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Hey, hey, hey. We're back. We're black. We're brown. Ambition. Ambition. Ambition. Ambition. Ambition.
Hey y'all, we are a different kind of brown on brown ambition today. Mandra, unfortunately, is not feeling well, but we wish her well, you know, with the new baby and thanks. But instead, we have my very good, awesome, amazing friend, and I'll go for his bio later. Jason Vitug, and welcome, Jason. Tiffany, thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. So Jason is also a Jerseyan, like myself. Yup, yup. And Jason, how long have we been friends?
Close to 10 years. Yeah, 10 years. Yes. Right. So we've been in this game for years. It's made me, I don't even know the hip-hop song. But anyway, but Jason and I have been friends for a long time. I met him because he too is a financial educator.
Jason honestly is one of the inspirations for my recent slowdown and you'll hear why, like how awesome he is. But I don't want to just be like, Jason's my friend. He's more than that. He's dope. Jason is a wellness advocate and best-selling New York Times reviewed author of two books, right? He is the founder of Frugal, P-H-R-O-O-G-A-L.
and is an award-winning creator of the Road to Financial Wellness Project. Jason is also a certified diversity, equity, and inclusion expert. He holds the psychology of financial planning certification and is also a certified yoga instructor and breadth work specialist. We're going to get him to do a breadth exercise with us, y'all.
Jason focuses on a holistic approach where money isn't the goal. Money is the tool to help achieve the goals. He's also been featured on the TEDx stage, Yahoo Finance Forbes, Business Insider, and we already said New York Times to name a few. All in all, Jason is incredible. And he has a new book called Happy Money, Happy Life, which is like literally Jason in a book.
You know? So one thing, Jason, that I admire about you, that I admired and still admire about you is that a long time ago, so Jason used to be on the grind like me. You know, we were all working really hard. This is like, you know, like 10, 8 years ago, personal finance in the way that it is now was just coming to be a thing.
You know, it was like people like me and Jason and Sandy and all those other people, we were kind of like, you know, starting this kind of personal finance journey and brand and bringing y'all in. But while most of us kept grinding until we had world nothing but little nubs, I noticed about halfway through that Jason didn't seem to be grinding yet. He was still making, you know, good money.
you know, that I saw that he was posting pictures of his walks. I remember when Jason, he became a certified yoga instructor. You would be posting your yoga. Like, you know, you would like during pandemic, you were doing yoga so people can like do it along with you. I just remember being like, what is going on with Jason? Because I know you still have frugal. I know you're still a financial educator, but then there's this other part of you, the Zen chill, like I'm not doing all that part of you. Like what happened?
But it's fascinating, right? Because I think when I disappeared out of the personal finance space and I was, I was honing into the wellness space a bit more so, everyone was wondering what happened to my business or did I just go totally broke? And I was like, no, I need to focus on my physical, mental and spiritual health. And my, I built a business that was running on like with itself. So I just didn't need to participate as much as I needed to.
And what really happened was, I think, you put it in there, like, we're in the grind, we're in the hustle, and I am a big believer that gears that grind for too long get worn out and then thrown out. Oh, stay down again for the people in the back, Jason. Say it again.
Gears that grind for too long get worn out and then thrown out. I certainly don't want to be thrown out. And so I know this is something that I believe in, like the work that we do. This is purposeful work for me. And but it's also grueling. I mean, there's a lot of demands. There's a lot of things that we have to do to get the things going. And so especially when we are driven with our own personal ambition and we're driven with passion and purpose,
we can get worn out doing those things. And I felt myself getting worn out. And when we get worn out, we start making all these decisions, ill decisions. And then all of a sudden, it's just like, it's a compounding effect that's going to affect our mental health, our emotional wellbeing. And then I'm going to start feeling tired and lethargic.
And so that's exactly what happened. I mean, I became a bestseller, became the sought after speaker, going all around the country. And it was great. But all of a sudden, I just started feeling like I was being pulled away from the work I wanted to do to just appear. And the one thing that I that really hit home was when someone said to me,
I was chasing influence over affluence. And influence is this, oh, you got to be on stage every single time. I have to be on social media every single time versus really working on affluence. And affluence isn't just the financial wealth. It's about how am I feeling in other parts of my life? And so I know this that there were areas of my life I needed to work on. And yeah, I think just like you, we're grinding away.
