On today's episode we talk to AFC candidate, Rahkim Sabree, a financial coach, entrepreneur, and thought leader on the topic of financial trauma. We discuss how personal background, cultural experiences, and mental health all play a role in personal finance, and how financial professionals can add a trauma-informed lens to your work with clients.
With the rise of one-size-fits-all, and often inaccurate, personal finance information being shared on social media, Rahkim shares how his perspective around credentialing has shifted and how he's been able to apply what he's learned through the AFC program.
We also talk about lessons learned through entrepreneurship, the danger of comparison (we're looking at you social media), and the value of community and kindness.
Show Notes:
1:29 Rahkim's professional journey
7:16 The term financial trauma
13:01 Using your own trauma as a way to bond with clients and others
22:17 How finance professionals can use a trauma-informed lens
30:24 Battling imposter syndrome
37:59 Rahkim's 2 cents
Show Note Links:
Want to get involved with AFCPE®?
Here are a few places to start: Become a Member, Sign up for an Essentials Course, or Get AFC Certified today!
Want to support the podcast? We love partnering with organizations that share our mission and values. Download our media kit.
On today's episode we talk to AFC candidate, Rahkim Sabree, a financial coach, entrepreneur, and thought leader on the topic of financial trauma. We discuss how personal background, cultural experiences, and mental health all play a role in personal finance, and how financial professionals can add a trauma-informed lens to your work with clients.
With the rise of one-size-fits-all, and often inaccurate, personal finance information being shared on social media, Rahkim shares how his perspective around credentialing has shifted and how he's been able to apply what he's learned through the AFC program.
We also talk about lessons learned through entrepreneurship, the danger of comparison (we're looking at you social media), and the value of community and kindness.
Show Notes:
1:29 Rahkim's professional journey
7:16 The term financial trauma
13:01 Using your own trauma as a way to bond with clients and others
22:17 How finance professionals can use a trauma-informed lens
30:24 Battling imposter syndrome
37:59 Rahkim's 2 cents
Show Note Links:
Want to get involved with AFCPE®?
Here are a few places to start: Become a Member, Sign up for an Essentials Course, or Get AFC Certified today!
Want to support the podcast? We love partnering with organizations that share our mission and values. Download our media kit.
Welcome to Real Money Real Experts, a podcast where leading financial counseling and coaching experts share their stories, their challenges, and their advice for helping people manage money in the real world. I'm your host, Rachel De , executive Director of the Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education for A F C P E.
Speaker 2:And I'm your co-host, Dr. Mary Bell Carlson , an accredited financial counselor, or a F c and the President of Financial Behavior Keynote Group. Every episode, we're taking a deep dive in the topics that personal finance professionals care about, helping clients, building community, and your professional growth. Rakim Sabri provides speaking workshop and consulting services to corporations and individuals on the topics of financial education and financial wellness. He is the founder of Money Systems University Community and a two times award, a nominated newsletter called Overcoming Financial Trauma on ck . Rakim has over a decade of industry experience and education concerning personal finance and financial wellness. He's a TEDx speaker, author of the book, financially Irresponsible, certified Financial Education Instructor, registered Financial Consultant, and as I understand, soon to be an accredited financial counselor. We're so glad to have you.
Speaker 3:I'm super happy to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Rakim . Take us back to the beginning and tell us a little bit about your own personal and professional journey. How did you come into this work?
