Rachel C. Ybarra: Bridging the Wealth Gap For Women

Many people often continue to work even after retirement because of their passion. We came across one such person, Rachel C. Ybarra, who started a new journey after retiring from her full-time job. She had a successful career and worked with some of the leading organizations. However, Rachel embarked on an entrepreneurial journey after giving 25 years to the corporate world.

Well, age is just a number, and Rachel proved it after retiring as a corporate frontrunner from a Fortune 10 company. It is the time when most people don’t consider taking such risks as it can impact their financial status. However, Rachel proved that all you need is the right mindset to start your journey.

Entrepreneurial Background

What pushed Rachel to take this step was her experience and background. During an interview with WomLEAD, she mentions that she has done many entrepreneurial works in her previous jobs. This ignited her interest in the field and pushed her to take a step ahead. Her experience includes corporate financial planning, building new systems, starting new organizations, managing teams, and other aspects. All these aspects helped her during her entrepreneurial journey. She worked with institutions such as AT & T Women of Finance, Texas Society of CPAs, and DFW Hispanic 100.

Educational Background

Rachel is a firm believer that our education and qualifications help us embark on a path to success. She partly attributes her continued education to her professional success. Rachel holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting and a Master in Professional Accounting from The University of Texas at Austin.

Rachel has also done various courses in investing and accounting, which have helped her stay well-versed in the current financial scenarios.

Eliminating the Wealth Gap

Wealth and finances are one of the areas where most of us mismanage. It is necessary to tend to these areas carefully, especially while handling a small business. Rachel started this initiative through Embrace Any Future and is helping women eliminate the wealth gap. She offers her services through mentoring programs, newsletters, and speaking engagements. This is a great initiative through which she is helping others lead the path to success.

Initial Journey

Rachel shares that her journey into entrepreneurship was not easy. Like any other entrepreneur, she also faced various challenges initially. However, her faith and belief in herself led her to continue offering the services. While serving the corporate industry, her passion for personal financing increased.

She is a firm believer that we need to believe in ourselves. Most of the time, it is our mindset that sets us back. We often start judging ourselves and thinking we can’t accomplish something. Our own hesitation and attitude are what prevent us from moving forward. Therefore, it is necessary to expand our horizons and believe in ourselves. She stresses that it is required to be kinder to ourselves and work on achieving things without thinking about people’s expectations. “When you work for a big company, you are used to doing everything on a massive scale. I wanted to be asymmetrical. Hence, working with a small team to create a big impact,” Rachel adds. 

The Four Elements of Personal Power Which Helps Bridging the Wealth Gap

Rachel has been helping clients achieve financial flexibility and freedom through her guidance. She believes that it is a procedure that entails four critical steps:

Internal Strength

The first and the foremost important step is understanding our internal strengths. The stories we tell and the stories other people tell us are necessary to understand them and their learning. Our inner strength could help us analyze the foundation of the financial base. It could help us understand our ideologies and how we plan to move forward. Our internal strength plays a significant role and can help us set goals for ourselves. 

External Strength

The next step toward determining personal power is understanding and analyzing the external strength. It could refer to our capabilities and unleashing our outer self. It could even mean our opportunities and external connections.

Relationship Strength

The relationship strength refers to our network and its capabilities. It can be a three-step procedure to analyze how influential our network is, how influential we are, and how healthy our relationships are. One can never deny the importance of having a healthy and sustainable network. According to Rachel, it is necessary to have healthy and sustainable relationships with people in our network. We must aim to build our network and find out how healthy our relationships are.

Financial Strength

Following all these critical steps comes the most important step: financial strength. It is the part where we analyze where we are on the financial front. It helps us understand our power and financial flexibility. All the above steps can have a critical impact on our financial strength.

“When we have enough money, we don’t have to worry about other things,” Rachel says while referring to the COVID-19 situation where the hospitality sector went through a critical phase. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on and build financial security.

Rachel believes that when individuals have financial freedom, they should think about society.

When an individual has financial freedom, she can help the world; she can significantly help the world stay afloat and maintain its balance.

Rachel believes in the idea of maintaining relationships and helping others in society. Moreover, she believes that the more you give, the more you get back. You can give away your ideas or share meaningful relationships, and your results would be much more than what you can achieve financially. She shares her knowledge via her newsletter, which is entirely free. Therefore, it could be an excellent opportunity for the budding entrepreneurs to gain knowledge through her newsletters. She also shares her expertise by speaking at events and imparting wisdom on social media.

“When I help ten people, they will help ten more people who can ultimately help create a chain. This can help ensure that we are all aligned and can contribute to eliminating the wealth gap.”  

Leaders can help guide other people to unleash the power within, and it doesn’t cost anything to help anyone. However, it could change someone’s life. Therefore, it is necessary to help others unleash their potential and help them lead a better life. This includes helping them do more in their life, be more productive in their jobs and help them to move forward. With the help of others, we should help each other. Rachel truly believes it’s the right thing to do.