How to Trust Yourself When Everyone Has an Opinion with Love Thy Nader's Mary Holland Nader

A Bit of Optimism

Mary Holland Nader, a Wall Street finance professional turned reality TV star and founder of the fintech app Mary and Pip, shares her journe

Key takeaways

• Fame can be a tool for good when aligned with personal values and mission.
• Authenticity and vulnerability foster connection and inspire others to see themselves in your story.

Main topics

• Using fame for social good
• Financial wellness and accessibility

Notable quotes

"If I had fame, what could I do with it?" – Mary Holland Nader's pivotal question that led to founding Mary and Pip.

Conclusion

Mary Holland Nader exemplifies how fame can be transformed from a personal ambition into a

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) You have no desire to be famous, and yet you recognize that being on TV and having some fame Speaker 1 (0:06) gives Speaker 3 (0:07) you the ability to spread your message more efficiently. Speaker 1 (0:10) Correct, yeah. Speaker 3 (0:11) And the minute you made that connection, you realized, huh, I can leverage this for good. Speaker 1 (0:16) This season, it shows a much more confident version of me. I can't control the edit at all. So, like, why pretend to be someone I'm not? The more vulnerable I am, the more likely someone like your niece could watch and be like, oh, I see myself in her. Or I could do that too. Speaker 3 (0:35) These days, fame isn't solely a byproduct of a career. The pursuit of fame has become a career. We live in a world of content creators, influencers, and reality TV stars who have literally made fame their job. Which is why I was excited to talk to Mary Holland Nader. Mary Holland, along with her three sisters, are the stars of the Hulu reality TV show Love Thy Nader. Except it was Mary Holland's sister, Brooks, who was the one who actually wanted to be famous. Mary Holland just didn't want to let her sisters down. She had a secure Wall Street job and a clear path ahead. Mary Holland wondered, if I had fame, what could I do with it? Her answer? Leverage it for good. Mary Holland founded Mary and Pip. an app that demystifies money for those of us who don't really understand finance and all its jargon. Speaker 1 (1:32) Just Speaker 3 (1:33) like we have mental and physical wellness, Mary Holland wants to help guide people to practice financial wellness, too. She also launched a podcast, Growing Interest, to further advance her cause. You might even see me as a guest on the show sometime. Mary Holland loves to teach and she also loves to learn. So fair warning, you may hear a little more of me than usual in this episode. Mary Holland took full advantage of our time together to ask me a bunch of questions. It's fair to say that in our modern social media world, counting followers is here to stay. So let's have more entrepreneurs like Mary Holland who are motivated to use that platform to serve others. If you like this episode, please remember to subscribe. This is a bit of optimism. Speaker 3 (2:25) This episode is proudly brought to you by SAP. 100 % of employees are people. 100 % of customers are people. And 100 % of investors are people. It turns out if you don't understand people, you don't understand business. Which is why I was so excited when I asked David Robinson, the head of SAP Customer Success in North America, about how he talks to customers about new technology. His secret weapon? Listening. You are now a famous TV star. Speaker 1 (2:59) Stop. On my way. Speaker 3 (3:02) And the thing that I find so fun about you and your family, so I want to understand, so you're from the Bayou in Louisiana. Speaker 1 (3:11) Down under. Speaker 3 (3:11) Like, Speaker 1 (3:12) not Speaker 3 (3:12) like from New Orleans or something? Speaker 1 (3:14) No, from the Bayou. So we grew up in Baton Rouge, but we're from a small town called Meringuen. Which Speaker 3 (3:20) I can't even figure out how to spell. Speaker 1 (3:21) No, it's basically... It means mosquito in Cajun French. So not even French. It's Speaker 3 (3:27) not Speaker 1 (3:27) even French. Yeah, Cajun French. Okay. Because the air is so thick. There's so many mosquitoes there. You walk outside and you're just eating. I always got the most bites because I was the sweetest sister, of course. Of course. So Meringuin is like where my grandparents are from, where we were all kind of grew up a little bit. And then we moved to the big city of Baton Rouge, which is a college town, the capital of Louisiana, but still very Cajun. I Speaker 3 (3:51) mean, like, are you all wearing like... overalls and barefoot and like with a piece of straw in your mouth honestly Speaker 1 (3:56) yeah like it was pretty like stereotypical like simon we had a pet alligator i'm not even kidding gary the gator yeah i'm not even kidding there's pictures of us he we named him gary i mean was he Speaker 3 (4:07) just like in your backyard Speaker 1 (4:08) so when we were in maryland actually Speaker 3 (4:10) your pet we