Speaker 3:So it started kind of formally in the banking industry, right? I , uh, I was 21 years old. I needed a job. I just moved to the great state of Connecticut and Domino was working at a supermarket. I didn't really like it, so I go, I applied for a job at a bank. I get offered what was, at the time, a lot of money, the most money I had ever made, and I'm like, yeah, I'll take it. And so super eager to, you know, make my mark, right? Very ambitious, wanting to kind of climb the corporate ladder, so to speak, very quickly. And I did, I spent five months as a part-time teller before I got my first promotion. I think I spent another six months in kind of hybrid teller platform sales role. And then I spent maybe a year and a half as a supervisor, the teller supervisor. And so, you know, as that kind of story unfolded, I had like on the job really learning experience around financial products, financial services, seeing how people manage their money. I worked in various locations that were considered mass affluent. And so really the priority from the bank's perspective were the customers that came in and, and had money. So learning how to engage with that population was crucial to my success, just because the mindset is different. The exposure to, you know, self-employed business owners or you know, these high income professionals who do money differently was very eye-opening for me because my experience growing up was very much the opposite. I experienced the aspects of poverty and just there was a lot that I didn't know. So as I learned more and I observed , I absorbed rather all of this information, I would take it back to my friends and my family. I'm like, Hey, did you know you can apply for a credit card and you know, all of these different things? And I kind of became like the resident financial expert. And so by virtue of the things that I had accomplished or the things that I had started to focus on, a lot of the people in my circle were kind of like, oh, okay, like, this is something that you can do, or this is something that I didn't hear of, et cetera, et cetera. And so my personal branding journey started in 2019. I wrote my first book, mentorship The Playbook, and I wanted to do something like kind of speaking, consulting around the topic of mentorship because it was so continues to be very important passion of mine. But as I was building out my social media audience, of course the first people to follow you are the people that, you know, friends and family. They were looking for financial content and they're like, Hey, like, where's the finance stuff? And because I worked in a banking environment, I was very sensitive to this idea of the perceived conflict of interest. And you can't see me, but I'm using like air quotes right now. And , uh, and also it was my day job. Like I didn't want to work in banking all day and then come home and, and try to build a brand around personal finance. I was mistakenly under the impression that it was just a very saturated space. And when I started to plan around writing book two , which was financially irresponsible, I hired a book coach who convinced me out of that way of thinking and realizing that it's not a saturated space because my story is unique, the way that I tell my story is unique and my target audience is a little bit different. So , um, financially Irresponsible came out in September, I believe, of 2019. I then went on to do a TEDx talk literally the day after the book was published on financial empowerment. And then I submitted a press release to , um, a black Newswire or Newswire that caters to towards black media and black Enterprise, which is pretty large black publication, picked up the story. And so I got featured in Black Enterprise December of 2019, and I'm like, okay, like parties kicked off. I have a book, I have a TEDx talk. I'm in this large publication. And it's just been an amazing journey since going into 2020 through all of 2021. And, you know, into 2022, I , um, I discovered that the phrase financial trauma. And , um, I decided to kind of dig my heels into that as a very specific niche. And , um, through that I found the A F C P E, I found the Financial Therapy Association. I've been able to kind of leverage the platform that I've built prior to and the communities that I am now a part of within those circles to really grow my brand and recognition as somewhat of an authority in the space on the topic, and just continue to be fascinated every day by the behavioral side of money. I don't think that, you know, we talk about that mainstream enough and certainly the echo chambers that I've created on social media, everybody that I know is talking about it, but I just, I realize that that's a very, very small segment of the population. So all of our work really matters. And , um, I find that we are all very willing to help amplify this message of, you know, personal finances more than just the math.
Speaker 1:There is so much to unpack in there, but yeah , I'm , my mind is, is running, I have lots of questions, but, but I'm curious, where did you first hear of the term financial trauma and what was it about that that really resonated with you ?
