of taking my financial life a bit more seriously and kind of growing my, my finances towards the fire, you know, sort of movement, you know, I want to kind of be financially sustainable without necessarily having to work or working less or whatever that might be. Um, you know, what, what would be like the first steps that someone should take to sort of go down that path?
Lacey:So I, when I talk to people about how do you become financially independent? There are only three rules, only three rules. Okay. Safe buy assets, avoid bad debt. That's it. So, so long as you're applying those rules, the percentages don't really matter how much you say. It's about what you can afford and your personal circumstances, I could afford to say 50% of everything. I owned other people. Can't some people can say more like if you want to get there really quick, there are people who save over 90% of their income and live on 10% of it. Right? So, so the percentages are kind of irrelevant. The principles are what matter. So as long as you save, as soon as you take most of those savings, you need to keep something. Cash is like a buffer to get you through any emergencies. As long as you take the rest of those savings and buy assets with them and assets are things that put money in your pocket. As long as you don't get sucked into bad debt. Now, when I talk about debt, bad debt, we're talking you about car lines, credit cards, buy now, pay later, pay advances, all those kinds of things, anything where you are taking money from future you, because future you has to pay it back, but you're not buying an asset with it. That's bad debt so long as you do those three things. You have a very good chance of getting to financial independence and it's about how aggressively you do those. So if you want to get there quick, save more and investment, all right. That means you might be sacrificing some quality of life or something that you want to do earlier on. If you don't want to do that sacrifice, and you can only save a little bit, then it just takes you a lot longer, but you still get there. And even if you don't get to that goal, even if you don't reach the point where your assets are paying you enough to cover your living costs, you're still going to be in a much better financial position than if you didn't, your life will be easier and less stressful. So why wouldn't you take the shot? Um, so if you're thinking about it, what you need to think about is how much can you save and if you can't save anything right now, when do you think you're going to be able to save? Is it when you get your first job out of uni? Is it when you go from being on probate to being permanent? Um, is it when you get a certain number of clients for your small business as a sole trader, but once you get that. Set it up so that you can't stop saving, make it automatic, isolate your savings account, have it automated. So the transfers happen straight away. Get your payroll to pay into that savings account. Don't have it connected to any spending and then make sure you do something for their savings and you will get there. So that's my advice to everyone. If you can't save right now, which is normal for a student, right? It's normal for students to be on the bones of their bum and struggling and, and eating like beans or two minute noodles. That's fine. And that happens to everybody. It happens to, you know, I think about my mother who was a single parent and there was a good decade in there where she could not say anything. She was too busy, making ends meet and trying to support two kids on like 30 grand a year. That's okay. Right. That, that happens to everybody. It's not your fault. It's not a problem. All you need to do is be ready. When you finally do find you have extra money, you save it, you don't spend it. Um, and make sure you start that the longer you wait to start that the longer it'll take you to get there.
James:Um, yeah, definitely. I think that's good. And, uh, I liked what you said there about yeah. You're sort of going to get there eventually, if you just save like any amount, you know, but it's just like how, how serious, like, you know, yeah. How much do you want to say it? And then how quickly do you want to get to that point? Whether it's
Lacey:it's just about speed then. It's just about speed. You want to get that quick, but the people who get there, the quickest, like in under 10 years usually are the people who save, you know, like my saving rate sounds hot. 50%. There are people who routinely save 70 to 80% of everything and they just leave it super frugally if that's, if that is okay for you and that's how you want to live, go for it. I don't want to give up nice holidays. I want to give up nice food. Um, so you don't have to, but if you really are dedicated and committed and that's what you want to do that. Okay, go ahead. Um, it's really, it's not a one size fits all answer. It's a choose your own adventure. And so there's just those three basic principles you've got to follow.
