Episode 98: Take Control of Your Money and Life — with Rahkim Sabree

Rahkim Sabree is an author, speaker, and nonprofit co-founder specializing in personal finance and mentoring. He recently released his second book entitled “Financially Irresponsible” and delivered a TEDx talk in December 2019 on Financial Empowerment.

On this episode, you will hear Rahkim talk about:

• His early experiences with learning about finances, and how he started his financial services career at a young age
• Why he called his book “Financially Irresponsible,” and how it helps people become more financially literate
• How he believes that millennial behavior is changing the way people work and generate wealth
• Why having the right mindset about your finances is the first step to becoming financially empowered
• How his passions for financial education and mentorship fuel the mission of his non-profit, An Extended Hand Inc., to help empower and educate those who are at risk of or currently impacted by homelessness

You can find Rahkim on his website at www.RahkimSabree.com, buy his book Financially Irresponsible on Amazon, and connect with him on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

 

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The episode transcript is below:

Today on Beyond 6 Seconds:

A lot of people believe that all their problems would be solved if x dollar amount was deposited into their bank account. But the reality is that even if that money was deposited into their bank account, it’s their habits and the way that they think about money that’s going to either grow that deposit or drain it very quickly.

Welcome to Beyond 6 Seconds, the podcast that goes beyond the six second first impression to share the extraordinary stories and achievements of everyday people. I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel. On today’s episode, I’m speaking with Rahkim Sabree. Rahkim is an author, speaker and nonprofit co founder specializing in personal finance and mentoring. He recently released his second book entitled “Financially Irresponsible”, and delivered a TEDx talk in December 2019 on financial empowerment. Rahkim, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me.

I watched your TEDx talk before we got together to talk today, and really, I’m inspired by your story and would just love to kick off the conversation by asking, “How did you first become interested in learning about finance?”

It kind of happened by osmosis really, I started working in financial services at 21. I started as a part time teller in a bank, and it was an eye opening experience for me, in that you don’t know what you don’t know , until you kind of get to that. I’ve been saying that phrase a lot lately, but it’s just so true. So growing up I’ve gone through this, and spoke about in my TED Talk, growing up, I experienced poverty. And I didn’t realize really what poverty was because that was all I knew. Certainly, there were difficult time periods where I became more conscious of what the financial landscape of the household was, but I didn’t really have anything to compare it against. So when I started working in financial services, of course, I get to see the spectrum of people and how they manage their money. So seeing people with large balances, the affluent customers wealth management coming in and performing their transactions, and seeing how they manage their money, versus the people who are coming in asking for our fees because their account is overdrawn or constantly emptying their account because they’re living paycheck to paycheck. You see those extremes and then everything in between. And so I just kind of picked up things as I went along. And I’ve been in financial services going on 10 years now. But I read, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” and I think that was really the turning point for me, in that Robert Kiyosaki really kind of explores the difference between what is this nine to five reality, right, you’re in the rat race, you’re doing the same things over and over and how do you escape that? But also understanding the difference between assets and liabilities. And so when I took a deeper dive into understanding, not only how people manage their money, or how people who are considered affluent or wealthy manage their money. But also how do you get out of that cycle? Right? And how do you start planning for, I guess you can call it your exit from the rat race. And that’s when I really became interested in entrepreneurship. And when entrepreneurship started to take form, I go around and I tell people that I’m a hybrid entrepreneur. And that really resonates with people, I think, because there’s so many people out there who have their traditional nine to five, where they’re working in that environment, but then they go home and they have like their side hobby or their side hustle, where they’re generating another stream of income. And so what I’ve noticed to be extremely popular in the millennial demographic and beyond, is this whole concept of generating multiple streams of income. You know, you have your nine to five, and I guess the formula is, you come home and you know from six until you wake up in the morning the next day, that’s fair game for you to work on your own thing. And that’s kind of the model that I’ve taken and doing some of the different things that I’ve done, including the offering of the two books, preparing for the TED talk, and of course, co founding the nonprofit.

