Becoming Empowered, Self-Reliant, and Rich in Every Way
Dr. Nely Galán presents excerpts from Self-Made
Flowers from the Monguba (Pachira aquatica) tree, Ceret Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2009. Considered a symbol of luck and prosperity, the tropical wetland “money tree” is also known as Malabar chestnut, French peanut, Guiana chestnut, Provision tree, Saba nut, and Pumpo (Guatemala). Photo: Mauro Halpern
What does it mean to be self-made? It's not just about having money, but financial empowerment is where it begins. It means getting out of survival mode, where you are one problem away from catastrophe. It means changing your mindset from instant gratification to goal orientation. It means being able to sleep at night without worry. It means being rich in every way: rich in money, rich in family, rich in love, rich in time - abundant!
The following excerpts from the New York Times bestselling book Self Made: Becoming Empowered, Self-Reliant, and Rich in Every Way by Nely Galán (Spiegel & Grau, 2016) are reprinted by permission of the author.
I am Self-Made.
What a powerful thing to be able to say, feel, and accomplish for a woman. I am not alone. Millions of women around the world are becoming financially self-sufficient, through entrepreneurship. To become Self-Made is an honor and a new definer for women. It is not meant to be a grandiose feat. You can be a mom, staying home with a baby, who starts an online store out of her closet; a lady who cleans three houses a week and sells her services through an app; a freelance nurse who gets booked through her website and charges through PayPal; a franchise owner who employs all her kids; a corporate employee who sells her jewelry designs on Etsy; an empty nester who Airbnb’s two rooms in her house to students; a woman and her teenager who makes Vine videos for corporations; a millennial who is paying off college by driving an Uber; or a mommy blogger who is sponsored—all are women I know who are becoming Self-Made.
There are no barriers to entry to begin. No excuses! People say there are no jobs , well there are tons of entrepreneurial opportunities that allow you to be the architect of your life. Self-Made is a call to action and a leap forward in the economic evolution of women. It is about a new mindset shift inside and out.
Self-Made did not happen in a vacuum.
When I arrived in this country from Cuba as a little girl, the United States had just come through the women’s movement of the 1960s. Gloria Steinem, the inspirational activist and founder of Ms. magazine, was its iconic leader. Of course, as a child learning how to navigate a new culture, I wasn’t aware of the dramatic societal changes taking place. All I knew was that this country offered my family a safe place to begin our lives again—a land of opportunity and political freedom. We had control over our destiny, the power of self-determination. With hard work and sacrifice, we could build a better life, as generations of immigrants did before us. We could vote and have a voice and be heard. No one was going to come and take our homes and everything we’d worked for away from us. I learned from an early age the importance of self-sufficiency.
As I grew up and got an education, I learned more about the advances and opportunities forged by feminist pioneers like Steinem—politicians and writers and journalists who inspired so many courageous women to break through boundaries and fight for equal rights at home and in the workplace. Despite the strong, traditional values I was raised with as a Latina—and the sometimes old-fashioned ideas of what a young woman should and should not do—the women’s movement resonated with me on an emotional and intellectual level. As an immigrant, I understood that this was the greatest country in the world for women, and I deeply appreciated it and wanted to take full advantage of the opportunities I had.
From a young age, out of necessity, I took on adult responsibilities in the household. My parents arrived in the United States with nothing—we’d left behind our home and all of our possessions—and we started over. As kids do, I adapted much more quickly than the adults, and I understood that it was my duty to help my parents in ways that are familiar to many children of immigrants.
I started working when I was thirteen years old—you’ll hear about my first experience with entrepreneurship in a little while—and learned some tough lessons along the way. Luckily, I had some excellent mentors; some of them may not even realize to this day that I consider them mentors! I studied them closely and emulated the traits and techniques that I saw as instrumental to their success. I learned from my failures too—and trust me, there were plenty of them—and took away many valuable lessons in the process.
I went from unpaid intern to TV news producer to television station management. I started a TV-production business that failed for four years before I remade it (with a good hard shove from a mentor) and it took off. I became the first Latina president of a TV network, produced over seven hundred shows in English and Spanish, and appeared on The Celebrity Apprentice. I worked hard every step of the way and made money. The key to my story is that, even when I was making money, I sacrificed, I did not live large, and I invested my money in real estate. In time, the income from my real estate business meant that I didn’t have to work anymore; I could live very comfortably off the income from my investments. And that gave me freedom—the freedom to do the work I wanted to do, not work I had to do—and what I wanted was work that would nourish me creatively and intellectually and spiritually.
When I realized I was financially free to pursue whatever I wanted, first I screamed and cried! I couldn’t believe it! And then I realized I had some unfinished business to attend to. So I went back to school, finished my BA, and then spent four years getting a graduate degree in psychology. I worked on my emotional baggage. I cleaned house in my mind. I came to terms with a lot of stuff about my heritage, my culture, my feminine side, everything. These were essential steps in my self-made journey, and they allowed me to become the kind of role model I wanted to be for my son. (Now he can’t complain about school and homework, because he’s seen me powering through it at age forty-five!)
