32 Life & Money Lessons I've Learned at 32

If you want to lay golden eggs, you have to protect the golden goose.

You don't need to be a people pleaser to succeed in your career.

You better be learning or earning and ideally both.

Just try to do what you can.

Your friends don't hate you, you just need to go to sleep.

I started posting TikToks one day at the urging of my work bestie

and now I'm living a life that I've always dreamed of.

The journey might surprise you and you won't know until you actually do it.

What's up rich friends and welcome back to another episode of Network and Chill.

I'm your host Vivian2, your HPFF and your favorite Wall Street girly.

The rumors are true, it's my birthday.

Well, sort of, it was my birthday a few days ago.

I am now officially 32 years old and can I be honest?

I think I feel younger than ever.

Yeah, okay, one day I did try to get out from the couch

and realized I couldn't spring up from the cushions like I used to

and I actually care what kind of mattress I fall asleep on.

But still, I am so proud of the opportunities I've created for myself.

I'm living each day with purpose and passion

and I'm excited for what this next year around the sun might bring me.

So, in honor of my birthday, I'm sharing some of the life lessons I've learned

in my 32 years that have actually helped me get to a place in life

where I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.

These lessons aren't the picture perfect, pastel,

Instagram, infographic versions.

These are the real, hard, uncomfortable truths

that have actually helped me get to a place where I want to be at

and frankly, I'm still learning some of them over and over again.

So, hopefully, these pieces of wisdom help you avoid some of the mistakes

that I've made so far, save you some time and money

and inspire you to make a change in an area of your life

where you might feel a little stuck.

So, this is 32 Things I Know at 32.

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First up, choose a rest day, or your body will choose one for you.

I have had to learn this one the hard way over and over and over again,

making time for rest feels so hard and so annoying

when you have 10,000 things to do in a day, but you have to do it.

Or else, your body will literally hit a breaking point,

and you won't like the day that it picks to break down.

Maintenance is cheaper than a full fix,

so stop driving on empty and crossing your fingers

that your car won't notice.

Another story about this is my friend asked me

if I was taking care of my golden goose.

There's this story that a farmer and his wife

realized that a goose was laying golden eggs,

and instead of caring for this goose

and making sure that it would lay a golden egg once a week,

they slaughtered the goose,

and realized that inside the goose was regular.

It wasn't filled with gold, it wasn't anything special.

In fact, it was the fact that the goose was well taken care of

and had a good feed and everything was good for the goose

that it was able to lay these golden eggs,

so you can't rush the process, you can't try to slaughter the goose

to get the golden inside, it doesn't work like that.

If you want to lay golden eggs, you have to protect the golden goose.

Two, don't take advice from anyone you don't want to be.

So often when we're lost, we want to take advice from anyone

who might seem like they have a better idea

of what's going on than we do.

But how useful is an advisor if they've never actually been

where you want to go?

If you want to become the first millionaire in your family,

who do you think would have more insight

to offer your specific goal?

The person who worked their way up and carefully invested

until they went from $0 to $1 million

or the person who just received a million dollars

in a trust fund when they were born

and now spends irresponsibly.

So they're not going to stay rich for very long.

You want to make sure that you are taking advice from people

who have been on your path,

who have accomplished what you want to accomplish

and the same goes for haters.

I have to remind myself all the time,

no one who I admire, no one who has a life that I want to have

has ever left me an nasty comment.

The only people who do that want what I have.

They want to be where I'm at.

And frankly, they're commenting out of their mom's basement.

So no mind needs to be paid to them.

Make sure that you are only getting advice

and looking up to people who have the life that you want,

who you admire and who you respect.

Lesson three, nobody's looking at you.

You know how many times I have worried when I was younger

about how I was being perceived only to find out

that no one was even thinking about me.

Everybody is only thinking about themselves.

Since then, I've learned that sometimes the only thing between you

and that wild dream you have for yourself

is the fear of being a little cringe.

And I think a lot of us let that feeling of embarrassment

stop us from doing so much, fighting for that big raise,

asking that cute stranger at a bar out,

posting that first Instagram Reels vlog.

What I've found is that your friends are going to support you,

the losers are going to hate on you.