And then other things in our lives start happening. And so I needed to listen and take a step back. And that's exactly what happened. And so when all this stuff happened, I took a step back and go, I need to reassess, readjust, and reevaluate where I'm walking.
I love that. And you really, you started to make those changes long before it became like, now people are like, I don't want to overwork, but you made them when it was really scary to make those changes because no one was doing that back then. It was like, Jason, the money is getting good. What you doing, Jason? Sitting down a little bit. So one of the things, you know, one of the reasons why I wanted Jason to come on.
is because in his book, his new book, Happy Money, Happy Life, which is available at happymoneyhappylifebook.com. Don't you like that? I told Jason, I'm like, go get that domain, happymoneyhappylifebook.com. Okay. It's the name of his book. So one of the things that really blew me away about your book,
is this it is a multiple multiple what is it multi-dimensional approach right and I've never really heard that before um I mean you know like in passing but I didn't realize that there were these eight dimensions that you know really um help
Really compose what full wellness and holistic wellness means. Can you like tell us what these dimensional multi dimensional approaches are and how does money play a role in this in that in your book? Yeah. So it's interesting, right? Because I thought I came up with this brilliant idea that there were eight dimensions of wellness. And so I remember in 2016 going, okay, everything is connected.
So it's not just financial, it's not just professional, there's mental and emotional, everything's connected. Then eventually I started doing the research and finding all these studies for decades. People have talked about the multi-dimensionality of human beings. And so for me, I chose the eight wellness dimensions, because I think that encompasses who we are. And they are mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, social, environmental, occupational, and financial.
Those are the eight dimensions that make you, you. We are multifaceted, multidimensional, multilayered individuals. And the reason why when things seem to be working out in one area of our life and we don't feel happy or we don't feel well,
Chances are there is a dimension that needs your attention. And so for me in this book, what I do is I talk about these dimensions through the lens of money. I show how money weaves itself through these dimensions and how it impacts us positively or negatively. And most of the time too, it could be our own decision making when it comes to money and also the external factors that we have no control over, the economy, the job market and other decisions around us. And so what I want people to understand
When we are focused so much, and this is what happened to me, I was so focused for peer to my life on professional success. That is occupational health, which I call happy work. What we do, we take our identity and we base it solely on salary and the title we hold at this job. And so all these achievements, well, if we solely focus on occupational health and we excel,
to the detriment of our mental and physical health. Well, guess what happens? It's going to affect our finances. It's going to affect our every other aspects of our well-being. And so for this instance, when I was at the point when I was like grinding away, climbing up the corporate ladder, and it became VP of marketing and business development for this financial institution, well, I was suffering mentally.
I was emotionally drained and that psychological distress was manifesting itself physically. So I was getting sick. I developed vertigo. I had like pink eye or red eyes for two weeks. My eyes were bleeding for two weeks and I couldn't get out of beds. And then when I couldn't get out of bed, I felt useless and it started affecting my social well-being because I didn't want to hang out with friends or family. And then I felt this void in my life because something that I was passionate about at that time,
climbing up the career ladder was affecting me spiritually. And so for me, I want people to understand like these dimensions are interconnected, they're overlapping. And so once you understand these eight dimensions and how they, there's there's intersectionality of them, it is a powerful life changing way of looking at yourself.
Honestly, Jason, I was just telling a friend of mine, like literally, I was like super excited. I was telling a friend of mine about your book. And I was telling him that like, you know, I, you know how you kind of, you understand that obviously there are components to your life, but I could never understand why to your point, when I was making the most amount of money I've ever made, I was so miserable. My blood pressure had spiked. It was like, and now I have to honestly say, you know, that despite all that's happened, you know, I am in a space of grief, grace and gratitude.
you know, and I'm actually happy. And I'm like, how? And I was literally, I pulled up the eight dimensions and I said, oh, I'm happy because every aspect of these dimensions I am present in, you know, because before I was hanging out with that, it was just bajanisa.
