Money Talks: Financial Independence chats with Tracy Irwin - Episode Seventeen Adina Petre

 Real talk about trauma, money stories, and what “success” looks like when your nervous system is still stuck in survival mode with clinical psychologist and high performance coach, Adina Petre.

Adina grew up in communist Romania, where scarcity, ration cards, and “black days” thinking shaped an entire generation’s relationship with money. Now living in the Netherlands, she shares how financial independence became less about being “extremely wealthy” and more about choice, pace, and building a life that actually fits.

In this episode, you’ll discover:
💚 Why financial independence is really about choice, not just income
💚 How scarcity and corruption can shape money beliefs for decades
💚 The hidden link between trauma and feeling “stuck” in life or business
💚 How your subconscious can run your decisions without you realising
💚 Why so many people feel “my life looks fine, but I don’t feel fine”
💚 What it means to rebuild autonomy, confidence, and calm from the inside out

Perfect for you if:
💚 You feel like you are pushing for success with the handbrake on
💚 You suspect your money story is driving your decisions behind the scenes
💚 You want a more human, honest conversation about trauma and ambition
💚 You are building a business and want to understand what is really blocking your next level

Resources:
• Website: https://adinapetre.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adinapetre/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adinapetreinsights/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/adinapetreinsights
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What does financial independence mean to you? Having the ability to live my life the way I decide to live it.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

What was the mindset like of people when you think about back? What stands out for you?

SPEAKER_01 0:12

You didn't have access on news, on education, on things that would help bring enlightenment to people. How important it is for them to have financial education, to change the world by how they spend their money.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Welcome. I'm Tracy Irwin, and I'm passionate about financial independence and wanted to share stories of inspiring entrepreneurs to prove it's possible for everyone to strive towards financial freedom. Today I'm talking to Adina Petra. She's a clinical psychologist trained as a trauma therapist and a high performance coach. She was born in Communist Romania and she emigrated to the Netherlands 16 years ago, where she's built her business. So thank you so much for joining me, Adina. I am so looking forward to this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Thank you for the invitation, Tracy. It's a it's a pleasure and an honor to be here. Much appreciated.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

So I'm gonna start with my normal question just so we can get started. Like, what does financial independence mean to you?

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Uh, it's a very interesting question. Um, I've been I've been thinking about it a lot because I think there is an inherited type of answer that I I kind of grew up with knowing what financial independence is. Um and then there is one that I've discovered myself throughout the years, right? So I'd say that maybe a lot of people from Central and Eastern Europe would recognize this: that financial independence means being extremely wealthy. It means being so wealthy that you can open any door and create any kind of opportunity for yourself. This is the kind of mentality that I grew up with and I again inherited right from my family and from the generations before me. What I discovered after I relocated to the Netherlands is that financial independence, or at least my definition of financial independence, is having the ability to live my life the way I decide to live it. Um, to have the kind of pace and rhythm and openness that I know is good for me. So, for example, daring to start my own company and not stay in a nine to five kind of setup was for me a big step in the direction of attaining my financial independence.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Nice. It's about choice, isn't it? That's my short answer, is always it's about having choices. I love that. So, I mean, I know it was 16 years ago, but when when you first moved to the Netherlands, what was the what was the biggest difference did you feel that people felt about like money, day-to-day work? What was the biggest shift in that you had to deal with when you moved from like Romania to the Netherlands?