Speaker 3:So, funny enough, I , um, I felt that I created it <laugh> <laugh> . And so I'm like, oh, that's really cool. I get to combine. So my educational background is in psychology, right ? I get to combine like this concept of psychology and money. And at the time I didn't know of, you know, the financial psychologists that have done, you know, decades of work before I even stumbled into this field. But very specifically in the way that I talk about financial trauma, I think is important to answer this question, there is a history in this country of abuse towards black bodies, right? And so when we talk about, you know , the , his , the legacy of slavery and everything that's come since then, the trauma, really generational trauma that black Americans have had to endure over time, there is 100% correlation between that generational trauma and the way that black Americans perceive money and the way that black Americans behave with money. And so, as I was writing my book, financially Irresponsible, I was reading a book called Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome by Dr. Joy Deroy. And it was her thesis work where she talks about the impact of generational trauma on black Americans and how it really just kind of permeates all facets of our existence. And so like light bulbs are going off as I'm reading her book and I'm writing my book and I'm like, Hmm , I can draw connections here. And understanding that, you know, trauma travels genetically, right? There's a biological component. So what that trauma, traveling from generation to generation looks like. And then thinking back to, you know, even my own childhood , um, some of the ideas or the thoughts or the sayings that, you know, black Americans can kinda laugh and bond over that we hear in our own communities, like, you know, there's a really popular one where, you know, kid might ask , um, Hey mom, can we go to McDonald's <laugh> ? And mom's response is , do you have McDonald's money? Right? And so it's like we're all like, did we all live the same life? Like, do we all have the same mom? Right? But, but thinking about the impact of like, how does, how does that reinforce this idea of scarcity in your life as a child? Because you understand once you hear that, that, okay, well we don't have money to get McDonald's, so we don't have money, and what does that mean for you? So I started using the term financial trauma, like I said, thinking that I created it, and then I started hearing other people talk about it , and I'm like, oh , wait a second. Like, I've never met that person before. And , um, I discovered some of Dr. Brad Klan's content through TikTok, and I'm like, wait, there's a financial psychologist, <laugh> , this is , this is amazing, right? <laugh>. And I just started to kind of like pull that thread and, and follow where it went. And so that's where I really started to discover like these different communities that I've mentioned. And , um, it's interesting, right? It's a balancing act. I think when we talk about trauma from a clinical perspective, and we're looking at, you know, what is the science behind this? And we talk about trauma from an experience-based perspective where it's like, you know, ouch, right? Like, I can relate to that, or, you know, that moved me. And, you know, connecting the dots between the science and the experience has been , uh, I won't say a joy for me certainly comes with its own pain points, but I think the joy for me is in being able to help people realize that there is a connection. Because personal finance for so long has been very sanitized of cultural experiences, mental health, the fact that it's personal, right? And so everybody is not coming to the table with the same resources or the same mindset. And so you have the guys like Dave Ramsey and Robert Kiyosaki preaching right to their audiences from a very kind of insensitive lens. And , um, unfortunately, a lot of the people who, you know, stumble across their content, begin to evangelize the content because it's so foreign , it's so new, it's so exciting. And when I say people, I mean me, right? Like I was very much an advocate for Robert Kiyosaki's book , rich Dad , poor Dad . I talked about it so much. I, I paid into his programs. I mean, I spent, I spent money that I had been saving for a down payment on my house to buy his advanced training for $12,000 after being strong armed into, you know, this is how you make a generational change in your family's legacy, you know, through three days of brainwashing at one of his other paid seminars, right? So I go and I start repeating kind of a lot of that harmful rhetoric, not realizing that it is indeed harmful and that I'm perpetuating a trauma that I've experienced through, you know, this fear-based marketing onto other people. And I've had to kind of, well , not kind of, I've had to reject his work and really pull back and redefine how do I wanna show up in this space? Leveraging principles of, you know, empathy and understanding and, you know , uh, academia and history to reframe the delivery of this content.
Speaker 2:There's so much we could go through here. I kind of wanna take it from a perspective of a financial counselor, right? That's our primary audience here. I feel like there's two sides of this as well. 'cause you personally, as a financial counselor or any type of financial services professional, we often look at ourselves saying, well, I don't have trauma. I don't have any problems. I don't have a back . Like, I'm fine. It's the client <laugh> that is the one that can't, won't do what I say. Right? But I see this as a two-sided coin as well. So I want to ask you from both perspectives, as a financial counselor, how do you yourself look at your own trauma or past experiences in a healthy way to be able to work with others? And then vice versa, how do you help clients that have some kind of, if trauma in their past move forward? If you're not a licensed therapist?
