The War On Small Business With Carol Roth, 2x Best Selling Author, Media Personality & Board Member

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About The Guest

Carol Roth is a content creator, “recovering” investment banker, author of The War on Small Business, entrepreneur, TV pundit and host, and New York Times bestselling author of The Entrepreneur Equation.

She has worked in a variety of capacities across industries, including currently as an outsourced CCO, as a director on public and private company boards and as a strategic advisor. She advocates for small business, small government and big hair.

On the content side, Carol is a national media personality, with more than a dozen years of on-camera expertise. Formerly, she has been a judge on the Mark Burnett-produced technology competition series, America’s Greatest Makers, on TBS and the Host of Microsoft’s Office Small Business Academy show, as well as a panelist on Fox Business’s Bulls & Bears and CNBC’s Closing Bell.

Roth appears regularly on national cable television networks including Fox Business, CNBC, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.

Talking Points

• 07:31 — Why we’re forgetting about small businesses.

• 11:34 — Why were big businesses given a free pass?

• 15:27 — What could we have done differently to support small businesses?

• 17:02 — The largest wealth transfer in history.

• 22:40 — Why did Carol write this book?

• 26:24 — Why is the death of small business not getting coverage?

• 33:44 — Holding the Federal Reserve accountable.

• 36:20 — The issue with the Relief Act and PPP.

• 40:16 — Advice for young entrepreneurs.

Show Links

• https://twitter.com/caroljsroth

• https://www.carolroth.com/

Show Sponsor

HubSpot Podcast Network — https://hubspot.com/podcastnetwork

HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business.

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On this podcast, you’ll find interviews, Q&A, keynote presentations & conversations on sales, marketing, business, startups and entrepreneurship.

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Scott will discuss some of the lessons he’s learned over his own career, as well as have candid interviews with execs, celebrities, notable figures and politicians. All who have achieved success through both wins and losses, to learn more about their life, their ideas and insights.

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Read The Transcript (Machine Generated)

Carole 02:21

Yes, so I was the first person in my immediate family to go to college. My dad was an electrician. My mom was a stay at home mom turned hobby entrepreneur, I guess you would call it. And I managed to get myself into Wharton undergrad. And my father who is extremely common sensical and financially savvy said, that’s great. How are you going to pay? And we went through this whole ROI calculation of well, if I if I go there, I can probably get a pretty decent job and pay it down. And so when I was there, that was that was the mantra. And so usually people who go to Wharton have two paths if you’re looking to pay down debt really quickly. One is management consulting for people who like to do a deep dive. And for people who have a DD, we go into investment banking. So obviously, I was going to take the investment banking route. And that’s where I started my career. As you noted, I am a recovering investment banker. It’s a 12 step program, I’m somewhere around step 11. But did you know billions of dollars worth of transactions over my time raise capital did mergers and acquisitions and the like, and still, you know, remain as a market commentator and fascinated just by the concepts of markets to this day, so that’s kind of how all of this insanity kicked off. And the nice thing about going into a place that buys you financial flexibility is that flexibility piece so it kind of gives you latitude to think about things you might want to do. And although I have not achieved my dream yet of being a game show host which is my ultimate goal, that in the interim, I have been a as you mentioned, a reality competition judge and post of shows and panelists done shows frequently in media, sit on boards of directors, do some investing act as an outsource, Chief customer officer for collectibles company and do all kinds of fun things along the way and write books.

Scott 04:31

When when you left investment banking, when did you decide that you wanted to build a name for yourself, write a book start to put yourself out there because that’s not an easy thing to do either but you’re doing it you’re doing it big and now this is sort of what’s giving you the platform to to write

