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

Rachel, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career.

As a financial coach, I see glaring holes in the educational system, but I also see our educational system steering folks in the wrong direction overall in life.

There are two main avenues of the educational system that I would change.

Number one, is financial literacy. I have dozens of students coming through my program each year who are successful, smart and highly educated. However, they don’t understand the underlying systems needed to manage debt, save for a rainy day or prepare for retirement.

Understanding the basics of investing and how retirement works should be a minimum requirement to get a high school diploma in my opinion. It would create a sense of safety and calm among a population increasingly plagued by stress and debt because money is not only a total mystery, but it’s something people feel uncomfortable discussing in the open.

That fundamentally comes back to issue number two: our educational system trains folks to be workers, not “livers of life” who happen to work. And for the economy, that’s possibly a good thing, but for human beings, I don’t think it’s a good thing at all. We are not teaching our youth how to use money as a resource to achieve their dreams. We’re teaching them how to be good worker bees and continue to spend endlessly without realizing that every dollar spent equates to a set amount of time in the office.

I believe that showing folks a path to financial security AND how to leverage their time and resources to enjoy their lives would alleviate much of the burnout and anxiety that feels pervasive in America. That looks like finding joy in the small things, learning to be present in our day to day lives and finding gratitude for all that we have.

That doesn’t mean we should kill ambition – that’s one of my favorite things about Americans, we are the most ambitious group of people I’ve ever met (as an American living abroad right now!) I love the business and creative spirit that Americans possess, however I think learning to channel some of our ambition into personal growth instead of amassing bigger homes, fancier cars and better shots for the ‘gram would reduce the growing discontent facing America today.

I fundamentally believe that financial security is the most primary need in order to be a successful member of society and to be able to build the relationships that make humans thrive. Our current educational system completely overlooks it as an important life skill!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a rare bird who studied my passion in college and went on to work in the industry for 15 years. By the time I “retired” at 36 I was the VP of a 9 figure women’s fashion brand. While I loved fashion and style, I hated working in fashion. The stress and late nights didn’t align with my personality, but I was always ambitious and I was willing to do what it took to rise to the top. Unfortunately that took a toll on my body and at 29 I was diagnosed with a condition called rheumatoid arthritis, which is a degenerative joint condition.

With the future of my physical health unclear, I realized I needed to do something wildly different with my life right now. I wanted the freedom to enjoy my 30-something body’s ability to climb mountains, surf waves and carry luggage. I discovered the FI/RE movement around this time and decided I needed to find a way to make it work for me.

FI/RE stands for Financial Independence/Retire Early, and is generally based on frugality and investing to amass enough wealth to quit working permanently. The stories I read involved insane levels of frugality that didn’t sound like me, but I figured out that I could do it in my own way. I set about learning as much as I could about the American financial system and investing.

Just 7 years later, I had enough money to “retire” from corporate fashion and pursue my dreams of traveling the world. I didn’t have a lot of money, I had just enough to take the break I desperately needed.

During the first year of traveling,I discovered that many women lacked even a basic understanding of the stock market and really wanted to learn and grow their own wealth.

After helping friends for free, I realized I owed it to the world to help spread the gospel of financial literacy so I launched my signature coaching program Electri FI Wealth (FI stands for financial independence, see what I did there?)

Inside my program I help women go from totally overwhelmed and clueless with their money to fully in control and in charge of their financial future. I help women ditch the paycheck to paycheck lifestyle, hop off the consumerism treadmill and start treating themselves and their money totally differently.

My program is unique in that I don’t push you to go faster than you’re comfortable going. You want to still order DoorDash twice a week? No problem, that means you’ll pay your debt off more slowly and work longer. If you’re happy with that, then I’m happy with it. I want folks to understand that personal finance is indeed personal.

Learning to address your money mindset at the beginning of the program gives my clients the fundamental shift they need to make in order to succeed. After that, we do a deep dive into what’s really going on with their money so we can set a strategy that will feel aligned with their own priorities. Finally, my clients learn how to invest to make their money work for them.

My average client is an educated, successful woman in her late twenties to early forties who has never learned the fundamentals of personal finance and is ashamed that she doesn’t really know how to solve the problem on her own. She has been highly influenced by what they see around them and unwittingly kept up with Joneses for years, even if it’s not actually a big priority to them.

By learning how to manage money and get comfortable with delayed gratification, my clients have collectively increased their net worths by hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last 2 years. I am incredibly proud of both my clients and my program for getting these results!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I studied my butt off, then worked my butt off to rise in the ranks of the fashion industry. I dedicated a total of 19 years of my life to clothes, fabric and trends. But at the end of it, I just wasn’t happy with how I was using my precious time on this planet. Instead of pivoting careers like any sane person, I became super intentional with my spending and put a lot of energy and time into learning how to invest because I thought I was going to retire early. When i finally did “retire” I was bored, felt directionless and just didn’t know what I was doing with my life. In the end, I realized my calling was to teach financial literacy to help people control their own futures by building wealth. It was scary to launch into entrepreneurship, but I was financially ready and more importantly, wildly passionate about what I was doing!

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

This is the story of my very first sale. I launched my business by enrolling in a coaching program with a lofty promise that you would earn $10,000 in your first 30 days. Much to my surprise, when I started posting on my IG and FB pages about my new idea to teach personal finance, people were reaching out to me. Much to my chagrin, this meant that I was going to have to ask my friends, colleagues and random strangers directly for money. People were happily agreeing to sales calls because it turns out that no one cares that I’m not a certified financial planner. No one cares that I don’t have a coaching certification. They just want to see someone that has actually done it themselves help them implement. This is embarassing, but I was so stressed about my first sales call that I was actually sweating. I had stomach cramps and had to run to the bathroom just before the call. I could hardly breathe. And the very first person I offered the program to said YES. Then the next one and the next one. It still raises my blood pressure to ask people for money, but two years down the line, I have so much proof that my program works that I confidently invite folks to join rather than sweating and meekly asking with they think.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.racheltalksmoney.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachel_talksmoney/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-covert/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@rachel_talksmoney?lang=en