Speaker 3:<laugh>, that's an amazing question. There's so many different directions I wanna go with this. Let's start with my experience as an entrepreneur over the last two years has been ridden with financial stress and financial anxiety as I navigate figuring out how to run a business full-time and make a living, right? So many of it's funny, I was given this piece of advice the day that I resigned from my job. The advice was, Rakim, now you're going to have to come face to face with some of the beliefs and values that you have around money in a very different way. I'm, I'm loosely paraphrasing, and I'm like, oh yeah. Like, no, 'cause you know, at that, prior to that, it was pay yourself first and max out your , uh, Roth contributions every year. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , and , you know , all of the things, right? <laugh> , but you can't do those things when you're not making money or when you're not making money consistently. And so certainly as an entrepreneur, there is, you know, the learning curve of figuring out, okay, how am I gonna make money this month? Oh, I made money this month. What do I do with the money this month? How am I gonna make money next month? And, you know, chasing your sales , so to speak. So as I talk about financial trauma and financial stress and financial anxiety, I'm also living that experience. And I think that one of the kind of, I guess, limiting beliefs that I've had to kind of come to terms with is that I can be the expert , so to speak, and living this experience, living this reality and not be, I think, you know, my fear was would people consider me a fraud? And so, you know, answering your question, I think what's worked for me in terms of building my brand and credibility and just sharing in the way that I share is being very transparent about what this journey looks like, right? I don't pretend to be somebody that I'm not. I don't pretend to, you know , have these nerves of steel. I am very transparent about what my experience has been and continues to be. And on the outside looking in, I think a lot of people are very proud of me because they're like, well , how are you accomplishing all the things that you've accomplished, right? And I'm like, yeah, those are nice. But in the moment where I'm stressing out about how my , how is my mortgage gonna get paid? Like me writing for Forbes doesn't matter, <laugh>. And so I think, you know, that's part of it. The second part of it is without being a licensed there , you know, that's the part of the question that I really love. There's so much in the community of mental health practitioners, financial therapists, et cetera, where, you know, deliberation around who can call themself financial and whether or not they need to have a license to practice therapy outside of the financial therapy makes them less credible or valid in the space. And , um, you know, I've, I've struggled with that over the last year or so because there's no doubt, you know, and from my perspective and, and certainly from the perspective of some of the people that I've helped, that the work is therapeutic, right? And so I've had people refer to me as a financial therapist. I've not called myself a financial therapist because I want to avoid, you know, the, the clash and the gatekeeping around who can call themselves what. But you know, understanding how mental health practitioners are backing into the finance just as much as the financial professionals are backing into the mental health side, has kind of helped me maintain a bit of balance and understanding what does ultimately this look like for my business. I've branded myself as a coach this entire time. I'll continue to brand myself as a coach after I get the A F C , and if I decide to go after ccf T one , because the way that I brand my particular set of services is financial coaching with methods that include financial counseling and or financial therapy, right? So I can learn from the financial therapy community. I can go as far as becoming a quote unquote financial therapist. Um , and the same with financial counseling, but continue to run my business as a coach, maintain consistency in the way that I brand and, and pull from, you know, different schools of thought and been really interesting kind of lining up those different , uh, titles, if you will, and saying, okay, well what does each one do? Right? When I came into studying the material for financial counseling, my perspective on coaching is this person is coming to me, sort of like the way you would approach a personal trainer, right? They want me to provide them with accountability. They want me to provide them with education. I know better than they do, so they need to do what I tell them. And going through the material, I'm like, hold on. Like, I've been doing this whole thing wrong, right? Like, I am not the authority here. I'm a partner. And helping people see that partnership, I think takes their guard down and allows for them to open up , um, and share in that accountability, right? I've had coaching clients prior to taking the, the a f C coursework who would show up. I would give them homework, and then we would have our next session. I'm like, so, you know, have you completed the homework? And they're like, oh, no. And I'm like, what do you mean no , <laugh> ? Like, are , are we wasting our time here? But justifying the time spent is like, well, I got paid, so, you know, I'm just gonna keep it moving. And I told 'em did too . They didn't do it like it is what it is . Um , but interestingly, at the end of the sessions with that particular client, they wanted, they had shared with me that they were, they're wanting to become a coach in a very interesting niche. And by the end of our time together, they realized that they did not want to be a coach. And at first I was a little offended because I'm like, we just spent like a whole month working on all this. I'm telling , I'm giving you all this homework. You know, we're having all these breakthroughs. But I had to reframe at the end of it . I said, you know what? This was a success because you have clarity. You thought that you wanted something, you realize the work involved in making that thing happen wasn't what you were willing to do, and therefore you realize this is not actually what you want to do. And so now you can move on with your life and, you know, do something, try something else. And , uh, and I share that story because I think if I had the knowledge of, you know, financial counseling and really the counseling methodology that was missing from the equation there that maybe I would've approached engaging with this client a little differently. So, I don't know , that was a very long-winded answer, but does that answer your question at all?