Carole 04:48

Yeah, well, so I you know, I was the big mouth and investment banking that would be like, are you guys crazy and like the middle of a meeting and people are like, you can’t say that and I’m like, Yo Well, I’m going to say it anyway. So I, you know, I had that personality, and people would say to me all the time, like, you should be on television. And I’m like, okay, like, what the heck does that mean? And so like, after I left banking and actually started my own broker dealer, it was, you know, one of the things I decided I was going to try doing, and I wasn’t exactly sure how one did that, because this was going a really long time, like 1314 years ago. And the internet, you know, and creator economy is not where it was, you know where it is today. Like I was one of the first people who was like a quote unquote influencer for brands like before it was influencing was a thing. So I remember, I would have my brother in law, bring over this like big old video camera, then he would record me answering entrepreneurs questions. And then we use the cables to like, download the video, and find some way to slice it and upload it to like a web, my website. That’s originally housing, that’s how I started. And you leverage that into radio and leverage leverage radio into local television, and leverage local television and send national television. And I was actually doing that kind of stuff. Before I even got on social media. I had a woman who was a good dear friend Oji, on Twitter, who has recently passed in the last couple of years, named Liz Strauss, who brought me on to Twitter kicking and screaming, to the extent that she actually ran my account for the first couple months, like I wasn’t even on it, like anything, if you go back to the beginning, like, none of that is mine. And, you know, then eventually, I figured it out, and Lord, help everybody. But, you know, that’s kind of how all of this madness started. And, you know, in the beginning, I just I wanted to help small businesses, I wanted to, as I said, I really wanted to be a game show host. Like I never build, like really thought I would get into areas like news and political commentary, and all these things that just sort of happen along the way, when you try something new. And you go down and you make your plans. And then different doors open. And you’re like, Well, okay, I’ll just walk through that one and see what it’s like. So, typical entrepreneur path, right?

Scott 07:31

Yeah, nothing’s planned, and everything happens, and you just roll with it as it goes. And exactly love it. So now, you know, so now you’ve you know, you’ve built a great name for yourself, still championing for small businesses, obviously, that’s what that’s what your your core messages and you’ve built an incredible following around that message. I think it’s very important. And I think that one thing that is actually interesting is, you know, you have a social platform, and you get invited to speak on various business topics. But you mentioned that this particular topic has not really been covered that much. So this is not something that you’re getting as much exposure on is some I’m sure, you know, you have the you have the relationships, you have the network. So let’s, you know, I guess this is this is the this is where you’re at in your career. Now, I think that that really sums up quickly. I don’t mean to gloss over a lot of the stuff you’ve done. But I think that there’s a lot of really important stuff that we could talk about just with the book, and what it’s discussing. So let’s walk through the premise of the book, let’s just at a high level, and then we can talk about maybe why it’s not getting coverage, why it could be why it’s not getting the reach that I think it’s an important topic. So let’s dive into it.

Carole 08:41

So I think the first thing I just want to say up front is this is a non partisan issue. We’re going to talk government, and we’re going to talk political because it’s impossible not to, but this is a systemic issue. This is not, oh, if we just had this person or this party in place, it all fixes it. So I just want to put it out there because I think sometimes it taints people’s reaction to think, Oh, well, this is going to be, you know, a political lecture. And it’s not but it’s a political reality. So the reality of what happened in the last 15 months, which, you know, I lay out the argument that actually the seeds of this have been planted for a very long time, is that the government decided that it was going to deem some businesses essential and some non essential, it was going to decide who gets to thrive, and who has to fight to survive. And they did this based not on data and not on science, but based on political clout and connections. And via these actions, and also not appropriately compensating the small businesses for taking over their property rights and subjugating their property rights for the public good. It’s enabled the most historic wealth transfer we’ve ever seen. From Main Street to Wall Street. So you know, that’s kind of the overarching theme of the book, as well as this kind of ongoing battle between the decentralization that do not only small business, but you know, gig workers, creator, economy, crypto, all those things stand for versus centralized power. And that’s your The messaging. And unfortunately, this historic wealth transfer. And this unequal treatment of small business is just getting glossed over, you know, via the macro, oh, things are getting better. Oh, the stock market’s doing great. Well, again, Let’s peel back the onion and look at the story here.

Scott 10:41

So, so, a couple of points, because people are gonna listen, you’re gonna say, okay, so whereas, you know, I think that essential makes sense to me, like, we need people that are up and running. So how do we how do we, how do we quantify that some businesses were left open, and some weren’t, and there wasn’t a science or a reason behind it. And I’m actually so I want to point out one more fact, I’m actually Canadian, and Toronto still shut down, more or less, just until recently. So I see it, and I see all these, you know, you see the stories, and not everybody knows somebody who owns a business, but you see the stories like, you know, restaurant has been open for 50 years, 60 years, closed, down, closed, down, closed down. And it’s horrible. But the logic at the beginning, the premise was, well, these, you know, these are spots where the virus can spread. And we need to be careful about this. So walk me through, walk me through that.