Wow. Yeah. And that also makes me think of the financial services adage of diversifying your portfolio. It’s basically the same concept. But it looks a little different now, because I think people used to just find their nine to five and then didn’t necessarily have it in their minds to have a side hustle, or a second business, or go into entrepreneurship on top of that as well. But I do see a lot of people of all ages, but especially people in the millennial generation really seeing that as the serious option that they’re pursuing.

And if I can comment on that, I think sometimes it comes down to also like following your passion, right? So you have people who they go through a tremendous amount of schooling, spend a tremendous amount of money or acquire a tremendous amount of debt, to acquire degrees and end up working in fields that have absolutely nothing to do with what they study for. And so I think with the millennial generation, we’re searching for something of substance, right? We’re searching for meaning in the work that we do, and how we allocate time, and peripherally I’m aware of studies that are done that show how millennial behavior and millennial mentality is shifting the culture in the corporate spaces. And so you have more people not being tethered to their desk or to a physical location, you have more people working remotely, you have more people traveling, you have more people exploring, really like the artistic side of work. Tech is huge. Marketing is booming right now, especially social marketing. And that’s a little bit of the arena that I kind of play in, in my day job now just kind of understanding social media, how to engage people through social media, and really just seeing and notating the difference in the dominant generation, if you will, because the boomers are on their way out and you have the Gen Xers, I believe, who are, you know, up and coming, who are senior in that space. And then you have the millennials who are right behind them. So we got to kind of see the best of both worlds pre internet post Internet, and you know just how social media has taken off in the last decade or so. And so I think the time now is so exciting to kind of see what that paradigm shift looks like. And certainly more people doing what they love or what they’re passionate about, either on the clock or off the clock.

Definitely, and people finding creative ways to make that happen to get income or revenue from their passions. That is really exciting to see. You know, you mentioned in your own story that you grew up poor. I remember hearing you share in your TEDx talk that at one point you really had to step in and help your mother with the administration of the household, and I’m assuming that that included in some cases, the finance side and the budgeting side. Was that also what contributed to your interest in going into finance?

Absolutely. I think it served as fuel to the fire, if you will. So, once I realized that the game has changed, right, there is an opportunity out there for me to accomplish things that I didn’t believe previously were possible, then I use those experiences. It’s really kind of my motivation, right, being internally motivated, self starter, and certainly very determined, I made a declaration to myself that this is not going to be my reality ever again. And this being you know, that growing up with a poverty mindset, and really it all comes back down to mindset, I think. And when I talk about financial empowerment, that’s the first item that I like to address because I think a lot of people believe that all their problems would be solved if x dollar amount was deposited into their bank account. But the reality is that even if that money was deposited into their bank account, it’s their habits and the way that they think about money that’s going to either grow that deposit or drain it very quickly. And so, there’s statistics out there that say, you know, X number of percentage of people who win the lottery are losing that money within the next five years. And that’s kind of alarming. Right. So I opened up the TED talk by quoting a study done by FINRA, in that two thirds or 66% of Americans show low level of the financial literacy. And that’s a lot. That’s a lot of people. So, you know, I think, in the environment that I grew up in, certainly my parents did a great job and the best job that they could do, based off of the resources that they had access to and the knowledge that they had, but there were not many conversations, if any, at all in the household around what managing finances look like. It’s almost a bad word. And I think certain circles for you or not a bad word, but a bad posturing I guess, to have conversations about finance in the same way that you know, it is talking about religion or talking about politics. And so really one of my personal charges as it relates to this space is to get the conversation going. Not necessarily having people go out and say, Well, I make X amount of dollars a year and, you know, getting intimate with the details, but certainly understanding what patterns, and habits, and anxieties, and misconceptions exist as it relates to the management of your personal finances. And there’s so many things out there that I think people accept blindly around what is considered a best practice or the best practice. And that’s why I titled my book the way that I did. I use financially irresponsible to kind of provide a little bit of shock value, in that, you know, why is this guy talking about what is considered responsible, but also to have people really examine what it is that they accept blindly around best practices for managing your money. It’s easier I think, for me, coming from that world professionally, and definitely taking a personal interest in that, there’s a lot of studies done around behaviors that I think big banks certainly leverage in their sales strategy. And I’m speaking from a place of knowledge. There was a period of time when I was working in the banks like directly customer facing. And there was a statistic that went around the banking center specific to credit cards and how most Americans use their credit cards. And so the statistic was that the average American has two and a half to three credit cards. So what does that mean for your sales teams? If you’re seeing your customer or your non customer come in with one credit card? Well, the average American has two and a half. So let’s offer them another one. Or you see that customers are towards the highest side, right? They have three credit cards. Certainly if there’s an opportunity to offer product that matches their solution, which is the credit card in this instance, you’re going to offer it but, at what point is too much? And I personally, I don’t have a problem talking about my finances. I personally have close to I want to say 10 credit cards. And so when you examine my habits, financially, and I kind of talked about this in the book, that would be considered financially irresponsible, right? I have three times what is quoted as average. And certainly not advice for anybody listening to go out and get 10 credit cards, but just putting that out as kind of a figure of reality, the way that I’ve managed my credit has been based off of a strategy that I’ve put together from a very informed place. But most people when they hear that they’re like, why do you have that many credit cards like why? And so really just providing examples that speak to, like I said, that shock value, but also have people really reassess what it is that they believe about their own management of finances. Whether it be right or wrong, and just, to kind of challenge people to understand, too, that there’s not a one size fits all approach to personal finance and managing those personal finances, it depends on where you are in life, it depends on what your obligations are, it depends on your risk tolerance. Is this a responsibility from a risk perspective that you are willing and able to take on at that stage in your life? And so I frequently go on to say that what worked for me at 21 may not work for me at 25 or 29, or 30, or, you know, 50. My experiences are going to change and I’m going to adjust based off of those changes. And I want people to understand that too. What is a piece of advice that a financial advisor or a financial coach or whoever can give you, can vary based off of your circumstances and really the day of the week.