And most people, they've got enough going on in their own lives

to not have an opinion on your crazy dreams.

I started posting TikToks one day at the urging of my work bestie

and now I'm living a life that I've always dreamed of.

Nobody is looking at you, just go for it.

Lesson four, a good network beats a big one.

Everyone wants to have 500 plus connections on LinkedIn.

But if you don't ever set up coffee chats or one-on-ones

with any of them, how are those connections

actually going to be helpful to you?

Networking isn't just about exchanging business cards

and making awkward small talk.

It's about finding your people

and building genuine relationships.

Think of it like truly making a new friend.

And people do favors for their friends.

So if you're an introvert and you'd rather peel off your skin

than go to a career fair, don't worry about it too much.

Quality trumps quantity.

Meet with a few people, tangential to you,

whether it's co-workers, college alumni,

or some of those LinkedIn profiles in your sphere

and build a real connection one at a time,

it'll definitely feel less overwhelming

and probably be better for your career too.

Lesson five,

whether you're nice or not doesn't actually matter.

76% of high-performing women receive negative feedback

while only 2% of men do.

Losers and haters will call you mean or nasty names,

no matter how nice you are.

So just focus on what's going to set you up for success,

what makes you feel empowered.

And at the end of the day, it matters more

whether or not you think you're nice

versus what other people think.

That's not to say you shouldn't be kind and generous

and strong and a good leader.

Being kind is very different than being nice,

but people are going to talk smack one way or another,

you don't need to be a people pleaser

to succeed in your career.

Lesson six, I'm not irresponsible,

I'm just worn down and so are you.

I only started regularly going to the gym

when I began packing my gym bag the night before.

Turns out I wasn't lazy or trying to avoid going,

I was just really tired.

Setting up infrastructure to make sure

that the hard decisions in your day

are automatically made for you is the ultimate cheat code.

For example, setting up automatic transfers to savings

and investments is the financial equivalent

of packing your gym bag the night before.

Take a few minutes to do the work ahead of time

and remove that decision fatigue

that leads to poor choices in the moment.

If you can't see it all, you won't spend it all.

If you pack your gym bag the night before,

you've already made a mental plan to go to the gym.

Another way I look at it will power can bend easily,

but infrastructure is much harder to break.

That is why we make such smart decisions in the morning

will have a green juice and a salad for lunch.

But by dinner, your elbow deep in a bucket of mac and cheese.

But if you meal prep and have all of the meals

already planned out, it's much easier

to stick to a healthy diet.

Lesson seven, if it's not passion or a payday,

it's just a bad deal.

That side hustle you're working on

should either bring you so much happiness

or provide a cash source that brings you serious money.

If it's doing neither, you're just working two jobs

that aren't really adding to your life

and calling one of them a cute name.

Accent and save your time.

You better be learning or earning and ideally both.

Lesson eight, love is a practice, not a feeling.

I got married last year and while there are so many memories

in my relationship that have made me feel

all the butterflies and fireworks,

the moments I know that our love is true

is in the ways we show up for each other

because the feeling of being adored

or feeling romantic, it's all great.

But it's much easier than the choices someone makes

to support you, champion your work, work with you

and meet you where you're at,

even if they're not feeling too hot.

It's why I say equity over a quality in relationships

because not everything will be perfectly 50, 50 all the time.

When someone is willing to put their insecurities aside

and treat your obstacles as a team problem,

you both can handle, that's how you know it's something real.

I'll give you a quick story.

I remember the first time my face went up in Times Square

on top of the NASDAQ building and that day,

my husband snuck out of work to take photos of me from afar

and when I got home that night, I was so eager

and I told him all about what had happened

and he looked me in the eye and he goes,

yeah, I know, I was there.

And I said, what?

And he showed me these photos on his phone

and I was so shocked that he was willing to even carve out

that little bit of time in his day

because he works an incredibly demanding job

but it was important for him to be there for me

and he knew that and I asked him why he didn't say something

and say hi and he said, well, it was your moment.

I didn't want to take any of the fanfare away from you.

So I wanted to be there with you.

I wanted to share the moment.

