Episode 50: How to Rewrite Your Money Story with Tiara Abu

Acquania Escarne 0:03

You are listening to the Purpose of Poney podcast, a podcast where we talk about ways to build wealth and create more freedom in your life today. I am your host Acquania Escarne.

I'm super excited about She Can Work because the founder and CEO Tiara Abu is a big thinker. I know that together, we're going to change the lives of millions of women worldwide. And I'm super excited to announce that we have our flagship course ready and out for you to take. It's called Writing A New Money Story. And I think this is so essential to anyone who is looking to reframe their mindset around money and to change their relationship with money. Because before you can build real wealth, you have to wrap your head around what is in impacting your current relationship with money. So if you have a second, please check out the course Writing A New Money Story. The link is in the show notes or you can also check out the Purpose of Money.com/MoneyStory. The PurposeofMoney.com/MoneyStory I think you need to check it out or share it with anyone else that you think would benefit. But without further ado, let's happen to this episode.

Hey guys, welcome back to the Purpose of Money podcast. I am super excited to bring you this episode. First of all, I am interviewing an amazing woman. Tiara Abu this is my girl She is the CEO of She Can Work and an amazing person. We're going to talk about her money story and all the good things that we are up to together. But another reason I'm super excited to talk to you today is because this is a milestone episode. You heard it if you've been following me from the beginning, you know that this is Episode Five O yes, the 50th episode of the Purpose of Money podcast. And I could not be here without you guys and your support. So thank you for rolling with me listening to the entrepreneurship stories, wealth building tips, and supporting the podcast. But let's hop into this episode.

Tiara Abu is the founder and CEO of She Can Work. She is a career educator, leadership coach, and entrepreneur who has committed her life to the pursuit of justice from marginalized communities and developing leaders with a focus on people oriented leadership. Her 17 year tenure in education, 12 years in educational leadership, 9 years in the US Army and 3 years as a CEO of Lead With People has given her a robust experience in managing, coaching, and developing leaders at junior and senior levels of organizations. Whew, that was a mouthful. She is not only amazing mom, she's very passionate about matters of injustice, and relinquishing equity inequities that exists among women generation after generation. Her goal is to empower women to take their place as the architects of society and pioneers of her story. Tiara is also a boy mom. She has two boys, and she has a wife in Austin, Texas. Hey Tiara, how you doing?

Tiara Abu 3:18

Hey, I am good. My husband is Austin. I live in Houston.

Acquania Escarne 3:24

Oh

Tiara Abu 3:26

See I am married to Austin in Texas.

Acquania Escarne 3:29

I love it. That is cute

Tiara Abu 3:33

I know right, I'm so excited to be here. It's your 50th. This is amazing. I feel extremely honored that you picked me that interview for your 50th. Congratulations.

Acquania Escarne 3:44

Yes, thank you and congratulations to you. We're going to talk about some of the things you've been up to and why you are so amazing. But before we happen to all of that I want to learn a little bit more about Tiara before she became amazing bad ass mom. So what was money like for you when you were growing up?

Tiara Abu 4:04

This is this is a question that I'm ready to answer all the time, but for some reason wasn't ready to answer right now. So I'm gonna just be raw and real. Money for me growing up was like a burden. Money for me growing up was hard, money for me growing up what scares, money for me growing up was it was something that you had to really really work hard for because there just wasn't ever enough of it. And I grew up really feeling like money was something that was kind of like the root of all evil, like not even in the most cliche way like seriously, it was evil.

So I grew up with my mom and you know, she was like a hard working super scrappy, amazing mom. But really, really had to work hard to make ends meet. I mean, she really had to work multiple jobs most of my life, she always was kind of penny pinching figuring out, like, how do we make a lot out of a little. And that's what I believe you were supposed to do, you were in order to have money there was like, never enough. So you have to work really hard, multiple jobs and get as much as you possibly could. But there was always for me some limitation around money that nobody explicitly told me, but I just grew up believing that there had to be a limitation. And so for me, money was hard. And really, I think, as I continue to get older, I've learned a lot about, you know, what money can be for you, and what money can do for new but it took a lot of bumps and bruises to get there.

