Sharifa Maning

Sharifah Manning, a financial service professional, specializes in insurance, investments, and pensions. She aims to help individuals create generational wealth and prepare for retirement while focusing on financial literacy. She emphasizes the importance of starting financial planning at a young age and avoiding common mistakes like waiting too long to save or thinking that health and life will remain the same. Sharifah offers personalized financial plans, debt management assistance, emergency savings advice, and guidance on long-term investments. She also emphasizes the importance of having a will and power of attorney in place to protect one's financial health. Additionally, she provides free financial literacy workshops to help individuals gain the necessary skills for financial success. Welcome. My name is Esther, the host of the Canadian Businesswoman Podcast. Today I have Sharifah Manning here, and she's going to help us improve our financial planning and really also teach us what financial planning, what is involved with financial planning because I think for me, I was confused with accounting. So welcome to the show, Sharifah. How are you today? I am excellent, Esther. Thank you for having me. How are you doing? I'm good. Thank you for being here. And again, as I just explained, I often confuse an accountant with financial planning. I feel like it's similar or the same, so let's start off with just defining your role and what you do. Actually, better yet, let's start with your past a little bit, a little bit about yourself and what led you to what you're doing and then kind of explain your role. No problem. Thank you so much, Esther. So again, my name is Sharifah Manning. I am a mother of six. I have six children ranging ages 13 to 26. I have two beautiful grandchildren, four years old and nine months old. And when we look at my past experience, I have over 20 years experience working in contact centers, communication contact centers as a team manager managing high-performing subject matter experts and supporting a site of 1,000 plus staff. And I also have experience working in the banking industry as a team manager in their head office as well, which has led me into what I'm doing now, a financial service professional. I specialize in insurance, investments and pensions, and I help individuals to create generational wealth, build their legacies, prepare for retirement, but with a key focus on financial literacy because we can all agree that we didn't get financial literacy in school from our parents. We didn't walk outside and get financial literacy, right? I know I didn't. So there's really that key focus on financial literacy to help individuals. And I, myself, I'm on a personal mission. I want to help 1 million people with financial literacy by 2030. And I also want to help 100,000 individuals as well to acquire their life license, their license that, the same license that I have that allows me to practice and give individuals insurance, investments and help them with their pensions as well, Esther. That's awesome. You don't look like you're old enough to have any children, so great job on that as well. So what do you, as you said, financial literacy is a, e-literacy is a big problem because we're not really taught anywhere, including the place where we spend like 12 plus years of our life supposedly getting the education we need to be an adult. So what are the biggest mistakes that you see people making or where do you feel that people could improve when it comes to their financial planning? I think the biggest mistakes that people make is thinking that they should wait till they're older to start to save and to start to prepare for retirement. I was telling my son the other day, you're at the crossroad, like you are 20 years old and you are at the crossroad that if you, the decisions that you make right now is going to impact the trajectory of your life, whether it's going to be on a negative aspect or a positive one. And that is what happens with your financial aspects of your life. You know, when I was 18 or 19 or, you know, I remember going to, you know, university and on campus, there were tables, they're giving out credit cards, like pre-approving us right there on the spot. And all my friends were getting it. So I just went and I got pre-approved on the spot. And I remember my friends coming back to me the next day and saying, I just swiped my credit card at the register in the mall and I got instant credit. And I was like, okay. And I went and I was swiping it too. I swiped at the jewelry store. I swiped at the major department stores, swiping, purchasing, you know, but nobody ever told me what to do with the cards, how to pay it or whatnot. And then when the bills were coming in the mail, I remember calling my father and saying, dad, the bills, these bills are coming. What am I supposed to do? And you know, my father, this old Trinidadian man said, Sharifa, don't check the mailbox. Don't open the mail. Right? That was what I was told. That was my financial literacy, right? So when we go back to the biggest mistakes people make is we make mistakes at a young age, not learning financial literacy, not knowing what credit is, not knowing how to build credit, but also thinking that number one, we have enough time to wait till we're in our forties or fifties to start to build for