Podcast Episode - Suze School: Let Go

Do you hold onto things, even when they are not working out for you? Maybe you’re holding onto clothes or belongings that you don’t need.  Maybe you’re holding on to a relationship that is not good for you. Maybe you’re even holding onto a little money, when you need it to pay off debt.  Today’s Suze School is all about how and why it’s important to “let go.”

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Podcast Transcript:

Suze: August 18th, 2024. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money podcast as well as everyone—and I do mean everyone—smart enough to listen. All right, August 18th, you know what that means? Yesterday was August 17th, which happens to be Colo's birthday.

And Colo, because I know you listen to the podcast, you are now 45 years of age. You were right around 35 when we first met you. We've all come such a long way, haven't we, my friend? So happy, happy, happy birthday to you yesterday. We know that you're coming home on Tuesday the 20th, so we will be waiting at the airport, open arms, to say welcome home. We love you and missed you, Colo.

All right, today’s podcast is all about Suze School. So get out your notebooks because the topic of today is “Let go.”

Just two words. Let go. Can you do me a favor and in your notebook—hopefully you have a clean sheet of paper, or if you don’t have a notebook, just get out a piece of paper—write down the words big: “Let go.” Sit with that for a second.

All right.

Now, the other day, KT and I were cleaning out our closet here on the island and we took everything—and I mean everything—that was in the closet, and it’s not a small closet, and put it on our bed. Huge pile of clothing. And little by little, we started to go through one thing and then another thing.

For me, it’s very easy to let go. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t even look at those clothes. I would just wrap them all up and take them down to the village here and give them to all the people that live in the village that work on the island. Just that simple. I wouldn’t have cared.

But as KT was going through things, she was looking at something that I obviously didn’t care about—because it was on the bed—and she said, “Oh, I love this little T-shirt. I’m keeping it.” “Oh, I really like this. I’m going to keep it.” And it’s so hard at times to just let things go.

And it’s not just about clothes—it’s all kinds of things. It is so hard to let go sometimes of not the most productive relationship that you may be in. You know things aren’t working out for you, they’re not really good for you, but you just don’t want to let it go.

And it’s not just clothes or relationships—it’s also money. How many of you have $10,000 of credit card debt, maybe at 20% interest, and that interest is not tax deductible? And yet you have $15,000 in a savings account, maybe only making 1%, 2%, 3%, whatever it is—and that is taxable. And yet you refuse to let go of that money that is in the savings account to take $10,000 of it and pay off your credit card debt. You refuse. Because it is so hard to let go of what’s known versus what would happen—what would be your security if you did that.

And you don’t even realize you could always use your credit cards again. Now you have $10,000 of an available credit limit to charge food, to pay things—everything’s credit cards anyway. So you could get yourself out of trouble if you needed to at that point in time. But you refuse to let it go.

You also refuse to let stocks go. Investments go. How many of you—especially the women out there—you inherited a stock portfolio from your deceased spouse, and your deceased spouse worked so hard on this portfolio. Loved these stocks. Whether they were good stocks or bad stocks didn’t matter. But they were your deceased spouse’s stocks. And now they’re yours. And you don’t want to sell them. You watch them go down. They’re totally out of favor now. You don’t even know why they bought some of these stocks. But you don’t want to let them go because of the memories, what they meant to your deceased spouse. You just don’t want to let it go.

But it’s not just what happens with your deceased spouse. It’s also what happens with stocks that you have purchased. How many of you purchased the ETF ARK that I myself recommended to you way back when, and you watched it go down and down and down. And now you’re still writing me saying, “Suze, do you think I should get rid of it? I’m just hoping that it will go back up.” Why? Especially if it’s outside of a retirement account. Why in the world wouldn’t you just let it go and take the loss off of your taxes or take the loss to offset some gain? Why wouldn’t you do that?

But no—you can’t let go. You don’t want to let go because you liked it. I told you to buy it. And I was as wrong as I could possibly be. But you’re still holding on to it.

There are so many things in your life that, when you look at it, you just won’t let go.

Many, many years ago—it was May 10th, 1998, to be exact—and I’ll never forget that date as long as I live. It was my second time on the Oprah Winfrey Show. I may have told you this story before, but it’s OK. Won’t kill you to hear it again.

My job was simply to go there and say a few words. I wasn’t even going to go onto the stage. She was going to ask me a question from the stage, and from my seat in the audience, I was supposed to answer it. This was a show about all these kids who had credit card debt—and why do they have debt, why did they get into debt, all of these things—and their total debt, believe it or not, totaled a quarter million dollars. So it was a big deal.

The show starts, Oprah introduces everybody that’s on stage with her—all the kids, their parents that are in the audience—and then she looks over at me and she says, “Suze, would you like to take over the entire show?”