SPEAKER_01 3:07

I think the biggest thing that I noticed was the fact that people in the Netherlands they don't judge or label based on the level of work or education that you're doing. While as in my part of the world where I come from, people are very quick to judge and label and categorize you. So, for a lot of people, for example, in Romania, they were very puzzled because I was already a clinical psychologist. I attained my master's, and after I relocated to the Netherlands, my first job here was to be a waitress. And they were shocked and they saw this as something demeaning. They were looking at how do you do such a low-paying job? And they would evaluate that I'm somehow less of a person because I do that. Whereas people in the Netherlands were more open and they received it as something casual. Like if I were to say my favorite flower is the sunflower, for them it would have been the same reaction, like, oh, you work as a waitress. That's interesting, you're a clinical psychologist. Wow. So there was no evaluation and no judgment of my person based on the job that I was doing.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

That's really interesting. And and I have a judgment, and it's the only one I have, by the way, I'm not a judgmental person at all, but I judge people on actually how they treat waiting staff because of that exact reason, right? So if I'm in a meeting with somebody and they're very rude or dismissive of the waiting staff, suddenly I don't want to work with them. Like it's it's kind of like, and I know I do it, but I don't, I'm not changing. I can't, I can't change. It's the only judgmental thing I actually have because I believe it's how we treat one person, it's how we treat everybody. And like you've said about you know, having that judgment of what you're only waitressing, like it's not that, is it? It's like understanding that it's a ways to an end. And some like for many people, it's an enjoyable job. They like the um like the socialness of it of meeting new people. There's nothing, it's like it, yeah, it's just like just choosing what flower you like, which is very relevant to the Netherlands, by the way. So when you were doing so, you were you were a trauma specialist before you moved to the Netherlands. That's not so you actually like so what was the what was the catalyst then for you to actually decide that this is what you wanted to build your business in? Which had you decided that before you moved, or was this something that just came afterwards?

SPEAKER_01 5:47

No, not at all, to be honest. Like my my clinical uh psychology degree basically trained me to be part of the essential medical personnel that is working in a mental health facility.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

And my career trajectory was very clear and very simple. Finish, get your master's degree, get hired into a mental health clinic, stay there until my pension days. Like this, this was the original trajectory of my career. Um, and then after I moved to the Netherlands, I I took the waitressing job because it was the quickest, easiest available for me towards my financial independence uh path. And in that setting, actually, I met some fellow students because I came here to be a student to do a second master's. And basically I ended up being an entrepreneur because of my friends. Um, and it was one of those student things where they were coming to the restaurant, you know, I became friends with them, and at some point they said, Hey, do you want to come to an event with us? There's gonna be free drinks and and food. And of course, oh yeah, exactly. And and we were all very, you know, oriented towards those events, and we said, Yeah, great, what's the event? And they said, It's an entrepreneurship conference. And I looked at them and I said, I don't know what that means. I didn't even know how to spell the word, I didn't even know what it means, I didn't understand the concept, right? But I just went there because there were free food and drinks, and I was hanging off my friends. So I was like, Yay, let's do this.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

And I I honestly, entrepreneur is still a really hard word to to spell, by the way, even like when you've been an entrepreneur for 25 years. But um, so what was it about that event that actually sparked your interest in being an entrepreneur?

SPEAKER_01 7:35

I really just got convinced. Some people on stage said, you can do it, you can start your business tomorrow. And and something in their, I don't know, their their conviction and and the way that they were saying these things, I just believed them. I I was looking at them, and for the first time in my life, I started considering, why couldn't I? And is this maybe a possibility for me as well? Like, why should I wait and do more years of training to actually get to work in a clinic in a foreign country to when I could just start a business tomorrow? And that's pretty much what happened after the series of conferences. A few friends and I we met in the central uh square of the city where I was living in. We hopped on a bus and we went together to the chamber of commerce, not having any clue about what it entails to start a business. I just walked in with my passport and 50 euros cash, because that's how much it cost back then. That was 15 years ago, right? Yeah, and I still remembered the lady at the chamber of commerce. She was looking at me like, oh, so you want to start a business? Yes. What do you want your business to be in? I don't know. How many clients are you gonna have? I don't know. How much are you gonna charge for your services? I have no clues. She was looking at me, trying to assert, is she joking right now or is she for real? And I I'm so grateful to her because she she walked out from under the from behind the counter and we went, we sat down, she made me a cup of coffee, and she basically interviewed this this data out of me. She was like, Okay, what did you study? What do you think you can do with it? And then she taught me how to think. Like, how many people do you think you can help with what you want to do, and so on and so forth. Like, how much do you think you could charge for your services? So it was a fantastic experience, and she really helped me start my business that day.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Yeah, that's really interesting because like there was so many people start a business either by accident or some people like have the whole trajectory ahead. It's like this is what I you know, like I want to start business now because I want to sell it in 10 years. Like, some people come to me for all different things, but that's interesting. You just knew you wanted to be a business owner, you just weren't quite sure in what, but you're obviously using your expertise now. So I know it was 15 years ago, but when you were starting, like what kind of um if you could if you if somebody is listening to this and thinking, I want to start a business, I want to be a business owner, like what advice would you give them? What was really difficult in those first couple of years as somebody who'd suddenly change like had a difference of opinion and like suddenly wanted to become a business owner rather than being in corporate, let's say.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