Once I had my degree, I realized that my most meaningful success had come from financial self-reliance, and I wanted to teach that to other women. So in 2012, I started a nonprofit, the Adelante Movement (theadelantemovement.com), a live event and digital learning platform that would empower women and train them in entrepreneurship. In Spanish, adelante is a great word; it means “move it! now! let’s go!” I crossed the country, speaking initially to my community of Latinas, a group I knew well, but in time others started showing up, first women of color and then all women. It became clear to me that women were looking to connect with each other. They were hungry for information and hungry to build bridges to other women in their communities. That’s when I knew that women needed to know that the self-made revolution was well underway, and it is only getting stronger.
Self-Made Is a Revolution
Gloria Steinem recently told an interviewer, “I wish I had known then what I know now, which is that the women’s movement was really an entrepreneurial movement.” I think what Steinem means is that without the ability to be whole and financially secure on your own terms, there can be no freedom and no liberation.
I have spent four years crossing the country, and I’ve met over 100,000 women. What I see happening out there is the beginning of a genuine revolutionary shift: We are in the era of fully empowered women in the do-it-yourself economy. There are no barriers to entry. The tools of instant entrepreneurship and self-reliance are all around us, and most of them are simple to use and easy to afford. Technology, social media, and the non-centralized shared economy have made it easier than ever to start a business. A new women’s movement is rising around financial self-reliance and ownership, because there is no true empowerment as a woman until you have your own money.
Four decades after the original women’s movement rocked the culture, the economic crash of 2008 would create a new reality for millions of women who were pushed into becoming the heads of households after their husbands and fathers lost their jobs. These women had to step it up! Out of necessity, Latinas, African Americans, Asians, and Middle Eastern women led the charge as the fastest-growing segment of entrepreneurs and a tremendous economic force in this country. Among women, Latinas are the number one emerging market in the United States, and along with other multiculturals (African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and women of Middle Eastern descent), they represent the largest growth engine in the U.S. economy. Similarly, around the world, in the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and in countries with emerging economies in Africa and the Middle East, in spite of the challenges posed by religious and political obstacles, population sizes, and daunting competition, women are rising up and becoming entrepreneurs for the sake of their children and families. Because of these economic shifts, women today, from many different cultures and backgrounds, are united in a quest for a new financial future, one they can control.
Look around; we have so many role models in public life to inspire us, women who have continued the empowerment conversation started by Steinem and linked it to our financial lives. Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, has ignited the idea of “leaning in,” coaching women to push aside barriers that keep them out of leadership roles—or as I put it, acting as an owner in your career. Arianna Huffington, who, after a very public divorce and a failed political campaign—two things that might have sidelined a lesser woman—had the idea to create a collective news blog, raised the money, and launched The Huffington Post, which is now, just a little over a decade later, a major, influential media company. Then there is the extraordinary Suze Orman, who woke us up to the fact that our emotional lives and our financial lives are inextricably linked and that only by controlling our money do we have the power to control our destiny.
Forbes magazine recently published a cover story about America’s richest self-made women that features a range of fascinating, accomplished women, including Jin Sook Chang, who immigrated to the United States from South Korea and worked odd jobs before founding, with her husband, the now multibillion-dollar clothing chain Forever 21.
In pop culture, too, some of the most successful actors, musicians, and performers are thinking like entrepreneurs. Oprah crushed the glass ceiling for multicultural women first with The Oprah Winfrey Show, a twenty-five-year juggernaut that remade daytime television, and then with her production studio, Harpo, and then with OWN, her network. Taylor Swift took on Apple and the music industry to protect the value of her work. Bethenny Frankel leveraged her reality TV platform to create the Skinnygirl brand. Jessica Alba turned her concerns about the safety of products for her baby into the multimillion-dollar Honest brand of natural products. And the Kardashian matriarch, Kris Jenner, built an empire around her family by monetizing their celebrity via reality TV, social media, and endorsements. Andy Cohen, talk show host and executive producer of the Real Housewives franchise, says, “Nobody just wants to be an actress anymore. Today, every woman I meet wants to be identified as a businesswoman, a mogul.” It’s a sign of the times.
For most women, though, a rich life is not about being famous and wealthy and powerful for its own sake. The higher reward of success for women is being able to bring abundance back to the people they love—their families and their communities. Our mission is about creating a better life for our kids, getting them better schooling, having a house that is paid off, even going back to school ourselves.
Self-Made is a movement that is about being for something, not against it. It is a defining moment for women based on economic empowerment. It is a movement that hits on every level: personal, communal, cultural, political. It is inclusive, supportive, collaborative. It is entrepreneurship for the rest of us.