James:Yeah, definitely. That's cool enough. I want to ask as well. So you like starting your business with money school and all that kind of stuff. Like how did, how did you, like, there's a fair bit that goes into doing that sort of thing that you've got to learn, like how to market your product correctly. But I learned how to like, write and produce like all the content that's there. Like there's a heaps of different stuff. That's what goes into that? How did you kind of get started on that journey and kind of aligning all those skills that are needed to do that kind of thing?
Lacey:Yeah. Gosh, if I had, if I had known then what I know now, Yeah. So I guess festival that four hour work week was useful in that it talked about things that will suck time in your business and why you need to thoughtfully design your business before you start. So, so that was an advantage because I think a lot of people build successful businesses and they spend enormous amounts of time on them and they suddenly go, but I can't leave the business because it relies on me. And from the beginning I wanted to build something that didn't require my time. So that was sort of a guiding principle. And that's why I've never taken on investment. And I've never grown the business to have lots of employees because you can't turn it off if that happens. Um, unless you've got a really good general manager that you trust to run it and then you can walk away. So, and I didn't want to go down that path. So everything I did was about how do I make this business so that I can switch it on and off. um, so that it could still keep producing value for people while I'm not physically working. And, and how do I work on that? So that was my guiding principle. Now that works for someone who's a content producer and an educator, which is what I do. I produce educational financial content. Most of it is online and prerecorded, which I've been doing for years. It's be great last couple of years because people finally like, oh Yeah. we love this. Um, so there's a lot of that. And I've written a book obviously, which sells without me now, you know, like you read the book anytime, but I did the work for it back in 2019 and 2020. So. It's almost like having a passive income pond to set up for business. That's the way I've sort of thought about it. I still exchange my time for money. I still get hired to deliver courses. Um, I get state governments, local councils, employer bodies. I get schools get all sorts of people, hire me to deliver workshops and they might be a bit more bespoke, you know, people will want, or we want these people to learn about debt or these ones I want to learn about shares or, you know, can you talk about superannuation for women? You know, those sorts of things I get asked to do. So that's more time dependent. Um, but you're right. You have to learn how to do everything. Uh, absolutely everything you have to learn, how to be the accountant and the bookkeeper. You have to be the social media marketer. You have to be the person running the emails and the copywriter and all that stuff. If you don't want to build a big team, which I don't want to do. So yeah. I have become a bit of a Jack of all trades, but the great thing is there's lots of supportive communities out there where you can join, become a member and get involved. There's lots of, uh, online information and short courses you can do. And I actually have learned the most just from copying people who do it well, you know, and I don't mean like I copy and paste their content. I mean, if I get a really good email and I think that's a great email, how have they done that? You know, I'll analyze how they did the spacing, how long the sentences are, where they put the headline, how they chose the headline and then never in my industry to have people who have great industry, but you can learn just by observing. That's a lot of what I find myself doing and a lot of Googling. Um, but yeah, I've had 12 years now running my own business. So I do get lots of people ask me, where should I start? You know, that sort of thing. I think, um, starting with the end in mind is really important. The fact that I started my business, knowing that I didn't want it to be. didn't want to take investment because I don't want a boss and I want to be able to turn it off. Has, has decided where I've spent my time and where I have learned, um, not everyone's going to want a business. Like that just depends on what you want. Right. That was just, that was a priority for me. Um, but yeah, the resources out there are fantastic and just observing other businesses is great. You can get, you can learn so much by watching who does it well and, and learning from their methods.
James:Yeah. No, certainly that's really cool. And interesting to hear that. Yeah. A lot of it was from love, the things that you love or from picking up things from, uh, from other companies. I think that's, that's really going often. Yeah. Uh, yeah, I think that's really cool. And I want to ask you continue down this kind of learning theme. And I want to ask about, um, often, you know, when we talk about like financial independence, you know, there's kind of one side that gets a lot of attention, which is like, okay, I'm going to save X amount of how much I earn. And then there's the other side, which is maybe less spoken about, which is if, if I just continue to say the same, but I earn more than I've also saved more by doing that. So you can either save more, increase your income. That's kind of two ways I want to ask yourself, you know, how did you, how do you think about that? And, and, and then in particular sort of, how did you. Like go about increasing your income at different stages.