And out of my mouth comes these words: “You bet I would.” She says, “OK, come on up here then.” I had already been miked, so when she asked me a question, everybody could hear what I was going to say. And the mics—when you're miked on a show—they’re all wireless so you can walk around and you’re not attached to anything.

So she walks off the stage, sits in my seat, gives me a high five, and I walk on the stage and start talking about debt, talking to these kids and everything about it. And then at one point, I started to talk to the parents, because it’s obvious that if the kids have debt, I’m sure that the parents had debt as well.

I found myself saying to the parents—as well as the millions of people I’m sure were watching that day—I found myself saying something to the effect of:

You hold on so tightly to the little amount of money that you have. I want all of you right now to make a fist. Make a fist. Because when you have a fist, it’s—you’re not letting go. You’re not letting go. Your hands are closed.

And I was saying, you all hold on so tightly—squeeze those hands, everybody—to the little amount that you think you have, your hands aren’t open to receive that which is meant to come your way.

And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. When you can’t let go of clothes that you don’t need or that don’t fit you anymore, if you can’t let go of a bad relationship, if you can’t let go of a portfolio that your deceased spouse left to you just because it was theirs, if you can’t let go of wrong purchases of stocks, of ETFs—then if you simply let go, your hands would be open for you then to buy other stocks and other ETFs that are the correct ones to be in right now and to be able to dollar cost average into them.

But if you can’t let go, you’re stuck. You’re just stuck. Because you can’t then go anywhere. And you have rendered yourself powerless—whether you know it or not.

And when it comes to money, especially if you have debt, the way that you have to force the opening of your hands—because I’m telling you, you won’t do it—but the way to force the opening of your hands is to make an offering.

And I’ve said this before, but I think it’s important to say this again: to make an offering to a nonprofit or a place of worship of your choice. I don’t care if it’s a dollar, I don’t care if it’s $5—I don’t care the amount, but it’s got to be an amount that stretches you just a little bit. If in fact all you can afford is 50 cents, fine. That’s what you should do.

Because once you’re able to open the hands—to release what you’re gripping so tightly—you are now open to receive that which is meant to come your way. You now feel powerful. And when you feel powerful in life, that is when you make decisions that are good for you.

And how many times have I said to you that you and your money are one? Your money cannot do anything without you. You are the one that decided—with me even telling you, but you decided—to take my advice there to buy that one ETF that wasn’t good. You also, hopefully, took my advice and bought a lot more that all were not just good, they worked really great, to tell you the truth.

But once in a while, everyone makes a mistake—including me. And so you have to feel it in your gut to do it. And sometimes, when I tell you to do something, you have to just let it go because it’s not necessarily OK for you.

But when you feel powerful, then you have the ability to let go of something that you’re afraid to let go of because you hope that it will be OK.

You also have to let go of fear. And a lot of you responded so sweetly—and thank you so much—to last Thursday’s podcast where KT told all of you about how afraid I was, and I cried like a baby. Which I did. Man, that was a big cry. You know the type of cry that's like... anyway, that was something, you guys. And so all of a sudden, I let go. I just did it.

I opened my hands and I did it. Then on last Thursday, Saltwater Day, I went in the ocean again. And then came Friday, and I didn’t go in the ocean because it was too rough—because the storm, Ernesto, that’s not that far from here but far enough, is stirring up the ocean. I said no, I don’t want to.

Now, KT went in. But I said no. And it wasn’t because I was afraid—it was because it wasn’t right for me. It didn’t make me feel powerful. I already knew at that point I had what it took to go back in the ocean. But I’m only going to go in the ocean when I feel secure and it looks like it’s an ocean that I can handle.

So then I had to let go of the expectation that I’m going to go in the ocean every time KT says, “Let’s go in the ocean.” And I said no, because it wasn’t right for me.

So today’s podcast—I’m doing this topic because there’s going to be times here when really, you need to let go. And it’s really not that hard. Now all of you are going to have to decide how do you let go. But one exercise that may help you is an exercise that I’ve always told you about when it comes to spending money.

And that exercise was: before you ever buy something, ask yourself—is this a need or is this a want? And if it’s a want, just let it go. And if it’s a need, you obviously have to do it.

Now, one last thing that a lot of you tell me is the hardest thing to let go of—and it has to do with money—is you just can’t let go of going out to eat and getting your favorite food. You can’t let go of going to a fast food place and getting pizza at least once a week. You can’t let go of certain habits like that. And you don’t want to let them go because they bring you such enjoyment.

But if you’re out there and you’re doing those things and you don’t have an eight-month to 12-month emergency fund, if you don’t have credit cards that have absolutely zero debt on them, then I’m here to tell you: you can’t afford not to let go of those habits.

So I’d like you to just do one thing. You know, when we were on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Oz always used to say: all you have to do is stop doing something for 21 days. And if you stop doing something for 21 days, it will now break the habit, and you’ll be able to let go.