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Raki , I think this is such a big issue to unpack, right? Like, even if we had the next five hours, we still wouldn't get to it all. You've really hit the needle right on the head when you said that, what they've experienced and showing empathy towards that. It doesn't mean we have to have those same experiences, but it really means trying to understand and listen instead of preach as you mentioned before. So yes, there's a lot to unpack, but that definitely gets us started. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:You know, what really resonated there with me, Rick , is I think your approach to certification and gathering knowledge and how the field integrates and works together is, is really astute. And, you know, I don't think you need to be everything to everyone, and you're really figuring out what you need to be the best financial coach for you, and continuing to learn and gather that information. And, and even as a coach with a lens in financial trauma, you know, we always talk about building out your network, which you're really doing as well. So as you're working with a coach, depending on that level of trauma and some of your background in psychology, you're gonna know when to build alliances with mental health counselors to find ways to work together. I appreciated how you spoke about your journey and, and sort of navigating some of those questions.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Kind of piggybacking on that, for financial professionals who don't have a background specifically in therapy, maybe not even an undergrad, you know, degree in that area, what are some ways that they can apply that trauma informed lens to their work with clients?
Speaker 3:The first part is getting acquainted with the fact that it exists , right? There's more chatter in, I guess, the mental health circles or , or I don't wanna call them the anti mental health circles, but how in this new era, if, if we can call it that everything is tied to some kind of mental health issue, right? There are people who are very resistant to , um, just category categorizing everything as a mental health issue. But I think when we look at, you know, zooming out, when we look at our experience as human beings, right? It's, it's so multifaceted. It's not just a physical experience. Like certainly, you know, there's things that manifest , um, mentally, there's things that manifest spiritually. And so when, when we zoom out and we kind of take into account the different aspects of our experience and how they show up, i, it , it makes us more understanding of each other. And, and I think arguably more importantly, more understanding of ourselves. And so I think the work that I do and the work that many of us in this space, right, healing work do, is a reflection of getting to know ourselves better , um, getting to love ourselves better, but as we demonstrate empathy towards others, we can develop the capacity to demonstrate more empathy towards ourselves. And , um, I just think it's interesting the way that you phrase that question, because I was very anti credentialed when I got started in this space. Like, I, I was of the belief that my experience was enough. My belief hasn't changed in that my experience is important, but what I've learned as I've, you know, pursued these different designations is that the community matters. The ethics matter , um, the weight that the designations hold in others' , recognition of your ability unfortunately matters, right? And private practice, maybe, you know, a client won't ask you, well, what credentials do you have to do this work? And sure, there are a ton of people very popular on social media who are misinforming tons and tons of people with no credential and no accountability. So when I started to see that shift occur, certainly over the pandemic where, you know, platforms like TikTok took off , uh, you know, I see it on Twitter, I see it on Instagram where there's no accountability in the way that information is being given as it relates to financial matters. That's when the shift started to occur. For me, second layer, I've had clients ask me, well, what credentials do you have? And the only thing that I can point to were the things that I've accomplished personally in my financial life, right? Experiencing poverty, buying a home, like the shift in mindset around what that looked like, my credit score , um, my investment balances. But then you get into kind of like this dog and pony show of will , let me flex on you, right? Like, let me show you what it is that I have that you don't have to justify my presence in this space. And so, since you know, now I'm on, now that I'm on the other side of a lot of these credentials, I realized that all of that wasn't necessary, but it was for me to demonstrate status so that people can feel kind of, in a way, it's like lifestyle marketing, right? Where certainly I'm not going around, you know, recording videos in a Ferrari or showing off Rolex watches, but in a way it's just kinda like, you know, yeah. Like this is what I've