Agatha’s Story

I was born in Poland and my family immigrated to the USA as refugees when I was 3 years old. They moved the family to New Jersey in hopes of a better life for themselves and me.

Money was tight when I was growing up.

It was a huge source of stress in my household and I was very aware of that, even at a young age. As a kid I attached a lot of my self worth and happiness to the amount of money my family had, and I frequently felt stupid and worthless because we were not rich.

The pinnacle of my self loathing came when I was 13 and developed a hormonal sweat problem under my armpits. I would sweat through my shirts all the time, even though I wore 2 layers of deodorant. I was way too embarrassed to seek help from anyone and I thought having this problem made me a disgusting person.

So I came up with my very own solution… I duct taped my armpits shut.

Yes, you read correctly: I regularly duct taped my armpits shut when I was 13.

This created a barrier between the sweat and my shirt so I did not get sweat marks on my clothes. It was horribly painful to rip the tape off every night and I had to work very hard to constantly hide it from people. So, there I was at 13, looking totally put together on the outside but on the inside I was just Sweaty Armpit Duct Tape Girl, alone and ashamed with badly irritated armpits.

I was too scared and insecure to reveal my true self or vulnerability to anyone. As a result, I felt alone and miserable. I assumed all these feelings would go away as I got older so for a long time I ignored them…

I went to college and I received my BBA in Accounting from Virginia’s James Madison University. After college, I relocated to Los Angeles and began my career in Public Accounting at Deloitte & Touche, one of the Big Four public firms. It only took one year in corporate America for me to realize I was really an entrepreneur at heart, so I left Deloitte and launched Agatha K, LLC. That was over seven years ago and today we have grown to service a strong client base coast to coast.

Even though I had become a budding entrepreneur, on the inside I remained Sweaty Armpit Duct Tape Girl. I still felt lonely, miserable, and worthless until I decided to make my life better.

Throughout my 20s I was broke and in a lot of debt and allowed that, among other things, to dictate my value in the world.

One day I got so fed up with being broke and sad all the time, so I decided to go out into the world and do my life the way that I wanted. Once I did that everything started to fall into place, with both my money and my happiness, and then I was able to better my life even further and have more freedom to do the things I really wanted.

People often wonder why I do what I do; meeting me and thinking I do not come off like your “typical” Accountant. Although I may not come across like your usual bean counter, I bring a huge amount of passion, expertise, and knowledge to my work. My life story and experiences have shaped what has become my mission in life, which is to help people get a handle on their finances so they can focus on bettering their lives.

I also realized along the way that the cliché is true: Money does not buy you happiness… Only you can create true happiness in your life.

And now I teach others to do the same. To get in a loving relationship with their money so they can have the freedom to shift their attention to helping themselves, others, and our planet.

My philosophy is that if you track your money, you have power over it. This, in turn, helps you have power over your entire life.

And that is my number one goal in the world – to give people the power, knowledge, and strength to finally take charge of their money and themselves.