Picture Your Prosperity: Smart Money Moves to Turn Your Vision into Reality - Hardcover

Rogin, Ellen; Kueng, Lisa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1591847397 ISBN 13: 9781591847397

Publisher: Portfolio, 2015

Synopsis

Everyone has a unique vision of a prosperous and secure future. What’s yours?

If someone asked you to describe prosperity and security, what would you see in your mind’s eye? Is it finally taking that trip to Paris? A beautiful beach house? Or maybe making that last mortgage payment and staying right where you are? In your vision are you captaining a sailboat? Hiking through a redwood forest? Or simply enjoying a precious moment of peace and contentment?

When it comes to financial planning, it’s easy to jump right into the minutiae of investments, skipping over the deeper questions of what you really want from your money, both now and in the future. But in Picture Your Prosperity, Ellen Rogin and Lisa Kueng do the opposite. First they’ll help you figure out exactly what you need and want. Only then will they show you how to make the smart money decisions that can help turn your vision into reality.

If the thought of financial planning and investing sounds about as appealing as a trip to the dentist, you’re not alone. Many of us avoid the process because it feels too stressful, boring, or difficult. But as Ellen and Lisa have learned from their years in financial services, thinking about money becomes exciting and fun when it’s tied to your personal vision instead of a pile of technical details. And it can be easier than you think.

Once your goal is clear, the authors show you how to design your investments to create the life you’ve envisioned. Soon you’ll feel more in control of your finances and on the road to the things that matter most. You’ll be able to create a plan that’s broken down into manageable and, dare we say it, enjoyable steps. You’ll learn how to handle your money with more joy and less stress, even during turbulent times. And you’ll explore ways your financial moves can have a huge positive impact on other people.

As Rogin and Kueng write, “Your money is important, but money is meaningless if it can’t be connected to the rest of your life. Who cares what the totals on your balance sheet or in your bank account are if you can’t use them to build the kind of future you want? What good is having a brilliant investment strategy if you worry incessantly about losing it, constantly fight with your partner about money, or come home and kick your dog on days the market drops? What if instead you felt positive, peaceful, and prosperous?

Get ready to feel more excited than ever about your money, and about all the good things it can bring.

About this title

About the Author

ELLEN ROGIN, CPA and CFP®, has more than twenty years of experience as a financial adviser and is a nationally known expert on building wealth. She speaks to audiences around the country on creating success and abundance.

LISA KUENG is an executive director at Invesco Consulting and a fifteen-year financial services veteran. She is also a national speaker and developer of educational programs for investors and financial professionals.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES

The information contained in this book should not be construed as personalized investment advice, and should not be considered as a solicitation to buy or sell any security or engage in a particular investment strategy.

The opinions expressed in this book are those of the authors only and there is no guarantee that the views and opinions expressed in this book will succeed. No investment or financial planning strategy can assure success or protect against loss in declining markets. The strategies and concepts articulated in this book are for educational and illustrative purposes only and are not intended to provide financial, legal, or tax advice. Individuals are encouraged to seek professional guidance concerning their own unique situation.

The stories shared within this book are based on real situations. However, the names have been changed to protect the individuals’ identity and the facts may have been altered to better demonstrate the particular message being conveyed.

Introduction

What does prosperity mean to you? Close your eyes for a moment and think about what comes to mind.

We’ve conducted hundreds of Prosperity Picture workshops across the country based on the ideas in this book, and that’s always the first question we ask of our participants. It’s a fascinating one because it results in a full spectrum of answers. Some people immediately say that, to them, prosperity means security or peace. Some say it means having time to do the things they find most rewarding. Some associate it with having money or being able to buy whatever they want. And some connect it with something very specific and seemingly unrelated, like “the ocean.”

Merriam-Webster defines prosperity as “the condition of being successful or thriving; especially: economic well-being.” So it’s a word that refers to money, but it also refers to the rest of life. And it’s true. The answers we hear when we ask, “What does prosperity mean to you?” fall into both of those categories—some are about money and some are about life. We love that! Your money is important, of course, but let’s face it: money is meaningless if it can’t be connected to the rest of your life. Who cares what the totals on your balance sheet or in your bank account are if you can’t use them to build the kind of life you want? What good is having a brilliant investment strategy if you worry incessantly about losing it, constantly fight with your partner about money, or come home and kick your dog on days the market drops?

What if instead you felt positive, peaceful, and prosperous?

Most people see the logic in the fact that our money and our lives are inextricably linked, but ironically that doesn’t necessarily lead them to think about their money as the exciting, potentially life-changing tool that it is. More often than not, we see people who think of their money as being contained in a silo—relegated to a special area they see as a necessary but separate part of life. They view their money silo in a variety of ways—sometimes it’s a source of pain because there’s not enough in it and sometimes it’s a source of pain because there’s too much in it. Some people are afraid of losing it, some can’t wait to spend it all, and so on and so forth. Regardless of the specifics, most people tend to view their silo as something needing to be managed, but which is not intuitively linked with the rest of their life.

But what if we look at money differently? Not as a project that needs to be managed or an obstacle that needs to be overcome—and certainly not just a means to help us “get more stuff” or add to a collection of belongings. Instead, what could happen if we all began to view money as an incredible tool? A way to help us get closer each and every day to living the most extraordinary lives we possibly can, and also a tool we can use to help other people do the exact same thing? We see awakening to this possibility as incredibly exciting and inspiring. And so we’ve written this book as a way to help you define your personal version of true prosperity and to share ideas and direction on smart money moves you can make to turn that vision into reality.

As you begin reading, it will probably be fairly clear this book was written with women in mind. However, in the same way that we hope men will read magazine articles on “How to Keep Your Relationship Steamy,” “How to Throw the Perfect Summer Soiree,” or even “Fourteen Days to a Perfectly Flat Stomach,” we hope they will read this too. Even though the concepts are gender-neutral and apply to everyone, we have targeted them for women. We did this because as we look around we see women everywhere stepping into their fiscal power. Globally, women direct $20 trillion of purchases. They control more than half of the wealth in the United States. Women are earning more bachelor’s and master’s degrees than men. They comprise more than half of the U.S. workforce. And as women ourselves who have made our careers in the financial services industry, we wanted to build on this momentum and create a book that we hope will uniquely inspire women to create their own personal prosperity, use their money as a force for good in the world, and change the face of finances. This is our picture of true prosperity.

One of the first steps in this “Kumbaya” vision of women working to make the world better is to be a rock star in managing your own personal finances. You can’t have a flourishing garden without first preparing your own soil and planting good seeds. We’ll give you ideas on how to put clarity, meaning, and oomph into creating the life you want and the money moves you can make to help you get there. We have a warning, though: if you’re looking for an exhaustive reference guide to money management, you’ve picked up the wrong book. Deep analysis obviously has an important place in financial planning, but we think it’s best left for the number crunchers and “money geeks” of the world. In the same way you could improve your cholesterol levels without reading fifty pages about organic molecules and lipids, we believe there’s a way to take control of your money without its having to be a snooze-fest that puts you to sleep even after your third cup of coffee. And while we’re on the subject, we also believe it’s possible for you to motivate yourself to improve your financial life without having to feel guilty you haven’t done a better job of it in the past, ashamed about your saving habits, or worried you’re a bad person because you spent money on a vacation last month. Your financial resources are the fuel to set your life in motion and we aim to show you how to make those resources sustainable and renewable—and to have a good time while you’re doing it.

We won’t be telling you how to outsmart the market or get rich quick by trading stocks out of your garage. This book contains no “hot stock tips.” Please don’t misunderstand; we’ve included lots of practical information on the building blocks you’ll need to have a successful financial life and create your own prosperity. We provide you with detailed guidelines on how to create spending and savings plans that are right for you, how to make sure you have the proper insurance and estate plan intact, how to make sense of investing options and risk, and much more. If you read and put the basic precepts of this book to work for yourself, you will have done something that most people never do.

We’ve included all of this, and we’ve focused on what we believe are the most important points for you to know. The fact is, we don’t think that advice on outsmarting the market or hot stock tips are particularly important for most people. And though they must be out there somewhere, we can’t think of even one person we know who actually got rich trading stocks out of their garage. Comprehensive reference and technical books certainly serve an important purpose, but even we find them boring, so here we’ve cherry-picked the essentials for you.

This book is a canvas for you to create your personal picture of prosperity. It’s a tool kit full of ideas you can use to bring your picture to life. It’s a motivator to get out there and actually use those tools. It’s a string around your finger to remind you of what you can be happy about. It’s a stress ball you can pull out at those times when the thought of money brings nothing but anxiety. And you might even find it to be a kaleidoscope that can open up new ways of looking at what money and prosperity can mean in your life and in the world.

Tamara Chaponot is a wonderful example of someone who turned her vision of prosperity into reality. Tamara is a warm, vibrant, successful fashion retailer living in New York. She comes across in such a self-assured manner it’s tempting to assume life as a fashionista has been easy for her. But that assumption, as is so often the case, is wrong. Tamara was born in the 1970s with a birth defect affecting her leg, and faced a serious risk as a child that she might never be able to walk. She underwent thirteen surgeries between the ages of two and eighteen, each of which required a hospital stay of about three months. That’s a total of more than three years that she spent in the hospital. This kind of adversity, combined with the uncertainty of the outcome, might be enough to topple the spirit of most adults—never mind a child—but Tamara isn’t most people!

During her hospital stays, Tamara began to “picture” things as a way of keeping her spirits up. One of the things she craved most was to be just like other kids and to feel “normal,” so she pictured herself wearing stylish clothing instead of a hospital gown. She pictured herself looking “cool.” She pictured her leg and the orthopedic shoes she had to wear covered up with circa 1975 bell-bottom jeans. As she continued to do this, fashion became more and more of a lifeline to her, and when she was able to return home between surgeries, she began plastering her bedroom walls with photos of beautiful clothing and models on fashion shoots that she snipped from magazines.

When she was around twelve years old, Tamara pushed her vision further and realized that when she was older she might be able to parlay her love of fashion into a business. She began to picture herself owning her own boutique, surrounded by the clothing she loved so much and earning enough money to make a nice life for herself. It was around that time her doctor at Shriners Hospital for Children in Chicago asked her to begin picturing something else as well. He asked Tamara to spend some time each day visualizing the healthy cells in her leg destroying the diseased cells. He compared the process to the game Pac-Man: “Picture the healthy cells munching away the sick cells, just like when you play Pac-Man,” he told her. And so she began to picture this as well.

Over the next few years, Tamara’s health began to improve. Whatever combination of surgery, ongoing medical care, and Pac-Man-style visualization was going on, something was working—Tamara was able to make a full recovery! There she was at age eighteen with her health restored, her bedroom walls covered with pictures of fashionable clothing, and her vision of a successful retail business firmly rooted in her mind. As you might guess, Tamara isn’t the sort of person who lets a lot of grass grow under her feet. So she immediately got a series of jobs working in Chicago clothing boutiques as she started researching the fashion industry, reading books about how to run a successful business, and eventually writing a business plan. At age twenty-five she opened Clever Alice on Clark Street in Chicago, a shop targeting stylish twentysomethings who wanted unusual pieces and European flair at prices they could afford. In short order, musician Liz Phair became a Clever Alice client, Lucky magazine wrote a story about the shop, and Tamara began getting media attention as one of Chicago’s youngest shop owners.

Several years later, after Tamara’s business had been well established and she was enjoying life as an upwardly mobile young urbanite, she began to feel that something was missing. She didn’t, on a conscious level, want to get married or have kids, primarily because she was afraid she might pass along a genetic predisposition to a birth defect to her children. But something was nagging at her, making her unhappy. So she asked herself, “Well, then, what does happiness look like?” Once again, she began picturing things. This time, instead of mink coats and mohair sweaters, her picture was of a man—a tall man—and . . . two kids! She wasn’t even quite sure what the picture meant to her. But very shortly thereafter, when she was in the enviable position of having to fly home from a prêt-à-porter show in Paris, she noticed a French businessman staring across the plane aisle at her. As she caught his eye, he announced he was certain he knew her. It turned out he had been at the same show as she had, and the rest, as they say, is history. A year later the two were married at Chicago’s city hall. Tamara eventually learned her birth defect was not genetic, so she didn’t need to worry about passing it along to her own children. Today Tamara and her husband have two beautiful children and divide their time between New York and Paris. Tamara has evolved Clever Alice from a brick-and-mortar shop in Chicago to a series of retail pop-ups in Chicago and New York. She has an almost constant ear-to-ear smile on her face and, true to her childhood vision, she always looks “cool”!

How did this amazing series of events happen? If you ask Tamara, she’ll say visualization has played a major role in getting her to the point in life she’s at now. Can she prove her success was directly caused by those hours she spent in hospital beds picturing becoming a successful fashion retailer and willing the healthy cells in her leg to eat up the unhealthy ones, or picturing herself marrying her international-man-of-mystery husband and having children? Nope. Does she believe it was? Absolutely. And is there scientific support for the fact that her visualization could have contributed to the probability that these things would happen? Yes, there is—we’ll tell you all about it in Chapter One.

In Tamara’s story, it wasn’t just visualization that made an impact. She thinks gratitude has also played a major role in her success. During her stays at the children’s hospital, she observed lots of really difficult things: children with terminal cancer, kids who had been badly burned in horrible accidents, others battling serious physical disabilities with no chance of recovery. And even as a child she understood that her situation, though very difficult, could have been a lot worse. As a result, Tamara developed a practice of gratitude she continues to maintain. She regularly thinks through all she’s thankful for, writes gratitude lists, and focuses on what’s good in her life. We’ll explore the amazing effects gratitude can have on our money and on our lives in this book.

Tamara is also a believer in giving. When Clever Alice had a brick-and-mortar presence and an ongoing inventory, she was regularly approached to donate items for silent auctions and other charitable initiatives and made it a po...

Edition details

• Publisher: Portfolio
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1591847397
• ISBN 13: 9781591847397
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288