done, this is how I've done it, this is why you should work with me. And that doesn't mean just because you've been able to accomplish those things doesn't mean that you're a good teacher. Doesn't mean that you are an empathetic teacher, doesn't mean that you have the, the foundational skillset to educate somebody on how to improve their specific set of circumstances. So , um, so now I approach this from the mindset of, yes, my experiences matter and they matter so much. Like I don't wanna undermine anybody who is experienced based as a practitioner, but the credentials have helped significantly. The knowledge that comes, or rather the what is demanded of you in acquiring those credentials has helped dramatically. But without having a background necessarily in psychology or financial therapy or financial counseling, I do think that just kind of getting exposure to thought leaders in this space and understanding that, you know, trauma is a thing and informs behavior and you know, maybe you can to learn the language, be careful of diagnosing people, but learn how those things show up and observe how those things show up in your clients is important. You know, I try to do my best as many different ways as I can to amplify the work of, you know, financial therapists and financial counselors, whether that be through written oral or , um, audio rather, or video means to say like, Hey, like we're not all Dave Ramsey's, right? We're not all Robert Kiyosaki's. We're not all, you know, just getting up here and telling you, you just have to work harder. You have to make more money. Like we, there are people out here who are willing to understand your circumstances, who are willing to extend you grace for where you are in life right now, and who are willing to be a cheerleader in the background as you start to figure things out. Because, you know, the hardcore reality that I've learned over the last two years as an entrepreneur is that life definitely life's right. Like things happen and you know, you have a plan for the way that things should go. Maybe you're on track to accomplish those goals and then, you know, there's a pandemic <laugh> , right? So, so, you know, life definitely happens. And I think, you know, if, if we can learn how to, I talk about this concept of financial resilience, focus on financial resilience, and realize that financial perfection is is not real. It's an illusion. It's, it's a snapshot of a moment in time. You know, I've had 830 credit score before, but I don't have 830 credit score right now. Does that make me a terrible person? No. But at one point in time, I used that credit score to make myself feel good, like, oh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm out here and I'm doing it. I have almost perfect credit score. <laugh>
Speaker 1:What you said about certifications. I kind of wanna circle back to that. I do think it's really interesting. There are a lot of, you know, it's alphabet soup in our field. And so there is this feeling to keep sort of collecting these trophies. And I think, you know, some of that goes to lifelong learning, which I think is key. And I can hear you're a lifelong learner as well. You know, you talk about, I think you used the word community and ethics matter and, and that's what a certification like the A F C is giving you and giving your clients . So it's giving you this community, it's giving you this commitment to lifelong learning. But it's been really powerful. Some of the examples you've shared even today on how you've taken some of those things you've learned. It's not the one size fits all approach, but, you know, education of the A F C is really focused on applying a culturally competent lens and putting the client first and really listening to the needs of that person. 'cause as you said earlier, you can give all the education in the world, but if you don't really know your client and how their background, what they've gone through and, and how they learn, the cycle continues. And so I just think that's really powerful, you know, thank you for unpacking some of that with us. Yeah.
Speaker 2:In fact, that's one of the things hearing in your story as well as a fellow entrepreneur, and I think we have several that listened to this as an entrepreneur, you've really had an incredible learning journey. You know, kind of chuckle when you said you thought you coined financial trauma. Because I remember thinking I was the first one doing financial literacy two decades ago, and I just chuckle. 'cause now I look back and I was like, oh, I was so behind the times. There were so many other people out there, but now you're writing for Forbes, you're doing your own podcast, you teen fee show, you're running your own community. And yet you had told us throughout this that you suffered from imposter syndrome in a way. I don't think you're alone in this. So kind of as a final note, I'd love to hear what advice you would have for our audience who aspire to do similar things as you, but maybe having a hard time believing that they can,
Speaker 3:The belief in myself, right? This like confidence that I have to go out and approach these really large, I don't wanna call them status symbols, but trophies is, is the term that we use and I'll keep using is not something that I want to kind of like undermine imposter syndrome is in like when you are facing you at the end of the day, right? And you're like, I've done all of these things, I should be here financially. Let me rephrase. It's not so much imposter syndrome as it is. You're comparing what you picture looks like to somebody else's. And social media makes it very easy to do that. And it's unfortunate, right? Because if I wasn't on social media, there's so much about other people's lives and other people's businesses that I just would not know. Yeah . <laugh> , right? And so it's just like, okay, like I wouldn't feel bad because I know , right? Like I , I'm just, I'm the best thing since