Speaker 1 (4:11) named him gary so he was our pet we obviously didn't like take him on a leash anywhere that was way too dangerous but we had a bayou in our backyard you know what a bayou is right it's like a ditch with It's like the remnants of a swamp. It's like instead of a river to a larger body of water. It's Speaker 3 (4:28) a nicer Speaker 1 (4:28) word for swamp. It's a nicer word for swamp, but it's in a ditch. A swamp in a ditch, basically. And we had a bayou in our backyard in Meringuen. Not when we, we grew up in Baton Rouge, like in high school and stuff. So this was in Meringuen. And Gary lived on like a rock just baking in the sun in that bayou. And so we would go throw rocks at him and like play with him. He's never attacked us or anything. We had to play with him from a bridge. so it would be harder for him to get to us. And obviously we had supervision, but we were literally boondock, like running around in our diapers, in the mud, playing with random wildlife. It was quite dangerous. So Speaker 3 (5:05) all the stereotypes that are going through my mind, all true. Speaker 1 (5:08) All true. Okay, so you're Speaker 3 (5:09) from the bayou, the backwaters of Louisiana. Speaker 1 (5:12) Yep. Speaker 3 (5:13) And four sisters. Speaker 1 (5:15) Three, four including me. Speaker 3 (5:17) Right. Four girls. Four girls. And my understanding is that Brooks, who's the oldest. Correct. That Brooks decided when she was young, if my memory serves, that she wanted to be famous. Speaker 1 (5:32) Absolutely. Okay. So Speaker 3 (5:34) the reason you have a TV show. Literally. Speaker 1 (5:36) Is Speaker 3 (5:37) because Brooks, as a young girl, decided you would. Speaker 1 (5:40) Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, she knew from the moment she popped out of my mother's 23-year-old womb. Because my mom had us so young. Speaker 3 (5:47) Yeah. Speaker 1 (5:48) But there was a story that I will never forget. We were such a tight-knit family. And my mom was a stay-at-home mom. And we would have guests over for dinner. We had family dinner every single night. And my mom always taught us the power of conversation. communication skills, which I'm so grateful to her now for. But she would always say, like, when we say something about ourself, we have to pass the ball back. And we would pass the ball around, the conversation ball, and make sure that you're always passing the ball. Speaker 3 (6:11) Literally or metaphorically? When we Speaker 1 (6:13) were together sometimes because my sisters, I couldn't get a word in. I was definitely the quietest kid. But my sisters were all yappers, as you know. I mean, you know me and my sisters are more yapper than I am. And they talk even more than me. So sometimes we would have to have a talking stick and like only if you were holding the talking stick. but I digress. We had a friend over who was a writer. He was my dad's friend from high school. And he was like, Brooks, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? She's like, I'm going to be famous. I'm going to drive a pink limousine. Like there's going to be paparazzi. She's like eight years old at this point. Talking, talking, talking about how famous she's going to be. And my mom goes, Brooksie, pass the ball back to Mr. Freeman. And she goes, oh, I'm so sorry. Mr. Feynman, how will you feel when I'm famous? So she's always had like a burning fire in her to be famous, which is crazy, but like it's worked. I mean, she has gotten herself on the map. Speaker 3 (7:07) I mean, she engineered this. Speaker 1 (7:08) She literally, she manifested, like she is the definition of manifesting. Speaker 3 (7:12) So she's living her dream, literally her childhood dream. Yeah. It doesn't even matter how she got famous. She got famous. She's on TV. She's got a TV show. But you went into finance. Speaker 1 (7:20) Yes. Speaker 3 (7:21) Okay. You're... Like good at math. Speaker 1 (7:24) Yeah, I guess. Well, Speaker 3 (7:26) I mean, you're in finance. Speaker 1 (7:26) I'm in finance. Yeah. You Speaker 3 (7:28) worked for a big bank in finance. I Speaker 1 (7:29) worked for a big bank in finance, but I honestly went into finance because we were so insecure financially growing up. And my dad pivoted from nonprofit work to finance, to wealth management, and kind of climbed his way with all of us out of the situation we were in. And slowly as we got older, I mean, we were still lower middle class, but we were... very lower class like at the beginning when he was in non-profit work so I always associated finance with stability and money and I was like oh my gosh if I know finance I'll never worry about it because we always worried about money growing up like it was a constant stressor in our house so that's why I studied finance at Georgia and got the big job at the big Wall Street bank because I thought this is gonna pay me the most money and gonna be the most stable so Speaker 3 (8:16) I want to know Your sister's pursuing her dream to become famous. That's going fine. Yeah. She