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Who else shoulds on themselves to read the book before watching the screen version?  Just us, that’s fine.  Sometimes that works out, and sometimes it doesn’t, and for our next Virtual Book Club title, we’re split on both sides of this aisle.  That’s right, as of this writing, neither of your reading guides at Heart.Wants.Books. have read Julia Quinn’s The Duke and I, but one of us has seen both seasons of the show.  Can you guess who that is?  All will be revealed on Friday, June 10 at 7:30 p.m. CST, and possibly we’ll have more viewings in addition to the reading.  Sign up here if you want all the details on how to join us, but don’t expect them until that day!

Let’s not be surprised by my next statement: These are my confessions…

I read We Should All Be Millionaires by Rachel Rodgers in February during Black History Month. We didn’t post about it then because we had other plans (like a bunch of YA titles), and Nikki wasn’t able to get around to reading this 2021 release until now. Let’s back up a little, because once we heard Rachel Rodgers as a guest on The Lazy Genius Podcast, we became a little obsessed with her message. I loved it so much that I searched for her book on Amazon, saw it was on sale, and bought a copy for each of us last August. Rodgers tells her story of growing up in a low-income family, becoming an intellectual property attorney, and starting her career working for non-profits, federal judges, and even Senator Hillary Clinton. Then she pivoted to owning her own firm and becoming a business coach, and now a multi-million dollar business owner. The mission of Hello Seven, Rodgers’ women-run company, is “to help you make more money. Period.” Besides being the owner/founder and CEO of Hello Seven, which specializes in business, marketing, financial, and legal training, Rodgers is a mother of four and trusted expert to publications such as Time, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, The Washington Post, and programs such as The Drew Barrymore Show. We Should All Be Millionaires: A Woman’s Guide to Earning More, Building Wealth, and Gaining Economic Power is a national bestseller and her first book. 

Women’s mindset about money is the theme of the entire book. Rodgers argues that without changing our mindset and understanding what money is and does in the world, we can not earn more money, manage more money, and ultimately wield personal, economic, and political power. These are the Powers That Be which are the powers that create worldwide, systemic change. Our money mindset begins with what we feel about money and Rodgers has something very insightful to say about most women and money:

Women have effectively internalized the messages that our society sends them about money, and the result is that the primary emotion so many of us feel about money is shame. We feel shame when we are in debt; we feel shame because we spend too much, certainly; we feel shame because we earn too little–and we even feel shame because we earn too much.

Once women manage their money mindset and make the internal changes that can see us earning higher incomes, we will be able to enact the change we want to see in our communities and the world. Having money, having seven figures in our incomes, net worths, and bottom lines, will bring us choices and give us power. We will not feel like we need to make ourselves, our needs, and wants smaller or secondary. She teaches us the difference between “Broke Ass Decisions” and “Million Dollar Decisions” and how they affect every aspect of our lives, not just our finances. 

I’m giving We Should All Be Millionaires: A Woman’s Guide to Earning More, Building Wealth, and Gaining Economic Power a solid five star review. I love a good book about mindset and personal development. (Hi, my name is Ashley and I’m an Enneagram One.) I double love it when it’s about empowering marginalized populations, especially those who are at the intersections, like Black women and other women of color. Additionally, I will keep recommending this book and Rodgers’ platform at Hello Seven to anyone, read any other book she decides to publish, and more than likely re-read this one multiple times. Rachel Rodgers put her face on the cover of the book so that a young Black woman walking into the bookstore could see someone who looks like her on the cover of a book and realize that she could be that woman one day.

What personal development book did you love because the author wrote to “someone just like you?”

~Ashley

Dear readers, sometimes you read a book because it’s good for you, because your reading buddy is SO excited about it, or both.  I listened to and loved Kendra and Rachel’s conversation, and sent it to Ashley, which, as Ashley said, led us to today.  As you may have gathered, Ashley and I typically gravitate towards different types of nonfiction titles, and different aspects of personal development.  There are so many facets of personal development, and I do encourage everyone to lean into their particular interests.  There is also a lot to be said to pushing your boundaries on occasion and learning about new things, so when Ashley’s really excited about something, I take another look, and when she is excited enough to shoot a copy to my Kindle, that title makes its way to my reading plan (which is detailed list, with estimated dates, and effectively the month’s TBR).  

It wasn’t just Ashley’s recommendation that got We Should All Be Millionaires by Rachel Rodgers on my reading list, and on the blog here.  We’ve talked about the importance of having a variety of voices speaking into our lives through books, and this is another reason I was interested in this title.  Ashley gave a thorough bio of Rodgers, so I won’t repeat that, but I do want to point out the importance of placing oneself in a position to learn from and be influenced by people who look differently, and have different lived experiences, from oneself.  I know we read a lot of women.  Part of that is based on interest and proximity, and part of that is because so much of our lifelong education has consisted of content from men.  We are very interested in learning from Black women and other women of color specifically, because we recognize that we have similar lived experiences as women, but the intersectionality of race and gender make their lived experiences very different from our own.  

Now to actually talk about today’s title.  The advice in We Should All Be Millionaires is partially what you’d expect to see in any business-minded productivity book.  Make smart choices, maximize your income, and don’t take financial advice from broke people are all present.  The pieces you won’t see in most productivity books written by men include suggestions to hire a personal assistant or other household help because typically men don’t think about who’s going to hire household help (or do those who’s going to do those tasks at all) or regale you with how they happened upon a personal chef turned house manager, and encouragement to buy the latte if it brings you joy because saving those few dollars and all the feelings that will be around not making that purchase won’t have as significant an impact as spending that time and emotional energy considering how you can make more money.  It’s simple logic, but still very helpful to hear from someone else the impact a house manager can have upon a family, and the permission to hire someone to do the things they can take off you so that you can do the things only you can do.  It’s a recurring conversation we have at my day job, and certainly one I needed to hear spoken into my life repeatedly, and something I needed more permission to implement rather than continuing to white knuckle too many things (yes, I was listening to Try Softer while reading this).  It was a delight to have advice that addressed the full realities of a household and not just advice to hustle more (which is the worst and 100% not my vibe).  

I’m giving We Should All Be Millionaires by Rachel Rodgers a solid four stars.  This rating is personal for me, because I don’t love the genre, not because this isn’t a great title within it.  I’m not likely to reread this, but I am now following Hello Seven and I’m very interested in Rodgers’s future work.  Her writing is blunt, concise, and her advice is easy to understand and apply.  I went in expecting to eye-roll through the encouragement to hustle, but what I got was much more “work smarter, not necessarily harder,” perhaps even the Lazy Genius of business / money advice.  

What’s a book you read for someone else and was pleasantly surprised by?

~Nikki 

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