like , okay , like right? I'm thinking I've , I've come up with financial trauma and if I don't, if I'm not on social media, I'm gonna run with it. Like, yeah, I created this phrase <laugh> <laugh> , um, <laugh> . And so, you know, it's a double-edged sword because I think social media has helped develop me in a lot of ways by understanding that, you know, there are communities of people out here doing this work that there's these different certifications that, you know, there's people that I've met because of social media. There's people that I've never met in person who I have great relationships with on social media. You know, I just, I think about the richness of my life because of some of that networking and how I would be missing those things. But we have to be careful of comparing ourselves and our journeys to other people. And I feel, I feel two ways about this because I talk a lot about like this concept of exposure and changing the dynamics of what your reality looks like. And I've lived that. But for entrepreneurs who are in their collecting trophies phase or who might feel like they need to collect trophies in order to be successful, the piece of advice that I'll share is a piece of advice that's been given to me. And that is simply that there are people who are doing more with so much less. And that was a really eye-opening experience that I've had with coaches who I've worked with who are like Rakim like, you know, every month it's something new. Like, and what's funny is, I was just talking to my mom about this recently. Um , I'm like, I accomplished something major, right? I share it on my social media, people congratulate me. And on the one hand I'm like, I think people are starting to get tired of congratulating. But on the other hand, my favorite unfavorite response that people give me after I accomplish something major is like, wow, congratulations, Rakim, what's next? And I'm like, hold on a second. Like, can I take a minute to breathe and celebrate the fact that I just did this thing? Like, what do you mean what's next? And so like the more you do, the more people expect for you to do, and then you start to put this pressure on yourself, like, okay, well last quarter was, you know, I did this, this, this and this, so I have to do, you know, this thing next quarter. And your ambitions can outpace what it is that you are set up for in terms of just the structure of your business, in terms of what income looks like, in terms of your ability to take advantage of certain opportunities. I'm sure there are several instances over the course of, you know, my time as an entrepreneur where I've talked myself out of money because I didn't know that I should be pricing myself at a higher rate or because I was willing to accept something that was high for me, but considerably low for what my peers in the space were making, right? And so I think that's one of the pros of, of being able to network across social media as well is , you know, I have lots of conversations about transparency and what does it mean to have a brand partnership? What does it mean to work with a corporation as a consultant? What does it mean to coach? And I've had conversations with other coaches recently where we're talking about pricing and I'm like, maybe I'm pricing too high, <laugh>, maybe I'm pricing my clients out of, you know, being able to work with me. And so I'm having a harder time getting more clients and I'm seeing peers who are having like more clients than they can handle, but realizing that the math behind the scenes is that they're charging way lower and they're doing the volume game where for me it's like, I just need one and I'm done. And so, you know, your approaches to what marketing looks like and who your target audience looks like, and you know, of course what your pricing looks like all changes. So I think , um, you know, just kind of summarizing all of that in a nutshell, community matters. Get in and around people who are doing what you are doing or what you want to do and have, you know, transparent conversations about that. I think that , um, empathy matters. That's empathy towards yourself and being able to celebrate your victories, your wins, whatever that looks like. And, and also recognizing that, you know, you don't have to hit it out the park every month or every quarter or every year. Like I'm preaching to myself right now. Right? Right. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , you don't have to have you had an amazing year last year. Like you don't necessarily have to have an amazing year this year. Like you can still kind of celebrate the success of what it is that you've been able to do last year. Because I think on the other side of all of the things that I'm doing, right, we talked about Forbes, we talked about the podcast, we talked about the TV show, we talked about the community. Like, I'm also finding that my capacity is streamed , right? Like, how do I deliver quality on a podcast when on my own podcast, when I'm also competing by having a TV show? And certainly you can repurpose content, right? But that's what the game becomes. I have a newsletter on CK that people love, but I'm also writing for Forbes. What is my capacity look like in , you know, targeting Forbes audience versus targeting my own audience. And so thinking about how much you can fit on your plate at one point , at one time, I think is important as well. Like being real about that and then eliminating the things that maybe no longer serve you or no longer serve you today . So an idea that I've been playing out, playing with recently is maybe I can focus on a project in this quarter and I won't focus on that project at all in the next quarter. I'll focus on different project, and that way I'm still able to do the, the multiple things, but I'm not running on e trying to do everything at the same time. I have a mentor who says, you can have it all just not all at the same time.