Lacey:Yeah. right. So I find the side of earning more income vastly more interesting than. Uh, I don't, I don't have a budget, which is, sounds amazing for a financial educator. I have 50% of what I've earned in an account, and I spend it with impunity. I'm pretty good at mentally budgeting. I know how much my expenses are and I'm not like a frivolous spender. So that works for me, but I don't have a detailed line by line budget. I couldn't tell you exactly where every dollar goes because I don't have to, because I find that really boring. I really don't get value out of it. I've tried it before. It works for a lot of people, but not for me. I have a lot more fun. How do I make more? So I don't care. That's where if I'm going to spend my time, I spend 90% of my time on how do I make. And I certainly my whole, my whole life's been like that. It started when I was a kid, um, you know, running my own business when I was 10, so that I could make money. Cause I couldn't get a job that paid well because paper rounds were too cheap. Um, you know, started a business that ended up with five of my friends being employees, you know, like that sort of thing. Um, I chose my, my career at school. So when I was 13 years and nine months, which is the legal age, you could get a tax file number in Queensland at the top. So I could finally be an employee. I started working. Before and after school care and vacation care, and I got a coaching qualification in artistic gymnastics. I was the youngest qualified coach in Queensland at the time they usually make you wait to 16, but I got there at 14. And the reason I did that was because you earned like$15 an hour as a coach versus$5 60 an hour at McDonald's at the time. So all my mates were off burning$5, 60 an hour at McDonald's sticking their arms into pickle barrels and coming home stinking. And I was coaching artistic gymnastics, and I would coach one hour and a half. And that would be like them working four hours so far from the beginning, I was aware that some jobs were paying. And that you had to look for jobs that were paid more. And that was a priority for me. Part of the reason I chose engineering is it's super well paid. Like it's, it's a really well-paid job. I mean, it's not like medicine, but I don't like medicine and I don't particularly want to work 24 hours in a shift, which is what they expect a lot of doctors and nurses today. So I wasn't interested in that, but engineering was a really good job, a really good job prospects at the time, you know, w this was like 2000 that I started university, and we were just about to come into a mining, boom and oil and gas, boom. And, um, you know, jobs are plenty. The other thing I'd also research was the fact that engineering was the most common qualification of CEOs in Australia after an MBA. Um, what's engineers run big companies is cause we're good problem solvers. And I was like, well, CEO's well paid, well be an engineer. And then I'll become a CEO. So my whole like career strategy, I loved chemical engineer love from somebody, but it was very much, I'm picking a role that I earn a lot of money. And that is what I spend so much of my time. These days, when I go to like women in technology WWI, we're going to schools, we talk about setting stem. I say, girls, ladies, everyone present, you make a lot more money in stem careers than you do in everything else. On average, the end pick a stem career, right? Like if you want to be financially independent, pick a job that's paid well. And I understand that there's a lot of people who want to do caring roles and that's far, our society does not pay caring. Well, you pick that role, getting a good income will. And you'll have to fight for it. If you're a guy with that, that's fine. Right. But going with your eyes open there. So it sounds quite misery and I don't like it. I think we should probably care is more, I think we should be paying all caring roles more. This is a mock of how society values people's time. So that's a big thing. I think people have got to acknowledge if you're going to pick a career that doesn't have good prospects for earning a solid income. And you're picking that at the beginning, I think a little bit crazy because it doesn't matter how much you love it. If you're going to struggle financially, you're going to induce stress on yourself. You're going to have a huddle. Now, so that's pretty depressing, sorry to ruin. Everybody's, you know, excitement about those who, who was studying philosophy and we're going to go live on a beach somewhere and, and, um, and, and relax, look, go for it. If you want to do that, but go in with your eyes wide open, you have to be deliberate about what kind of cruise you choose. So I've always been like that. So when I was in engineering, I would ask for rise out of cycle. Every six months I went into the office because you get know pay, you'd have your review once a year, but I would go in, in between and be like, Hey boss, I've done really well. Here's my list. I would like a pay rise. And so when I