Carole 11:34

Yeah. So you know, these are spots where so the virus magically can’t spread, and the Amazon warehouse, it magically can’t spread in Walmart, it magically cannot spread in PetSmart, where you can take your dog to get your dog’s hair and nails groomed, for lack of a better term. But you can’t get your own hair and nails groomed, you can go to the weed dispensary, which, by the way, was not even legal A few years ago, in many states, but now is deemed essential. You could go out and get liquor, but you know, some other small business dry cleaner, whatever it is in your neighborhood isn’t essential. So those were kind of the delineations that were drawn upfront. And again, if they had compensated those businesses for saying, we’re going to take some of you, we need to do something, we don’t know what we’re doing. But we’re just picking you, and here’s money so that you can have continuing operations, but you get to stay home, then there’s you know, then it’s a different, completely different discussion. But that’s not what happened. So that’s what happened upfront. But then if you keep going down the line, and again, you’re obviously I’m taking the US take on this, and I’m sure you have your own examples in Canada. But you had situations where, okay, if you had a bar in New York, you could reopen, but you had to serve food. So then they would serve chips, and then they would say, No, you need to serve chips and dip. So the dip was the scientific difference between being open and shuttered. Then you had on the other coast in LA, and I go through this story in the book, pineapple Hill, saloon and grill that spent more than $80,000, reportedly to fix up their outside seating so that they could comply with outdoor seating requirements so they can keep their business and they you know, or community staple. And then they say, Well, no, we’re gonna shut down outdoor seating to which we know the data and science didn’t support that. But at the same time, they gave a permit to a movie production to be able to shoot a movie. Up, yeah, they opened up a catering tent to provide food service to the cast and crew in the same parking lot like 100 feet away from the pineapple hills, girls, outdoor seating. So how is that not okay, but 100 feet away, the same activity is okay. Like, you can just see these please examples time and time again. And it’s very clear that this is a cloud and connection thing and not a science thing. In that particular case. Gavin Newsom, who was the governor of California, was found having dinner and breaking his own COVID protocols at the French Laundry, which is this hoity toity place in California with a lobbyist from the movie industry. So you know, we have all of these very concrete examples. It was completely done on a cloud connections. And again, if it there had been compensation so that we truly were all in this together. It would be a very different story, but we were not all in it together. And that’s the big problem here.

Scott 14:48

What, so what always confuses me is why would anybody benefit from not understanding this seeing this and being like, this is a problem. It’s like, we can Lose, because you said biggest wealth transfer. We can’t lose all of these mom and pop brick and mortar family run businesses because that would be the logical thing to say, right? You don’t want all these you don’t. You don’t want all these people being an extra burden on the system because they can’t they can’t pay bills because the restaurant shut down. So why would Why would this not be rectified? I mean, that’s the multitrillion dollar question. Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense to me.

Carole 15:27

They don’t, they could have done that very easily. Here in the United States, we know, we spent, like more than $6 trillion dollars addressing COVID, they could have bought themselves to two and a half to three months, and spend a trillion to a trillion and a half dollars. And if they wanted to address the small businesses and find risk mitigation strategies instead. So they could have done that. And again, if you wanted to double that, it still would have been a fraction of what they actually spent. But unfortunately, the media is, you know, running cover for politicians, nobody’s digging in to this. And no matter how many times we hear, small business is so important, it’s the backbone of the economy, we have to preserve your wealth creation opportunities to people when it’s time to walk the talk. You don’t have that. And unfortunately, and I don’t know how it is in Canada, but things are so politicized here in the US that you can’t even have a nuanced conversation without everybody retreating to Oh, well, let me see what my party talking points are. And like just like going, Okay, let’s put that all aside. Like let’s just, you know, as common sense, human beings, yeah, take a look at this. And we’re not even saying like, you can’t lock down or you have to have complete freedom, we’re just talking about winners and losers and different treatment of different entities. And that is blatant. And it’s why it’s so important for people to educate themselves and to get all the information and facts behind us.

Scott 17:02

And you mentioned largest wealth transfer. So what do you have numbers? Do you know what the numbers are like? So I’m curious.

