A monologue by Payal Kadakia (founder of ClassPass) offering practical personal-finance and productivity advice: know your numbers and budget, prioritize spending aligned with values, create a plan to reach financial goals, and weekly-set priorities before scheduling to protect time. She emphasizes starting small, learning from failures, and reframing money as a tool rather than a trap.
Chapters
What do you want to spend money on? I would tell anyone, like, anyone listening to this, do you know your numbers? You know, and if you don't find a way to get to know your numbers, do your budget. I have had big dreams my whole life, but I started small. And I started in a very specific way. And those steps for me helped me build what I ended up creating in the world. But it wasn't my first dream. My first dream was not, oh, I'm going to be an entrepreneur and build a billion dollar idea. That's not where it started. It started with small step. And I think that's what everyone really needs to do, is to be able to really actually reflect inward, figure out what they really want to do, and then have a plan in place. I failed many times. I mean, it's funny, you know, 2013, 14 is when it started working. But those first three, four years, there were many times we put something out there, it didn't work. We would launch a product and no one was going to classes. But I was so connected to my why. And I think to be a founder who is trying to change human behavior. And I really believe ClassPass is one of those products that change the way people live. Right. It's a lifestyle product. You know, money has always been, I think, a sense of trapping for everyone. Right? It is a sense of, oh, I can't do it because I don't have money. But I want to really flip that conversation for people to think about money working for you. You do not work for money. You put a plan in place on how much money you want to make, where you're going to get it, and then how you're going to use it. And look, I grew up, I didn't have, you know, my parents didn't have a lot of means. It was, you know, I didn't grow up around money. So to be, even to have earned what I have in my life, it is through hard work and through a lot of just trying to figure things out. And I had to realize in my life how I wanted to spend that money. And I think we need to have a conversation with ourselves on first, what is money worth to us? Right? And so I think about the first six years I was working all the time. I didn't travel, I didn't spend money on things. I didn't take taxicabs, I walked to work. I didn't want to spend a dollar. But then when I had the opportunity to do a dance show and put a $30,000 check down, you know, What I did it because I cared about that. And those are the types of conversations to have with yourself on, what do you want to spend money on? I would tell anyone, like, anyone listening to this, do you know your numbers? You know, and if you don't find a way to get to know your numbers, do your budget. You know, there are amazing apps out Mint and Learn Fast and all these amazing products that you can use that will do it even quickly for you. But if you don't know those numbers, you will feel trapped constantly. And I think it's actually even more important. And partner both want out of the money you both make, you know, and if it's one person who makes the money and the other person doesn't, I still can encourage the other person to still know those numbers, because no one should feel trapped by money. I think, you know, the more and more I've had these conversations, I realize that so many people put their dreams aside because of that. And I'm all about understanding. Like, you cannot jump off a cliff. But you know what you could do? You could put a plan together so in the next four years, you can go after your dreams. One of the things and tactics I have done for a very long time is every Sunday night, I write down a list of my own priorities. I go into this doc, it's called Pilot Pyle's Weekly Priorities. And I write down all the things that I want to accomplish that week. And I talk about these things, like, personally, professionally, and I go through them. This is before I look at my calendar. Then I look at my calendar and I try and map the two. And it's always interesting because people are always like, well, why don't you look at at your calendar first? I'm like, because if I look at my calendar first, I'm sure it's busy. I'm sure there's enough stuff on there that I could be doing. And I start realizing, oh, well, I have this huge meeting, and it's actually not serving my priorities for this week. I can actually move this to another week. And I think getting into the mindset of your time is your own and that you control it is so important. And learning to put that into a really specific way where you are literally prioritizing what you want, putting those things on your calendar, and then guess what happens? The things that you don't want to do, they just fall off.