retirement. And number two, thinking that health and life will stay the same, not looking at the future to consider that the what ifs may happen, to prepare for down the road, to be able to create generational wealth, build a legacy, but also to prepare if something was to happen to us. I think those are the biggest mistakes. And also people feeling that things like life insurance is a scam and not understanding what is out there so that we're not turning to crowdfunding and we're not turning to live in poverty and we're not turning to have to ask and borrow from people and getting bad credit at such a young age. You know, that is, those are the biggest mistakes, not gaining the financial literacy that we need from at a young age, you know, at the very young age, not even a teenager, 10 years old, you know, that money management, saving 10%, budgeting, saving your allowance. These are all things that need to begin as soon as you're a child. In my opinion, I think the credit system is a scam, but it's a system that we have, so we need to learn how to use it. And the problem is we haven't been taught, or maybe that's part of the goal is for us to not be responsible because just to get back, when I was in college, the only people calling me were my parents and like the credit card companies. And I'm like, how did you get my number? Why is, why did they give, I didn't give you my number, so why do you have it? So it's unfortunate that that's been combined with our education that we just assume that we have to go into a lot of debt and then spend the rest of our lives trying to catch up. So if I was coming to you and I wanted to get started, what would be the best steps for us to kind of take going forward to improve our financial planning? Well, you know, the first thing is understanding that generational wealth and wealth is built with knowledge. Education in one generation leads to knowledge in the next. Knowing that being financially aware strengthens economic security, and financial literacy, Esther, gives us the ability to clearly articulate our financial expectations. You know, so sitting with me, what do you expect? Expect to have a down-to-earth conversation. Expect to sit down and do a, what I call a financial needs analysis. And what that is, Esther, is really just looking at your financial goals, right? Your financial needs and your wants. It's not really sitting down and drawing up a wish list, but it's looking at how you plan to achieve your financial goals. So what I do is I sit down and I create a written financial plan for everyone. Everyone can benefit from a financial plan. And then what I do is I review the products that you have in place, and I make sure you understand them. And then I shop the industry, right? I shop, I see how I can lower your risk and your mortality, increase your rate of return, and then minimize your cost of insurance and possibly decrease your taxes. And then I return with my recommendations. But first, before I do all of that, which creating that financial needs analysis, Esther, is making sure that you have literacy, that you understand, how do I do that? I sit down and we talk about a financial house, right? And what is a financial house? Esther, a financial house is just like any house we're living in. We start with the foundation. What's the foundation of a financial house? In a house, it's our basement. In the physical home, it's a basement. In a financial home, it's proper protection. That's your foundation, to make sure that you're properly protected in the event of the what-ifs, in the event that you become critically ill, in the event that you become disabled, or even if you pass away prematurely, right? Having that proper protection in place. Then an individual sitting down with me is going to get assistance with debt management, understanding what debt is, what good debt is, what bad debt is, and having the ability to work through that and to clear their debts. Maybe we utilize the debt snowball, where we look at the cheapest debt, what's the lowest debt, and work through that, get an extra, find an extra $100 in your budget, and find ways to pay off your debts in a faster manner. Then I help individuals with ensuring that they have three to six months of emergency savings set aside for the what-ifs, right? The fridge breaks. A plandemic happens, right? A plandemic, or things of life happen. You have that three to six months set aside. Then I help individuals with the long-term investments that can go towards retirement, which is investments, right? Investments to make money while you're sleeping. Then I protect the entire financial health with a will and a power of attorney in place, Esther, because heaven forbid something happens to us, we don't have a will, your estate goes probate, and guess who decides where your money goes or where it doesn't go? The government does. The courts do, and they take a percentage for themselves. Not only, Esther, do I help individuals at no cost to build a financial health, I also help them to secure their financial health, and I also have financial literacy workshops that run every day that individuals can attend to gain the skills to utilize in their lives and to understand things like what is the dime method, right? The dime method is how do you calculate your insurable need, right? Your insurable need is how much debt do you have