That’s such an important point that what works for you in terms of financial management can change over the course of your life based on so many different factors. And you mentioned before that your book really talks about you really dig into the anxieties and misconceptions that people have about money. And because we don’t learn about finances in school, I didn’t, I still don’t think people learn about it. So you have to learn from your family. And that depends on whether one, your family even wants to talk about it at all, or two, whatever situation your family is dealing with at the time. You a lot of times inherit those insecurities or certain things are good about money and certain things are bad. But it’s all just so subjective, that very few of us actually get a real financial education unless we read a book like Rich Dad, Poor Dad or take classes or study it or work in the industry. So what you’re doing is really important in terms of raising this conversation so that people can really learn about how do you find the right strategy and method for you in the part of life that you’re in for finances.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

You talk to a lot of people about finances, and you have a lot of advice and guidance in your book, and in the work that you do. What would you say are the biggest common misconceptions about finance that you see with the people that you either work with or that you talk with on a regular basis?

I want to be careful with how I phrase this. So I’ll explain in retrospect, but there is an overemphasis on the value of saving money. And that sounds crazy for me to say, but I think that what people don’t understand and should be coupled with that statement is, certainly the discipline of saving is important. But where you save is equally important. And so a lot of people are not familiar with this concept of inflation, right? So if you’re throwing all of your money into the bank, and the bank is paying you .03 percent or .01 percent on interest in money that you have in there, but the rate of inflation is greater than that, and you’re actually losing. And so that is certainly a lesson that that was discussed in the household, right? This importance, or rather the significance of saving your money. But people go and they hoard their money and they’re trying to get rich by saving, in this perfect world, they get rich by saving, and you can’t save your way to wealth. That’s the reality of the situation. You can’t save your way to wealth. So then, you know, people take that and then they venture to the far extreme. Either they don’t save at all, or they throw all their money into something that’s high risk, and potentially high reward but also potential of losing everything. And then they become disenchanted with the process. If we experience a crash, like 2008, which is really a correction, but we experienced a correction like 2008, and then we go into a recession territory. People don’t have the knowledge or understanding, or the nerve, really to kind of wait it out. So I think education needs to be, or rather a light should be shed on the education around understanding markets and market timings and the cycles that take place. So that’s a big one. The second one would probably be that credit cards are bad. And I think this is advice that comes from boomers and the Gen X population, because credit as it exists today is a relatively new way of life, if you will. And it is so crucial to so many different aspects of life these days, that really is important for people, especially people coming up. Now we have the what is it? The Gen Z? Yeah, they’re needing to understand to they’re approaching the age of, or they’re not already they’re applying for credit and understanding what that impact has on their future, right, because there’s some jobs that you can’t get if you have bad credit. insurance rates are a lot higher if you have bad credit. You may not be able to secure housing with bad credit, whether you’re looking to buy or rent, there, they’ll do a credit check. And it just seeps into almost every aspect of our living situations where you know, you’re viewed as favorable by the credit bureaus, and you can have whatever you want. But if you’re viewed as less than favorable, then you have to work harder. I’ve seen instances where people had finance vehicles, paying 19% in interest, and I’m like, Oh, my God, at the time, the going rate for vehicle financing was somewhere between two and 5%. So you’re looking at over three times the high end of what that looks like. And so you’re never paying the principal. I mean, barely. You’re paying mostly interest. And people need to understand that when they make those decisions, but just because