Podcasts
mbegina3.jpg

What’s the one thing you swore you’d do differently?

We all have one. However loving our upbringing, there’s always that one thing we can point to that, when we were growing up, we swore we would do differently. 

For a lot of us, those resolutions have to do with money. Maybe it’s:

a greater sense of security than our parents had

more freedom to enjoy the money we’ve earned

confidence to make bold money choices

But despite the resolution and desire for a different path, sometimes we see those same patterns we swore we’d get away from repeating in our own lives.  


Banner images header 4-04.png
 

I get it.

 
 

I know the impact of living with money beliefs we’ve inherited and absorbed over time. I know the emotional toll that can follow in the wake of a dysfunctional relationship with money, rippling out to affect everyone in its path. 

But here’s something else I know. That pattern can be broken. Those beliefs can be transcended. You can do it differently. I did. And now I empower others to do the same, taking ownership of their wealth and their choices for a life of financial freedom.

 

It’s what’s on the inside that counts.

I was six the first time my father asked to “borrow” money from my piggy bank for cigarettes. When I said no, he took it anyway. It wouldn’t be the last time boundaries were crossed and my trust was broken, but it would culminate in my father spending my college fund to buy a yacht. 

The irony was that to the outside world, my family lived a life a luxury. We drove Jaguars and rode Harleys. After my father got his pilot’s license, we flew to lavish vacations in a private plane. But the truth of the matter was that my parents spent everything they made, and we were always within an inch of having a check bounce or having our home put into foreclosure.

Clearly, I was receiving some seriously messed up money messages. But I was also receiving other messages that helped me develop my sense of self. I loved learning, and threw myself into my studies. My father took me on tours of universities, and my parents spoke proudly of the fact that I’d be the first person in the family to graduate from college. So I had this belief, at the core of my being, that I was a college graduate in waiting. It wasn’t a wish or a hope. It was my identity. And so I acted on it. 

When my father told me he didn’t have any money to send me to college, it never even occurred to me to consider not going. Instead, I embodied that vision of myself as a college graduate, and I began to figure it out.

It took eight years and a hodgepodge of jobs to get my degree, but I did it. 

Today I am a financial advisor, a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®), and a Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA®). I’m an author and a speaker, and my own company, MichelleAB, is dedicated to empowering professional women to step into financial freedom so that they can enjoy their wealth and make their boldest, most inspired decisions from a place of confidence.

My mother always used to say, “It’s what’s inside that counts.” What was inside me, even as a 17-year-old being told she was on her own to achieve her dream of a college degree, was resilience, resourcefulness, and an unshakable belief in myself. And I’m pretty sure, if you’re reading this, that’s what’s inside you, too.