The lessons I learned about money as a self-made millionaire

Earlier this week, I appeared on NBC to share three of my money tips as a self-made millionaire. My final tip was the power of an abundance money mindset. 

It’s true. An abundance mindset has been key to my success. 

But, it’s not the whole truth.

I’ll share more of the truth in a moment. 

Is anyone self-made?

But first, let’s acknowledge the fact that being self-made is also only partially true. Can anyone, especially those of us raised in the United States and many Westernized countries, truly claim to be self-made? Also, for those of us who have done the inner work of connecting with our ancestral guides, we know that our efforts are not solely our own. As Oprah says, “I come as one, but I stand with 10,000.”

In my case, my Caribbean and West African ancestors paved the way for my grandmothers. My grandmothers immigrated to the United States and became real estate investors during the 1960s - a period of intense racism and sexism. My parents, an immigrant and a first-generation American, worked tirelessly to ensure that I and my siblings had the best that money could buy.

I attended private schools on the East Coast of the United States and benefited from the exceptional education my parents bought for me. I went to a private preschool that currently costs $17,000 per year per child. When I was eleven, I got to miss two weeks of school because my Uncle, who built a multi-million dollar software company, took me to Paris. To say I had a blessed childhood, would be an understatement.

Self-made doesn’t fully capture my whole story. However, it is still partially true. My parents told me and my siblings that they set the intention to raise independent thinkers. Their verbal blessings helped to lay the foundation for us to create our own career paths. My independent thinking is an invaluable tool I’ve used to forge my own way.

Creating my own career path

In many ways, the act of creating my own career path is the essence of being self-made. I am the only person on the planet whose career includes being an NFL Cheerleader, obtaining a B.A. in Economics, launching a failed clothing line, working and living in the Grand Canyon and Mammoth Lakes Ski resort, becoming an accountant then CFO, launching a successful financial coaching business, creating a money blog with readers in over 30 countries, becoming a Chief Economist for a real estate data company, being hired as a dancer in music videos, and winning a Webby Award as a TV host.

Yes, my career was self-made. It has taken an exceptional amount of grit, focus, skill, courage, and talent to create. At the same time, I am also able to acknowledge that I had tremendous support and love along the way. 

The importance of an abundance mindset

The success I’ve had in my varied and vibrant career has a lot to do with practicing an abundance mindset. An abundance mindset believes there is more than enough to go around. It is a practice of asking, “how can I make this happen?”

The abundance mindset is the love and light side of financial freedom.

It is in contrast to a scarcity mindset where one believes that there are finite resources to go around. The scarcity mindset doesn’t ask questions, it simply states all the reasons why something can’t work. Nature operates with abundance principles. The laws of Economics are rooted in scarcity. In fact, one of the commonly used definitions for the field of Economics is “the study of the allocation of scarce resources.”

When I worked with private financial coaching clients, I told them the first step in manifesting the financial results they want to achieve is to cultivate and nurture an abundance mindset.  Without an abundance mindset, you won’t reach your fullest potential. Self-actualization is only accessible to folks who ask “how can I make this happen” and who are eager to unlock their highest level of creativity. The folks with scarcity and limited thinking will cut their potential short because they refuse to see a path forward.

But, an abundance mindset is only part of the process of achieving financial freedom. I rarely share the other part of the process because it’s inappropriate for daytime TV and it’s a hard truth to accept.

In order to thrive in any economic season, I needed to learn about power. Specifically, the dark side of my own inner power.

The dark side of inner power

The dark side of power is known as the dark triad in modern psychology. The dark triad is a theory of personality published by psychologists Delroy L. Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams in 2002. The theory is only 20 years old, but these three dark personalities have been explored by philosophers for centuries.

The three personalities are narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Identifying your dark personality and harnessing its creative power is part of the financial freedom journey.

In 2016, I dove into this form of inner work to reclaim my power. 2016 was also the first year I had a six-figure month as a business owner.

One of the many books I read during this time to deepen my understanding of the dark side of power was Relentless by Tim Grover. Tim Grover is THE private coach for some of our greatest athletes. Michael Jordan, the late great Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, and other NBA greats all worked with Tim Grover to take their skills to the next level. 

The biggest lesson I learned from Grover is: “In order to have what you really want, you must first be who you really are.”

I devoured Grover’s book and soaked up all the teachings he shared during his interviews. Every cell in my body lit up as I studied Grover’s perspective on success. In 2016, I had my first big breakthrough in business. I had my first six-figure month as a business owner.

This financial milestone was wild to me. When I started my business, earning $100,000 a year was a huge accomplishment. Now I was generating six figures in a month. My mind was blown.

The connection between money and power

Over the next few years, I dutifully studied the role of power. I studied personal power, power structures, how power can be a tool to dismantle or reinforce self-love, the history of power, how racism and sexism dilute personal power, how Christianity erodes an individual’s sense of power, the insidious ways white feminism attempts to violently extract power from Black women, how the jealousy of another’s inner power festers in women friendships, and on and on. Eventually, in 2020, these learnings culminated in my writings on the connection between money, sex, and power. 

All along the way, I incorporated these learnings into my personal approach to business and money mastery. As I attained more and more success, I realized that an abundance mindset is the first step to achieving financial freedom. But, to get over the finish line of achieving financial freedom, one has to cultivate a relationship with the dark side of their inner power and be willing to harness its gifts.

The downsides of the middle-class mindset

An abundance mindset is associated with love and light. Therefore, for most folks interested in financial freedom, it’s an easier practice to incorporate. However, the dark side of power goes against the deep-seated conditioning many folks hold. The conditioning of Christianity or any fundamentalist religion, the conditioning of the middle-class mindset, the conditioning of family, the conditioning of childhood friendships, the conditioning of an economic structure that wants you to be a cog in the machine, and the list goes on. 

The sobering truth I had to accept was that over 90% of the folks who claimed to want financial freedom were not willing to do the work of getting in touch with their dark side. It was too uncomfortable and the sacrifices were too great. And I get it. It’s a lot and it’s not easy.

But, as someone who has achieved financial freedom, words can’t describe the feeling of true liberation. The taste of success is sweeter than any berry, the joy of betting on yourself and it paying off is more nourishing than a warm cup of cinnamon tea on a frigid winter day, and coming face to face with your highest self is the most exhilarating meeting you’ll ever have.

The evolution of Money & Mimosas

And that’s why Money & Mimosas is evolving. My hope is that shining a light on life at the end of the tunnel will be inspiration and motivation for others embarking on the challenging, yet rewarding, journey of true financial freedom. For the last eight years, I’ve shared investing tips and money mindset insights to help others achieve financial freedom. But, that’s changing.

As I shared in my last post, starting in 2023, I’m no longer sharing HOW to achieve financial freedom. Moving forward, I’ll be sharing the beauty of life AFTER you’ve achieved financial freedom. For me, and for now, a leisure lifestyle captures my definition of financial freedom.

The leisure lifestyle is partially based on the leisure class theory by Thorstein Veblen, a Norweigan-American economist and sociologist. Veblen is credited with coining the term conspicuous consumption. His research was one resource I used to unpack the middle-class mindset. 

Later this week, I’ll share my first public interview about the middle-class mindset. If you’re interested in hearing the podcast when it goes live, subscribe to my Substack newsletter.

Cheers,

Danetha