There was no Tiffany. So the social out the window. I had gained 30 pounds. My blood pressure had spiked. So physical was not being looked after. Financial, I mean, I was good as far as money, but that was about it. Every other part of my life was out of alignment. And so I thought like, well, I thought if I work really hard and I make really good money and I'm helping people that it should be enough, it wasn't because I was not looking
at myself holistically. And so that's why I love because, you know, one of the things, that's one of the things I love about you as a person, but also the fact that you wrote this book to talk about that. You know, we talk about money, but I always say it's really not money, you know, that I want people to use money to live well now. How do you do that? And I feel like with happy money, happy life.
That's what you talk about. How do you use your money as a tool? Not the goal itself, so thank you for that. We're actually going to jump to a quick break, because we get to talking, right? So we've got Jason Vtug of Frugal with his new book, Happy Money, Happy Life. We'll be right back, black, and brown.
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And we're back in black and brown. Super excited we have Jason in the studio, in the stew with us talking about multi-dimensionality. We're talking about happy money, happy life, his new book. So Jason, while we're back, you did something with my dream catches the other day. That was amazing. So I'm gonna put you on the spot. You did just a really quick breathing activity. And I'd like for you to just walk us through this like two or three minute breathing activity, even if
You're driving, you have the kids or whatever. If you can't do it now, that's okay. Look at the timestamp of this activity on the video or the audio that you're watching so you can come back to it. And I want Jason to lead us through because when I tell you, it chilled me. Y'all know I'm hyper. It chilled me all the way out.
So Jason, that floors yours. Thank you so much. So I want to preface this because I think it's important for people to understand why I am a breathwork specialist and why this is part of my daily routine because there are just so many things happening in this world. There are so many things that cause us stress in our lives. And so it's not just financial.
And so for me, discovering breath work was a life changing kind of force. And what I've been doing is incorporating it in these talks because it's such a powerful way for us to address our nervous system because our nervous system is like it's all hyped up.
And so what I do want to say is that when you get an opportunity, go back to this timestamp. And so you could do this in a safe space because when we're working with breath, it will change how you feel in your body. And so if you're in a safe space right now, I want you to gently kind of lift up your body, feel that energy flowing
from your core all the way up to your head nice and tall back relax your shoulders allow your chin to drop gently towards your chest you can close your eyes if you want to if you feel comfortable and just be present in this moment and I want you to start noticing where your breath enters your body through the nose
perhaps through your mouth and feeling that sensation of air through your nostrils, through your body and filling up your lungs and just being present with that force. Now as you get in touch and feel this pull of gravity in any parts of your body that's touching the floor,
We're gonna work with manipulating your breath. We're gonna go and take a nice deep inhale through your nose, filling your lungs up with air and releasing through your mouth with a sigh. Let's do that. Inhale through your nose, filling your lungs up with air and releasing through your mouth with a sigh.
and allow yourself to do this a few more times. And the power of this is that we hold so much tension around our jawline, around our mouth. So you're probably noticing there's that tension there. And by simply breathing in through our nose and intentionally and mindfully exhaling through our mouth with that sigh, we're allowing our body
to remain still, to be present, to relax. And let's take one more deep inhale through the nose. And I want you to hold it at the top for three seconds. One, two, three, and then release through.
Allow yourself. Now, as you get in and are in your body, I want you to start gently wiggling your fingers, wiggling your toes. Allow yourself to come back into the room and welcome back into this 3D physical world. That was so amazing, Jason. Honestly, it just
It just, this is one of the things that like I appreciate most about you, that this is what you bring to the financial space in a special way. That I don't know that there's anybody, you know, no one on the I know, no one that I follow, no one that I've read up about that approaches personal finance from this space.
you know, this fully grounded, this fully like, you know, just breath work and personal finance. It just doesn't seem like it matches, but it does. Imagine doing a breath work exercise before you sit down and budget with your partner.
You know, imagine doing yoga moves every Saturday. And you know, before you do your budget for the week, you know, like, I just love that like, this is the space. This is the unique beauty that you bring to this, this personal finance space. And I just, you know, I, I hope you all, you know, you're listening. If you got a chance to do a little bit, that's sure a little bit of breath work that, you know, you're feeling as calm as I am, that you can tell by voice is totally changed. I'm like, y'all, I'm so chill.
But I know it hasn't always been easy for you, Jason. And I think it would be good for people to hear. I know you shared a little bit of how you got here. But just maybe diving deeper into how you got here and why did you write this book so we can go on the journey with you?