I'm so proud of you and I'm so glad I got to witness it

but I wanted you to have your moment

and I think that really is a testament to the fact

that he is so secure and he is able to enable me

to be the best version of myself.

And I'd like to think that I have also made sacrifices

to support him and his career

but I feel so grateful to have such a thoughtful,

conscientious partner.

It's not the roses on Valentine's Day.

It's showing up in those little moments.

Less than nine.

Sometimes it's for a season, not for a reason.

One of the worst feelings in the world is a friendship breakup

and it can feel so hard to get past.

Honestly, friendship breakups can hurt more

than real relationship breakups.

But it happens and it's okay.

Sometimes you drift apart or grow into different people.

I know change is hard but if a friendship drains you

instead of replenishes you,

take it as a sign that you may be better off limiting

your exposure to that person.

Less than 10.

If you can, see the world.

I've regretted spending money on designer bags.

I've regretted spending money on over-priced coffees

but never have I ever regretted spending money on travel.

Gaining life experience and perspective of the world

is invaluable.

As I've gone older, I've learned that my most valuable resource

is actually time and the more you can maximize that,

the better off you'll be.

Not to mention traveling and doing something fun

or sharing an experience is something that money can't even buy.

Sitting on the couch, it's so lovely for my husband and I

to reminisce over our honeymoon and our shared memories

over dishes that we ate and fun activities that we did.

There's no watch or bag or pair of shoes I can do that.

Less than 11.

A small plan is better than no plan.

Even when I was making a meager salary right out of college,

budgeting every week, putting a little bit away

for retirement and saving where I could,

doing these behaviors helped build my wealth

in huge ways over the years.

The returns I got even just from pocketing a bit here

and there compounded with time.

So even if your salary isn't where you want it to be

right now or you feel like there's just no way

you'll reach your financial goals this year, that's okay.

Just try to do what you can.

Prioritize what's most important to you,

whether it's paying down debt,

starting a rainy day fund in a high yield savings account

or starting investing one step at a time.

These small choices make a big difference

and it'll all be because you had a little bit of a plan

instead of no plan at all.

Less than 12, this is a fun one, have a shower popsicle.

I dare you to have a bad day and then eat a popsicle

in the shower and see if it makes you feel worse.

I dare you, not once.

Every single time I have a shower popsicle,

no matter how bad the day was,

it makes me feel a little bit better

and it puts a smile on my face

and it's a nice little treat.

So shower popsicle, that's the lesson.

Lesson 13, don't get Botox on Groupon.

I need to thank my mentor again for this lesson.

It has less to do with cosmetic procedures

and more to do with investing for the long term.

Given that there is a limited amount of money

in our pockets, it can feel really easy

to often opt for the cheaper option.

But there's another saying, buy it nice or buy it twice.

In some areas of your life, especially ones

that can have permanent or semi-permanent effects,

it's better to spend a little bit more.

Sometimes the cheap price tag up front

will end up costing you more in the long run.

I would rather go to a really, really great dermatologist

or plastic surgeon or nurse practitioner

that does Botox day in and day out.

So I know that I'm getting something dependable

versus going to some random provider

who I've never heard of.

For example, I remember working on Wall Street

and having to wear nylons or tights every single day.

And the fancy tights that would cost a little bit more,

they would last wear after wear after wear.

But the cheap legs that you get from a CVS or a Dwayne read,

those we get one wear and then there'd be a massive run

or a hole in the crotch, it would actually cost me more

to buy cheap tights than just invest in something

a little bit better.

Hi, I'm Brunei Brown.

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Lesson 14.

Spend five minutes looking it up first.

Whether it's a word you don't know,

a money tip that you just heard or a new story

that you're not sure if it's even true or not,

literally just spend five minutes looking it up.

Open up Google.com.

It's free and click on a trusted information source

like Investopedia for Finance Knowledge

to get the information you need.

Before you make any rash decisions, double check.

And influencer is swearing that this stock

is gonna help you get rich quick.

Your coworker is promising that this supplement

help them get a six pack.

Your uncles at Thanksgiving saying

that drinking bleach will help kill COVID particles

before you do anything, literally just look it up.

Even if you know you're gonna be right,

being able to articulate the logic behind your answer

can help you ground yourself in reality.

