“Money is neither positive nor negative, it is what I make of it,” says Josefine Deml. The 48-year-old thinks it is so important to talk about money that she would like to expand her artist agency “Oberwasser” to include money coaching as a mainstay. “It is important to me to coach women so that they don’t neglect their own needs,” says Deml. Of course, men are also allowed to contact Deml. But it is women in particular who are often less confident when it comes to money. “I want to make it clear to them that the stock market is not complicated and that it is not enough for the man to take care of the finances,” says Deml. That is why she will be offering money coaching in Ebersberg from autumn onwards.
The idea of rebuilding her agency came to the mother of a ten-year-old son in the past few months. “I’ve noticed that in my environment – including the artists – it quickly crunches when it comes to money.” According to Deml, many were tormented so much with the issue of money and wondered how it could be easier. She, in turn, is interested in the topic, she wanted to learn more about it. In Corona summer 2020, the agency owner then had time to take part in money coaching herself. After all, she wanted to pass on her valuable knowledge of how she was dealing with and relating to money, as well as her own beliefs about money. And so the idea for a realignment of their agency was born. “Now I don’t just want to convey artists and cabaret artists, but above all enthusiasm. Because I think people can really use that now,” says Deml.
Casually dressed in jeans and a sweater, the owner of the “Oberwasser” agency welcomes you to her home – her new, old domicile. Here she grew up. But at the age of 30 she went to Munich because it was getting too tight in her home town of Ebersberg. When Deml’s son wanted nothing more than to move to the countryside to Ebersberg a few years ago, it made Deml and her husband think. Even before the pandemic began, the decision was made to move into Deml’s parents’ house on the slope behind the Klostersee. The time had come three weeks ago.
The fact that the first construction phase coincided with the time when Deml himself was being coached on money matters made a lot of things easier. “We already had one or two difficulties with the renovation.” The architect has changed and of course you have to think about the financing. But in the end she, her husband and her son moved in exactly on the desired date. Deml is certain that her positive attitude towards money and the decision to use high-quality products and professional craftsmen made the renovation work a success.
This is exactly the philosophy she would like to pass on to her clients. “If someone says from the start, ‘It is clear that this will happen to me again’ or ‘Money spoils the character’, then they are wrong beliefs,” says Deml. Rather, she sees money as an appreciation. “The more I pay someone, the more I value them.” That is also the reason why she never tries to bounce tradespeople or other service providers. In addition, she is convinced that the relationship to money has its origins in one’s own childhood.
Deml has many good things to say about her childhood. Long before her time, in 1921, her grandfather bought the farm on Klostersee. He once grew tobacco around the former farm, after all, lemonade was produced on the farm. When Deml was a girl, the house even served as accommodation for students at the Goethe Institute at times. Deml describes her parents as very generous. The father even gave away a beautiful, old farmer’s cupboard once. As a child she was speechless.
In addition to generosity, she learned from an early age to look after herself and to take care of herself. She is sure that this positive attitude towards money will bear fruit at some point in life. “If you deal with it, you can have a lot of success.”
Exactly a hundred years after her grandfather bought the farm in which she now lives, Deml has another vision of the future for her parents’ house, which is gradually taking shape. The middle part of the courtyard is to be converted into a coworking space. The aim is for around three people to work in the bright rooms and offer each other exchange and support. “I myself worked for a long time with other self-employed people in a coworking space and really enjoyed it,” says Deml. “I particularly liked the fact that we often had lunch together.” This is how she imagines it in Ebersberg and doesn’t rule out one or two meals at her own dining table.
While Deml’s agenda is now to coach women, but of course also men, in the area of money, the bustling 48-year-old already has another vision. “I would love to be a mentor for middle school students whom I could, for example, support in the application process.” Like her clients, she would tell them: Try yourself and believe in yourself. “Because in the end, money is nothing more and nothing less than what you make of it.”