finally got promoted to superintendent, they were like, you're already in the pay band of the superintendent. How did you do that? And I'm like, well, I've just been negotiating the whole time. Uh, High jump. And I was like, no, no, you, you still need to pay me more. I'm not going to be a superintendent that no. So they still had to give me a pay rise, but they were like, you are already outside the bed. Well, so I should, I'm very, very good at my job. You know, I say, like I say that I'm very much self-entitled attitude that really pisses employers off. But if you don't ask, you will not get, it's really important that you're willing to ask. So I've never, I'm not rude about it. And I come in with evidence and I strongly believe I've delivered the value and that's why I get paid more. I'm not, I'm not nasty about it. Um, but you know, you can't go in, if you haven't done the job, you've got to be able to perform, but, um, you have to ask, so that just kept us doing. So that was one of those employee. And then of course, one day. The Timo was on. So it was on this team as a internal consultant and someone was running SAP. SAP is affectionately known as suffer after purchase. It's an online system that people use for all of the inventory control and invoice management in big companies. Um, so if you ever come across it, Yeah. enjoy that. But anyway, one of the guys on site had managed to look up the sub code for this project that we're on. And it was five, five consultants working for seven months. And it was$2.2 million. And he and I sat down and we did the calculation. We were like, so these people are company. And this is back in like 2007 was pain like between three and$6,000 per day per consultant. And we went, oh my gosh, that's ridiculous. Like, that was more than we would earn in weeks, you know, like it was.
James:Yeah,
Lacey:And we were doing the legwork and that would just chatting up. So that was asked going, holy am. I suppose that men. And of course, since then I've learned, yes, the type of consulting I do. I'll get charged out at five grand a day. That's what a company will pay for me for six months every day. So you make a lot more money. So you've got to go looking for those kinds of things. Cause it's exactly the same skillset. I could be an employee doing that internally for that company and earn a quarter of what they would pay a consultant to do. I'm a bloody good deal. And I would think I was winning, but actually changing average consulting. Now, when you go into a big. Of course, they take a big cut, a very big cut. So, you know, you might be charged out at five grand, but you might only own two and they keep three. So you've got to find a company, so it would pay you more. So I went looking for the companies that gave me a bigger cat and that's, that was it. And that's how I've approached it. Also, I, I sound very financially driven. I am not everybody cares about this stuff, but I I'm sorry, those of you who say, oh no, just follow your passion and the money will follow, or I know, I know it's not a well-paid job, but you should do it anyway. I think you've got to be pragmatic about whether you're going to be able to sustain the lifestyle choices you want, if you can, that's fine. But if you can't, you are setting yourself up for a bit of misery. You need to acknowledge that. Um, and then if you're like me, I'm the complete opposite end of the spectrum. I'm chasing the best pay I can get, um, and refusing to accept that. Um, and with my particular skillset, I can do that. And I've been very deliberate about building my skills and that's part of why I became that consultant and focused on those skills is because I was like, wow, if I can charge that amount of money for my time, who would, you know, what, why would you not pursue that? Especially when I loved it, that was the fortunate thing. I did love that type of work. Um, you know, but if you're doing it for money, you might as well make the most. So that's a very long answer, very cynical, very, there'll be a lot of people out there who think that's probably awful actually. Um, and that's fine, you don't have to do it my way. Um, but if you want to make a lot of money quickly, when you're young, it's worth thinking seriously about how you're going to do that.
James:yeah, that's really interesting. And I want to touch on that pace. You, you mentioned about like asking for pay, right? Like I'll cycle or every six months or whatever it, I think that's, that's really important because you need, like you say, you've got to do it in a certain way. Uh, you Thomas go there and you'd be like, hi boss, man. Like, please pay me more. And then just then that's it. Like, don't say anything else, I think. Yeah. Could you, um, I'd love if you could sort of elaborate on what you did that, because you did say, you know, I, I've got a list of things that I did and kind of how I've sort of outperformed or performed well in, in kind of what's expected of me. Um, like how did, how did you sort of typically approach those situations?