manages to get a TV show. Speaker 1 (8:24) Yep. Speaker 3 (8:24) What did she pitch? Speaker 1 (8:26) Our origin story of Speaker 3 (8:27) the Speaker 1 (8:27) show is actually so funny. We were all out in New York, okay? Just being our crazy normal selves because we all go out in New York together. We met this couple, this really nice couple and their daughter and her boyfriend. And it was like just a really fun Long Island like... New York couple. And I feel like Long Islanders and like Northeasterns are very similar to Cajuns that we like to drink. We like to party. We're like very hospitable and welcoming. So we were all just like partying and having fun together. Okay. As you know. And so we were just like having the most fun out. Turns out this is Jimmy Kimmel's agent. And he was like, you guys need to show. Like we were just being like, we're from Louisiana. We're making our way in New York. And he was like, you guys need to show. And we were like, what's it? Why are you saying we need to show? And it turns out he's Jimmy Kimmel's agent, baby doll. So Speaker 3 (9:13) it's Speaker 1 (9:13) just weird Speaker 3 (9:13) luck. Speaker 1 (9:14) Weird, crazy luck. So he starts kind of like quasi representing us. And this is before I was still at Deutsche Bank as an analyst, like not even thinking anything of it. He basically pitched us to Hulu. They were like, this is an interesting story. story they didn't know who any of us were but they let us produce basically a sizzle reel which is like 18 minutes like a shortened pilot to pitch to the network so we filmed that when i was probably 23 24 sarah jane couldn't even drink yet like not even legal drinking age brooks was still married to her husband which is a whole nother story gray sand was still in college so we were all in a very different stage in life than actual season one was. Filmed the sizzle reel. I was so anxious, Simon, that someone at work would like find out about it. I was still in such like impress the boss mode as an analyst. And so we filmed it and then we didn't really hear anything. And I honestly thought like we didn't get it. So I was like, okay, perfect. I'm just going to continue on my easy, steady path. And then we get the call last January that was like, y'all got the show. Basically on the back of Brooks being on Dancing with the Stars. She made a huge splash in the media. Everyone's talking about her. And they were like, this is actually interesting. They're all in different phases in their life now. Let's green light this thing. So we got the call last January. I basically had like two weeks to decide if I was going to quit my Wall Street job or pursue this show with my sisters. everyone's like, you made this huge choice, but it was a sister show. Like they couldn't do it without me. And Deutsche Bank wasn't. They could have. They could have. But there's Speaker 3 (10:46) plenty of. Speaker 1 (10:47) Plenty of drama. There's plenty of brother sister Speaker 3 (10:48) shows where one with one who didn't want to do it. And Speaker 1 (10:51) you Speaker 3 (10:51) just think there's three sisters and they talk about the other sister. Speaker 1 (10:54) That's true. I guess we don't even have that vocabulary in our sister language. Like it's all or nothing with us. Speaker 3 (11:01) So did you feel peer pressure? Speaker 1 (11:02) A hundred percent. Or it wasn't even an option to me. Like I was like, oh, well, of course I'll just quit my job and do this because my sisters can't do it without me. But Speaker 3 (11:11) you don't have a desire to be famous or be on television. Speaker 1 (11:13) No. I mean, now my desires have completely shifted that I'm starting a company. So obviously it all helps the greater cause of distribution. Speaker 3 (11:21) But. Speaker 1 (11:22) At the time, I was so happy being behind the scenes in the background. I was modeling with them by night, like doing covers. And it was fun and creative because I like to be challenged. I'm very curious and just like to challenge my ability to do things. So I was like, oh, I checked the model box, signed with Ford. But I loved keeping those identities separate. And I think for a long time, even up until like this past year, society only rewards people who are really good at like one thing. And now people are... becoming more multi-hyphenate, but it's still hard to merge two completely opposite industries. Well, Speaker 3 (11:56) I mean, you're doing things that like one that requires you to be pretty. Speaker 1 (12:00) Yes. One Speaker 3 (12:01) that requires you to be smart. Speaker 1 (12:02) One Speaker 3 (12:03) that requires you to be sort of vivacious. Right. Speaker 1 (12:06) I mean, Speaker 3 (12:06) they're, they're don't necessarily. Speaker 1 (12:08) Dramatic. Speaker 3 (12:08) Dramatic. They don't usually go together. Speaker 1 (12:10) Right. Like, Speaker 3 (12:11) you know, you're not even in a category. No, Speaker 1 (12:13) exactly. And like going to a boardroom. Asking investors for money, knowing that they've seen the show