Carole 17:13

Scott. So yeah, so basically, there, you have to understand that there were two levels that this happened on. So there is the kind of the fiscal policy level, we’ve closed down your business, you go, you have a customer who’s looking to spend $1, they can’t spend it at, you know, the local, small business. And they spent that at Amazon, they spent that at Walmart, they spent it at Target, and I have no actual numbers in the book. But these companies, they had record quarters, we know that Amazon had their first 100 billion dollar revenue quarter, in the fourth quarter of 2020, they had a second one in the first quarter of 2021. You know, at the same time, you had the monetary policy issues. And here in the United States, obviously, the Federal Reserve, the most powerful central bank in the entire world, did a couple of things, they went back to the almost zero interest rates, and in conjunction with that, and and to impart to effect that they print, quote, unquote, printed, because it’s really a digital entry on their books, but they created money, and put that, you know, into the system, which ended up inflating the market and disrupting risk. And what we saw from that side, and as well as the the, you know, the revenue expansion is that we had seven technology companies that gained $3.4 trillion in value in 2020, as well as being a record year for initial public offerings, as well as a record values raised by spax, which are special purpose acquisition companies. And at the same time, by June of last year, we had recorded 400,000 small businesses that had been permanently shuttered, and millions more that were struggling to survive. And I’ve seen lots of numbers on the outflow here, I’ve seen something up to 40% of all small businesses permanently shuttered. Those numbers aren’t correct. That’s probably of employer based small businesses. But even so if it’s 2 million, I mean, that’s insane. There’s only 10 to 15,000 big businesses in this country in the United States. So if you’re talking about even 400,000, that’s 40 times the number of big businesses that were shuttered permanently by these policies. And then obviously, the trillions of dollars of wealth that was transferred from Main Street to Wall Street is just staggering, but this stuff is opaque. It’s hard to understand what people don’t know what the Federal Reserve is, which is why I have a whole chapter on it in the book. So people can really understand what’s happening in terms of tilting the playing field. Because, you know, I’m the biggest free market capitalist that’s out there and I don’t you know, I think that inequalities are okay if they come about in the market, you have different inputs and different outputs, but are completely not okay when you have the government tilting the playing field in the direction of a handful of the players. I

Scott 20:25

Now the there’s so many directions that there’s so many things that I want to pull out of this. But I guess I think that it’s also notable to to speak on your experience about getting. Okay, let me let me think about this. First, I want to understand why you decided to write this book. Why is this important to you? Because this is obviously you’re putting yourself out there in a big way. And secondly, speak about the reception of the book. And then I want to speak about some lessons learned cuz I don’t want to move off that yet. Because I think this is very interesting as well.

Carole 22:40

So I was actually approached to write a book, not necessarily this book, but a book about the economic consequences of you know, what happened last year, very early on HarperCollins identified that this was going to be historic. And they wanted somebody who had an actual background in finance and economics to be able to give a real take that wasn’t just you know, a bunch of partisan talking points and pushing an agenda. So I like like an idiot agreed and was like, Oh, that sounds like a fun project to do. I’m on lockdown. And so I didn’t really realize that this was going to be this Herculean task, because stuff is unfolding real time and decisions are being made. And so I just started, you know, chronicling what I was seeing and use it just a huge variety of sources. And I knew small business was going to be a big piece of it, partially because of my background. And because I identified in March of 2020, hey, these are the first guys getting shut down. This is going to be a problem. And I had kind of put out an op ed about this is the way that you could avoid having this economic disaster. So I knew that was going to be a piece of it. But you I actually wrote like three and a half different books to be perfectly honest, during this pandemic. And this last one was like 160,000 words, and my editor is like, no, we’re not doing that. So we called it back to the just under 90,000 that it is today. And so it was just as we were kind of going through what happened and it was such a wild ride because we had this historic fall off of the the GDP, but then you had this fed intervention. And then you end up with as I said, this crazy wealth transfer. So like where the story started was very different than how it ended. But the clear thing that just kept happening the whole time, and the untold underreported story was what was happening to the little guys, whether that be small businesses, or individual investors, retirees, you know, and I felt like, you know, this this championing of the small person was was important. And you know, so that ended up being the story. And, you know, it’s like the most underreported story that’s out there. So, you know, we’re my publisher super excited. They’re like, you know, everybody’s gonna be all over this because everybody’s seen what happened. Yeah. And they’re such a difference. And the craziest thing is like, I’m walking in the path of the small business owner, because like decentralized media, the creator economy, folks like you, Scott, folks who are not at big networks, but have kind of their own things are all over this. I have a few champions, Charles Payne at Fox Business, we’ll give Charles a shout out. He’s always a champion for the little guy. But I have done and again, this is, like, hard, hard for people to understand. But like, I’m somebody who’s in the media, like, I’m on TV multiple times a day, like I’m a known quantity. So this is like it would serve to to think that like, this would be a no brainer, but I have done at this point in time. And it was scheduled for zero, primetime television hits, and zero morning show hits, none, zero. Like, even with people who like you’re like, Oh, we support the little guy, or whatever.

