I grew up in the mountains of Northern California in a family of entrepreneurs.  My grandfather owned a business, my aunt owned a business, and my parents owned a business.  Growing up, I never really knew the stability of a stable income.  I think that is an important part of my story because most people don’t have the stomach for self-employment, and they don’t have the self-motivation required.  But that is all I have ever known.  I was born for adventure. 

So after graduating from the university,  just like in every fairy tale I love, I went off to seek my fortune. I moved to Germany.  While I was there, through the magic of the internet, I learned the secrets of the stock market from my father, and worked with him for the next 15 years as an equities analyst and trading coach. During that time, I also worked as a freelance financial journalist, ghost writing and writing under my own name for well-known financial sites such as TheStreet.com, Yahoo Finance, and Minyanville. 

But what I discovered, was that I enjoyed teaching people how to trade far more than I enjoyed telling them what to do with their money.  In fact, it is quite exhausting dealing with the fear and greed that grips most investors, and their desperation to find the next big trade. People who work in the stock market  have two choices: they can either grow callous like used car salesmen, steering clients towards the risky opportunities they crave, while making themselves seem indispensible with complex explanations and an abundance of vague technical indicators; or they can be honest and tell clients to wait patiently for a predictable setup, nudging them towards modest, conservative gains and close stops, in which case they will invariably go off on their own chasing shiny risky pennies, until they blow their stops and message you one day confessing that they have lost everything they had.  Forgive me if I sound cynical, but I have experienced it more times than I can count. 

So one day, someone asked me if I would teach English to some upper level managers at the H&M European headquarters.  They really just wanted to practice conversation, and I seemed like someone who would not be too intimidated by them.  English?? I balked.  But eventually I relented. I had mornings free anyway since the NY stock exchange doesn’t open until the afternoon in Germany.  Soon, this opportunity to speak with real people, face-to-face rather than through a computer, became the highlight of my week. I could get out of my pajamas before noon, get dressed up, and no one was pushing me to find them trades in an unpredictable market.  It was great. 

So began my English teaching career.  I waded through stiff German bureaucracy to learn how to start an educational company, and how to navigate the German accounting and tax systems for the self-employed. Word-of-mouth referrals grew. I hustled to find clients. I developed my own curriculum. And after a few years of hard work, I had four teachers working for me, teaching in companies, law firms, kindergartens, and schools.  At the same time, I taught Business Communication at a German university, and led cultural competency workshops for multinational companies. But my story doesn’t end there. As you might recall, I am an adventurer. 

Around 2015, my daughter became obsessed with K-Pop – particularly BTS. That became our joint hobby, and we badly needed something in common during those teenage years.  We went to see BTS in Berlin and London, and in 2018 we traveled to South Korea.  I fell in love with the culture, the food, the people, the appreciation for detail and beauty, and a feeling of freedom and adventure. I told my daughter she should spend a year studying in Korea. But really, it was me who wanted to go. So much to the amazed bewilderment of everyone who knew me, at a relatively late age, I dropped everything to become a teacher in Korea. 

Here, I have found like-minded adventurers and entrepreneurs, hiking enthusiasts, kindred spirits, and love.  And it occured to me  that after gathering so many different experiences, knowledge, and skills,  surely this could be useful to someone else out there.  So here I am, sharing with you.

In this space, I would like to share what I have learned about the stock market, starting a business in Germany, freelancing, business communication, productivity, preparing for retirement, taking chances, and following your passion.   If there is anything I can do for you, just let me know.  

Love, 

Shawn Marie Wolff