We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Janeil Pierre. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Janeil below.

Alright, Janeil thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

It was June 2019, less than 30 days before I retired from the Army. As I sat with my legs folded on the sectional in my living room, reminiscing about the comfortable life I had built for myself, my heart sank into the pit of my stomach.

” What am I going to do now?”
“What can I do to bring in money that wouldn’t aggravate my broken back and torn hip?”
“Being a Soldier is all I know; what am I supposed to do?”

As those questions raced, another voice inside me repeated, “I want to live. I want to live.”

“Okay, stop! This isn’t helping.” I spoke aloud, holding my head as if to silence my thoughts.

I had to decide what I wanted to do before my last paycheck from the Army hit my bank account. So, I started replaying the last eight years of my life, searching for evidence of anything that brought me joy when the image of the very first person I helped improve her credit score flashed before my eyes.

She was twenty, and the Army was her first job. She didn’t know much about money and credit, and there she was, trying unsuccessfully to figure it out on her own. I sat with her and taught her everything I taught myself about the topic.

A few months later, at work, she came running to me with the biggest smile on her face.

“Pierre, Pierre,” she hollered, waving her phone in her hands.

“Come look at this! My credit score is 743! Can you believe it? My credit score has never been this high. I don’t think anyone in my family has ever had a score this high.”

Those words filled my heart in a way that had never been before, and I remember wanting to bottle that feeling so I’d have it always.

As that memory filled my space, I knew in my heart that since my military career was over for good, the next best option for me was to help as many people as I could feel good about their money.

I knew this was a worthwhile endeavor because of the financial struggle that led me to join the military. No one really talked about money. The topic was taboo. If you were struggling like I was, guilt, shame, and the fear of judgment kept you from reaching out for help.

I struggled in silence, sometimes going to bed hungry, and no one knew. I wanted to be the one to build a bridge between struggling financially and living the life you truly desire. I wanted to be a safe space where people could get the help they needed without judgment.

It wasn’t so much that other people weren’t solving the problem of financial literacy/education; I just felt that, because of my unique journey and desire to see others win, I could add a more personal and unique touch to the space.

The people I knew in the space didn’t offer 1:1 coaching as much as they provided courses. People like me can benefit from a course but thrive much better with 1:1 coaching. That’s why I chose to become a coach rather than just an educator – to be for others what I would’ve loved for someone else to be for me. Connecting with others and building relationships on a personal level excites me the most on this journey.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Janeil Pierre, and I am a Financial Confidence Coach. I help ambitious professionals and experts heal their relationship with money, break the paycheck-to-debt cycle, and create the joy, abundance, and freedom they desire without sacrificing their lifestyle.

I got into the personal financial space initially because of the struggles I experienced as an almost 30 year old. My commitment to the space evolved after I lost my grandmother in 2021. Though she was 75 years old when she passed, her passing emphasized to me how important it is to live a life full of joy, abundance, and freedom. Most of us don’t think living in abundance is possible because of what we don’t know about money, and I am on a mission to change that.

I help my clients heal their relationships with money, increase their income, eliminate their debt, and multiply their savings so that they can experience life on their own terms.

The number one thing that sets me apart is that, unlike traditional financial coaches, I focus first on getting to the root cause of the problem – money struggles is never the issue but a symptom of a much deeper issue.

Once we address what’s really going on beneath the surface, we work on creating a money plan—not just any money plan, but one specific to their goals, values, and desired lifestyle. My focus is never on cutting back but on cultivating an abundance mindset. My clients understand there’s no limit to what they can earn.

I am most proud of my commitment to my clients. I always seek ways to serve them better and help them reach their goals. Their success is my top priority, and as long as they are invested, so am I. I truly believe that each of us deserves a life worth living and a life worth loving, and I love helping my clients do just that.

Money is only a tool; the only thing standing between you and what you desire is learning how to wield it confidently. That’s where I come in.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

The winter of 2011 is one I’ll never forget. I was 26 years old, sleeping on the floor on a lopsided air mattress in a nursery-sized room I sublet from a family of seven. As I lay there with my stomach growling, tears began to flow from my eyes, and there was no stopping them. I had been down and out before, but this? This feeling was new. I couldn’t understand what I had done wrong to end up this broke, hungry, and hopeless.

I cried, “God, why me, why am I going through this?”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Did I hurt someone, and this is my karma?”
“I must have. I must have done something wrong or hurt someone and don’t remember. But how?”

The sobs erupted from my soul – hard but as silently as they could to avoid alerting the family in the next room; my heart breaking deeper with each question as I searched for an answer.

I had nothing and was no one—a far cry from the intelligent, talkative, sweet girl who graduated high school at 16 and planned to become a pediatric nurse.

With no more tears to cry and my eyesight blurry from crying, I picked up the notebook and pen on the floor next to me, sat up, and began writing.

“I promise never to tell a soul what I’m going through.”
“I promise to get out of this situation and create a better life for myself. And when I get out of this, I am never coming back.”

My two biggest goals back then were to buy a house and a car. So, I asked myself, one very important question, “What can you do now?” That’s when the lightbulb went off! I could start working on my credit and learning everything I could about money so that when the opportunity came, I’d be ready!” And I committed to just that.

For the next 6 months, I researched diligently about credit, money, savings, mortgages – anything and everything I found I read and implemented where I could. I even “designed” the home I wanted by scouring the internet and saving the pictures I liked of the different rooms.

When I graduated from Army Basic Training in February 2012, I bought my first car at the lowest interest rate of 0%. In June 2013, I purchased my first home with a 4.25% interest rate, which I later refinanced to 3.75%.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One lesson I had to unlearn was my scarcity mindset. When I was struggling, shopping was by far, the most challenging experience for me. I rarely had enough money to buy the food and clothes I needed, so I always looked for the cheapest items. I constantly had to justify or convince myself that it was okay to buy certain things, and I was always, always, terrified of what would happen if I ran out of money.

Even after joining the military and earning enough money to live quite comfortably, I found myself in the grocery store one day, justifying and convincing myself to buy items I wanted. That’s when it hit me – I had brought my old way of thinking about money into my new life. That experience was such an eye-opener for me, especially since it had been years since I didn’t have enough money at that point.

It didn’t happen overnight, but I am proud to say that I now possess an abundant mindset, which allowed me to grace the Broadway stage next to the incomparable Lisa Nichols as an Executive Producer of her one-woman show When My Soul Speaks.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://janeilpierre.com/home
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janeilpierre/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janeil-pierre/
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@janeilpierre?lang=en

Image Credits

For the group pic on Broadway and the one with the DNA Films background only – pics 6 & 7:

Mike Dunn for DNA Films