Reasonably Happy with Paul Ollinger

When it comes to delivering hilarious, non-obvious wisdom through a microphone, Adam Carolla is the very best. Yes, Stern is amazing and Terry Gross is the patron saint of the modern interview, but for the improvisational spoken-word, Adam Carolla is the unique genius of our time. In addition to a decades-long radio career, he is also a comedian, actor, film director, auto racing enthusiast and one of the pioneers of the podcasting industry.  Adam entered the national consciousness as co-host of Loveline in 1995, then went on to co-create and co-host The Man Show with Jimmy Kimmel. Since then, he has produced, created or guest-starred in a plethora of other TV projects, including Crank Yankers, To Catch a Contractor,Celebrity Apprentice, The Car Show, and Dancing with the Stars.  As if that’s not enough, he also has written multiple NYT best-selling books, two of which I recently read recently, both causing me to laugh until snot came out of my nose.  To see Adam’s comedy special, Not Taco Bell Material, click here or find it on Amazon here. You can learn more about Adam’s myriad pursuits on https://adamcarolla.com/ Tell Paul you love him (or are completely indifferent to him) go to http://PaulOllinger.com

Gianni Le Nguyen fled Vietnam at the age of 5. Late one night in the early 1980s, her father wrapped his two young daughters in a fishing net, then rowed a basket boat out to meet a more seaworthy vessel a quarter mile offshore. They spent five days battling storms, illness and pirates who took everything Gianni’s dad possessed, including his official papers. Thus began a beauracratic mess that left her family in refugee camps for over two years before they finally made their way to Beaverton, Oregon. Almost 40 years later, Gianni is a successful entrepreneur, mother of four, and wife to an American dude named Brian. Her journey fits a pattern of Asian immigration that has strengthen the USA. According to Pew Research, "Asian Americans are the highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group in the United States. They are more satisfied than the general public with their lives, finances and the direction of the country, and they place more value than other Americans do on marriage, parenthood, hard work and career success.” Gianni and I talk about her journey and how it affected her relationship to money, financial security and her thoughts on a paper work ethic. See pictures of Gianni and family on the official podcast page. Send Paul a message via his website, http://paulollinger.comListen to Paul’s new comedy EP, “Alive on the Upper West Side" on iTunes: https://music.apple.com/us/album/alive-on-the-upper-west-side/1466845993 or wherever you consume your humor through your ears. 

Allison Schrager is the author of the new book, An Economist Walks into a Brothel in which she explores risk through the lens of prostitution, big-wave surfing and war. If you liked Freakanomics, you’ll dig this book too.  Allison is an economist, journalist at Quartz, and co-founder of LifeCycle Finance Partners, LLC, a risk advisory firm. She has been a regular contributor to the Economist, Reuters, and Bloomberg Businessweek. Her writing has also appeared in Playboy, Wired, National Review and Foreign Affairs. She earned her PhD in Economics from Columbia University and has consulted to international organizations, including the OECD and IMF.Paul and Allison met in the offices of her publisher, Portfolio, in New York City. Among many topics, they discussed how being purposeful about our goals is the first step in determining how much risk we should take in life, careers and investing strategies. Learn more about Allison here:  https://www.allisonschrager.com. Acknowledge Paul's existence here: http://paulollinger.com

In my mind, Darrah Brustein is the ultimate Millennial. Not because she writes, travels the world and has a weekly video series with Deepak Chopra called weekly "Diving Deep with Deepak & Darrah." While she does all of the above, she’s the ultimate millennial because she uses money as a tool to live a good life then uses that life to make more money! She is living the life she designed. And damnit, she’s succeeding at it. In addition to her work with Deepak, Darrah writes a Forbes Women column for which she has interviewed Bill Belichick, Guy Kawasaki, Shaquille On’Neal, Bobbi Brown, and many more. She has produced a 20+ hour digital summit on how to live a curated life. Her paper, "55 Questions to Break the Ice” has been downloaded over a million times. Find your copy here: https://darrah.co/55-questions-ebook-download Find out where you can see Paul live here: https://paulollinger.com/events/

