Five Words I Will Never Forget
Speaking is second nature to me.
I have been speaking publicly since I was 11 years old. That was the year I discovered I had a gift for connecting with people. I gave a five-minute oratory speech through the Optimist Club, and I watched a room full of adults laugh and then, moments later, wipe away tears. Eleven years old, and I understood something that would shape the rest of my life: I could use my voice to move people. To encourage them to take action. To help them make choices that would change their lives for the better.
I never let go of that.
When I started in the financial industry, I made one thing clear from the very beginning. I told them, “I will only do this if I can do public speaking.” They laughed. I am fairly sure it was the first time anyone had ever made that request. But I meant it, because I already knew that the numbers were never really the point. The point was the person sitting across from me, and whether I could help her see a way forward she could not see before.
That is still the point today.
Why women. Why now.
I work primarily with women who are going through divorce. People sometimes assume that is because divorce is a sad or heavy space to occupy. It is not why I am there. I am there because these women are standing at one of the few moments in life when they get to make decisions entirely on their own terms. That is a powerful place to stand. And helping a woman step into that power is, honestly, some of the most fun and meaningful work I have ever done.
This is the heart of what I call Her Terms. So many women have spent years making financial decisions shaped by someone else’s priorities, someone else’s comfort, someone else’s fear. Her Terms is about handing that pen back to her. It is a confidence framework for women and money, built on the belief that she is fully capable of understanding her finances, advocating for herself without apology, and choosing a future that reflects what she actually wants.
And once she reclaims that voice, something else becomes possible: a Bold Beginning. Divorce, or any major life transition, is not only an ending. It is an opening. Bold Beginnings is about what a woman builds next, on a foundation she chose herself, with clarity instead of fear and confidence instead of second-guessing. I have watched it happen hundreds of times, and it never stops being extraordinary.
The five words I will never forget.
My relationship with money did not start in a boardroom. It started in my own upbringing, and it was complicated, the way it is for most of us. When I wrote my book, I told the truth about that. All of it. The parts that were not easy to put on the page.
Before my mom passed away from a brain tumor, while she could still read, I asked her to read my book. When she finished, she looked at me and said five words I will carry for the rest of my life:
“Rhonda, you told the truth.”
That is what I have been doing since I was 11 years old standing in front of the Optimist Club. Telling the truth. Telling it in a way that helps people feel it, believe it, and act on it. Whether I am on a stage in front of thousands, behind the microphone on my podcast, or sitting one-on-one with a woman rewriting her financial future, the mission has never changed.
I get to use my voice to help women find theirs.
And I would not trade that for anything.
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