Scott 26:23

On either side?

Carole 26:24

None. And I’ve had, you know, op eds that have been rejected, you know, that we’ve tried to put out in media that are adapted from the book, Fox, Fox Business did run one of them. And I think the New York Post is going to be running one. But again, like in terms of, you’ve got, you’re the first person to market with this huge underreported story that affects half the economy. And like, like crickets, like my publishers, like, I can’t believe this. And it’s just proving the thesis that everybody talks a big game. At the end of the day, nobody actually cares that the government does it, the media does it. And unfortunately, as I said, this is not a niche, this is half the US economy, globally, small businesses 99.9% of all business entities around the globe. So this is a story. And I’ve had people, you know, not only from Canada, but from Nigeria, and from India, and other places saying the same thing happened here and say everything hap right, everything is the same. So even though it’s and you would think the US would be like the one place where they’re like, oh, we’re gonna do right by, you know, free market capitalism, but it’s completely moved in the opposite direction. So even though the story is told from the US lens, it is very relevant and has had a lot of interest. You know, broadly and I will say the other weird thing is, is that the read the people who’ve read the book, Love the book like that the feedback across the political aisle, and it’s early from early readers, and they’re a bunch of bunch of people who like rip through it, this has been great, you know, it’s already got a bunch of reviews up. It’s been phenomenal. So it’s not like, Oh, well, you know, it just wasn’t a very good book, and people don’t want to talk about it. Because there are lots of very bad books that we see on media all the time. So this is something that people think supposedly think is important. people agree that it’s well written, it’s important. And yeah, like, nobody talks about it,

Scott 28:33

I still, it’s still it still blows my mind that on, you know, it’s too bad that it’s turned into a partisan issue. Because it’s not it’s it’s a it’s a human issue at the end of the day, when you really when you really break it down the people that are losing businesses and are trying to reinvent themselves. And you know, I love what you said at the beginning about the gig economy is great, and that’s fine. But not everybody who’s owned a restaurant for 40 years is comfortable just joining the gig economy or, or selling a service on Fiverr or going to deliver for Uber, like, it’s not easy for some people, and this is the people that are really hurting, not the people that were easily transitioning into another job or something like that.

Carole 29:13

Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s the point of the small business is it’s so broad, and encompasses so many different things. And it’s not all only about money, either. You know, it’s about freedom and flexibility and passion and it’s people’s identities. I mean, it’s so important outside of the economic realm in terms of just the concept of freedom and economic freedom. That’s what small business stands for. And so you know, that makes it you know, kind of doubly a heartbreak here.

Scott 29:42

Yeah, it’s it’s very strange to me that nobody is really is really picking this up. How do we how do we help small businesses what’s the what’s the what’s the action plan to to help these people that haven’t, you know, haven’t had a lot of support?