I think for me, what was helpful was that indeed I had some studies and I've I knew that I wanted to work with people. So having a little bit of clarity in regards to what it is that you want to do, I think is the number one thing. Um so I leveraged my knowledge because I did work before leaving from uh departing from Romania. I I did work as a counselor, right? So this was the when I started my business, I started it as a coaching practice because this was the easiest for me to do. And I think one of the main difficult things in the beginning was exactly this not knowing how to do things, not knowing when to do things. And if I am to advise people, and sometimes this happens now when people come to me for business mentoring, the first thing that I look at is okay, what do you already have? Because people have a wealth of knowledge that sometimes they're not aware of. And if they just manage to put that into one thing, one package, one service, one product, surely there's gonna be at least five or ten people out there in the world that are happy to have that product or service. And that's those are some of the initial steps that I encourage people to take. Look at what you already know, because every everybody knows something, and then look for the people who want that thing that you know of, and and it's gonna be pretty easy from then on.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Yeah, I think it's doing your research, isn't it, to make to just see how many people. I remember being in a a mastermind um group once, and this lady was trying to create an app to help um teachers um with marking, right? And it was all over Europe. She was she was German, I think, actually. And um we we worked backwards at how many teachers were in her oh, it's she was French, I remember now, French-speaking countries, and just her initial, and when we'd done the research to find out how many people that she could serve, and then even if she just got one percent of them, like suddenly she had this really great business model, and but because she hadn't done the numbers beforehand, she just was like, I was thinking of doing this, suddenly it was like, Why haven't you done it yet? Like, this is like amazing. You don't need every you don't you didn't even need she didn't even need one percent of the people that she could have served to actually buy her product, and I was like, that and and those kind of things, like I love them. I I I love listening to people's ideas and things and seeing, like I spoke to a gentleman yesterday who has a very, very niche, and you know, that was the conversation we had was actually the opposite. Like, have you actually tested this? Do you know how many people need this? Because, you know, it's gonna be, you know, if you're it depends that's gonna depend on your price, because if there's not a lot of people, you're gonna have to have a really great valued service because you're not gonna be able to get hundreds of people. That's just because they're not they're they're not there. So that yeah, I think that's that's really, really important. Um, I'm are you are you happy to share? Because I'm really curious about your upbringing in communist uh Romania. Are you happy to for me to ask questions about that? Okay, thank you. So firstly, let just let's go with what was it like? Like what what what was the mindset like of people? And like when when you think about back, what stands out for you?