Stop guessing your way through life and just look it up.

Lesson 15.

You don't have to spend time with anyone

who pulls you further away from yourself.

It took me a while to learn that I didn't wanna hang out

with people who like to spend all their money

on club tables and people whose only topic of conversation

was gossiping about people I didn't care about.

It also doesn't mean that they're bad people.

It's just that I didn't wanna do those things anymore.

They didn't make me feel more aligned

with the kind of life I wanted to live,

where my financial goals were always on track

and I was inspired by the conversations around me.

Knowing who is a close friend, a situational friend,

and an acquaintance is an important distinction.

Lesson 16.

It's okay to be fueled by spite.

Personally, I'm not the kind of person

that's always motivated by some beautiful golden interlite

or self-love with enlightenment.

I don't always kill them with kindness.

Sometimes I'm just doing something

because I wanna flex on the haters.

And honestly, I think that's okay.

Anger is a motivating feeling

and it can be harnessed for a good cause.

The fine line is when the spite

starts to become harmful to you.

Haters can help you get to the next accolade

but don't let yourself become one.

Lesson 17.

You can't run away from sadness forever.

Whether it's the relationship you wanted to work out,

the friend you swore would be a bridesmaid one day

or watching your parents get older,

heartbreak is going to happen to you.

Bad days are what make the good ones that much more special.

And it's important to learn how to deal with sad times

rather than just trying to run away from them.

Learning how to let go of the idea

that you always have to be happy

and accept that sometimes they are going to be rainy days

is a skill that brings us closer to understanding ourselves.

Plus, being able to prepare for them and deal with them

whether it's having the hard conversation

with your parents about their wills

or saving up for unforeseen costs,

that helps us navigate the sadness with a lot less panic.

Lesson 18.

Your friends don't hate you.

You just need to go to sleep.

This one is for all of my fellow overthinkers.

You're spiraling in bed

because you're anxious that you said the wrong thing over text

or that you messed up an important task

or you made an irreversible error that you can't see it.

Just go to bed.

Just go to sleep.

Making up problems in your own head

just distracts you from your reality.

Part of growing up is learning that the actual problems

will reveal themselves with time

and trust me, they will reveal themselves.

You don't need to waste precious hours

trying to guess them before they appear.

Until then, if you can't see it,

it's none of your business

and that makes it not your problem.

Lesson 19.

No is a complete sentence.

You do not need to defend why you're saying no.

Lesson 20.

Don't be realistic.

Stop letting people trap you in the cage where they live.

So what if your expectations are high

and your dreams are big

and your plans are what some people might call

borderline sociopathic?

Why would you compromise with yourself

before you've even tried to see what might happen?

Being Dululu is far more interesting

than negotiating with yourself.

Just because they can't do it

doesn't mean that you can't.

If it fails, there's always another dream to chase

and if it succeeds, I mean, hello.

Lesson 21.

Individualism will make you broke.

Your desire to be so independent

of anyone is not a strength.

Apps and companies have replaced

what our community used to do for each other.

For free.

Instead of asking our neighbor to walk our pets,

we hire task rabbits or get a sitter on rover.

And instead of leaning on friends to take us to the airport,

we pay for ubers or weimos.

We used to have more of a favors economy

that kept our budgets down and our communities intact.

And now we wonder why everything's expensive

and we're all lonely.

Sometimes the price for a village is being a villager

and sometimes being a villager

means a little bit of inconvenience.

Lesson 22.

Never take the first salary offer.

You think that salary offer out the gate

is really all they have in the budget?

Upon receiving a job offer, always ask for more

unless you asked for a specific number

during the interview process and they gave it to you.

If they come in under, always negotiate,

they expect it and respect it.

Your future self-spank account will thank you.

Lesson 23.

Write it down so you don't forget.

Preferably all in the same place.

When you start making enough money,

you can hire people to remind you to,

but these days when there are so much stimuli happening

all at once, when there are so many notifications

and dings and buzzes, sometimes it's really easy

to forget important things, but the easiest thing

you can do to combat it is to write it down.

Lesson 24.

You get what you negotiate for,

just like salaries with all of life.

You get what you negotiate for.

