Exploring Life & Business with Savannah Rodriguez of e3 Wealth Nashville

Today we’d like to introduce you to Savannah Rodriguez.

Hi Savannah, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Hi, I’m Savannah! I am a business owner here in Nashville.

Before going into business for myself, I spent about 13 years working in the non-profit sector, specifically in animal welfare. I began in my hometown of Austin, TX after dropping out of college, where I was majoring in photojournalism. 

First, I worked with a large local rescue group and then went on to run high volume, city funded spay/neuter clinics as well as low-cost veterinary service clinics for the underserved in the local community. 

I moved to Washington, D.C., developed professionally by becoming Director in the local shelter’s community medicine program. While happy and accomplished in my career, my personal existence was in shambles, so I decided to burn my life down to the ground and started it all over again. I wound up here in Nashville, TN in 2018. Two years later, COVID-19 in alliance with a chronic work injury and major compassion fatigue forced me to make my personal health, happiness and biggest dreams a front and center priority for the first time in my life. It has been the best and one of the hardest things to ever happen to me. 

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As Clark W. Griswold once said, “Nothing worthwhile is ever easy, Ellen.” 

Wise, sage wisdom from a dumb, dumb man. Ever the recovering latch-key kid, it is no surprise that I chose a quote from a National Lampoon’s character to describe my story up until this point. What it really comes down to is that nothing astounding and valuable ever comes without a little sweat, and I have done some significant sweating.

The challenges in my life have everything to do with who I am today, and I am extremely proud of her. She really kicked ass to get here, and it was very rarely easy. As a child I often felt alone and isolated, my young, single, and doing her ever-loving best mother was constantly trying to balance earning her college (and then masters) degrees and working full-time to attempt and give our little family a better life financially while also raising a bouncing-off-the-walls, brilliant young girl. However, a strong woman only has so much energy to give and so often I was left to look after myself. We were also lucky enough to have the benefit of free childcare from her parents but spending the bulk of your time alone or with grandparents as a young child has its own challenges. This was compounded by the fact that my father has always done more harm than good in my upbringing. Much to my heartbreak, he has been and still is completely absent from my life. 

Finding adulthood from this foundation was a trial by fire kind of scenario, and yet, in countless ways I am forever grateful. I love who I am today. I firmly believe you can’t have the sun without the rain. The sun is shining so bright these days and all the storms were so very worth it.

 I have not always had an unapologetically (some may say obnoxiously) positive outlook on my life. Changing my mindset meant changing everything. I feel truly empowered by my inner being and my ability to achieve literally anything I want. 

Honestly, the biggest challenge over the past three years has been learning how to unabashedly love myself no matter what is being thrown at me and passionately believing that I deserve every delicious triumph and gift this globe has to offer.

Working out trauma from our past is no easy feat and it is certainly not linear, or everyone would be doing it. I feel extremely fortunate and proud be a generational trauma breaker just like my Ma. 

I keep pushing forward by remembering that I can construct my life exactly how I want it and it does not need to look like anyone else’s to be meaningful, precious, and perfect for me. Challenges are essential for forming you into who you become and for building character.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
My partner and I run two vastly different businesses out of our home in the Historic Jefferson Street Music District here in Nashville. 

About our wealth management office: 

e3 Wealth, our parent company, has $550+ million in assets under care providing a family office model to all clients regardless of their level of net worth. We specialize in a resource network where our client family has access to almost any service that deals with finances. e3 Wealth has clients across the country from all walks of life. 

My partner Andrew and I own and operate e3 Wealth Nashville, where we take a special focus on empowering women, LBGTQA+ and other marginalized and underserved members of our community to take charge of and gain a greater understanding of their finances, retirement, and investments. This is important to us because my partner and I both come from poor backgrounds, we see how lack of resources and understanding around financial concepts can create so much pain and stress in peoples lives and we want to empower those less fortunate to rise up and break out of their own generational patterns. 

Andrew has been a successful financial advisor for over a decade and had hoped for years that an opportunity to implement my “operations expertise and general awesome ability to make people feel special” (his words) into his business. A silver lining for us on the pandemic, we were given just that opportunity, more on that later. 