Bill Browder is the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, the largest foreign investment fund in Russia until 2005. He grew an initial investment of $25mm to over $4 billion while challenging violent oligarchs. Bill eventually ran afoul of Vladimir Putin, kicked out of the country, and declared a “threat to national security." That was just the beginning. Russian police officials took over his companies, used them to steal $230 million from the Russian treasury, framed Bill, and eventually arrested and killed his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky. Today Bill lives under threat of retaliation and spends his time fighting to honor Sergei’s memory. He tells the story in his book, Red Notice, which was an New York Times best-seller and a MUST READ.  Buy Red Notice here: https://amzn.to/2JTb2FS Read more about Sergei Magnitsky: http://www.billbrowder.com/sergei-magnitsky Find Paul at http://paulollinger.com

Brian Portnoy, Ph.D., CFA, is an expert at simplifying the complex world of money. In his two books, The Investor's Paradox and The Geometry of Wealth, he tackles the challenges of not only making better investment decisions but also how money figures in to a joyful life. He is currently the Head of Education at Magnetar Capital and has spent the last 25 years as educator, investor, and strategist. He holds a doctorate from the University of Chicago and currently lives on the north side of Chicago with his wife and three children. finEDge financial literacy: https://finedge.uchicago.edu/ Paul isn't as smart as Brian, but his website is super-interesting: http://PaulOllinger.com

A.J. Jacobs is an author, journalist, lecturer and human guinea pig. He has written four New York Times bestsellers that combine memoir, science, humor and a dash of self-help. He is also editor at large at Esquire magazine, a commentator on NPR and a columnist for Mental Floss magazine.Learn more about A.J. on his website.**Please rate and review Crazy Money here.Follow Crazy Money on Facebook here and join the Crazy Money Listeners Group here.Get your official Crazy Money t-shirts here. Produced and edited by Mike CaranoAbout Crazy Money:Unlike traditional personal finance shows like Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman, Crazy Money is not about how to make a million bucks, how to beat the market, or how to save money by switching cable providers. It is about deciding what role we want money to play in our lives and how we can use it to be our best selves. Topics covered include: Philosophy, Happiness, Contentment, Meaning, dreams, purpose, Success, Rat Race, Society, mental health, Buddhism, Stoicism, the hedonic treadmill, morality, Mid-Life Crisis, Business, Work, Careers, Authors, Books, Consumerism, Values, capitalism, economics, investing, saving, spending, personal finance, charity, philanthropy, altruism, affluence, wealth, wealth management, culture, society. Status. Paul Ollinger Are you really still reading this?

This week we continue to discuss “straddlers,” i.e. individuals who grew up working class but worked their way into white collar careers. Yancey Spruill grew up in a rough neighborhood in west Buffalo, NY where food stamps and eviction were part of his reality. He attended Georgia Tech and earned his MBA at Dartmouth’s Tuck School. Yancey worked on Wall Street for seven years then took two separate private companies public as their Chief Financial Officer.Susan Nicholas was raised in an unstable, single-parent home in Morgantown, WV. She earned her MD from University of Iowa Medical School, completed a general surgery residency at University of San Francisco and a cardiothoracic fellowship at Stanford. Not to mention and MBA from Emory University. Yet none of these degrees brought her the validation she was looking for. Listen for the whole story.For more about Paul, go to http://paulollinger.com

Alfred Lubrano is the Philadelphia Inquirer’s poverty reporter and the author of Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams. The book explores the conflicts within individuals who grow up working class but graduate into a white collar career. These “straddlers” are often torn between the culture that raised them and the professional world to which they aspired. Limbo has been quoted in Harvard Business Review, the American Bar Association Journal, The Atlantic, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. To see where Paul will be telling jokes next, go to http://paulollinger.com

Jean Chatzky, financial editor of NBC’s TODAY show, award-winning personal finance journalist, and host of the HerMoney podcast. She has written several personal finance books. Her latest, Women With Money has just hit shelves in bookstores, real and virtual.Go see Paul tell jokes this week at the North Carolina Comedy Festival. Show details and more dates available on http://paulollinger.com/events.