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Oh, I think this is so surreal. Like, I sometimes tell my friends that for me, this life feels like I've time traveled. Yeah. Because it's it's as if communist Romania is a country from almost a hundred years ago, mentality-wise, the level of of darkness, the level of of repression, not having access to the outside world, like the borders were closed at all times. You had no way to get out. Okay, and beyond getting out, there was also nothing coming in. So the reason why they call it the Iron Curtain is because it was secluded from the rest of the world. And and you you didn't have access uh on news, on education, on things that would help bring enlightenment to people. There was no access to this. So, for example, my psychology teachers they told me that they would have smuggled books that they would read in the basement of the faculty of sociology because psychology was forbidden. So, in this respect, it sounds really strange when I tell this to people that this happened in my lifetime, in our lifetime, and it was happening 2,000 kilometers away from eastern western Europe. Everybody's looking at me like, what? So this is just to paint the the bigger picture, the mentality, right, and the society thing. But if I am to bring it down to everyday stuff, I remember one of my ex-partners being shocked when I told him, I grew up without Lego. I did not have access to Lego blocks, I did not watch cartoons growing up, I did not have Coca-Cola on the shelves and uh a Mars bar or a Snickers bar because those things were forbidden in Romania. There was no import from the outside, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Are you working harder than ever? But feeling like you're getting nowhere. You're not alone. Most business owners I speak to feel trapped in their own success, working 60 hours plus a week, missing family time, and honestly, they're not even sure why they feel so stuck. They just know something needs to change. If this sounds familiar, I've created a quick quiz to help you find out why you feel stuck in your business. It takes only two minutes, and I give you clarity on exactly what's keeping you tracked, and more importantly, how to break free. The link's in the description. So why not take it now? We we went, I went, I went to Romania in November last year, and it's the first time I've ever been, and you can see this the contrast, can't you, between what the what's happening now and what used to be. There's like still some old things, but you can see how the buildings and everything, and I I hired a car, was very brave, and I was like going down this road. Um, and um, but I was only there for three days, and I remember the first day being absolutely petrified of all these cars coming at me. But actually, what I realized is everyone thinks of each other. You can go, you can just go out because the car behind is going to slow down, and it's like, even though it looks like absolute chaos, actually, it's really cared. People like consider everyone else around them, and I was like, wow, and it took me like the first day to realize I was so petrified that first day, but by the third day, I'm like, I'm a local, I'm pulling out in front of everybody.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

It's just like Romania is a collectivist society, right? So there's almost like this invisible line in the middle of the world map that crosses Central Europe. Everything east of Central Europe is a collectivist society, everything west of Central Europe is an individualistic society. So Romanians are are more like an aunt colony in in that sense, that they they do move together in stuff, right? And this was also something that I remember from from back in dictatorship that, for example, there was huge scarcity of resources, absolute huge, because our dictator leader, Chaoscu, he had this ambition to pay off foreign debt post-World War II. And therefore, everything that was produced in the country, and there was a lot produced in the country, it was first given to export, and the leftovers were kept for us for its citizens. Therefore, we had food rations. So every family had had a food cart that you would stamp when you were going to get places, and we were allocated certain amounts of food. So a one-person family could only get half a bread, half a butterstick a week, or stuff like that. And a family with one or two kids maybe could have access to once or twice a week, you would get a small chicken to feed your family and one bottle of milk and so on. So food rationalization and the scarcity of resources somehow created this kind of double living because for some people they were more prone to gathering communities and share the things that they had. Other people started distancing themselves from communities because they had certain advantages. So if you had a relative that would work in the dairy farm, you would have access to the freshest milk and maybe they could squeeze in an extra bottle, which also created this layer of corruption back in Romania in perpetuating this kind of model. So it's definitely interesting to study. It's it's it's what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

I'm so curious about it. And like, so knowing you were on food rations, like what did that have how did that people there was if like I'm I'm trying to get my words out, my brain's thinking quicker than my mouth working. But for me, it's like people with more money and abundance of money aren't particularly going to be any better off food-wise, because they physically can't. Like, what kind of relationship did that create what the to them like the people wouldn't have strived for money the same because there was no point?