you can get it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should get it. So education around savings, education around credit, and I think the favorite It is really what investing looks like. So when most people that I interact with hear the word investing, one of two things is going to come to mind. Either investing in the stock market, or investing in real estate, and real estate less than the stock market unless you’re hanging around, you know, circles where people are talking about it. But there’s so many different ways to an investment, I think, when we educate people on what investing looks like we should talk about the discipline. And so how do you manage risk versus reward, versus timing, right? How long are you looking to lock in? Do you have the capacity to lose money because that’s certainly a possibility. And then the different avenues that exist you know, now, trading 4x is huge, like everybody is trying to do it, but it’s something that big banks have done forever. Cryptocurrency is another thing that’s huge, and it’s unregulated and it’s extremely volatile. But I’ve seen people become millionaires overnight when the whole Bitcoin Boom happened. And you know, they’re paying 10 cents or $10 a coin back in the day, and then Bitcoin ends up being $19,000 a coin. So, massive gains, but it’s not something that you can touch. And it’s not something that’s regulated. So it’s just like gambling. Yeah, investing in commodities. That’s I think, old school kind of thought form, where I noticed a lot of people who are invested in actual gold, or other precious metals are not young people. And so, you know, raising awareness around that. And certainly investing in the other side of the stock market, right, instead of investing in stocks, but looking at bonds, looking at notes, looking at things that will appreciate with time. I mean, there’s so many different avenues that you can go down. But I think foundationally it’s just important to understand what is involved in making an informed decision as it relates to investing and certainly having the capital to do those things.

Definitely. And I think that’s part of the challenge, when we start talking about finances is that there are so many different options and there’s no right or wrong answer for you. It’s really dependent on what your situation is. And it could change over time. And I think sometimes if people try to learn about it, sometimes it can get intimidating all the different choices that there are and, you know, how do I know what’s right for me? So is that something that you get into with your book, “Financially Irresponsible,” is kind of helping people understand all of those options and then understand what they should be looking out for themselves?

I don’t get as granular as the different option types. So I had an audience in mind when I wrote the book. And so certainly towards the end of the book, I actually have a glossary of sorts of financial terms and products because I just seen too frequently, people confusing a debit card with an ATM card with a credit card right? And you take debit card and you go to the pharmacy and you have the option to pay credit or debit. And people are swiping their debit card and selecting credit and thinking that that’s the way to build credit. Right? So, yeah, dispelling, the inaccuracies in the way that people think about those items. Or, you know, you hear people who think that paying their cell phone bill on time is going to build credit for them. So stuff like that. It’s very high level, but it gives you a taste that my hope with reading the book was people would want to dig deeper into understanding, you know, what does this mean? What is this for? How do I do this? And like I said, start conversations around. Okay, well, I’ve never heard of this before, or I’ve heard of this before, but I want to learn more. So who can I go to to have this conversation? And in both my talk and the book, I do encourage people to reach out and interact with people who do know. Whether that takes the form of mentoring or that takes the form of, viewing videos, going to seminars, listening to podcasts, reading books, I include a few of the books that help shape the landscape of my financial perspective. Really, I’m hoping to give people all the tools that they need to really take ownership and be accountable of their own understanding, without venturing into dangerous territory where someone who’s not licensed to talk about financial instruments, and certainly securities, like stocks and bonds, and, and those kind of things I can’t give that kind of advice. I wanted to be careful in that I was protecting myself and oversharing so that their liability is kind of shifted away from me.