We also run a photography business together. I am a long-time photographer, and Andrew is a trained actor, musician, and performer, so this is a great outlet for us to be creative with our talents while creating additional income for our household. We have branded our company as a lifestyle photography project; we want to capture and tell photojournalistic style stories for people, preserving a moment in time, full of authentic action and their unique experiences. We named our company “Snowglobe Studios”. We affectionately refer to our home, which is wherever we are together, as The Snowglobe. 

In January of 2021, after I left my position in animal welfare, Andrew and I decided to take an extended, and what would turn into quite an enlightening road trip. During our journey there were many moments of clarity and bold ideas discussed. As we drove, winding up and down mountains and through deserts, we arrived at the mutual decision to go FULL TILT toward our professional dreams together. We decided we want it all and nothing is going to stop us. 

Here’s the thing: Being in a romantic partnership with someone who you find endlessly fascinating, talented and brilliant and someone who you have such a solid and closely knit connection to is amazing on its own. When that person also wants the same things that you want and, like you, will stop at nothing to achieve boundless joy and constantly matches your cosmic up leveling, the two of you become unstoppable. I feel everyday like we are increasingly unstoppable. All of the goodness in this world is made better by sharing it with this wonderful man I super accidently fell head-over-stupid-heels in love with. Who said business and pleasure don’t mix? We are calling that bluff.

What do you like and dislike about the city?
I love so much about Nashville. Moving here was like coming home. I had never visited until the day I officially moved, I rolled into town and started looking for a place to rent, I was charmed immediately. The city reminds me of Dolly Parton herself, shining, harmonious and so happy to see you. Even the crosswalk alerts downtown sound more sing-song-y than anywhere else. It is remarkably like Austin, my hometown. Both cities rich in music, culture, history, and natural wonders in the surrounding areas. It also seems to be a bit more of a relaxed place in such a conservative state, which Austin is also known for. The first week I moved here, I counted about twenty times that I was personally wished “Welcome to Nashville” by strangers. At that point in my life, I really needed to hear something warm, sweet and southern, over and over again. I was recovering from some serious disruption in my life and spirit. Nashville played an important role in my healing and rising. They say dreams come true in Nashville and I genuinely believe that in my deepest heart.

I wish we were more progressive as a city and a state – socially, economically, and more open minded. We have a beautiful community here and I would like to see it taken care of and loved better. We are doing great, and yet, have so much room for improvement. I have faith that we will see that progress grow. 

I feel so fortunate to have established safely in Nashville before the world changed, for us the big change in 2020 started before the pandemic shut everything down, it was when the April 2020 tornado hit our neighborhood. Little damage was done to our home, we were fortunate, many of our neighbors however lost everything they had. Families who have been in this beautiful, historic neighborhood since the 1920’s. Working in the non-profit sector for so long, I am familiar with working closely with good-hearted volunteers who only wish to help and ask nothing in return, I had thankfully never had the opportunity to be on the receiving end of volunteer work. Until now.

As power was restored to our neighborhood and we returned home from the hotel we had been staying at for over a week, I walked into our gorgeous backyard, where I sorrowfully expected to still see our enormous, 100-year-old, tree still laying across our lawn. Knocked down by the powerful winds of the tornado, it only very narrowly missed our house. It was not there, it had been cut up and hauled away by kind, generous volunteers. We did not have to do a thing to clean up the hellacious mess on our property caused by the devastating f3 tornado. We never got to express our gratitude for that generous act, so if you’re reading this and you helped during the tornado cleanup of Spring 2020 THANK YOU. 

In Andrew’s arms, I cried in our backyard, floored by the kindness of these people who are truly embraced the spirit of “The Volunteer State.” I said how thankful I was to live in a place that might not be ideal politically and yet, is chock full of golden hearted humans trying every day to make the world a more fair and loving place to live. Nashville has given me a restored faith in people and for someone like me, that is no small feat.

 

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Email: [email protected]
• Website: http://www.e3wealthnashville.com/
• Website: www.Snowglobeshoots.com
• Instagram: scarlettsavannah
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/e3wealthNashville

Image Credits
Myself and my partner – Andrew Long