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Yes and no. So, on the one hand, you're right, if you had more money, it doesn't necessarily mean that you can just go and buy an extra loaf of bread, but it didn't mean that you had access to somebody that works at the bread factory, and in exchange for a small bribe, you could have access to more bread than other people. This is what I was saying, the corruption level that that was created within society, it's suddenly the Romanian society suddenly became about networking, basically. Who you know, who has access, what can you exchange for that access? Because if my father works in the dairy farm and your father works at the the slaughterhouse, they become friends, and then we both have something more to eat than the rest of the people. And this kind of scarcity mindset, what it created in terms of behavior, was the sling back. Once communism fell and we had access to everything, every single person in Romania became a hoarder. That was really because that's collective trauma to live in such scarcity that we still haven't recovered from it.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

That's really interesting because they would be as well, there'd always be that worry that it would be taken away again as well. So exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

And we also have from back in the 40s where there was actual hunger, so all our grandparents lived through hunger, therefore, this this whole thing was reenacted for them, and then if one finally thin settled and we had access to everything, people just it's a subconscious thing to keep buying and to keep having things for the black days. I still remember this is a very Romanian expression. We're keeping it for the black days. You never know when the black days are gonna come back again, right? And and there is also this lack of trust as population, right? And what you have now, is it gonna last? Lack of trust in other people. Can I trust that you are going to be honest and not to try to take away something from me? So yeah, it's very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

It is. And and so as I mean, there's there's a lot of Romanians in Spain as well as the Netherlands. Like what do you feel is different? What what do they what what kind of life what's the lifestyle that they're hoping for when people emigrate? What were you hoping for?

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Well, I see two types of Romanian expats. There is the type of Romanian expat, which by the way, in the UK, they are the second largest expat population after the Polish.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

After the Polish, yes, I know.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

All the Romanians are everywhere in Western Europe.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

The Dutch are everywhere in Spain in Europe too.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Exactly. So Spain and Italy were the first countries where after we joined the EU, people immigrated to because language it wise, it was the easiest accessible for us. So it was very easy for us to learn the language, and we are quite similar. We are a Latin people, so we we click really well with the Latin peoples, and it's easy for us to learn the language. And as I said, there were two types of immigrants that I've noticed. One is the immigrant that goes abroad to create somewhat of a financial wealth to reinvest it back in Romania so that later in life, maybe in retirement ages, they will come back to Romania. So they're working hard, they're sending money back home, their families there are well taken care of, they're building houses that later they can retire into.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

And the second type of immigrant is the one that is slowly but surely, or maybe all of a sudden, cutting ties with Romania almost completely and establishing a new life for themselves in their adoptive country, learning the language, integrating into the local community, not really sending money back home, um, going to visit less and less as the years go by, and so on and so forth. So these are the two types that I've I've noticed. And I think I'm still somewhere in between. I didn't expect like everything that happened in my life in the Netherlands, I did not expect it. Like I genuinely believed. I still remember this when my mom was driving me at the airport and you know she was sobbing. Oh my god, where are you going? And I remember comforting her in the airport and saying, It's just a one-year master's program. I'll be back. It's not even a year, it's nine months of tuitions, and then I'll be back. Because my original thought was, I'm going abroad to get a secondary diploma so that I would have a competitive advantage on the work on the market when I get back to Romania. I never expected I'll be here 16 years later running a company your own company.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

So yeah, I it's an amazing story, Adina. So thank you so much for sharing that with me. I really appreciate it. And um so running your business, like who who do you help? And and and how do you help them?