Lacey:Well, so there's, I guess, two things that are really important to think about pay rises, your greatest opportunity for getting a pay increases when you start a new role. So when you move from one role to another, within a company, but even more so when another company you move to another company, that's, that is your biggest point of leverage before they get you, because they want you, they want you to fill that role and whatever you start on it. And the behavior you start on with, with money will set a precedent for how they'll continue to treat you. But it is the time at which they are least likely to take you for granted. They are most likely to try and. yeah. of course, I experienced a lot of this during a boom when there was a lot of competition to employ people. It's very different if you're in an industry where your one of a hundred applicants, right. Or a thousand applicants, or in an industry where there's a lot of slack, right? So there's, you, you can't necessarily do this in every role. You've got to be very cognizant of what's happening in your industry. But if you've chosen a career and an industry where you know that currently it's on the seller, the employee's side, you know, that they, you know, you can, you can really push. And at that point, you need to think very seriously about how you do it. In my book, there's a script that I got taught. I learned all of this through mentoring. I had consultants and friends at work who taught me this stuff, you know? Um, and it was nerve wracking to apply, you know, the first time that I said that's not enough money and I want 50% more. I like chewed on my nails off, uh, sweated bullets for 24 hours. But like. Um, so it was worth doing, um, so you gotta be prepared for that. Um, and if you want to read that script, then borrow the book from the library or whatever, and have a look at that script. But I won't share that here because it's, um, want to work if we all do it and there won't be everybody who, uh, who goes and, uh, reads the book. So for those of you who are excited about that kind of a thing, go and have a look it up. But I think when you're in a role, so you're in your job and you've got the same boss or whatever the point is, why would they pay you more? Because you're adding more value and they either don't want to lose you, or they want to share profits with you. That's the way to think of it. Okay. You cannot get away with this. If you're a slacker who doesn't turn out to work or you don't hit your deadlines. Okay. So if you're that person you can try and they might give you more, more money, but it's not a reasonable ask. It will then look in titled, first of all, you have to do your job. Right. But once you're doing your job, well, then ask away and put it in the calendar. I think, um, a chat with your employer where you said, oh, can we talk about, I'd like to talk about an outer SoCo piracy, or, you know, I'd like to talk about other opportunities to request a piracy there. Things to remember is you don't have to be all rude and pushy, make it a chat. And if that just say no straight out of the gate, you can say, oh, okay. But why, um, and when might you be able to do that? You know, it's reasonable to ask for an explanation and to ask for a future date, what would you can do that if they're just like, well, you're never getting a pay rise and don't ask me again. Then you got to think seriously about whether your career is going to progress there and whether it's the right fit for you. however they're like, oh, okay. Well, tell me why, why do you think you're with you have a pay rise, Lacey, have your evidence. So I would have things that were not about necessarily milestones. So, those are important. It was about the actual value I delivered. So, Hey, we've seen a 10% increase in our production in my area, which adds up to, and at the time when I was leading one project, it was like$40 million a year. We were helping to add to the bottom line. Oh, one of those people, I'm not the only one, but I was leading. The team is like, we've added 40 million bucks a year to your bottom line. That's worth something. You know, like that's, that's, I'm doing a really good job, you know, so whatever it is in your job, whether it's a client satisfaction, Reviews is it costs? Is it production? Is it something that you've done? Is it an improvement you've delivered? Have you made other employees lives easier? Whatever it is. Keep notes of that. I had a diary that I just used to write them in and highlight them. And then, so I would come to when I had that discussion and when I had that first sort of like, Hey boss, can we talk about this? And they turned around to me. He said, well, tell me why. I'd be like, well, here are the five things I've done in the last six months that have added a lot of value that have gone above and beyond. And I think that means I deserve a paradise and most of the time they'd go, okay, let's talk about it. And then it's about negotiation. So, you know, they make an offer. You say, oh, that's not enough. And also