Carole 29:57

What’s the most important thing that we can eat? Every one of us can do is vote with our dollars is that it’s very easy and we’ve all become very lazy and accustomed to you’re just doing whatever is the fastest or something that you know you have auto programs in your phone. But remember that your that has consequences. And so you’re if you’re sitting around and you’re asking Alexa, Alexa, why does Jeff Bezos have so much money? You know, there’s a little cognitive dissonance there. And so you have to be thinking about, who is it that I want to be supporting you, I only have so much money to put out there. You have to be thoughtful about about your capitalism and about your spending. I think the other thing you know, and particularly here in the US, we need to rein in the fed the Federal Reserve, you know, the impact of this monetary policy, in terms of driving this, this transfer of wealth, and creating this unequal playing field has just gotten to absurd proportions. And because it’s, as I said, it’s opaque and people don’t understand it, it’s just not getting the lens. And we need more deregulation, and things that are removing these anti competitive barriers that make it harder for small businesses to operate. You know, here in the US, obviously, we were the center of the Great Recession, financial crisis, which ended up impacting the world economy, some financial institutions took on too much risk. And we all paid the price for that. And coming out of that there’s this regulation called Dodd Frank, that was supposed to rein in the big banks. But what did it do? It basically completely killed off the start of small and community banks, it threw a bunch of them, you know, under and that they couldn’t, they couldn’t exist anymore. And the outgrowth of that, because small institutions are the ones that lend to small businesses meant that small business lending went off a cliff. At the same time, the big banks had less competition. And so they had also this all this access to capital from the feds intervention in the markets. And so big business lending increased. So all of this stuff that was meant to rein in the big banks ended up giving them free rein, and the small guys got screwed once again. So we have to be very careful about trying to get more involvements into the market, we need to let the small businesses operate in a more free decentralized way.

Scott 32:33

But so one thing you said that was it was really important is you can vote with your dollars. That makes sense. Everybody can actually not tomorrow, even you’re doing that. So I don’t know, you didn’t even mention that you’re launching your book, and selling it through a small business versus the Amazon route. Right? That’s

Carole 32:49

Yeah. I mean, it’s available everywhere. It’s a big publisher. But I personally have been telling people, particularly in the US to go to book shop.org book shop.org fulfils through local small business book sellers. And we’ve said so much traffic to them, that within like two or three days, they were already back, which is a great thing. So you can still back order it there now. But there are all kinds of retailers that are listed with the publisher. And you can certainly walk over to your small business book seller as well. But you know, I didn’t want to be the person who is like, oh, let’s support small businesses and go buy my Amazon. So we’re trying to walk the talk. And again, I’m a capitalist. So if you find the convenience in that, and you’ve been thoughtful about it, and that’s still the best option for you, then God bless, you know, I’m not gonna stop you from buying the book. But you know, give it a second thought, give it at least a second thought.

Scott 33:44

So that that was my point was that you can vote with your dollars there. But in terms of understanding the Federal Reserve, understanding how to actually push, move the needle on holding them accountable, maybe, you know, you said that the average American has to be better educated. So you have ideas about is it just voting for the right representative? Is the government like, what is the what is the action plan for the average American to move that needle?

Carole 34:10

So buy the book and read chapter five, which chapter five and 12, the Federal Reserve in China, everybody’s favorite chapters, including mine in the book. So you need to learn what it is that you’re talking about. And then we need to be contacting our representatives and telling them that they need to rein it in and that they need to call the purview. And you know, what it is that the Federal Reserve can do the fact that they have $8 trillion on their balance sheet that they have created from nowhere through a digital entry. The fact they have suppressed interest rates below market rates for so long and disruptive risk in the market. That isn’t Okay, and they’re not following their mandate from Congress anymore, either. So I think the more people that complain Cuz I guarantee you other than like a couple of those who followed Ron Paul and Rand Paul, like nobody’s calling their representatives being like, Hey, have you looked into the Federal Reserve lately? So yeah, I mean, that’s, I mean, that’s like a great place to start. And it’s one that I think that as more people figure out what’s going on, again by partisan like, you know, non partisan, like, everyone should say, like, yeah, that’s the good thing. And, you know, I feel like sometimes this whole like discussion of the rich or eat the wealthy is a bastardization of not understanding that there’s nothing wrong with being wealthy, as long as you’re not getting these special favors, or you’re not having, you know, the ability to take somebody who’s retirees money that they put in the bank, and they’re getting like 0% interest on and then you’re borrowing on that and like buying up the house to compete with them? Yeah, I think if that’s not okay, so like, understanding the dynamics there, I think will make discussions more nuanced. And then people better able to articulate what it is they think should be done.