where I'm like ripping my sister's hair apart and like being a crazy reality star, which I'm not even the craziest on the show, but it's just totally opposite industries. So it's still tricky to find my identity as a blend of all of them. Because Speaker 3 (12:32) you don't care about the fame and the television. Speaker 1 (12:35) Yeah. Speaker 3 (12:35) I mean, you're an entrepreneur. Speaker 1 (12:37) You Speaker 3 (12:38) haven't quite left finance. You started a business. Correct. Mary and Pip. And. The goal of Mary and Pip is... Speaker 1 (12:45) To basically create financial independence for women. To Speaker 3 (12:49) basically do the thing that you wanted to do for your family. Correct. But now give that gift to as many people as possible. Speaker 1 (12:56) Exactly. And to Speaker 3 (12:57) translate it. Because I am what people in the finance industry refer to as an idiot. Stop it. No, no, no, no, no. Everybody thinks I'm joking. Speaker 1 (13:06) Really? Speaker 3 (13:06) Everybody thinks I'm joking. I don't understand money. I'm not driven by money. Speaker 1 (13:11) And Speaker 3 (13:12) I... One of the reasons I've been a bad investor, one of the reasons, you know, like even financial managers who I go and see in the bank, Speaker 1 (13:20) the Speaker 3 (13:21) reason I'm bad at it is because they make me feel dumb. Speaker 1 (13:23) Yeah. You Speaker 3 (13:24) know, they speak to me in jargon. Speaker 1 (13:26) Totally. And I Speaker 3 (13:26) don't know whether it's because they automatically think that I understand it or they're just trying to make themselves look smart. Speaker 1 (13:31) Yeah. And Speaker 3 (13:31) when I ask questions, they... They roll their eyes or they talk to me like an idiot. And so I just choose not to work with them. Speaker 1 (13:38) Yeah. And Speaker 3 (13:39) I think a lot of people keep it to themselves. They keep it a secret that we don't understand money or don't understand investing or don't Speaker 1 (13:44) know. Speaker 3 (13:44) And basic, basic stuff. Like if everybody invested a little bit and understood compound interest even. Correct. You know, which now I understand. I wish I understood it when I was 23 years old. Speaker 1 (13:55) Yeah. But Speaker 3 (13:55) the problem with the whole financial industry, a good portion of the financial industry, is they're high on themselves and they make. the rest of us feel stupid. Yeah. And so some of us do it because we fear that they know more than us, so we better do this. Speaker 1 (14:10) Correct. So Speaker 3 (14:10) we get taken advantage of. Speaker 1 (14:12) Yeah. Or Speaker 3 (14:12) we just don't do it Speaker 1 (14:13) because Speaker 3 (14:13) we feel dumb. Speaker 1 (14:14) Yeah. And Speaker 3 (14:15) so I think what you're doing, you're making it simple to understand so people understand the basics. of investing and finance so that they can provide for themselves and the people they love. Speaker 1 (14:24) Right. Speaker 3 (14:24) You're not starting a business to make people, you know, day trading and hardcore investors. Exactly. This is basic, basic stuff. Speaker 1 (14:30) The most basic. And let me ask you, like you said, you don't even like talking about it because they make you feel dumb. And I feel like. That manifestation of just holding it in and not talking about it creates such stress and anxiety. There's just so many trends about longevity and it's such a buzzword. And I feel like everyone's trying to hack their wellness, but then they have such financial stress that is ultimately contributing to their overall. I think Speaker 3 (14:55) money is the number one cause of divorce. Yeah. Oh, it Speaker 1 (14:57) is. Yeah. Speaker 3 (14:58) Financial stress. Totally. You're right. And people who live longer have lower stress. Correct. It's not that they just eat vegetables. It's Speaker 1 (15:06) that Speaker 3 (15:06) they have lower stress. You would think more people would spend time to understand the basics of money for no other reason than for their health. Speaker 1 (15:14) Exactly. I'm Speaker 3 (15:15) glad you're doing this. Yes. But this is what I find interesting about you, which is you have no desire to be on television. You're only doing it because all for one, one for all. I get it. That's great. Speaker 1 (15:25) You get it. You Speaker 3 (15:25) find yourself doing this thing, and I'm sure at some point you're like, what am I doing? Speaker 1 (15:29) Yeah. There's a lot of points like that. Speaker 3 (15:33) And the producers are editing it in a way that they can make you the good one or the bad one. Speaker 1 (15:38) Nobody Speaker 3 (15:38) really knows the real one. It's reality-ish. Speaker 1 (15:43) Sure. Speaker 3 (15:43) I Speaker 1 (15:44) watched Speaker 3 (15:45) some of the show. Speaker 1 (15:46) Which one? Tell me. I didn't take you for a reality guy. I'm Speaker 3 (15:49) not. I watched a part of one of your episodes. Oh, stop Speaker 1 (15:53) it. No, I don't even want to know which one. Was it my pitch? Speaker 3 (15:57) Yeah. I