the important part of that was about stuff that was lifestyle driven. We think about just the money, but it's not just the money. Sometimes companies can give us things. Why not massive financial impacts on them. So I have to find extra money for salaries, but they might be able to give you more flexibility. They might be able to offer you a car. They might be able to, you know, salary sacrifice something. This there's lots of things I can do that are not necessarily just financial. So how have you landed your, of what would work for you? It might not just be money, but having that list there so you can talk about it and they can go back now recognizing as well. That usually if you're in a big company, there's someone above there has to approve anything out of cycle. And it just depends on how I asked to go up. So having patients being polite, but also following up at agreed times. So if your boss says, look, I can ask and you can say, okay, well, can I, when can I check in with you? Would next Friday be okay for me to check in with you? And like, oh no, we wouldn't have the meeting until the following Thursday. So can I meet with you the Friday after to find out, you know, don't just let it go. Don't expect them to do it. Be polite, but be reasonable and, and ask for what you want. Um, I think. There's nothing to lose. I think from asking politely, if they go, there's no way our company is suffering. Um, we've got laughs coming. Um, something massive has happened. Like I would just current, like, okay, that's fine. You've asked if you don't ask. You'll never know. So you have to ask.
James:Yeah, certainly. I think that's really good. And I think, yeah, like you said, even if they say no or, or whatever, you can ask why, and then that will give you like things to do. So that next time it comes around, you can be like, okay, you said to do this, like, I've done them. Where are we are now? Um, you know, and then it becomes like where, what you're also saying around, like, you know, if they, if they're just refusing to sort of budge, then you know, you need to kind of, if you're, if that's what you want, then obviously you've got to consider is that somewhere that you see yourself,
Lacey:Exactly. And Tommy is important here, right? So I've been in the mining industries since 2000 and I think one or two, and then I did my first vacation work. So I've been through a big boom, and then I've been through a down period and now it's booming again, if you are in the up period, that's when you really want to be trying to do this. Because if I had tried that in like 2015, when everybody was getting laid off, I would have been laughed out of the building. um, you know, it's, you, you do have to be aware that it's not going to work at every point in your career, and sometimes that'll be because of you. Sometimes it will be because of circumstances beyond your. So you do have to be aware, but you should always be thinking about it and actively deciding is this a good time to do it or not? Um, and being willing to ask is a huge thing. You know, sometimes it'll just be that your boss is too busy. I haven't noticed, um, it can also be you might've had a look. The other thing that was worth doing is having a look at, uh, organizations like Hayes, which do H a Y S that do benchmarking. And we'll tell you what typical bands are for your salary. You know, sometimes I just haven't kept up. They're too busy doing their job. If you go into it, assuming. That they have good intentions. And then if you're not being paid as much as market, it's not because they're deliberately trying to undercut you it's because I didn't realize the market had moved or they didn't realize that it was important to you. If you approach it with that kind of, um, inquisitiveness and willingness to have a discussion, then you generally won't get, um, a black mark against your name for it. It's only when you walk in all bolshy, like I don't know how to pay rise today. Cause I'm amazing. Uh, and just give it to me and I will not accept anything less. That's when you do create future problems for yourself, you do create, um, a, a belief within the management of the place where you're working, that you're problematic or that you are entitled. So you do have to think very carefully about how you approach it, but it's worth doing.
James:Yeah, definitely. I think that's really coincidences. It's important. Right? Cause I think you can, if you're not like testing the limit of like how much, um, you know, how much someone can pay you, then you're, you're leaving money, money on the table by not doing that. Um,
Lacey:You should feel a bit uncomfortable. It's honestly, I still, when I do it get nervous, it's perfectly logical to feel nervous, but I go with the premise of so long as you don't make it impossible for them to say no, as long as you don't give them an ultimatum, do this, or I'm leaving, then it's a chat, right. This is a negotiation in your represent. You you've got to get the best for it. So, yeah. it's um, it is worth trying to overcome those nerves.
