Paloma Chiara · Off the Clock

Intro

JAMES: Hey, what’s going on? It’s James Carbonara, and it’s time for the Friday Hobbies podcast. My guest today is Paloma Chiara. Paloma works with ambitious professionals, entrepreneurs, and high achievers through online coaching. I know this because I’m also a client. But what’s Paloma like outside of the job, you might ask? Well, let’s find out.

Paloma Chiara · Off the Clock

JAMES: Paloma, what is something you’re into right now that has nothing to do with work?

PALOMA: So I am a huge Scrabble nerd. I know it’s weird and unexpected, but I play every day for two years, almost two years now.

JAMES: That’s one thing. I would say it’s not unexpected, so okay, Scrabble nerd.

PALOMA: It’s not unexpected?

JAMES: Well, you are of the nerdy variety, and I say that as a compliment. What got you into Scrabble?

PALOMA: I was trying to find some sort of way to find entertainment on my phone without it being social media. Something that would be strategic and fun for me, and I downloaded this app that has a bunch of online games. And I got really good at it.

JAMES: Are there any tips that you would give to somebody who is a budding Scrabble enthusiast?

PALOMA: That it’s not really about knowing a lot of words, and it’s more about being strategic with the placement of the letters. For example, if you use the letter Z and you place it in one place, you only get 10 points, but if you place it in another, you could get 20 or 30. And you have to be careful not only of where you place yours, but also where you are allowing the other person to put theirs. So if you make space for them to put that letter where you could get more points, you can’t put your letter there, if that makes sense.

JAMES: It does make sense. It sounds intense. Any bar or restaurant owners who have trivia night and all that stuff, I’m going to recommend, “Hey, do you guys do Scrabble?” I’m gonna start asking people about Scrabble all the time now.

PALOMA: Oh, no.

JAMES: All right. Well, I don’t know if you take Scrabble on the road, but the next question is what’s the best trip you’ve ever taken, or just a good trip that you like?

PALOMA: My favorite one was in Hawaii when I was like 17 years old. Seeing volcanoes and lava and also my first and only time riding a helicopter, which was really fun.

JAMES: Okay, cool. Yeah, Hawaii is a good one. I finally got there myself. It was beautiful. Okay, moving on to question number three. What’s a hobby or interest you picked up later in life that surprised you?

PALOMA: So something that surprised me is that I really got into high fashion brands as I got older. I know. It really surprised me because my whole life I was a big hater of high fashion brands. I was like, “You’re just paying for the logo and everything.” It was stupid. But as I got into it, I started liking it and I started learning about it, and the history started fascinating me.

JAMES: My wife is the value shopper, the Groupon. So now I end up buying like the least brands. Like Amazon Essentials. Are there any brands that you like or that you would shout out from the high fashion ones?

PALOMA: Yeah, I mean, to be fair, I do thrift shop most of it as well.

JAMES: Oh, okay. There you go.

PALOMA: It’s part of the fun because you go into the thrift shops and you may or may not find something, and it’s just part of the fun. And one that I really like is called Burberry. Do you know it?

JAMES: Oh, yeah, yeah. I know Burberry.

PALOMA: Yeah, and I really like their history about how they were the ones who invented the material of the gabardine. That is the only one that doesn’t get wet. It was created for the military at first. Did you know that?

JAMES: Oh, this is tremendous. And I like the thrift shop part of it too. It harkens back to when I was going to university and trying to buy clothes at Banana Republic, and I would go to the sales rack and buy $5 or less stuff. But Burberry. All right, I’m gonna check Burberry out. We can keep rolling right along to question number four. Are you loyal to any sports team, artist, author, musician, et cetera? If so, how deep does it go?

PALOMA: Not really. I used to be loyal to one actor when I was a teenager for a long time, but then things went really downhill for him. I can tell you a bit about him. Maybe you can guess who it is.

JAMES: Okay, I’m ready.

PALOMA: Okay, so he started a cult. That’s the biggest giveaway. And he is an actor and a singer and he’s in a rock band, or was in a rock band.

JAMES: Ooh, I don’t think I’m gonna land on it.

PALOMA: Well, his name is Jared Leto. Do you know him?

JAMES: He started a cult? Yeah. Okay. I’m unaware of that. Is the cult still going on?

PALOMA: I don’t know. It’s not very clear what happened. There’s a lot of hearsay and stuff. But yeah, as a teenager, I loved him in every sense. As an actor, as he himself, I had a crush on him. And then once I heard about the cult stuff, I was just like, “Nope. No, thank you.”