SPEAKER_01 25:07

I help people who have high ambitions or high ideals, but are feeling stuck. They are feeling that they're going towards those ambitions with the handbrakes on. Because, in my experience, if that happens to a person, usually there is trauma in their system or in their family history. So we know now that there are a couple of layers in what psychological trauma is concerned. Um, there is the transgenerational component, people from Romania they already know it and they recognize it, but also people who have had in their families there were affected by war. And we know that in Europe everybody was affected by war. Even today, we are affected by war because it's still happening in the world close to us, and it has a ripple effect that it impacts our life. So people who have this blockage in inside that they cannot, let's say, thrive in their life or in their business, those are the people that come to see me because I basically, from working on their trauma and managing to unblock those things that are blocked, then with coaching, we build towards whatever success looks like for them. And this is something that I value a lot. My clients' autonomy. They they are the showrunners, they get to decide what problems we work on, they get to decide the destination that they want for themselves. I'm just there to support them in moving from one place to another. I don't impose my expert opinion on them, I don't dictate how to go and where to go. And I think I genuinely believe from a Socratic point of view that the inner wisdom of a person just needs to be helped, to be brought up to the surface, and and then they're good. They can just fly by themselves. They don't need me for that long.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Oh, that's really nice. So thank you. That so like what kind of how do they know that they need you? Like what what's kind of going through their minds at the time when and before they come to you? Your business is successful, so why do you feel so miserable? Here's the thing success doesn't always automatically equal freedom. I see profitable business owners every day who can't take a holiday, who can't switch off, and they feel completely overwhelmed by their own achievements. Sound familiar? Well, I've created a simple quiz that pinpoints exactly why you feel stuck in your business. It will give you the clarity you need to move from being trapped to being free. Why don't you take the quiz now? The links in the description below.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

I think most people now they they have already access for a long time to a little bit of self-awareness and to a bit of self-education, right? So they they mostly come to me and they say, I think it's because of my trauma. The fact that they can already name it so clearly for me, it's it's amazing, right? But sometimes there are also people who say, I'm not exactly sure, but something's off. Like I go to bed and I ruminate about issues, even though my life is perfectly set, and I don't know why I do that. So there are two types, let's say, of people who generally come to me, those that are still a bit uh um circling in the in the blind and trying to figure out what exactly is going on. My life is all together. I have a wife, I have a house, I have kids, everything is right, but I don't feel right, or I'm extremely stressed and I cannot turn off the stress engine and what's going on. So that's when we start digging a little bit and we find out that their nervous system might run in hyperactivation because they have a history of trauma or because they've inherited a hyper-functioning model that is not sustainable long term. And then there is the other side that say, Oh yeah, I know it's because of trauma. I know it's because of the violence or the neglect or the poverty that I grew up in, that I cannot see myself over this threshold, right? And that's where we intervene and we unpack that and we see what core beliefs are there that are keeping you in place. How do we reshape those core beliefs in order for you to be open to your next level of growth, development, success, whatever that that might look like? That's what I do.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Awesome. Do you do you see people then that like don't realize that their money stories from the past is actually what is driving the block?

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Yes, there is a lot there. I am actually currently doing a training that I am observing how trauma impacts our relationship with money and these kind of things that are inherited and how they modulate our behavior, even without us being aware that that's where it's coming from, right? And this is something that I'm absolutely fascinated by. And it is true in the work with my clients, we always touch upon the money story and the kind of invisible threads that sometimes pulls their behaviors. Um, because a lot of people have this unaware that they they are making decisions every single day of their life based on these invisible papeteers that that belong to trauma, right? And the moment I start pointing that out to them, they they're absolutely shocked. They're like, I never thought of it that way. And I never saw this, and oh my god, this is so helpful. Because that's where autonomy has a chance to come back in. When you bring the subconscious to the conscious level, it empowers you, it empowers you to make decisions differently, it empowers you to actually change your life. So I'm uh I'm very, very happy and honored that I get to be part of those discovery processes for my clients.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Me too, actually. So that that's the subconscious thing, isn't it? It's like people don't realize that it's their subconscious that makes the decisions for them. People think it's their conscious brain that's making the decisions, and generally it really isn't, because like you know, your subconscious has just one job, and that is just to keep you safe. And I think when people, especially those that are going, there's my life's brilliant, but there's something not quite right, that's tend to be where it's set. It's like sitting in your subconscious, keeping you safe somehow, um, but it might not be what you you want as well. So if you if you could look back at teenager Dina, like what advice would you give yourself?