Your landlord is ignoring your emails

about fixing the heating.

That's grounds to negotiate rent.

The company told you that you can't take off

for more time off even though you have remaining PTO.

Well, that's a good opening to talk about holiday bonuses

for all your extra hard work.

Sometimes you only get what you negotiate for

and by letting things slide,

you might actually be leaving money on the table.

Lesson 25.

The harder way doesn't mean the right way.

Listen, I used to think that anything good

had to be difficult.

I had to work out six days per week,

manually monitor every movement in my investment portfolio

and generally live life on hard mode.

But honestly, what really makes an impact

is when the habits are easy enough for us to do everyday

over the course of many years.

Robo advisors can help us manage our investments

while we're at work.

Automatic withholdings can make taxis and easier for us

and a long walk can still count as a good workout for the day

because a couple of minutes are better than no minutes.

Lesson 26.

Not every single designer bag is an actual investment piece.

Most fashion pieces don't actually hold any value at all.

So buy what you want, but know that

unless it's a rare skinberkin

or some limited availability watch that you got at retail,

it's probably not an investment.

You would be better off investing in an index fund

that tracks the broader market.

You wanna make sure that your investments are investments

and your retail purchases are just things you can enjoy.

Lesson 27, and this one's from my mom, it is the phones.

I love a good doom scroll, but our parents were right.

The unproductivity, the procrastination, the anxiety,

it's because of the damn phones.

When you feel yourself starting to get stuck

in the screen spiral, make yourself put it away

and get up and do something,

whether it's a chore, a task, or some kind of movement.

About 90% of the time, unfortunately,

you do feel so much better.

Lesson 28, setting boundaries with family about money

isn't being disrespectful, it's being an adult.

You can love your family and still not fund

your cousin's third failed startup.

I always say you can give family money, but never loan money

because you are not getting it back,

and that's probably gonna lead to resentment

and a weird holiday at grandma's.

Lesson 29, your Instagram doesn't need to look good

to live a good life.

Sometimes life is mundane, unethetic, and fulfilling.

Just because everyone else's feed is filled with highlights

doesn't mean they're happier than you,

and just because you don't have a perfect curated photo dump

doesn't mean that the memories are any less meaningful.

Lesson 30, the time will pass anyway.

Speaking of time, this one's a big one

that I learned from a mentor.

So often we worry about whether our careers,

lives, relationships, and whatever else

are gonna be a success.

We get so scared about the result that sometimes

it's easier to not do anything about it at all.

But who cares if it flops or not?

Just do it and see what happens.

There is no arbitrary timeline

that you need to have your dream career.

There's no arbitrary timeline of when you need to get married

or have children or find the love of your life

or find your passion.

You don't have a timeline.

There is no ticking clock.

The journey might surprise you,

and you won't know until you actually do it.

The time is going to pass anyway, and years later,

you might wake up and realize your life looks so much better

than you could have even imagined it to be.

Lesson 31, this is something

that I've been trying to remind myself a lot of recently.

Your face and body are changing

because you're living a life where you change.

My smile lines are deep because I've laughed a lot

and I smile a lot.

My body has changed since I was 18

because I've experienced a good life full of change.

Over the past 32 years, I've gotten married,

I've traveled, I've frozen my eggs,

I've toured around the country twice, published a book,

twice, filmed my first TV commercial,

and met so many of my besties.

I'm so grateful to my body, to my skin, for my face,

for having gotten me through all of it.

It's saving all the things

that I've been so lucky to witness.

And Lesson 32, money isn't morality.

Money isn't inherently good or bad, it just is.

Some days I felt like a financial genius,

and other days I've made purchases I regret.

We're all just humans trying to figure out this money stuff

out one paycheck at a time, so give yourself some grace.

You aren't bad with money.

You're just on your financial journey.

Always remember, your worth isn't tied to your net worth.

Whew, thank you for sticking with me

through 32 full lessons of my very full 32 years of life.

I hope you take something and it makes your life

a little bit easier, whether you're younger than me,

older than me, or right around my age.

I'm so grateful that you are a part of my community.

Thank you so much.

Happy birthday to me, and if you're celebrating,

happy birthday to you.

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode

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