It took a lot of me making a lot of mistakes with my money, because I was taking on more jobs, but not like really thinking about the fact that I could get a higher paying job. If I really like looked for that. It was there were times where I was trying to make more money by again, getting more jobs, but not realizing I had talents that I could monetize. And there were also times where I was spending more money than I was making because literally, I just didn't have enough. And I could not figure out how to get more to make ends meet. And so that's all over the place Acquania. But I think the the summation of it is money for me growing up, there just wasn't ever enough. And you had to continue to work really, really, hard to get more. And that is it. And now,

Acquania Escarne 6:44

That's an interesting point. And I think that's important.

Tiara Abu 6:48

I think now as I've continued to grow, and what I want women to know, like you and I, there are ways you can make more, save more and invest more money out there. And education is the key to that. And I think that has been like the unlocking for me is when I learned new lessons about money. And when information was either given to me or I went out to seek it, I learned so much that I became dangerous, which is what I want us to do now for women all over the world, I want us to learn so much about our money, that we become dangerous.

Acquania Escarne 7:24

I love it. And I've had this conversation with some of my clients to where sometimes they feel the solution is to work with what they have. And I'm like, No, sometimes you need to make more money. And I hate to say that when people are comfortable. But sometimes we have to get out of our comfort zone, we have to interview for more jobs, we have to pursue additional or higher paying income in what we're doing it or going back to school, get education, and pursue something else that might involve once you have the education a higher salary. So I love that. But I do want to ask you, what's the most number of jobs you've ever had at one time?

Tiara Abu 8:04

Oh my god. So there was a year in college where I had 13 W2s. And that wasn't all at one time, I probably had four jobs and probably the max right at the same time. But that year in college, I was like holding, I was holding so many jobs and juggling so many jobs that literally I had 13 W2s and I think that was one of the years where it was an aha moment for me Acquania where I was like girl, you have to figure something else out because I was hell bent on making sure that I finished college in three and a half years, I was very, very determined to make sure that I was able to support my mom and my sister at home and also able to, you know, live a life of a college student and go out and have a good time. But that was crazy. Absolutely crazy. And filing taxes that year in the library of my university, in the uh in the computer lab of my university library. It was madness. And I will never do that again. And I do not want that for any other woman. Nobody should have to work 13 jobs in a year not in a calendar year, not if they don't want to and not if all of those jobs, were helping them to actually reach more meet a goal or reach a milestone for themselves. So four is probably max, 13 in a year, which is ridiculous.

Acquania Escarne 9:29

Whoo. That's a lot. Oh, honey, I'm glad you have grown past that. So what inspired you to create She Can Work. I'm sure your money story has something to do with it. But was there anything else that influenced this creative decision?

Tiara Abu 9:46

Like I'm not a financial professional at all. And I share with people right at the beginning of the pandemic. I was coaching so I'm an educator by day and I was coaching clients outside of education and finding that women, specifically were coming to our coaching sessions, and they were no longer talking about leadership, they were no longer talking about kind of the day to day of their decision making or goal setting and things like that they were talking about money, they were talking about being afraid they didn't have enough insurance, if, for whatever reason they lost life during the pandemic, they talked a lot about, well, what if someone loses my job in my home, and not being able to actually mean that there was this fear that they weren't actually going to be able to make ends meet. And for me, I just, I have not felt I had always felt the burden of money growing up. But I've never felt women that I thought to be amazing and very successful and what I perceived to be very financial, financially secure, I had never seen them be so worried and so burdened by money. And so that got me curious about what's going on with women and money. And other than my own story, I had not really researched women in money, or researched or understood the history of women in money. And so I went to Google and started kind of understanding and learning, like what is up with women in money and women in capital and learned crazy things like women could get couldn't get bank accounts until the 60s or lines of credit without a male cosigner until the 70s. And I was like, what, this is insane. And I will continue to say this, because I always do it. Especially because I got to this point on this journey, women are actually not bad at money.