remaining? How much is your income? Because you need to replace your income times 10 for any of your care, whoever you're looking after, or your children, or if you have your parents, you have to replace the payment of your mortgage, you have to cover education and final expenses. That calculation gives you your insurable need. So helping individuals to understand their insurable needs and the financial needs analysis, Esther, allows us to get a holistic picture of what your financial situation is, which will identify what your monthly cash flow is, and then it will allow us to put products in place based on needs based, not based on me giving you what I feel that I want to give you, but based on what is affordable and what is based on your needs to ensure that you have a solid financial foundation to create a future and build for your generations to come. I see why you need to work one-on-one with somebody to help you with that, because we are not taught that at all, so that's so much more information that somebody is used to having when it comes to planning their finances. What I appreciate, thank you for sharing, is that you don't just share this, but you also have a philosophic endeavors as well. So can you share how you are passionate about supporting women as I am with this podcast and the work you do with different organizations? I have been blessed to be one of the executives for the Resilient Women Program that educates, inspires, and then powers women and girls into leadership roles within their communities and careers, and those women are women that have faced trauma, whether it's physical, mental, financial, whatever type of trauma that they've been able to be resilient and persevere through, that is a resilient woman, and I myself am a resilient woman. The Resilient Women Program is actually an extension of Meet the Motivators, which was founded by the great Jacqueline Dixon. We have a two-day symposium, May 2-4 weekend every year, dynamic, where we create a classroom setting on the first day for individuals to come and to join different types of classrooms that will inspire them. It would be anywhere from classrooms on financial literacy. You attend workshops on women in trade, just dynamic workshops. And the second day is actually an amazing gala that I've been able to even work the red carpet for, where everybody's in that room. There's networking, collaboration, and fulfillment, and you're in the room with individuals that are actually helping you to uplift your life and to help you to impact the spheres of your influence, and being involved in that is just part of my mission that I've always known as a child Esther, that I would get myself into rooms so that I can help others get into those same rooms. I don't believe that anyone should keep a gift to themselves. I don't believe in keeping a secret as it pertains to knowledge, you know, of something or a way that someone can elevate in life or a connection that can be made or a mentor. I don't believe in keeping those things in. I believe that there is not only just enough abundance in this world for everyone, Esther, but everyone should share what it is that they have utilized in life to become successful. And because of my life and how I had to rub shoulders and, you know, with a lot of people that were intimidated by my assertiveness, I always promised myself, Esther, I would get into the rooms so I can allow people to come in so that life actually becomes a testimony without the accompanying pain and individuals have the opportunity to just open the door and walk through as opposed to having to go over a wall or a mountain to get to the same destination that others find it very easy to reach to. I agree and I commend you. I love that you have this heart to serve and I wish more people would realize we are all part of a community. Every community is an island unto themselves and we all benefit when we help each other and support each other and provide that loving community and share our knowledge as you've done with us today. If somebody wants to follow up with you to get help and get started on improving their finances, what's the best way to reach you? The best way to reach me, so you can reach me by messaging me on Instagram. My IG handle is Iamsharifamanning. So that's I-A-M-S-H-A-R-I-S-A Manning, M-A-N-N-I-N-G. Or they can reach me directly on my cell phone, which is 289-939-3291. I'll be more than willing to set up some time to meet. They can book time in my calendar and we can set up time to meet. I can send them the links to attend a workshop. And Esther, I want to point out that anyone sitting with me is sitting with me at no cost. Anyone joining a workshop, Esther, would have the ability to join at no cost. There's no obligation. There's no tricks. I'm not selling anything. I am not trying to coerce anyone to do anything. It's just a mission of financial literacy and to spread the word so that people can become the better versions of themselves and create a strong financial foundation so that we are able to survive in the economy and to reinvent ourselves to be able to survive during change that is upcoming in our lives. Thank you so much. I'll make sure to include all that information in our show notes. I want to make it as easy as possible for them to reach you. Thank you for being here today. You're welcome and thank you for having me, Esther.