Book Review ·- Part One
The money was never just about money
What I’m learning from The Money Is Coming by Sarah Akwisombe — and what it’s making me see about myself
I picked up this book expecting money lessons. What I got instead was a mirror. And I’m not entirely sure I was ready for what I saw in it — but I couldn’t look away.
This is not a review written from a comfortable distance. I’m reading this book in real time, underlining things that sting, and sharing the lessons as they land — not after I’ve made sense of them, but in the middle of making sense of them. That’s the only way I know how to write things that are actually useful to you.
So here is part one. Five lessons. Five moments where the book cracked something open.
Lesson 01
Done is better than perfect. Always.
Sarah Akwisombe doesn’t waste time on this one. She says it plainly: stop waiting for the idea to be perfect. The moment you have it, run with it. Course-correct as you go.
I’ve seen this in my own life more times than I want to count — the idea that’s been sitting in a notes app for two years because the branding isn’t right yet. The project that never launched because the timing wasn’t perfect. The version of yourself you’re waiting to become before you start.
An idea implemented is better than an idea you’re trying to perfect for the next 30 years.
My reflection
The perfection loop is a very elegant form of self-sabotage. It lets you feel like you’re working without ever exposing yourself to the risk of being seen. I know this loop intimately. And reading this felt like being called out — gently, but clearly.
Lesson 02
You didn’t choose your money beliefs. They were chosen for you.
This is the chapter that hit deepest. Sarah talks about how we are programmed about money from childhood — by our parents, our culture, our environment, the media we consumed, the conversations we overheard. None of it was a conscious choice. All of it became our operating system.
My reflection
When I read this, I thought of my father. He was the breadwinner. Money was his domain, his responsibility, his language. I watched from the edges and learned: money belongs to men.
And then I thought of my mother after my father got sick — sitting in the living room at night, counting note after note before market day, whispering about how expensive everything had become. I didn’t realize I was absorbing that scene. I thought I was just a child watching. But that image lived in my body for years. It’s why, when I started earning, I was obsessed with saving but terrified to spend. I had learned survival, not abundance. I had learned to hold on, not to build.
The media did the rest. Every film I watched as a child delivered the same message: money corrupts. Rich men neglect their families until a crisis teaches them what really matters. Rich women are unhappy until they leave it all behind for love. Money is not happiness. And so, I learned to perform not caring — because caring felt dangerous.
We absorb so much without ever being asked if we agree.
Lesson 03
Stop shitting on your own dreams.
Sarah describes a version of herself who privately dreamed of being a powerful woman — Chanel bag, impeccable style, the full picture. And then describes herself publicly dismissing every single part of that dream whenever it came up in conversation. Why would anyone spend that much on a bag? Ridiculous. Who needs that?
Except she needed it. She wanted it. She just didn’t have the permission to say so.
Every time she opened her mouth, it was to say something in opposition to what she truly wanted.
My reflection
I caught myself doing this recently. I was watching a YouTuber celebrate her birthday — walking through New York, choosing the plates for her dinner party, hiring a private chef. And before I even realized it, I heard myself thinking: with everything happening in the world, is this what you’re focused on?
And then I remembered: I wrote that exact scenario in my ideal life journal. Hiring a chef for a dinner party. That is something I want. And here I was, watching someone live it, and using the state of the world as a reason to feel superior about not having it yet.
We do not shame what we are indifferent to. We only shame what we secretly want and haven’t given ourselves permission to have.
Lesson 04
The judgment you carry will become the cage you live in.
In a session with her coach, Sarah unpacks all the contradictions in her money mindset. She wants wealth. She also thinks wealthy people are greedy. She wants abundance. She also judges people who spend freely on what brings them joy.
The coach asks: do you know any wealthy person doing good in the world? And it cracks something open. Because you can’t call for something you simultaneously condemn.
My reflection
When Notre Dame caught fire and 500 million euros were raised almost immediately, she remembered the outrage. All this money for a building, when people are suffering. I felt it too — that hot, righteous anger.
But Sarah makes a point that I’ve been sitting with ever since: wealthy people spend their money where it is meaningful to them. Just like you wouldn’t want someone telling you how to allocate what you’ve earned, you cannot demand that same right from others and then deny it to them.
And the deeper wound, for me: when my father got sick, I thought everyone he had helped owed me something. I was watching people spend money on trips and celebrations while I was trying to find funding for my studies abroad. I was bitter. I thought: how can they not help? They have the money. They should.
That belief — that people with money are obligated to give it where you decide it’s needed — followed me. It became guilt. Once I had any financial comfort of my own, I felt I had no right to spend freely when someone was asking me for help. I had judged the wealthy for their choices. And then I became the person being judged for mine.
The contradiction doesn’t disappear when you get the money. It just changes shape.
Lesson 05
What people do with their money is none of your business.
This is the simplest lesson and perhaps the most liberating one. Rich people can do whatever they want with their money. Renovate a cathedral. Buy a bag. Hire a chef. Choose not to give to the cause you think they should. None of it is yours to manage.
My reflection
This one still sits uncomfortably with me — which tells me it’s still doing work. There’s a part of me that wants to hold on to the belief that having more comes with moral obligations I get to define for others. But that belief has kept me resentful, guilty, and stuck in loops that never helped anyone — least of all me.
What this lesson is really asking is: can you let go of managing other people’s money so you can focus on building your own relationship with it? Can you free them, so you can free yourself?
This is only the beginning of the book. And already, I can see how much of what I believed about money was never really mine to begin with. I inherited it. Absorbed it. Performed it. And called it my personality.
Part two is coming. Keep reading with me.
The Money Is Coming · Sarah Akwisombe
Salima
Just me thinking out loud over here