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Oh, that is such a sweet question. Um, I think teenager Dina, she couldn't imagine life for us as a grown-up in this way, you know, there was so much conditioning into thinking. I remember this, I think it was, I don't know, maybe I was 16 or 17 or something, that I had already written kind of like a letter of what my future is gonna be like. And it was so ingrained into the programming of my society. And I remember saying something like by the time I'm 25, uh, I will be taller. For some reason I thought I was gonna be taller. That I was convinced that I had to be very, very slim because this is what my society expects of women to look a certain way. Okay. That I would be married, that I would have two children, I would have a house and a car, because these are status symbols that you must have in society so that you are indicating that you're a successful individual, right? Not to mention the timeline, it's absurd. From 16 to 25, you have to have all of those things. I was like, wow, that was so wild. So I think the the message for for Adina in the past is you're gonna you're gonna do so much better than that. And in such a different timeline, you might as well just enjoy the ride, girl.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

And and the things that you thought were important at 16 actually really aren't at all. I think my my daughter did a similar thing when she was a teenager. She came to me with this letter and it said her name on the front, aged 30, right? It had the date and everything on it. And she was like, Mum, will you look after this for me until I'm 30 years old? And my daughter's 31 now. So she got to 25 and she was like, Did you not have a letter for me? I was like, I have a letter for you, love. I said, but it's not. Why is she 25? I said, You've got the 30 on it. I said, Do you really want it now? She was like, No, no, let's leave it till I'm 30. And it was so interesting reading it, like the things that mattered to her so much at the 15, 16 year olds. Like we were laughing about it. And she she was the same. She had her map, like she was mapped out. She, I mean, she's she's a renal sister at Manchester Hall Infirmary now. She, I'm very proud of everything she's achieved. Uh, but she wanted to be a coroner, which is quite a different, similar, but very different. Um, and she was like, it was, I'm gonna do my studies, I'm then gonna meet somebody, I'm then gonna get married, and I'm then gonna have children. Like that did not happen for her. You know, and I think I think we see teenagers see like our lives, their lives as really planned out. And I think sometimes we look, we have to look back, don't we, and think, gosh, that teenager would be so proud of me right now. Absolutely of everything that I've done differently.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

So, but I think it's also because the grown-ups in our lives, at least this is how I grew up, they were kind of constantly reinfor reinforcing this narrative. Like in your life, you have to study well, get a good job, find a good person, get married, settle down. For the majority of people in my family, there was no alternative to this. But then again, my family almost entirely was born and raised in in dictatorship, which actually created the these conveyor-built lifestyles. Uh, there was no choice. There was no way. You would finish, for example, your studies, and based on the number of doctors available, they would place you into a hospital around the country where you were needed. You couldn't say no. If you said no, then you would lose your job, and and then you just didn't have an option, right? So, all of these pre-designed lifestyles is what my parents grew up with. So, of course, they could only give me that, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Yeah, that that's true, and and that's really interesting because that's I did not give my daughter that. I was a single parent at 19 years old, I was a business owner at 26 with an eight-year-old, like as a single parent as a eight-year-old, I was not your status quo. Like, literally, I I so it's interesting that she still had that thought process, and that's probably come from school or from society and stuff, because I definitely was not in that category. Um, I've definitely did things, I don't regret any of it, by the way, at all. We've had this conversation, but um yeah, that is really interesting. Um but yeah, now I think entrepreneurship, like I think we're still teaching our children at school this societal, like what norm is. But actually, there's people complaining that we're not getting our children ready for the life because of AI business and things. But actually, the teachers aren't equipped to know because they're not mind readers, like we don't know what society's gonna look like in 10 years' time. So actually, blaming the teachers for teaching them a system that hasn't worked since the two that they since the 1960s isn't actually their fault because they don't actually know what's coming. What do teach? I mean, I do wish there was a bit more about business and finance in schools, but that's me personally, because of what I teach.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