JAMES: Jared Leto. Oh, goodness. I’m trying to think. When I was growing up, I developed a crush on Sheryl Crow. If you know her, the musician. I really liked her song Strong Enough. That curly hair. Here, many decades later, it’s not the romantic feeling anymore. It’s just a fondness for her as a musician. She’s continued to be like a badass throughout the years. I got to see her in concert, and she was awesome. But man, Jared Leto with the letdowns. And so that was before, but there’s nobody really currently that you have this fandom for?

PALOMA: Not really. I feel like I was really into being a fan when I was a teenager, but once I grew up, I just didn’t really like that feeling of someone’s perfect and then being let down.

JAMES: It’s smart. Yeah, they say don’t meet your heroes. Well, let’s keep it rolling, maybe shift gears here. Do you have a go-to way to stay active?

PALOMA: I think my favorite way is having a treadmill. Because you can’t really make any excuses for it, right? You can’t really say the weather’s bad or you don’t have time. You don’t have to get ready. You can just get on it and do 10 minutes here and there. So it’s my favorite way.

JAMES: Oh, I like that. I wish I had a treadmill because that is good for bad weather days. I do have an exercise bike, but the excuse that I use is it hurts my lower back.

PALOMA: They’re actually not that expensive. Like, we got it for 100 euros.

JAMES: Oh, wow.

PALOMA: And actually it was my mom who bought it, and she ended up getting it for free from Amazon.

JAMES: See, it all comes back to Amazon. No yoga, no weights… what else do people do? Tennis, basketball?

PALOMA: I like yoga. I like Pilates. I also do this exercise that’s like half for your mental health, half exercise, and it’s this thing called TRE. Have you heard of it?

JAMES: No, I haven’t.

PALOMA: So it’s like you have certain positions that you put yourself in that are hard to sustain, and when they’re hard to sustain, your body starts trembling. And that releases stress. So I really like that for days that are really stressful.

JAMES: Okay. I’m gonna keep an eye on TRE. Moving on to question number six. What’s a restaurant, bar, or coffee shop you’d recommend to anyone?

PALOMA: I do have an açaí place. Do you know açaí?

JAMES: I do. Açaí bowls.

PALOMA: There’s one in Madrid that is called Terra Açaí in the Salamanca area. That’s my favorite one. And I think I have tasted all the açaí bowls in Madrid, so.

JAMES: Does terra mean like earth?

PALOMA: Yeah, exactly. It’s T-E-R-R-A Açaí.

JAMES: Okay. All right, next one. What are you reading, watching, or listening to right now?

PALOMA: I just finished watching on Netflix the show called The Boroughs. Have you heard of it?

JAMES: I don’t. Tell me about it.

PALOMA: Do you know Stranger Things?

JAMES: I’m familiar with it, but I’ve not seen it too much.

PALOMA: So it’s the same creators. The Duffer Brothers. Same style. They have this very creepy style where they make monsters, and it’s like sci-fi, but at the same time it’s very profound and spiritual themes. It’s really cool.

JAMES: Okay. All right. I’m gonna put that on my list of things to potentially check out. What is a concert, exhibit, or live event that really stuck with you?

PALOMA: So one of them was a concert from Jared Leto, his band is called 30 Seconds to Mars. It was in Mexico City, and more than the concert itself, it was my experience at the concert that was kind of crazy for me. I went with my brother, and there was this thing where these crowds get together really close, and they push to the left and then they push to the right, kind of like a wave.

JAMES: And you ended up liking this or disliking this?

PALOMA: No, I hated it. It was horrible. I went with my brother and I lost him, and I’m in this wave of people like panicking, feeling extremely claustrophobic. I’m feeling like I’m about to faint. And this random guy in the crowd sees me and he’s like, “Do you need help?” Because he sees me, I’m like dying. I’m like, “Yes, thank you.” And he helped me get out of the crowd. He was really nice, so he stayed with me throughout the whole concert. I went in with my brother and I wasn’t with him throughout the whole thing, ‘cause I just lost him through the crowd, and it sucked.

JAMES: Jared Leto two times has failed you. I’m going to give you a different JL. The guy’s name is JL Collins. He’s got a book on financial literacy. But if you don’t wanna read the book, you can listen to the Hasan Minhaj podcast, and the title of the episode is Financial Literacy for Dummies Like Me with JL Collins. Basically, Hasan Minhaj has him on the podcast, and while there are all these charlatans on YouTube and social media saying “Hey, get rich quick,” this guy just talks about compounding conservatively, consistently putting a little bit in effectively the S&P 500 to gain passive wealth over decades. I’m hopeful that name-dropping JL Collins will have a more positive impact than Jared Leto.

