Today we’d like to introduce you to Teeba Rose.
Hi Teeba, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I am a native Houstonian. I went to Jack Yates highschool. Texas Southern Univerisity for my bachelors in marketing and to Prairie View A&M for my masters in Community Development. Growing up my parents divorced when I was 14 and it caused me to look at life differently. My mother’s side of the family was on government assistance and my father’s side were middle class. The decision was made for me that I would be raised by my father. He drove a truck for UPS and came home late so there was a lot of time to think. My mother believed in saving up your money and get what you want and my father believed in delayed gratification. One of the reasons they didn’t see eye to eye when it came to money matters.
At an early age, I knew I wanted to be a motivational speaker and author and later a teacher of financial responsibility. I could see that everything my father tried to teach me about money was foreign to everyone around me. This lead me to wonder if my father was right, why weren’t these principles being taught in schools and why am I the only person attempting to follow them. I began to assume that they were for adults and that I would have time later for all that stuff. I didn’t realize that he was giving me the road map to success and that all of the people I saw were living off credit with no investments. After following what looked like such a fun life and getting into debt, I later realized what my father was trying to tell me. I decided to use my voice and platform to help other avoid the pitfalls that so many (78%) of Americans fall into. I realized that there was no formal place to teach young adults how to be successful adult. We make sure your ready to enter college by testing you. We ensure that you are prepared for college with entrance exams and only confer your degree once you have taken every course in the curriculum. But we don’t test whether you are prepared for adulthood which was the whole purpose of all of the schooling you took thus far. When you say your an adult and your out people say ok and out you go.
So I set off on a quest to make sure that young adults were ready for adulthood. I created an adulthood checklist that you can’t leave your parents home until you can pass. On the list is six months living expenses saved, credit score of 720-850, life insurance, an asset, low to no debt, and so much more. Young adults move out of their parent’s homes to pay bills but they have never seen all of their parents bills to even know if they can handle them. That is when the struggle starts. I wrote a book titled “You’re Closer Than You Think, 5 Habits for Obtaining Financial and Professional Success”. This is the journey that I have been on for the past 13 years. Whenever I talk to someone and they say I became a tither, saver, investor, bought a house, increased my credit because of you, didn’t move out when I was going to, didn’t become a renter but became an owner because of you. It lets me know that what I am doing is making a difference.
I share with young adults that being poor (Passing Over Opportunities Repeatedly) can be improved and we don’t have to paste so many years of our lives digging ourselves out of financial holes. Rich people (NFL stars, Entertainers, Lottery Winners, and people who are awarded enheritences) become poor people too. Not knowing what to do with $100 is the same as not knowing what to do with $1,000,000. The outcome generally is the same.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I wouldn’t say that my path to being a speaker, author and financial responsibility coach has been easy or smooth but it has been rewarding. The struggles did not know how to charter this path to success. People are generally willing to teach you some of the things you need to know but they always leave out some of the ingredients to the secret sauce.
That is what always gets you coming back because you can never quite get it all to turn out like they say it would on the box. Only later do you realize that they were holding back on a few of the key ingredients to get you to come back as a customer. I have learned that people’s failures are just as important if not more than their successes. People typically have a PH.D in failure and only a few classes in success. This is because they have failed way more than they have succeeded. So if you only willing to learn the one way that worked for the one person, you miss the other 99 ways you shouldn’t go and why.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My company specializes in helping young adults avoid the pitfalls of adulthood. The idea that you don’t know what an APR (Anual Percentage Rate) or DTI (Debt To Income) are before you get your first credit card at 18 for a free t-shirt or discount of the purchase at the store blows my mind. We specialize in making sure young adults have all of the tools to succeed and know the traps that are laid out in from of them in the form of capitalizm. What sets us apart is that we don’t teach financial literacy we teach financial responsibility. If you ask a person about being financially literate, they will say that they are and when you ask have they ever used anything they know and they say no… that’s the difference.
We take real word and have apply our principles to their regular life today from budgeting, investing, tithing, improving their five areas of credit they didn’t know they had. We combat the generational cycle of consumerism, voluntary poverty and poor decision-making from a lack of understanding. I want people to know that you can do better and teach better habits at any age. I am often asked the question when do you start and my answer is the first time money touches their hands (tooth fairy). You get better about making decisions by making some and your relationship with money comes up almost everyday and the choices you make on a small scale have large payoffs or consequinces.
I want people to know that what we teach prevents people from asking others to go fund funerals, weddings, college funds, forclosures, accidents, and hospital bills. Being able to help yourself and others starts with an excellent understanding of the power you have that you willingly give to others. We are the beginning of the end of the visious cycle of self-prescribed struggle.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I am a risk-taker. Mainly because I believe that there is little to be gained when there is little at risk. I haven’t always thought this way. I realized that you can’t kind of swim and get to your destination with any great success. I have taken risks in business that have not turned out in my favor but I learned from them and moved on to make better decisions in business. I have believed in people and opportunities that did not turn out the way they were described but it didn’t discourage me from investing.
Contact Info:
- Email: teeba@teebarose.com
- Website: teebarose.com
- Instagram: teebarose_
- Facebook: teebarose1
- Twitter: teebarose_
- Youtube: teeba rose speaks