But um, I completely agree with you. And I'm actually quite privileged because another part of my business is actually to go back into universities and teach. And this is something that I do in this in this semester. I I go often back to to uh universities and I teach and I work with students, and because I'm not academic staff, I think the information that I bring them lands a bit deeper. And I am a disruptor by nature, I'm a rebel and a disruptor, and I actually really, really speak about how important it is for them to have financial education and how important it is for them to change the world by how they spend their money. Because this is the the information that they're not aware of, and this is something that I really like bringing to them is to educate them that they have the power in their hands, in their pockets, on their plastic cards, because what you give your money to is what the world is gonna have more of, right? So the moment I bring this to their awareness, they're absolutely fascinated. They're like, wow, I never thought of it that way. And I often give the example of the Marvel movies and the DC, right? And I make jokes about it, and I say, Imagine that 40 years ago there were a bunch of nerds in somebody's basement saying, one day we're gonna make this a movie, and then they didn't know how much money they made, right? So you just have to figure out what it is that you really, really want, and then put your money in that direction, and then at some point the reward is going to come back from that lane. So I love doing that, and I agree with you. I think not having financial education is what literally handicaps us. This is also something I grew up with because I'm a woman, I was not encouraged to gain financial knowledge because oftentimes this was in my family said, you don't need to worry about money, just find a rich husband. I was like, excuse me.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

So yeah, that's it's a Cinderella story, isn't it? It's like we Disney Disney taught us as women up until now. Don't get wrong, they've they've changed, you know, we look at the frozen and things, they have actually realized now, but the older ones, they're all about princesses who find themselves a prince.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

And it's like be a damsel in distress, and somebody was going to rescue you.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

They never educated us that we are the superheroes that are saving our school and like we are our own superhero, definitely. Um, and I think, yeah, the the next um my my grandkids' generation are definitely, you know, I mean, don't get me, my grandkids still love Disney. So and they've watched the you know, Rapunzel is her favourite. Although saying that though, at the minute, my five-year-old is obsessed with K pop Demon Hunters, and I've had to watch it of Easter about 30 times. So I'm now I know exactly the whole thing in my head. So um, you know, hopefully the next thing will come. But um so yes, thank you so much. I just want to ask, like, before we finish, how do people find you? Like, you know, where's the best place for them to contact you and stuff if if they're interested in um like getting to speak to you? Um and then I can put that into um on the description as well.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

Yep, uh anywhere on the internet, I'm everywhere. So there is my website, adinapetre.com, there is LinkedIn, Adina Petre, uh, Instagram, Facebook. I even have a TikTok. I don't really post that much on there anymore, but for my younger uh audiences, which I really like engaging with, there is a TikTok available. So whatever channel they want to reach out to me on, I'm I'm behind all of them, so they can directly reach out to me. Uh, if they want to send me an email, if they're really old school and they like writing letters, I welcome them. My email is very, very plain. It's mine, welcome at adinapetre.com. So I will send you all of these things, and I know I also owe you a picture for I will get them to you.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

Thank you so much for speaking to me. It's been honestly, it's been eye-opening, and I know it's gonna benefit a lot more people as well as just me. So thank you again for joining me, and I will speak to you soon.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Thank you as well, Tracy. I really appreciate your work. I I value it enormously, and I think we need more of that in the world. So thank you so much for doing it.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Thank you. Thank you for watching to the end. I really appreciate it. And it shows that you are serious about moving your business forward. I want to share something with you. When I was little, I watched my mum skip meals so my brother and I could eat because she didn't have enough money to feed us all. That pain changed everything. I promised myself I would never need to rely on anyone else financially. I worked relentlessly towards financial independence. Even as a young parent of 19, I still worked. And once I achieved financial independence, I became passionate that everyone deserves the same. But here's what I've discovered: successful business owners can feel financially trapped just in a different way. And that's why I created the Money Metrics Academy to help you understand your essential business numbers in under an hour a week. No jargon, no overwhelm, just the clarity you need for true financial independence. Why not join the free entry level membership and see how the community can help you? Let's get on stuck together.