I was on a flight from London to Dubai when I watched the movie “Wonder Woman”, and by the end of it I was bawling like a 2-year-old who just found her lost puppy. I thought, wow, what wonderful things women can achieve.
So, yea, I have been collecting Wonder Woman dolls ever since.
You see, I am the first woman in my family to complete high school. Girls weren’t allowed much of an education in my community. We would be married off by the time they were 15 and were expected to bear children and take care of the home.
One day, I was literally crying to go to school another year, my Grandpa shouted: “Who do you think you are? You think you’re going to be an Engineer?”
With tears and snot running down my face I roared back, “Yes I am. I want my days!”
I then made a deal with my father that if I were in the top 5 in my class every year, I get to go to school another year. I was 12.
The right incentives are a great thing in life and business.
When you set a goal and accomplish it, it’s exhilarating. But I also got greedy. Why stop at high school? Why not University? Wait, why stop there? Why not an MBA? Bless my parents, because they never reneged on their promise and always supported me against great odds.
Don’t ask me to play sports though. I run away whenever the ball is coming towards me, arms flailing, shrieking like a banshee.
What I realized even as a child was that you need money to be taken seriously and only men had that.
I wanted to be financially independent.
After 25 years of working for corporations, being an entrepreneur and managing investments for my family, I now want to help others find their financial freedom.
(If you are so inclined to stalk me further, you can find my tedious professional resume here. https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaheeda/ )
I hope that my blogs may help you, dear reader, become less scared of the markets and on your journey to start building wealth.
What I know for sure is renting your time, especially in a mid-level position to a corporation will not help you build wealth.
I also know that the world is unfortunately becoming more and more monopolistic where power and influence in concentrated in the hands of a few corporations. Therefore, it’s harder for smaller entrepreneurs to build wealth.
So, I say, “If you can’t lick ’em, join ‘em.”
Investing in the stock markets either directly in stocks. Index funds or Mutual Funds and ETF’s are great way to allocate a portion of your wealth growth plan.
If this space helps even 1 person, I will consider it a great honor and achievement.
If I had all the wealth in the world, I hope I would still be motivated to do this. Of course, I wouldn’t say no to traveling the world in great comfort and meeting people from all over the world.
I love my plants. They are the silent victims of my singing.
I like a little bit of risk now and then. I voluntarily chose to jump off a perfectly good plane and once decided jumping off a plank with just a bungee rope around my ankle was a sane move.
I don’t have many regrets in life but two. Someday, I will write about them.
What I do know is, no force in the universe can stop a determined person.
This is pretty much me.
I shall end with a quote that has and continues to define my life.
“You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?”
– George Bernard Shaw
Wishing you joy,
Shaheeda Abdul Kader