Financial Advisor? No, thanks.

Hi Sheconomist Insider 👋 It’s Thamina, Founder of The Sheconomist. This is your bi-weekly dose of celebrating the female economy where I help ambitious, purpose-driven women like yourself flip the script on money, career & wellbeing conventions so you can live life on your own terms.

TLDR:

• 🫠 What most people don’t want to hear about success

• 💰 15 minutes of money mindset training every morning over the next 2 weeks

• 😮 Why you might reconsider working with a financial advisor

• 💜 Meet Victoria Effer, Keynote Speaker, Moderator, Business Creator, Advisory Board Member and Senior Account Manager

Friendly Ask: Do you love this newsletter? Do you want more in-depth resources such as courses, events, and a membership? Then please share The Sheconomist with your friends because I can only offer more when the scale is there. When one of us wins, we all win. Thank you. 💜 

🧪 Freedom Formulas

My No. 1 SECRET to being born & raised in Germany 🇩🇪 to getting into Ivy League+ schools to working in the Empire State Building 🗽 - all within 7 years.

“Thamina, how did you do all of that?”

I get that question a lot.

Let me preface it by saying this:

I was very fortunate to have been born into a middle class family in Germany.

I’m aware of my inherent privilege.

But this is what most people don’t want to hear.

If you want to make BIG things happen and beat the odds:

❌ Middle class privilege is not enough.

❌ Working hard is not enough.

❌ Being smart and talented is not enough.

To make BIG things happen, you need to become obsessive.

To a fault.

People called me crazy when I told them I was applying to Harvard.

Those same people told me I was crazy for turning down Harvard in favor of a “lower ranked” school after I had gotten accepted.

(Go Duke!)

You will hear “no”, or “that’s impossible”, or “you don’t stand a chance” a lot along the way.

Resilience helps.

But what will truly move the needle for you is resourcefulness.

What do I mean by that?

Let’s look at an example:

I applied to 5 Top 10 US schools, got into 4 of them, and each school required its own set of unique application forms.

Of course we didn’t have any equivalent of these forms in Germany. 😅

And most school administrators were not willing to sign forms in a different language they weren’t accustomed to.

The majority of people would have given up at that point and said “Well, guess I can’t submit those forms.”

WRONG.

There’s ALWAYS a way.

You just gotta be creative.

Find someone else with a fancy sounding job title and an institutional seal.

Be very transparent with them.

Don’t think you’re beneath begging if need be.

This is about your LIFE.

I’ve experienced this time and time again in different contexts.

Academic, professional, immigration.

(I’ll save those stories for another time.)

If you give up after getting a “no” for the first, second, or even third time, you’re not gonna make it very far.

The most successful people I know all have one thing in common:

They get scrappy.

It’s a choice.

❣️ Thamina’s Top Picks

🎙️ The best 3.5 hours you can possibly invest to massively upgrade your money mindset. And it’s FREE. Bookmark this and listen to it for 15 minutes every morning while you get ready over the next 2 weeks. Seriously.

🍵 Been really enjoying following these two sisters (Stanford and Harvard business school grads) build their matcha empire. Great example of why building in public is so powerful.

🩱 Strongly considering getting a set from this woman-owned brand during their upcoming Black Friday sale (20% storewide!). Alo and Lululemon alternative but cheaper.

📽️ 5,110 days of entrepreneurship taught her THIS. 14 years of business lessons, from the highs and lows of her entrepreneurial journey to strategies for building and scaling a successful business that aligns with your personal goals.

✨ This week’s Moodboard

Post credits go to @oliviaherrickdesign, belleandmonster, P E A, Regina Diaz

💸 Cooking up Wealth

Why you might reconsider working with a financial advisor.

It can be QUITE costly. ⬇️