Somebody told us that people continue to say that there are women who feel like they are and yet, we are new to money, we just haven't had the access. We haven't had the education. And while we continue to get higher paying jobs, we still are not equitably paid. While we continue to see ourselves in the C suite. We continue to not see enough of us there. There's just always this. We're starting new businesses, but not more successful. And so I'm not okay with that. I want to go after that. And even as you read my bio, I think that's just been kind of what I've done with my adult life. I've thought about how can I see an inequity or an injustice and go after eradicating it. And I've done that through education for so many years that I was like, I'm gonna how to do this. We're going to educate women, we're going to help women understand that when you get that student loan debt, because now you have all those degrees, girl, we're going to celebrate with you. And we're going to help you erase that debt over time, we are going to help you understand that you're not bad for wanting to drink Starbucks, you can have Starbucks if you wanted. But you also you also can equip yourself in ways that don't have you scraping and scrounging for the cup of coffee, but have you buying it with confidence. And so I'm going after that.

Understanding that there's an injustice, there's a lack of education and access, and also having my own financial adviser in the past not even want to have a conversation with me, and only wants to have conversations with my husband. Those are things that I'm not okay with. And we're going to go after them. So She Can Work is intentionally founded to eradicate the injustice that I see existing with women and money. And because we are new to money in our society, we need to learn how to really make our capital work for us, and understand exactly what we want to do with it, not just what we need to do with our money. And we're going to do that. That is what She Can Work with purpose to do. And that is what we will do starting January of 2022.

Acquania Escarne 13:47

Yes, January 2022. She can work an online platform, getting women are educated into the next level in their finances is going to launch. And I'm super excited to be one of the instructors that will be a part of this project, giving live classes as well as those are that are accessible in our library for you to take a listen, guys, I'm going to definitely be promoting this. So make sure after listening to this episode, you go ahead and check out She Can Work on all social media platforms, as well as look out for notifications about our upcoming launch projects and events.

But that's something that I actually wanted to talk more about because one of the things we've been doing recently is sharing our flagship course for She Can Work which is called Writing Your Money's Your New Money story with those out there who really need to change their mindset about money. Would you like to tell us more about the course and who was this course for and what do they get when they take it because the transformation is amazing. But I want to hear from you as the creator. What was your mindset when you were making

Tiara Abu 15:00

Yeah, for Writing A New Money Story, it really came up when I said, Okay, I'm gonna start with school and what's actually holding us back because information is out there, you can go to you can Google right now and go to many platforms fight to take free classes, banks offer free classes all the time. And so I kept asking myself, well, what is holding us back. And as a coach, oftentimes in sessions with, especially with women, there's typically a mindset barrier that's holding us back. And unfortunately for women, most of the time, what's holding us back and or that barrier, no matter whether it's our money or family situation, or our leadership, it is typically the way we are thinking about and perceiving ourselves. And so, you know, I started to kind of workshop this with people like what is the the way that I can really begin to help women not only just, like, have access to this platform that's going to have all of these courses and all of this information, but how do I help them prepare themselves to receive it? And how do I help them understand their worthiness to actually access it, and experience abundance because of it.

And so that's where writing a new Money story came from, I really want women to know that what you done in your past, or what may have been true for you in your past does not have to be true for your your future. And that's about all things not even just your money. But as it pertains to your money. I think because of our, our history with money as a society, because of some of the limitations of access for women. And because so many of us have made what we would perceive to be mistakes, we feel like we're bad with money. And so Writing A New Money Story is about overcoming that. And like really me providing a framework for how do you unlock for yourself exactly what your true potential potentially is? And then how do you help yourself, really go to the next step that you define, because that's the other thing. I want women to know that you get to define the future for yourself, nobody gets to have to define that for you. And nobody gets to, it's yours. And so I think that's, that's kind of why I'm writing or kind of why I've taken this approach is, I believe, first we have to know what we want, go in, turn around about why we don't have it, and then start to rewrite some of those mindsets and the narrative we have about ourselves to help us move forward.

And so if a woman is in a place, or if you are in a place where you are doubting yourself as it pertains to money, where you have made mistakes with money that make you feel shame, or guilt, where you may have may not have grown up like me with lots of money. But you you know what it's like to put your hands on something, and they want more of it. I want you to take this course, rather than new money stories about someone who perceives themselves to be bad with money, because I want to show you that you actually are not. And Writing A New Money Story is really about a woman who is ready to take the reins in her life and understands that her taking the reins in her life means that she can have more and do more and get more because that's what I want for every woman.

