DECODING WEALTH Your First Investment: Paying Attention

YOUR FIRST INVESTMENT: PAYING ATTENTION

Growing up, investments were not a common language at the dinner table, over holidays or a family gatherings. When I went off to college and even into adulthood, I started to be exposed to more folks talking about finances, financial advisement, investors, stocks + bonds, IRAs, 401Ks and retirement. It used to make my head spin. Nowadays, thankfully, there is more common language and resource sharing happening around building generational wealth that I think over the few decades, we will reach new levels of wealth by more people than we've ever seen before. However painful, my lack of awareness brought to my attention how few of us grew up with financial education. It wasn't taught in primary, middle or high school, unless you had a chapter of Junior Achievement, and not in college unless you were a Finance major. I have made many bad decisions when it comes to money, but as I fumble forward I commit to teach what I know to my siblings, my community and find ways to teach it to the little humans so they have a head start much sooner. Today, in addition to all the other things I'm up to (doing the MOST), I am a licensed insurance broker which I plan to use actively as I

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keep my commitment to go back and learn what I didn't get and share it widely. My late father, who had no life insurance, nothing saved and had only just been barely surviving on the money he had, taught me one of the greatest lessons of my life. He was buried only through the generosity and donations of churches, relatives and friends. That's right - we had to raise the money to bury my father. On top of the other aspects of grief I was already facing, that added a whole other layer...and it woke up something that had been dormant inside of me. This is around the first time that I realized the first great act in investing wasn't stocks or bonds. It was about paying attention. What had he been paying attention to? What keeps us so occupied that we do not take the time to make proper arrangements for our death? Why is having car insurance more common than having life insurance? What do we miss out on in our lives simply because we weren't paying attention? There is much more I could say about all I have learned through my life insurance licensing process and the continuing education, but what is more important is for me to ring the bell for your wake up call. There will come a day when you are physically no longer here. Like change, death is a guarantee for all of us. What legacy will you leave behind for your family? The planet? How are you working toward that this very moment? As uncomfortable as it may be to face our mortality, the sooner we do the better we can prepare those who will carry on the family name, our work or our vision after us. First, we must call back our energy from distractions and make the best investment of our lives. I am so grateful to my father for this lesson I'll never forget. Pay attention.