That’s great in terms of helping people just know where to go to get information that’s reliable and unbiased so that they can learn more on their own. You mentioned that you started learning about finance, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” was A big influence in your life and your interest in going into finance and you’ve worked many years in the banking industry. But how else did you really learn about finance? Did you have mentors early in your career? Or were there other resources that you use?

So yes, and yes, and yes, it was a combination of all of the above. And I’ll also add, that experience has been a teacher for me. So a lot of what I’ve done has been trial and error. I’ve heard of other people doing things like building their credit to an 800 FICO score, right? Or buying a house or taking out a life insurance policy. But all of that, I guess, academic knowledge doesn’t really mean anything until you put it into practice. So I didn’t have anybody in my immediate family to go to and say, Hey, what are your thoughts on this? Because I end up becoming a subject matter expert. So venturing into I mean, I’ll use buying houses as an example, venturing into buying a house, I had no one in my family that I can go to and say, this is what I’m thinking about. These are my fears and anxieties around going out and getting a mortgage. Do I make enough money? Can I cover the mortgage consistently? Like, I don’t want to end up in a situation where I have to foreclose on my home. I didn’t have all a hefty down payment, or anybody that I can go to and say, Hey, I need to borrow some money. What happens if my furnace goes out, or my roof leaks? There’s so many what ifs that I thought about in that scenario, and I really had to look outside of my family into people who’ve done it, people who are friends of mine, so you talk about mentoring. I define mentorship as anyone that you allow to have an influence over your thoughts and your behaviors. So that certainly includes people who are in your peer group, your friends, in fact that probably include them more than anybody else. So friends and co workers that I had, who had been through this experience one time, several times, were able to kind of help me get over the anxieties and feel comfortable reaching out to professionals within the disciplines, right? Whether it was a CPA, or a realtor or a lender. And really all of those individuals that I work with financial professionals came through referrals from people that I knew or people that I worked with, or customers that I had. So they kind of filled the role as mentor as well because they’re speaking from a place of expertise, and experience and that okay, you know, this is where you are, this is what you want to accomplish. Here’s what you need to do. And I’m a self starter. So certainly, I think it was a little bit easier for me to, I have this little bit I’m just gonna take the plunge, but you know, it really comes down to what is your personal accountability? What is your path like? What Have you chosen to do? What do you want to accomplish? And how bad do you want it, I could have sat down on all the knowledge that I had and the reinforcement from the professionals and still not taking action. I think that’s a problem that people have to they’re afraid to pull the trigger. So definitely, I think the reinforcement of support, and what I’ve kind of structured around myself financially, and that if something were to ever happen, I would be able to kind of bail myself out. But knowing that the moral support from my family and certainly my friends is there, but at the end of the day, like if I have to pull myself out of something financially, I’m betting on myself,

It’s really empowering to be able to say that and all of the study and the considerations that you had to take in mind in order to to learn what worked best for you and to put what you learned into action. As you said, a lot of that’s the challenge is a lot of information out there. But you know, not everybody actually puts that into action. And in addition to that, we were talking about entrepreneurship earlier, you have your nine to five, but you also wound up founding a nonprofit organization. Tell me a little bit about that.