So for today’s Suze School, I would like you to right now, write down just one thing you want to let go of. One habit. One fear. One piece of clothing that you love but you haven’t worn. What is just one thing that you want to let go of? And write it down.

I would love for a lot of you who don’t have an 8- to 12-month emergency fund or you have credit card debt—I would like you to let go of eating out for at least 21 days. I would want you to let go of ordering anything online for 21 days. That’s a want versus a need. Just 21 days. And see what happens.

But it’s important to let go.

Now, I do just want to end the podcast with going back to last Thursday’s podcast because, towards the end, KT—and she thought she was so cute, she thought she was so cute when she was doing this—read me an email from a woman by the name of Teresa who had purchased an ETF that was made up of all semiconductors. And she said essentially, “This ETF stinks.”

And it was almost like saying she so much hated that she purchased it because I probably said it—and she probably heard it—that’s why she wrote me. So at that time, I did a perfect example of why dollar cost averaging just makes so much sense and why you should never ever purchase a stock or an ETF in one lump sum. I don’t care if it’s going up or going down—things always go down. And I told her all about that.

And at the time of last Thursday’s podcast, when we recorded it, the ETF SMH was at $236 a share. OK—not so bad. At one point, just a few weeks before that, it was down to like $205 during one day. So it was at $236 that day.

And essentially what I said to Teresa—if she hates that stock so much, just sell it. Then just sell it. But the very next day, on Friday, it closed at $246. Not so bad—really not so bad. So again, I just want to point out: when things move, especially in the area of semiconductor stocks, they can move very, very quickly in both directions.

Therefore, if you enter into that arena, you need time. For it to go up and go all the way back down—which they absolutely can—and go back up again. You need time. And I would hope you would give yourself at least three to five years, if not longer—maybe the rest of your life—that you just stick with the stocks that are going to change this world, are leaders in the field, have great management, and in the end, can make you a lot of money.

I just have to say one other thing here, and that is: so many people wrote and said, “Suze, how is it possible that your favorite stock could be Apple? Didn’t you read that Warren Buffett—the greatest investor of all time—and he most certainly is—he sold half of his position? Why in the world, Suze, would you be telling us to buy Apple and tell everybody out of all the stocks out there that Apple is your favorite stock, when Warren Buffett just sold half of his position?”

Can we get a clue here, people? Did it ever dawn on you that maybe Warren Buffett sold half of his position because he owned 800 million shares of Apple? And Apple and Coca-Cola were like two of his biggest positions. And he sold 400 million shares because it had gotten way out of whack. And so now he has 400 million shares left. And that happens to be how many shares he has of Coca-Cola, by the way.

He didn’t sell the stock because he didn’t like the stock. He was obviously rebalancing all the money so that he could free up some money to maybe leave it in cash, but do other things with it. Just so you know, when he sold half of his position, Apple was at about $207 to $210, right in there. Friday night’s close—Apple was at $226. Do the math on that—going up 16 points approximately from where he sold hundreds of millions of shares. Really, everybody?

So can you just not look at what somebody else does and think, “Oh my God, I can’t buy Apple, I can’t do that.” By the way, I happen to recommend it to you when it was at $207—just so you know.

Yes, Apple is still my favorite stock. I don’t care if it goes down. I don’t care if it goes sideways. But in the long run, it is my favorite stock—along with Keith Fitz-Gerald’s pick, Palantir, which we started to buy at $7. And for those of you who were lucky enough to follow along with that pick, which I told you about, Palantir is now at $32 a share. Well, do the math on that—$7 to $32—that’s a huge, huge gain.

Even Keith will tell you that when a stock doubles—so when it got to $14—he tells everybody to do what's called a “free trade” so that you take out the amount of money that you originally invested to invest in something else, and then let it go. And you keep doing that so that you have diversification and you make money that way. So he has what it takes to tell people to let go—even if you think a stock is going higher.

And by the way, he thinks that stock is going to $50 a share. Will it go down before then? Maybe. But possibly, will it even go to $85? Who knows?

And for those of you—it’s so sweet—on the board, you’re a little worried about our Keith because you haven’t gotten your Five with Fitz or heard from him. He’s taking his motorcycle with his wife and they’re driving somewhere to do some talk or something. And he’s sending me pictures all the time of the food they’re eating and this and that. They’re having a fabulous time. A little vacation mixed in with a little work. Don’t worry about him.

And for those of you who aren’t getting notifications from the Women and Money app, why don’t you just get rid of the app, upload it again, sign in again, and I bet you’ll start to get notifications once again.

All right. Well… what do we think? Are you going to let go?

Well, I’ll tell you what I’m going to let go of. I’m going to let go of this podcast right here and right now so I can go join Miss Travis in the other room and have some coffee. I don’t know what I’m going to eat today. Every day she says, “What do you want to eat? What do you want to eat?” And for some reason, I just haven’t been interested in eating. And it’s a very difficult thing to do with KT because she spends all this time setting a proper table and making