James:Yeah, definitely. No, that's cool. Yeah, I like that a lot. Um, I've got one more question for you too, that I see. And that's around, you know, obviously graduate theory, Korea kind of focused podcasts. And I want to ask yourself, you know, have there been times, or like if you had to restart your career kind of wind back to when you were first starting out working, is there anything looking back now that you would approach kind of your career progression and perhaps your finances as well? Is there anything that you would do differently knowing what.
Lacey:Oh, well, there's one tiny thing in my finances that I didn't understand when I was a graduate. Um, but I, I know now that I go like, oh shoot, I should have done something about that. Um, when I was working for Western mining, BHB took us over. That was in my second year as a graduate. And we had been given options. We Western mining and I didn't understand what options meant. And so I didn't exercise them. Um, and now I know what options they I'm like. Ah, I was like that eight grand I could have had. Um, so when something happens financially at work where they have like a share plan or they talk about salary sacrificing or your superannuation matching and stuff like that, if you don't understand, take the time to get the support so you can make a good day. It's really important that if you, if you get an offer for something from work that you understand, whether it's the right thing for you or not, and that you take the opportunities that you can cause often things like those share plans and those options plans are designed to keep you with the company, but they are a leg up. They want, they are an advantage, but if you just sign without understanding them or ignore them because they're too hard, you can give up a lot. Take the time to learn would be by advice there. Um, the other thing I would encourage people to do, which I hadn't even at the time thought about. You can tell from my discussion that I'm quite a forthright person and I will fight for what's right for me. And something that happened to me when I was in that second year, I was a graduate, I was one of seven graduates and two of us were female. Now, the five women. And we were at a site where there was 10 women in total, out of 300 employees in Calgary, in Western Australia. Right. So that was the reality of going into mining in a remote location back then. It's very different. Now, you know, the next site I went to was 20% female versus, you know, 10 out of 300. So, um, that's not normal, but what often happens when you're the only woman on a site or one of the few is that you get the women's jobs, uh, which w for this particular case was my general manager had lost in the 18 months. I'd been there. He'd lost five executive assistants. That's not normal. Clearly, clearly that was a difficult role, but they couldn't find someone and they really needed someone. So they asked me to fill in and I had a massive tantrum, like not a, you know, throwing my fist, but I went into my boss's office and was like, you're just asking me to do this because I'm a woman and I'm not happy about that. There are five other graduates who are male. Any of them could do that role. Why did you pick me? Because I had a real bee in my bonnet about this. Like we always give the women the job of taking the notes and they always have to get the frigging tea and all that stuff. Anyway, it was a real thing that I had heard so much about, and I was really sensitive to it. And so I overreacted, but I was really like, it was a fair call. My boss said that is a fair call for you to say that, because this does happen. And he said, look, I promise you, Lacey, that's not the reason you were chosen for this. Can you just take my word from it? That you're going to learn something really important and. It's why you want to take this role. And I was like, okay, fine. I really liked the boss who was fantastic. Um, JP and I said, all right, fine, I'll do it. But I'm not happy that you've picked me because I'm a girl. And he's like, I'm not picking you because your girl stuff. Okay. I find fun. Anyway. So turns out it was when BHP was looking to buy Western mining. And I got to be part of the war room that got set up before the merger and acquisition. So I got to be in on the discussions with the executive team and hear how they would pitch the company, how they would persuade another company to buy them. I got to learn about M and a. Now letting that at 22. Is it unusual if you're not like in that kind of like for graduate engineer, who'd just come off the furnace in west west scruffy, you know, covered in dirt outfit to be in these meetings, listening to this because I could make grass because I could type. And they needed that to hear those conversations that were happening to understand how the Warren would get set up to learn. That was like some of the most invaluable experience I got in that graduate program. Like you couldn't, you couldn't have planned. So my boss