I have a good friend who is the co founder of this organization. He, in contrast to me, has worked most of his career in the Human Services space working with nonprofits. So he understands the language, he understands the flow and what is required to kind of get the ball rolling, so to speak. And all of my experience has been in a corporate space, right, heavy focus on operations. My background is definitely an operational one. Project Planning, is a more recent thing. My current role is Program Manager. So I’m familiar with a lot of like project management disciplines and, how do you track this and what is the end goal versus the baby steps that we take to get there, and the different disciplines associated. One day we were talking, and he let me know, you know, I’m thinking about starting a nonprofit. I didn’t know anything about nonprofits at the time. I was like, why nonprofit, there’s no money in nonprofits. And then did some secondary research and found out some of the largest organizations that we’re familiar with, you think about colleges and universities, you think about different foundations, you think about the NFL, all nonprofit, and making like so much money. And I’ll just say, hold on a second, like, maybe this is something to look into. Well, we get to address a social cause that means something to us in a way that we control. So that speaks entrepreneurship within a defined structure. So that’s the nonprofit environment. And there’s a potential for us to make a living off of this, right? So he was really passionate about human services as a whole, but homelessness specifically. And I grew up in New York, so I became very desensitized to homelessness. Just because it was so prevalent. Well, you know, I have learned and I’m ashamed these days to say this, but I have learned to look past people standing, shaking their cups for change, because you know, New Yorkers, were always on the go. And so I had to really re-sensitize myself to what is homelessness, and also educate myself on the spectrum of homelessness that exists. So when you think of somebody who was homeless, you’re probably thinking of somebody who looks really disheveled. Maybe they smell bad. They’re wearing old dirty clothes, and they’re standing there with a cup shaking for change. You might think of them as someone who abuses drugs and alcohol, and you might be reluctant to giving them money because you think that they’re going to take that money and use it for drugs and alcohol. And what I realized in my study is that, there is such a large spectrum that exists where you can encounter a homeless person tomorrow, and not realize that they’re homeless because of the way that they’ve kept themselves up externally. Or maybe the definition of homelessness is not sleeping under a bridge, but sleeping out of your car. Or maybe the definition of homelessness looks like a kid who is high school age or younger, going to school early, so that they can get breakfast because there’s no food allowance, or the college student who is sleeping in bus stations and going to the school gym to take a shower before class so that they can get their education. Or the homeless veteran who served this country overseas came home and is dealing with some kind of disability that impacts their ability to then go find work. And then of course, there’s your traditional but there’s your stereotypical case of you know, that description that I started off with. And when you think about the factors that lead to someone being in that position, not having a support system, not having an understanding of how to get into the workforce or how to get back into the workforce, poor money management. So we talked about the financial literacy in this country, not having advocacy around health care. So imagine, having a mental illness, or some kind of chronic illness that you can’t afford to pay for because you don’t have insurance. And how do you cope with that, because you don’t have a roof over your head or income coming in. It’s very easy to see why and how people can turn to drugs or alcohol, and abuse those substances so that they can simply get through their day. And then you develop a sense of empathy, right? Because you understand the whole picture and they’re not on this foreign monster to you anymore. They’re human. And then finally, when you take an introspective look at your personal finances, and you think about what would happen if you missed a paycheck, or two or three, right? and all of the obligations that we have, right? especially if we’re driving cars that are not paid for, or we have a mortgage, or we live in an apartment, and we have to prioritize between what bills to pay and eating, or what maintenance we want to take care of, is getting a haircut a luxury or a necessity, right? Is buying that suit a luxury or a necessity in order to go for a job interview? Then it becomes real. And so I think a lot of people don’t understand that most Americans are a paycheck or two away from being homeless. And so the stigma around homelessness needs to be addressed from an awareness perspective. And I think that kind of feeds into our mission and certainly my passions around financial education and mentoring serve as foundations for some of the programs that we offer. But my partner’s passions around human services through health care advocacy and job preparation. So making people aware of the etiquettes and the fine details, like resume writing or interviewing are the complements to my offering for the program. So we have a really holistic educational approach to addressing homelessness from a preventative perspective. But of course, we have to do the work too. So we do outreach. We do occasionally clothing drive supply drives. We’re looking to do that more regularly. But we want to create awareness for people who carry this stigma around homelessness, get more people involved in addressing homelessness, address homelessness from a preventative perspective, whether that be addressing people who are impacted by homelessness currently, people who are at risk of experiencing homelessness and at risk youth. And people who are within the working poor category, right, like I said, who have to work one or two or three jobs to simply live from day to day. We can’t change the world, right? We can’t eliminate homelessness in its entirety. But again, start the conversation, keep the conversation going, be a part of the conversation and provide solutions. I think a lot of organizations that focus on homelessness focus on an aspect of homelessness, which more times than not, is housing. So how do we house people, whether that be temporarily or shorter or longer depending on the organization and the nature of the sheltering structure, but not addressing those elements that lead to people being homeless, so it’s not addressing the leak is addressing the mess as a result. We’re looking to really plug up that leak, and everything that I do has a general sentiment around paying it forward, right? So Taking what is that you know, and giving to someone else who doesn’t know with the hopes that they then internalize that action and do the same thing. I think that we can create a lot of change with the structure and really the passion that we have around what it is that we do.