Yeah, well, thank you for that. I want people to understand that we all have personal journeys. And our journey isn't this straight linear upward trajectory. And it isn't just a downward trend either. And for me, I've had ups and downs, twists and turns. I thought I had it all figured out.
Well, I thought I had it all figured out when I quit my corporate job and went backpacking around the world, discovering my purpose. And discovering my purpose wasn't the end to my story. When I started Frugal and I started on this mission becoming a financial educator and incorporating health and wealth,
That wasn't really the case because I got pulled into the entrepreneurial hustle. So when I was hustling in corporate America and then I was hustling in the entrepreneurial world, I was experiencing the same burnout. I was experiencing the same issues. The physical manifestations of all the mental gymnastics that I was doing was causing me a great deal of distress and now affecting me professionally in the work that I absolutely love doing.
And then impacting my finances. And so there is a point in my life, Tiffany, where just like you, I reach this level of financial success. And I'm like, I'm at the top of my game. I'm getting paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak for one hour.
coming from a city like Elizabeth, New Jersey, the fourth largest city, growing up where we lived in 17 different houses, where we didn't talk about money. I didn't have luxury goods. We didn't go on fancy vacations. And like growing up with just the essentials and not knowing about the how the other half lives did impact me. And so when I achieved these financial success, and I thought that's how that's what's going to make me happy.
And when I achieve that level of professional and financial success, there were still all these other things I needed to work on. And so for me, just becoming mentally drained, emotionally exhausted, physically ill,
just affected my professional and financial success. So I started making bad financial decisions. And that was actually really ashamed of that. And that has a lot to do with like, okay, well, you are a money expert. How could you make financial mistakes as a money expert?
And I was making those mistakes at the height of my quote unquote financial influence. And for me, it's realizing that this is a journey of ups and downs and twists and turns. And I have the opportunity, as long as there's air in my lungs, as long as I am motivated to get up and do the work, that I can have a different path, I can take a different path, I can choose, I make different choices.
And so for me, I've no longer have the shame, the guilt, the embarrassment of my financial mistakes. And I'm certainly know that as I continue on this journey, I'll probably make a few more financial mistakes. But the message I want people to understand is that money is just one aspect of who we are.
And if we can remove the small little stresses of our financial life, we can then focus on other aspects of our well-being. And so for that little short thing is I just want people to know I still don't have it all figured out.
But getting my money right, understanding where work takes precedence in my well-being and everything else. I'm working towards that holistic wellness that I want everyone else to be on in this journey.
And if you follow him, Jason Vituk, J-A-S-O-N-V-I-T-U-G, Fanatic. Okay. You'll see, like you'll get to, you're not just gonna get money stuff, you're gonna get him. I just saw you were walking your dog in the park for your daily walk. I love that. One of the things I like, so there's like chapter, I think it's like chapter five to 10. Can you read some of the chapter titles? I love that. Like how you weaved it. It's like, happy soul, happy, what is it?
Yeah, yeah. So I want people to understand like there is these wellness dimensions and I call them happy dimensions, how we can incorporate the happy dimensions into our life. So mental health is happy mind. Emotional health is happy heart.
physical health is happy body. And then you have your spiritual that's happy spirit, your social well-being, right? The people that surround you, that's happy social, occupational, that's your work, it's happy work, environmental. The physical places you inhabit and live that does affect, that does affect your well-being, that's happy space and your financial health, that's happy money. And so- I love that.
Yeah, I just think it's just a way. Think about your wellness in these happy dimensions, and we need to figure out how we can, again, utilize money as a tool to help us in these things. And when you mention, we talk about money as a tool, and I like people to think of money as a tool to create
fill in the blank. So what do you want money to create in your life? Because a lot of these financial gurus, what do they talk about? They talk about specific financial milestones. They talk about how much you need on your 401k, your investments, your savings accounts. Those things are important because it's gonna help you improve your financial health, your happy money. Now you have to understand once you get to that point or you're working towards achieving those investment numbers or those financial numbers,
Don't forget your happy mind, your happy heart, your happy body, your happy spirit. You could work towards happy money while you're working towards lifting or strengthening those other dimensions.
