BY Nkosazana Ngwadla
Vangile Makwakwa is the founder of Wealthy Money and is passionate about helping people heal their ancestral money trauma so they can unlock their inner money guru and thrive, financially.
Vangile became debt free in 2014. “It took me 5 years to pay off US$60,000 (R1, 000,000) in debt, including student loans. I’ve since become a homeowner, published a book, gotten a yoga teaching certificate, been featured in various media and embarked on a new journey as a nomadic entrepreneur,” she writes.
“I’ve been traveling for 15 years and have lived in over 7 countries (USA, South Africa, the UK, South Korea, India, Thailand, Sri Lanka) and travelled to more countries in recent years as I built my company (all without a credit card). In 2019, I lived and visited 8 countries and spent a month or more in each place, without incurring any debt,” she continues.
After completig her MBA, Vangile tried to follow a business plan but failed. “I had a whole 20-page business plan, and I worked my little heart out to have the perfect business plan and kept trying to follow it and the business failed. That whole experience taught me a lot about entrepreneurship.
I thought I was a failure and unsuited for entrepreneurship, until I started doing the money work I do around money trauma.
WHEN I LAUNCHED WEALTHY MONEY, I DITCHED THE BUSINESS PLAN.
I now do an annual 1 page spider diagram with strategies, business models and projected income on 1 page and the business has grown consistently.
I teach my clients and the #MoneyMagic students how to do an income worksheet and we talk about strategies.
And the rest is the inner work. I help people create extra streams of income and quadruple income with just a 1 page document and a simple strategy. The real game changer for me and for my clients has been the inner work. I tell all my clients – cash is the life blood of a business.
If your business doesn’t make money, you won’t be in business for long. I learned that from my entrepreneurship lecturer, but the education system only teaches us how to write business plans and how to raise money from venture capitalists and angel investors.
Truth is – very few businesses get funding and even fewer black women get funding.
ONE BECOMES AN ENTREPRENEUR BY DOING AND OFTEN BY DOING THE UNCOMFORTABLE AND SCARY ISH
Like selling, asking people who owe you money to pay you, charging the prices you want and hiring others. That uncomfortable stuff is where the inner work makes the biggest difference. I won’t lie and say it’s less uncomfortable, but when we do the work, it gets easier to take action and do it and scale.”
Image: LinkedIn