That’s really powerful. The name of your nonprofit organization is An Extended Hand?

Yes, An Extended Hand, Inc.

Taking a holistic look at the issues around homelessness, a lot of it is around education. So I know you’d mentioned resume reviews and preparation for job interviews and employment. And I’m assuming that since you’re involved, that there’s also a financial education aspect to it as well. How does that intersect with the advice you give in your book? Is it similar or is it a different type of education?

I think it’s more structured, but certainly very similar. So I think that you know, that’s the secret really, to my success. People ask me, How do you have a full time job, go out and speak or author books and have a nonprofit? And my answer is that the work that I do is all within the same orbit. Right? I was talking to my co founder the other day, and I said, we need to really map this out, right? Because we are very entrepreneurial in nature. So in addition to the nonprofit on his side, he’s looking at starting other businesses. And of course, I have my speaking and my offering. Now, just like a lot of what we do is centered around the same themes. And so an accomplishment in one arena, as an accomplishment and the other and if I can take the concepts that I speak on, and write about, and implement those strategies, or introduce those strategies through sessions with our financial education program, it’s really old doing the same work. I’m killing two birds with one stone. And so I think the learning for us and nonprofit is young. We’ll probably be two years old, I think in August. So there’s still a lot of things that were formalizing and structuring, but with the different areas that we talked about health advocacy, job preparation, the financial education, we’re creating programs around that. And those programs, really, I think there’s a foundational piece that’s going to be consistent wherever you go, right? For financial education, you’re going to be talking about budgeting, saving, managing your spending, and investing. And you might talk about credit somewhere in that mix. Well, that’s going to be the same everywhere you go. So the battle, we’re going to focus on budgeting, saving, investing, measuring your spending, building credit, but it might get a little bit more granular, right, we might talk about how do you write a check, or how do you stay vigilant around fraud, particularly financial fraud Right? Especially with everything going digital. Yeah, there’s so many phishing emails that go out where one entity is claiming to be a very well known company like, Oh, no, my stuff is compromised, let me go and give them everything that they’re looking for. And so educating people around being vigilant, I got a phone call this week from a robot pretending to be from the IRS, telling me that there was basically like, some warrant how on my social security number and that I need to call them back immediately to remedy that.

Yeah, I’ve gotten those calls, too. Yeah, they’re scary, but it’s like, wait a minute.