Any last words, Jason? If someone wanted to start, if someone's like, I don't want to just look at my money, what's something that I can besides pick it up your book, what's something that I can do today to start to incorporate a more holistic approach to my money? Well, aside from the financial tactics that we talk about and you do so well with Get Good With Money, get that copy of the book because that is a holistic way to get your financial wholeness going. The first step I would
recommend is just paying attention to your breath. We did breath work. So the one key thing that when I meet someone, I know how they are doing based on how they're breathing. If they have short, quick breaths coming out of their mouth, I know that they're going through something.
And so the way I interact with them will be a bit different. I'll give them space and grace that they need. And if I see someone who is calm and collected, yes, then I know that we can have a different type of conversation. So they want you to do is become aware of how you're breathing. Are you breathing through your nose or are you breathing through your mouth?
is your jaw clenched. Do you feel like you're not getting enough air and you're gasping? And the reason why I want you to pay attention to that is because your physical body is sharing something about your mental and emotional state through breathing.
And if you are unable to fully breathe, be in your body, it is really hard to budget. It is really hard to have that conversation with your partner. It's really hard to get on the phone and try to negotiate your service contracts and things like that. So that is the first step. And I think that's such an eye opening thing when you go and you may not know this for yourself, but the next time you speak with someone and you see that they're holding their breath,
that they're breathing through their mouths. It's like, that's kind of one of the key things. And so I'm known now to go, it's like, hey, how are you doing? And then it's, and then they'll open up and that just has to do with paying attention to the breath. And I think I want everyone.
Be at home. Just be cognizant. I'm planting this little seed in your mind. Be cognizant of how you're breathing. And learn more about these breathwork techniques. And I actually have 30 different. We did one. We did two now with the dream catchers and here at brand ambition, but there are more than 30, but there are 30 breathwork techniques.
That can help you get energized and also the calm down and help you sleep. And so, breath is such a powerful force when it comes to healing our mental emotional state as well as healing our money traumas. Jason, honestly, it's just so amazing. It's like amazing guys, honestly. This is, can I make a suggestion for you, Jason?
So, you know, when people go to Happy Money, Happy Life, you know, I know right now it's pointing to like Amazon or whatever, but I know you have a book page. Can I suggest that you post maybe three to four of those breathwork activities on the book page, like via, you know, via like a YouTube link? Just so when people come, they know what time it is. And I just love that. I think
paying attention to your breath. That just speaks to who Jason is and how he shows up. Like, you know, that it's not this direct financial thing. It's this indirect thing that will enable you to be more successful with your money and beyond. So just Jason, thank you so, so, so, so much. Where can the people find you? Where can they get your book? Let us know.
Well, thank you so much. Well, you inspired me, Tiffany. I do want to say that. You inspired me because our previous conversations in terms of how do I get more people to understand the book really helped me out. I also spoke with my brother, John, who is a doctoral candidate for a psychology degree.
And he said, and you said, I need to be more present in terms of like, let me just show how this is done. And so I decided to do Wellness Wednesdays. I'm going to do a 10, 15 minute show live streaming on all the platforms, because you've you've educated me on how to do that.
And I want people to understand that we can talk about stress, job related, or financial stress, or whatever stress, but then using these tactical breath work techniques. And also, chair yoga. People don't know, I do chair yoga. So you could do yoga while you're sitting at your desk, so you get your body moving, and it changes and shifts your mind. So with that said, I do encourage you to follow me on social media. I'm active on Instagram. If you love travel and yoga poses, as I tell you, when we do Asana, as you breathe in well,
Breathe out debt. Say it with me, everyone. Breathe in well. Breathe out debt. It's just how I incorporate things. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter and connect with me on LinkedIn. You could certainly find more info about the book at HappyMoneyHappyLifeBook.com.
Yes. And so it's Jason Vtug on all those places, right, Jason? Yes. V-I-T-U-G. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jason. You're always such a gift. It's a privilege and a pleasure to have you on, but even more so to call your friend. Thank you.
Welcome to talk bill the ultimate small bill rewatch podcast line a loop of those stops by the kid home That's fine felt what it was the deal trying to blackmail her for the footage. Come on. He sees an envelope and goes He's behind it all thing. He's not he's not he made her Oh, he's the one that I want to get that I was pressed in that is a great scene interesting things of note talkville wherever you listen