Speaker 1:Well, I love that Rakim , and I feel like you, with the mentor comment, you kind of brought it full circle. And you know, it's interesting you started out writing a book about mentorship, and I feel like through this journey and through coaching, mentorship is such a big piece of that as well. So at the end of each interview, we always ask our guests to share their 2 cents. If you had one piece of advice to leave with our listeners, what would it be?
Speaker 3:Be kind to yourselves, right? And so I know that probably a majority of the listeners are financial counselors who are on this continuous learning journey to impact the lives of other people. And so my dad , uh, he , he and I often kind of like toss the ball around, so to speak, mentally. And he says to me, teaching and, and healing work is addictive, right? Like, you can become addicted to the impact that you have on other people's lives, but while you are kind of chasing the high, so to speak, of being able to be this person for somebody else, you can neglect to take care of yourself. And so I think all healing work takes a lot out of us, and we often don't take the time to heal ourselves. And so I would, I would say be kind to yourself. Take the time to heal yourself, take the time to make connections with other people who can pour into you. Mm-hmm . Community has been huge for me. Yeah , I just, two days ago I had I think two or three different people completely unrelated, like did , did not have conversations with one another, send me voice notes , um, just encouraging me, reminding me like who I am, what I've accomplished, the impact that I have in this space. And I'm like, okay, wow. Caused that. But with those people didn't realize, is that in, in that moment, in that particular day, I needed that. I needed that so much because sometimes you forget, you forget what you've done because you're looking at, you're looking at your own situation or you're in your own head or you're carrying the, the weight of other people's experiences trying to, you know, be for them what you need for you.
Speaker 2:You know, Rick Kim , we're so glad you came on the show with us today. Please tell our listeners where they can connect with you. I'm
Speaker 3:At everywhere at my name. I've used my name as kind of my branding tool . So my website is rakim sabr.com . My ck overcoming financial trauma is at rakim sabr dot sub stack.com . Forbes. You can type Rakim sabr into the search bar and check out those articles. Or you could go to forbes.com/sites/rakim sabr . And all of my social media are at Rakim Sabri .
Speaker 2:So you are easily reachable. <laugh>.
Speaker 3:Yes, I'm very easily reachable and, and I am willing to engage, right? So like when I see people sending me dms or connection requests, I'm, I'm happy to respond.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Rakim .
Speaker 3:You are very welcome.
Speaker 2:You know, Rachel, I am so glad to have Rakim in today. There were three words I thought that really resonated for me, that I came away with honesty, transparency, and empathy. And that to me kind of sums up what he, his journey is personally as well as professionally. And he's really trying to advocate not just for others to do that, but I think even as financial counselors for us to have that honesty, transparency, and empathy as we work with clients as well. To be honest, there was a thought that came to me at one point that said, I'm so grateful that we can talk about these really hard topics in this day and time. That mental health or trauma or as he was mentioning, how black Americans have grown up and, and some of the tragedies they've had to overcome some of those journeys. I'm glad that we can talk about those topics in this day and time. And it's not taboo. It's okay. And there's an open platform to share. I do love how he really wrapped it up at the end and just said, you know, don't compare. Don't compare yourself. Be kind to yourself. He really is a good example of that. He has gained so much in his journey and he wants to get back to others. So I just thought that was an incredible experience with him today.
Speaker 1:Mary, I couldn't agree more. And I think this topic of trauma-informed practice, it is so important. And I think historically, trauma has really broad range and it's come up several times with several guests. I, you know, when we were talking with a divorce financial analyst, trauma shows up generationally or culturally, it shows up differently for everyone. And Rakim really brings a lens of listening to his client, approaching people with empathy. What really resonated with me were the three E's he said at the end, which was exposure, education, and execution. And I think that's so relevant when we're looking at financial education in general and really opening access, unless you're exposed to different ways or different knowledge, whether you're a financial professional, learning, you know, to become a coach or a counselor, or you're a client on your own money journey. That exposure, that education, and then the guidance and the execution is really critical. And so a really important topic, one, I'm excited to continue to explore. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.