And so just to like kind of break down the course we will, will go through five modules that I believe are extremely powerful. I don't know why I said modules, their chapters because we're we're writing a story. But what we'll do is really first talk about what is your money story? Because first you have to know your story to actually rewrite it. And so many women I've talked to haven't actually tapped into what what is their money story? And when did you first learn about money? And what are some of the mindsets, habits and beliefs you have because of it? So we'll walk through that. And also I'll help really ask the questions that you need to ask yourself in order to tap into that and create a narrative for yourself.

And then we move into the societal impact of you. I mean, I'm sorry, the societal impact on you around finances, and really helping women understand that there is a historical context here that you have to make sure you understand. So you're not constantly blaming yourself or blaming your mom or blaming your grandmother, or blaming the people that that raised you because there was something that quite literally you didn't have access to. And so I share that to really shed light there.

And the third chapter, we talked about how to rewrite narratives so that I really want women to stop saying they're bad with money. How about you say instead of saying I made a mistake with my money, how about you say there's an opportunity for me to invest my money in a different way? That's like a whole different way to think and changes the way your brain thinks for someone teach you how to do that for yourself, we'll go through goals. So many people have goal setting workshops, which are sometimes beneficial, but many times not. Because what those goals don't start with a dream. So I teach them first how to dream, like how to think about what you want, and then set a goal around that, and go after it.

And in the last chapter, we really talked about resources and how to ask for help. And who, because I think Acquania you actually were the person who I spoke with the first time I heard about annuities, and I was like, what is an annuity? And you broke it down for me and like a five minute conversation. And it sparked something in me that didn't have me asking questions, and had me talking to my husband a different way and had me thinking about, wait a minute, we should become our own bank, hold on. And so just just you even saying the word annuity to me that day, um, gave me access to information that I never had before. And so that's what chapter five is for us is really helping women to know, who are those people that you can talk to. So they can either help you quite literally, or they can start to get your mind to start to get your mind turning around some possibilities.

So that's where you can get in Writing A New Money Story, I want to really want to help women transform their financial future, by like, letting go of your past, your past is what it is, you can't change it. But you've done hard things before, you're going to do more hard things in your life, this might be one of them. But we can tackle it together.

Acquania Escarne 21:32

I love that. And don't worry, guys, I will definitely have a link to the course in the show notes. So now, I'm sure you've been listening to a couple of my episodes. So you know how this goes, I have a signature question. Because the name of the podcast is called the Purpose of Money. I want to know for you, what is your purpose for money?.

Tiara Abu 21:55

Money is a resource. And I will tell people resources help you get more, period. That's what money is, it's an opportunity for you to get more. And so money is not going to buy you happiness. But buying things can make you happy. Having a financial future is not going to be the end all be all of life. But having a strong financial future will help you not worry yourself through the life you've had. So the purpose of money for me is money is a resource that helps you get more whatever that more is for you go after it, tackle it, make it happen. But that's the purpose of money, it is a resource to help you get more and I want women to come to She Can Work and get more to find their purpose with their money like tie to whatever that means for them. But you have to know you can get more. So that's the purpose money for me.

Acquania Escarne 22:55

I love it. Alright guys, I want you to follow, like, share, do all the things especially leave a five star review for this episode, wherever you are listening. But if you love this episode, please share with someone else who can benefit because I know that there's someone out there who needs to rewrite their money story, participate in the She Can Work community or hang out with us when we launch the full course for online community and the library. I would like before we leave for you to share to your where can we find you on social media, I want my listeners to be able to follow you like and check out your websites. So let me know.

Tiara Abu 23:35

So you absolutely should go to www.She Can Work.org .org not com and then also you can find us on Instagram as She Can Work. And you can find me personally on LinkedIn at Tiara Abu we have got a lot on Instagram so Instagram She Can Work and definitely hit up our website at www that She Can Work.org

Acquania Escarne 24:02

Thank you so much here for being on the show. I cannot wait not only for this episode to come out but for us to go full throttle on the She Can Work community because I know so many people who are listening who are going to benefit from this we are changing the trajectory of women's lives and their finances.

Until next time guys keep building generational wealth.

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai