DAMON CARR
I have noticed a trend in my business. I get tons of emails, phone calls and comments from people who say things like, “Damon, I know a lot of people who can use your help.” Damon, my mother, my father, my grandparents, my cousin, my friend, my coworker, or this person at my church can use your help.
Notice how several people are saying that somebody else can use my help—NEVER THEMSELVES! In the past, I would thank them for referring the person whom they believe needed my help and move on. Lately, I received phone calls, emails and comments from people seeking help for others and not themselves with so much repetition that it forced me to reflect on this matter. You know what—I became offended for the sake of my clients and myself. I thought to myself, what arrogance—these people think that they are above the advice that I give. They think that I’m not qualified to help them improve their financial situation. To add insult to injury, they think that my clients are either rejects or are simply terrible at managing their money. All of this is HOGWASH! As a result, I thought it was time to be adamantly clear as to whom I’m talking to!
If you’re reading this column—I’m talking to YOU! Not the person next to you, I’m talking to YOU! Yeah—YOU! I could care less about your current financial picture. I don’t care if you make $5- thousand or $5-million dollars per year, I’m talking to YOU!
When I say that Wall Street Journal did a study and they revealed that 70 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, I want YOU to understand YOU were not exempt from that statistic. When I say that the Department of Health and Human Services did a study and they say that 96 percent of people age 65 and older retire or die BROKE, that includes YOU!
Remember the swift or the strong will not win the race. The one who can endure to the end will win the race. You have a 96 percent probability that you will not endure to the end—unless, you’re ok with ending up BROKE in your golden years. You thought the various companies and government organizations were being nice to senior citizens by offering senior citizen discounts because it’s a nice thing to do. Nope! These organizations are offering senior citizens discounts because senior citizens are BROKE! Ask the elderly people you know, “what would they do differently if they could do it all over again?” Two answers will be common. They’ll wish they spent more time with family and friends and they’ll wish they had a better financial game plan.
If you believe that you’re exempt from the information contained in my column, consider this—Magic Johnson never thought he would get HIV. Christopher Reeves (Superman) thought he would leave us with a vision of him flying. I can’t shake the image of him in the wheelchair. The clients that I serve are not rejects. They are not people who woke up one day and decided I’m going to go deeply into to debt, not pay my bills and create a mess. My clients are no different from you. My clients are Managers, CEO’s, Doctors, Lawyers, Nurses, Teachers, Pastors, Administrative Assistants, and Professors. I also work with Janitors, Parking Attendants, Policemen, and everything in between. Most of my clients come to me struggling because LIFE happened without a warning and without a plan. They did not expect to lose their job. They did not expect their spouse to die. They did not expect to come down with a certain illness or disability. They did not expect to go through a divorce. They did not expect their business to fail.
I have one client who is a hard worker and makes good money—I mean GOOD MONEY. An unfortunate part of making a good living is that your family and friends seek you out to bail them out. Being the giving person that she is, she gave and she gave some more. She did not realize that every gift was a sacrifice to her own financial well being. She did not realize that in this case she was not helping with her monetary donations. She was in fact enabling her family and friends to continue their bad behavior. Life happened to my client. She was involved in two car accidents within 3-months. One of which was near fatal. In between the two car accidents, she lost a parent whom she was extremely close with. Her world came tumbling down. The people whom she thought she was helping but in fact was enabling were unable to come to her rescue. Being that she gave without a proper financial foundation to give from, she had no contingency plans in place to bail her out. I’m happy to report, she’s back on her feet and she is seeing incremental progress.
As Zig Zigler says, “Success is not measured by what you do in comparison to someone else. Success is measured by what you do in comparison to what you have the potential to do.” No body plans to fail, they just fail to plan. Do you have a plan in place for when LIFE happens to you? I did not say if. I said WHEN. Money magazine reports that every family will experience a major financial set back within any 10-year period. Jim Rohn says that you are either in a crisis, walking away from a crisis or walking toward a crisis. A solid financial plan will turn your crisis into an inconvenience.
If things are going well for you financially, GREAT!! Is there room for improvement? As Benjamin Franklin says “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Historians don’t record history until after you’ve finished your work. I think the real litmus test for how well you’ve managed your money is measured when you’ll finished your work on earth, or when you’ve retired. What will your legacy be—financially speaking? The scripture says that a wise man/woman will leave an inheritance to his children’s children.
(Mortgage and Money Coach Damon Carr is the owner of ACE Financial. Damon can be reached at 412-856-1183.)