When I was working in banking. I’ve seen people immediately rush into a branch and a panic like, Oh my God, my grandson is going to be arrested and I need to wire XYZ dollars to this location, because the IRS called me and I’m like, hold on a second. Like, this sounds like fraud. This sounds like a scam. And you have to really educate people, especially if they’re not very familiar with, like how email works, or how these other digital channels work. So usually it was like an older demographic, but even young people who don’t who just don’t have the life experience, right? It’s like polar opposites. You have the boomer generation who is extremely private and extremely vigilant around everything, write every piece of information, like why do you need that? Why, why do you need to know this? And then you have the end of the millennial generation, and the beginning of the Gen Z generation, or just very, very interesting, right? You go, you sign up for an app, the app is telling you all of the things that it needs your, you know, left arm and the out of the back part of your brain and you don’t read any of that because you’re like, Oh, it’s just an app. Okay? And you’re giving everything away without thinking twice about it. And so, there’s a happy medium that needs to be awareness created around like, yes, it’s important to be vigilant. It’s also important to understand that the convenience of having these apps and giving them the access is there. But there are people out there who are not playing nice. And so I think that’s, that’s a piece to education more so than just fundamentals of business checking account. This is a savings account, put XYZ towards your retirement, understand the different types of retirement vehicles, and more into like, practical life skills. And like you said, it’s not something that’s taught in school. So it’s refreshing, but it’s also I mean, there’s elements of it that people certainly get overwhelmed with. And even and I fall into that category too, right. I spent this weekend working in spreadsheets around budgeting, managing debt, what payments need to go where, when, and just because I understand the importance of the discipline, but it doesn’t make it any more fun. Right? So I think people who don’t have that background your understanding of why this is so important will shy away from it because like I could be doing something else right now. What’s on Netflix, you know, what’s on Facebook. So like I said, there’s definitely a balance to be struck and definitely an emphasis on education that we place. And we’re both millennials. So I think it’s a new voice to an old topic. I think people in the Millennial Generation and beyond are going to react much more favorably to someone who is within their age group than they will to somebody who’s likewise pointing the finger and what you need to save your money and you need to save for retirement, because people don’t think that far into the future. They’re like, what’s happening right now? What can I do right now? And especially the generations that grew up on internet, we get everything immediately. Now I was talking to my mom about this recently, there’s a whole generation of kids who don’t know what dial up internet is, wow, how long we have to sit there and wait for it to go through its thing and the ugly noise that that came with it and we will just have Happy to be on the internet. Yeah, even want to wait for, you know, 10 and 15 and 20 and 30, and sometimes hours for things to download. You have like instant. And so there’s like a whole generation kids who like if the internet is not quick, they’re like, no, the internet’s not working like it’s the end of the world. But I remember going outside and playing.

Oh, yeah, we could do that, too.

You know and I certainly remember those days, but even now, you know, it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago. But after a while, you get used to things and even I get impatient when the internet’s not working. You kind of forget that we used to spend hours just waiting for one thing to download. And that was just how it was. Well, it’s great that you’re sharing this information with people. It’s really something that’s so important for people to learn about. And it sounds like you’re putting it in a curriculum or in ways that people can really understand as you said, practical, like practical advice that they can use the basics plus a lot of things to watch out for like the scams and fraud and things like that. So that’s great that you are continuing to share that through your book and through your nonprofit work, and encouraging other people to pay it forward with that information too.

Absolutely.

Do you mainly do work in the Hartford Connecticut area? Or are you broader than that?

Right now we’re community based in the Hartford area, we do have aspirations of expanding. What that looks like, is still undefined. So if, let’s say you have somebody who’s listening in Denver, Colorado, for instance, I’m just saying Denver because I plan on going out there, who wants to connect and get involved, I think we definitely have a healthy appetite for collaborating, and whatever form that may take, even if that involves me, putting on my, and extended hand hat and speaking. So again, I’ve got all these multiple roles and the various brands that I juggle. I wouldn’t limit our work to the Connecticut area in terms of collaboration opportunities, but certainly we do most of our work within driving distance.

Okay, that’s good to know. How can people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about the work you do, whether it’s your talks, your books or your nonprofit?

They can visit my website. My website is my name, so it’s www.RahkimSabree.com. I’m also very active on social media. So Instagram, my name, Rahkim Sabree, Twitter, my name Rahkim Sabree, and LinkedIn, which is where we met. Oh, that’s my name as well Rahkim Sabree.

And I’ll put those links in the show notes so that people have easy access to it there too. Perfect. Well, thanks again Rahkim for sharing your story and all your wisdom with us today. As we close out, is there anything else that you’d like our listeners to know or anything that they can help or support you with?

So my priority for 2020 is just to continue expanding my platform. So anybody who hears this and anything that I’ve said resonates, definitely feel free to connect. Definitely feel free to share, bring me up in conversations if the work that I do resonates with the situation. And I want to emphasize even if it’s not through my work, please always pay it forward. If you are in a position of knowledge or education on a particular topic that can make a difference in somebody’s life, share it with them. And if you’re in a position, I don’t want to use the term ignorance, but you know, a lack of knowledge on a particular topic or area that you would like to see growth in, don’t be afraid to reach out to someone who does. There is someone out there who is willing to share with you what it is that they’ve experienced, what it is that they know, and can certainly change the trajectory of your life, your experiences and your education.

Great words of wisdom and great advice. Thanks again Rahkim.

Thank you.

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