had noted that I wanted to be a CEO. He had noted that. Cause I had told him he did. He's like, where do you want to go? Eventually I'm like, well, I'd like to be a CEO eventually. So I wouldn't do, you know, management stuff, but he was doing it so that I could get this amazing experience because I was the graduate who had said I'm interested in that stuff. So he was doing the right thing by me. The fact that I was female, neither here nor there, but if I hadn't listened to him and I'm just lucky that he didn't go, we'll find, I'll give it to someone else just as well. You know, someone else, I'm very lucky that he was understanding. And so my response, so that's the difference between having a good boss and a bad boss? Sorry, what did I learn out of that? Sometimes? You'll think it's because of some thing that it's not, you know, I, I had a bruise on my bottom, everything I looked at, I was like, they're asking me to do that. Cause I'm a girl on a freezing, uh, on principle because I'm a feminist and thou shalt not make me. Um, it's not always the same. It's just, That's your frame of reference. Okay. So you'd need to be willing to listen when people tell you that's wrong, sometimes you'll be right. Sometimes you won't be that's. I think the most important thing that the second thing that I learned out of this experience, that's something that's carried me through. My whole career is pick your boss wisely. There is no one who will have a bigger impact on how happy you are at work. Then your boss, the end, 80% of your satisfaction at work, I reckon comes from whether you have a good boss or an outside good boss. They have to have had not so good. Uh, to be able to understand what a good boss is, I think, and I've had only a couple in my time. I've been very lucky. I've had fantastic bosses, but I started to get very choosy very early on about who I'd worked for for that reason. I think there were times when I was younger, when I worked for, uh, I'm going to be blunt, a bad boss, he was shocking. Should not have been allowed to manage people, just cookie cutter for everything. Uh, no, no. Taking into account anyone's personal views, circumstances or preferences. Just know this is how we do it. You will do it this way. Or we never give people that, that high mark you only ever get, everybody gets an average like that. He was just, he should not be allowed to manage people. Um, recognizing that that's not, you necessarily, it's not your fault. I had a lot of, uh, that sort of like, cause when you knew him, what the workplace, you don't really understand whether, um, that's because you're not meeting expectations or whether you've just been lumped with a bad boss. it's a little bit of both. Um, so you've gotta be honest with yourself, but if you've got a bad boss, just accept that that's a bad boss and they're not right for you. Maybe they're good for other people, but not right for you and become choosy. So that's, I think something that I learned based on my youth experience going, I've gotta be really picky about who I work for and don't don't work for assholes. The end.
James:That's great. Yeah, no, I think that's certainly a good point to finish on. I think there's, there's a lot of great tips that you just gave us there. So I definitely agree with you about the boss situation, even, even though I've just sort of, I've done three different rotations at work and seeing three different bosses, but it's clear to me and a lot of the other grads that yet definitely your boss, like you said, is super important part of satisfaction at work. Um, so I'm glad that I'm glad that you've found that as well. Um, thanks so much for chatting today. If people are listening and they want to find out more about yourself, more about what you do, where should they wish.
Lacey:Well, head to money, school.org.edu. And if you had there, you're fine. Everything I've got lots of free blogs is a free course on how to get out of ditch. Um, plenty of reading and you can find out how to get my book there as well. So obviously I consider the book to be like a financial education. So if this is something that's interesting to you, you want to learn about money. You want to get ahead quick. Then the books are a great place to start and you can grab it from your library, grab it from your favorite bookstore. It's everywhere. Cause I went with penguins, so they were pretty mainstream. Um, and yeah, my school, I use the place to stop.
James:Fantastic. We are, we'll have that in the show notes, if anyone wants to find that, um, down there, but yeah, thanks again, uh, Lacey for coming on today.
Lacey:Thanks for having me, James.
James:Thanks for listening to this episode I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to get my takeaways, the things that I learned from this episode, please go to graduate theory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode, straight to your inbox. Thanks so much for listening again today, and we're looking forward to seeing you next week.