PALOMA: I think anyone could give a better impact at this point. The bar is low. The second one isn’t his fault though, right? It’s like a cultural thing in Mexico where they find it fun for some reason.

JAMES: Okay. Well, if one of my favorite bands, Pearl Jam, is ever playing in Mexico, I will skip that and try to see them somewhere else, maybe Dallas. All right. Is there something you geek out about that most people wouldn’t expect?

PALOMA: Well, I am into the stock market. But I do have to specify one thing: when I decided I wanted to invest and I read about it, everyone was like, “You know what? The best thing for you to do is just invest in the S&P 500 and forget about it.” And I thought, “Perfect, I’m gonna do that.” And I got into it, and I tried to find a broker and everything, and it turns out that if you are an American living abroad, then it’s extremely difficult or basically impossible to invest in that way unless you have an address in the States, which I don’t have. So my only option to invest was to do stock picking.

JAMES: Wow, you’re blowing my mind right now. So tell me what you ended up doing or what stocks you picked.

PALOMA: I don’t know if this is the best advice, but what I did basically was try to choose the first 20 stocks of the S&P. I started investing in those. I’m like, “Okay, since I can’t do 500 stock picking, I’m just gonna choose the first 20.” And then I realized that tech was dominating that, so I would have all my money in tech. So I bought 10 more stocks that would be more diverse in other industries. And as for the amounts, I try to go for something similar to what the S&P has. So I still have dominant tech, but I’m also trying to not do that by having these other 10 stocks, if that makes sense.

JAMES: It does. I would guess that you are up in your investment?

PALOMA: Yeah. I got in right before the AI boom, so I was super lucky. I am doing good, but it might just be luck. I’m not an expert.

JAMES: Hey, it’s really the best way to learn, putting some money forward and then you figure it out. The S&P, there’s something in Vanguard called VOO. It’s got this 0.03% expense ratio, and it mimics the S&P. Actually, another thing you could watch is John Oliver talks about retirement funds on YouTube. From watching that, I learned how problematic the fees are. If you have a financial advisor, like 2% compounding over time, that could take a third out of your return. You picking your own stocks, it’s gonna be less of an expense. I think it’s very funny that two of the most influential stock people to me have been comedians, Hasan Minhaj and John Oliver.

PALOMA: That’s true.

JAMES: Both from The Daily Show. Which is kind of funny. Offline, I am excited to talk to you more about stocks. So I guess the last one we’ll go to is where did you go to school, if you went to school, and what do you remember most about it?

PALOMA: I would like to talk about more specifically university, because it was more recent and I have more memories. I studied in France. I studied both design and literature, and what marked me most about those experiences is the teachers, which were horrible.

JAMES: Whoa.

PALOMA: I did have my first teacher, the one to learn French, in La Rochelle. He was great. I learned French very quickly with him. But then once I got into design and literature, the teachers were really, really mean. And the design school was a private school, supposed to be a good school, but the English teacher was French, and she would teach bad English. That really stuck with me. I was the only one who spoke native English, and I could see her teaching bad English to the students, and I would point it out and she would just be offended.

JAMES: Whoa. How has that experience shaped your worldview, if at all?

PALOMA: I think it just made me very disappointed about school in general. I’ve always been very disappointed about school. It’s partly why I also tried to learn everything myself, become autodidactic. I felt like I learned a lot more that way. Like, I also had this one teacher that I told her I was sick the last day, and she just laughed at me and said, “Oh, when I’m sick, I just go get my nails done.” And it’s like, “Why are you so mean?”

JAMES: This is wild. I do feel like I have some pattern recognition on the smart, bright people in my life who were less interested in the classes and just learning on their own. I kinda relate to that through them. It’s not listed here on the question list, but any final words or questions that you have?

PALOMA: No, not really, just that this has been fun. I enjoyed it.

JAMES: Agree. It felt like a very natural conversation, which is good. Well, there you have it, Paloma, and thank you for being a guest today. To our listeners, if you or someone you know is looking for personalized support to navigate your career path through goal-setting and making strategic decisions for professional growth and fulfillment, please visit palomachiara.com to get in touch to learn more. Thank you for listening to the Friday Hobbies Podcast.

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