Scott 36:09

And just to tie tie that to something that maybe people have heard in the news is the cares act. That was part that was something that was initiated by the reserve the Fed, or is that something that now

Carole 36:20

care at the cares act was the Congress, and that was sort of the the, it was the third, but like the big Relief Act that came out at the end of March, and that’s what had the first tranche of PPP, which was the payroll protection program. Which has so many issues. And I again, I kind of detail this whole thing in the book, but that whole package was trillions of dollars that mostly went to cronies, and like a couple 100 billion that in that particular trajecroy, that went to small businesses that got eaten up in 13 to 14 days by quote unquote, big small businesses that had access to capital, including like celebrities that were being named to the Forbes billionaire list and all kinds of stupid stuff. Yeah, just more accountability, more transparency, more more education, like, this is what this is what and it’s so sad that it’s just pigeon holed into a partisan issue, because it’s so not like, it’s so it’s so not. So is that,

Carole 37:20

like, every everyone, that’s part of the Green Party, like we have the opportunity to take control of our wealth. Yeah, it’s been great. You know, it’s, it’s funny, because I would say, like, here in the US, I feel like progressives, libertarians and conservatives have all identified some of the same problems, they just differ on the solutions. And sometimes it’s just not, you know, kind of looking at the scope of what’s out there or kind of bringing nuance to the table. But the reception from people who, you know, may not agree politically, on this particular subject is pretty universal. So that the reception has been great, so far from readers. That’s out of it through the decentralized media and the people in the influencers who’ve been been out there spreading the word. And so yeah, that’s what we’re gonna continue to do. Good. Okay,

Scott 38:13

so we went through a whole bunch of stuff. And of course, yes, I want people to actually go read the books, we’re not going to, we’re not going to make you you know, do a read through of every every single chapter. But I like to wrap this up with some like career and life questions, some experience that you’ve had in your career just for people that are younger in their career. But before we pivot, was there anything else that you want to bring up in relation to the book, or some of the things that we’ve just spoke about that we didn’t go into? Yes.

Carole 38:38

So I just want to make a plug in why this book so important, and hopefully, you’ll indulge my silly personality by saying this. And I feel like she can’t believe she said, this, I’m saying this, like tongue in cheek, but like, I got it in advance for this book, like I’m getting paid whether or not any of you buy this book like this is not this makes zero financial difference in my life, I promise you. So like you if you buy it, or if you don’t buy it, like it doesn’t help me one way or another. Like, I don’t care about cashing my checks from that standpoint. But what I do really care about is small business advocacy and advocacy for economic freedom and wealth creation. And making sure we don’t end up with economies where there’s like 10 is that everybody’s only working for them, and only can purchase from them. And we’ve taken away this opportunity, great opportunity from everybody. So if you care about that, that’s why you need to buy the book. And that’s why you need to convince other people to buy the book. Because if this book doesn’t do well, and people aren’t talking about these things, then the media is going to continue to ignore this and publishers are going to continue to ignore this. And politicians are going to continue to ignore this. But if people start seeing this as a movement and taking this information and talking about it and spreading it and it does Well, and then they can see, like, the little guide does matter. Like that’s gonna affect change. So like, I hope I plead with you to buy the book for that reason, not because it’s like gonna support me or change my life one iota.

Scott 40:16

Good. I love that. That’s very good. Okay, let’s do let’s do some rapid fire career questions. As lengthy or as short as you’d like, biggest, biggest challenge in your career? How did you overcome it?

Carole 40:30

Yes, challenge. I mean, I feel like I’m the biggest check. Cuz I’m so hard on myself. And so like, anything I do, that, like, doesn’t have this, like, immediate, like, Oh, my God, like you killed in the media see, like, I, like I’m just that person is I’m so hard. So I’ve taken a success mantra, which I used to have pinned at the top of my Twitter. And after I stopped promoting my book, the end of the summer, we’ll go back to the pin on my Twitter, which is basically success comes when you pursue something with the vigor to get it done immediately, but having the patience when it takes much longer, and I put it up there, not really for all of you, but for myself, because, you know, it is like, like, when stuff doesn’t go in that linear line or, you know, it’s like one step forward and to step back, like I can just be so hard on myself. That, you know, that stands as a nice reminder for me, and then anyone else who takes something away from that, as well. I feel like that’s gravy.

Scott 41:42

That’s a great I love that. That’s a great quote. Is that the you that wrote that? Or is that a quote? Yeah, that’s a carol Roth original. Good. I love it. NFC it? Yeah, you should NF T. That’s a good one. That’s, that’s really good. I like that. I’ve never I was like, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that one before. Like, what the hell said that. That’s Carol Ross to herself. Okay, one lesson you would tell your younger self,

Carole 42:06

ah, take more risk early on. That’s an easy one. I mean, it takes it takes just as long and it’s just as hard to build something big as it is to build something small. And when you don’t have a lot to lose, it’s the time to experiment. So like, if you are early on in your career, like just go big, like, whatever you’re doing just like, three exit five exit. Nice. Ask yourself, like, is this big enough?

