By Matt Berkley
Vanessa Summers is a woman who hasn’t done it all yet—the key word being “yet.” Still only in her early 30s, Summers has crossed the globe and taken on a variety of careers. As a teenager, she was a top-ranked United States Tennis Association player in Florida, facing the likes of Jennifer Capriati and Mary Jo Fernandez.
By 17, she was working as a fashion model out of New York. That was only the beginning. As the daughter of a stockbroker in Clayton, Summers, then only 23, felt confident enough to play her hand in the market when offered the chance to trade at a firm in Hong Kong. After returning home, she started a career in sales and marketing. Since then, she has created the Sutra Foundation, a nonprofit group that educates and inspires clients to increase their income and seek financial wealth.
Her financing insight has landed her guest appearances on shows such as CNBC’s Street Signs, along with spots on CNN and MSNBC. She is the author of Get In The Game! The Girls’ Guide to Money & Investing and Buying Solo: The Single Woman’s Guide to Buying a First Home, which will be released in March.
She is traveling from Los Angeles to St. Louis in April for a seminar on “Wealth and Success,” in which she will share her secrets to achieving financial and personal success. For more information, go to www.vanessasummers.com.
How has your perspective on personal finances changed over the years? Early in my life I had three different careers on three different continents. I was financially reckless. It wasn’t until I learned about the poor financial condition of older women who had been shortchanging themselves that my mind changed.
How was the transition from fashion model to international stockbroker? That time served as my college years, trading millions of dollars a day. Taking that risk and moving to Hong Kong gave me the chance to see what my prospects were. It’s something that lets you have the wisdom to see where you can ultimately arrive.
Of which of your achievements are you most proud? It’s incredibly rewarding to help people achieve their goals. Through my work I’ve seen people who have been thrilled by shifts I helped them make that changed their lives.
What do you see as the biggest factors that hinder people financially? The biggest obstacle people have is not stepping out of their comfort zone. A lot of people choose to live in fear and stress about their paychecks rather than take a chance investing in themselves and their futures.
What’s one of the biggest messages you try to get out to your clients? Creating financial freedom is available now more than ever. My message is that money is being printed every day. There is no lack of possibility for earning more money, but if you don’t make any changes then you have to be prepared for the same results. In the past, people would work for the same guy for 40 years and live from that one paycheck. I try to get across that you can’t rely on a 401K. You have to be proactive and create multiple streams of revenues.
What topics will the St. Louis seminar cover? The goal is to develop a mindset that is wealthy and successful. We teach people to be effective and not just efficient with their money. We have a series of active exercises that give people the tools to set specific goals and get results. We’ve shown that you can get results with very little money up front. In the end, people at the seminar walk away with new financial goals, more confidence and a whole new breadth of possibility for a better quality of life.