Self-Made Is the New Ticking Clock
The Self-Made movement speaks to every woman who wants to control her destiny and get out of survival mode. It’s for women who want a backup plan because they know that they could be laid off from their corporate job tomorrow. It’s for women who have devoted their careers to service or to running nonprofits, without a thought for their financial futures. It’s for women who have served their country in government jobs or the military and are looking ahead, uncertain about the next chapter in their lives. It’s for those of us who feel that there is creativity and greatness in us, but we just need a little help getting started. It’s for recent college graduates who are saddled with debt and who can’t believe that their high-cost education barely got them an entry-level job. And it’s for all of us who haven’t been able to follow that traditional, linear career path for one reason or another—maybe because we are immigrants who have had to support our families, or maybe we’ve had to juggle money and career with raising children or taking care of aging parents. Self-made is for women who may not relate to the obstacles and demands of climbing the corporate ladder, because they are too busy trying to make ends meet. And for the women who are climbing that ladder, it is a call to arms for cultivating an entrepreneurial attitude that will help you advance in your career and will also serve you well on the day that your industry is disrupted and you wake up without a job.
I like to tell the women I speak to that “self-made is the new ticking clock.” It’s not about whether you’re going to become self-made; it’s about when you’re going to become self-made. The road to becoming self-made isn’t linear or one-size-fits-all. It will be different for each one of you. Some of you will sprint ahead, and some will take your time. Some of the work will come easily, and some of it will require extra focus and effort. Some changes will happen immediately, and others will take patience to realize. You can’t do everything at once. But you can start right now.
Before you begin, here are a few important questions for you to consider:
What do you really want out of life?
What are your goals?
Who or what in your life has disappointed you?
Where are you stuck?
What is your biggest fear about the future?
What are your greatest dreams? (Dream big!)
What are you waiting for?
Map the Trajectory of Your Life
We tend to forget that everything we do leads us to the next place. Like everyone else, I’ve worked less-than-ideal jobs in my life, but those jobs helped get me where I am today. One of the most interesting and revealing things I did for myself early in my career, at a time when I was feeling stuck, was to draw up a chart that traced all the jobs I’d had until that point. Together, they gave me a tangible map, showing me precisely where I’d been and what I’d learned about myself and my abilities. Putting together that puzzle of my likes, dislikes, and skills was critical in helping me figure out the way forward. When you see it all in black and white, a picture begins to emerge. It’s just as important to know what to eliminate from your life as what to keep and expand upon. If you feel hopeless because you’re stuck in a job that you dislike, then you may not be looking at the big picture, and you may be allowing yourself to get buried in the moment instead of looking up and trying to plot your next move. This exercise is designed to give you some perspective.
Here is my chart:
| JOB | LIKES | DISLIKES | SKILLS ACQUIRED |
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The Limited |
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Seventeen |
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Teen TV reporter |
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News producer, CBS |
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TV station manager |
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My takeaways? I liked running a business that connected with customers, that made money, that was creative, collaborative, and exciting. I wanted to engage with content that was meaningful to people, particularly to my own community. I loved a good story. I liked upbeat people and upbeat material. I knew how to sell, how to think on my feet, how to call the shots for a whole company, and—very important—how to balance the books! I’d learned to love math! The next move for me was starting my own TV production company, delivering product to the Latin market.
Here is your chart to fill out:
| JOB | LIKES | DISLIKES | SKILLS ACQUIRED |
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What are the takeaways for you? What’s the next thing you need to learn to round out your education? What do you love? What can you get passionate about? What do you wish you could delegate to someone else? What is it that you and only you can do—better than anyone else? What industry attracts you? Service? Hospitality? Retail? Manufacturing Technology? Fashion? Food?
The idea is that a picture starts to emerge—the puzzle of YOU starts coming together. The pieces of that puzzle will help you see yourself and your assets clearly and will help determine what kind of an entrepreneur you will be.
Let’s say you’re in your twenties and you’re working as a waitress. You may feel that you’re stuck in a crappy job. But if you can rise above the day-to-day for a moment, what are you learning on the job? For one thing, you are learning the workings of a restaurant. You see what the owner of this restaurant is doing right or wrong. You understand what it takes to provide excellent customer service and to keep your employees happy. You engage with customers face-to-face. You learn the costs of staff, overhead, food deliveries. Managing orders and efficiencies. You may see areas where the current owner could make improvements. Maybe you’re thinking, “If I were in charge, here’s what I’d do differently…” Maybe it inspires you to own your own restaurant. Maybe it inspires you to go to school to get a degree in management, the culinary arts, or business administration. With the next step and the next level of expertise and earning power, your acquired skills and ambitions change once more. Perhaps you’re in the position to realize your dream of owning your own business by the time you’re forty-five. Fifteen years later, the years of success in business can allow you to dedicate yourself, in your sixties, to running a nonprofit that speaks to your passion and your mission.
Tease out the puzzle pieces of your life and put them together. There’s not one right configuration. There may be several. This is trial and error, with a purpose. I want you to see every stage as preparation for the next. This is an ascent—an accumulation of experience and knowledge, guided by the imperative to become an owner in every aspect of your own life, no matter where you are and what your job is. So it’s not about finding the next job; it’s about acquiring inner strength and clarity and purpose.
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Money Maker/Mi mundo rico with Nely Galán (Money News Network)
“A much-needed and wise book that teaches women not to fear money but to see it as a means of reaching our dreams. Nely shows us how to become money courageous instead of finance fearful. I want to give this book to so many women (and men) I know. Thank you, Nely.”