Scott 42:34

I love that. One person that had an incredible impact on your life, who was it? What did they teach you?

Carole 42:41

My dad, my dad was my best friend was rest in peace, Bernie, you know, he, like, as I said, When I started, like, he was not formally educated, but he had so much common sense. And he just had such great values about work ethic, and being a person of your word. And, you know, good financial sense, not buying things you can afford, and, and not using debt unless it’s a you know, an investment tool and being loyal. That, you know, that’s really made me who I am. And I think also particularly as, as a woman, he never treated me like a woman, like there was never the like, girls do this conversation. Or as like a woman, you should be doing this or you should be focused in this thing. So like, I didn’t even know that I was female until like, somebody brought that up. Like, by the time I got to the media, because you I went to Wharton, which was you know, especially at that time, heavily male dominated. I went into finance, you know, which is heavily male dominated. Then I did your radio and TV, also very heavily male dominated. And it was like until that piece when like, somebody was like, oh, and a woman. And I’m like, What? Like, yeah, oh,

Scott 43:56

yeah, I

Carole 43:57

guess I guess I am. Never, I was never given those like limiters like the limiting beliefs, like, oh, you’re part of this group. And you can only do this and like, I was just never taught like that. And I attribute that entirely to my father just treating me as an individual, which is why I feel like I am an individualist today and why I kind of walked through life in that direction. I think that was so incredibly important in terms of my success.

Scott 44:25

I love that. Okay, something you’d recommend people go check out besides your own, it could be a book, podcast, audible. Oh, there’s

Carole 44:34

so many good things. But one of my favorite books that I’ve read in the last couple of years that like nobody knows about, which is a real story is called a billion dollar whale. Scott. Have you heard of billion dollar? Well

Scott 44:49

not heard of that. Okay, so I have not heard.

Carole 44:52

This is another one. That’s a head scratcher. And also like, I’m in the financial media. So this is the reporting by these four Wall Street Journal reporters who are just brilliant on the biggest scam that’s ever been perpetrated in history, which was on basically the sovereign wealth fund of Malaysia, which you may have heard of called one mZ. like everyone’s heard of Yeah, it was like, Oh, yeah, I heard a little bit about it. And it’s got Goldman Sachs is involved. Politicians are involved. A bunch of Hollywood people like Leonardo DiCaprio and Paris Hilton are all weaved in this like crazy, tangled web. And they took this thing and they broke down how this scam like unfolded with this guy, Joe Lowe, it is the most insane thing. Like, every time I would read a chapter I go, what, and then like, read the next one. And then I was like I said to my husband, like, you got to read this. And we’ll have book club afterwards. And at the same thing, he’s like, reading a chapter isn’t what you like, every single $1 billion whale. Like if you’re interested in stuff like this. It’s phenomenal. And like you said, like, everyone’s like, oh, like, I kind of think I’ve heard something about one mg B, but I don’t really know what it is. And the out I mean, it’s wild. So I would highly recommend billion dollar whale, which I heard they’re making a movie and a podcast and all this other stuff up to so there’s probably ways to get deeper into it. But after you read the war on small business read billion dollar, well, you could probably buy them as a package together. It’s a it’ll blow your minds. that’ll blow your great.

Scott 46:37

Great. And then last question, what does success mean to you, even though you already touched on this, but what does success mean to you?

Carole 46:44

So I feel like success is ever changing. Because like, at any point in time, you don’t all have goals for success in a certain project. I have goals for success in my relationships. You know, those are those are fairly consistent. You know, what I want to be a good person and a good partner and whatnot. But like, I just feel like, especially probably because I’m the kind of person who does a lot of things and I have a lot of different projects. Like there is no there’s like successes like uh oh, did this thing end up like in the way that it should by some measurable measurable metric? Why or why not? And then we go to the next thing so I don’t know that success is this like overarching glow for me, versus like a measure of objectives that I’ve set out, you know, for each thing that I tackle.