Metanoia Financial

My girlfriend and I just watched Million Dollar Baby.  Although it was probably the 5^th time I’ve seen the movie, it was cool to see her reactions to some of the great lines and themes in the movie.  I think the quote that really impacted her was, “If there’s magic in boxing, it’s the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It’s the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you.”

I love the idea of risking everything for a dream.  I’ve started to do this with my career and it has made all the difference in the world.  I no longer think of a job or work, but rather I realize that I’m chasing a dream and a calling.  I believe God has a calling on my life and is teaching me how to live it out.

Right now that calling is to help people manage their personal finances.  My desire is to see people set free from the financial bondage of debt and poor spending decisions.  I want to help them reach a position where they are free to “risk everything for a dream”.  I could never have pursued my calling and started Metanoia if I wasn’t financially free myself.  Please let me know if I can help you or someone you care about do this.

If you’ve ever played sports, you understand the concepts of offense and defense.  My background is mostly basketball and in basketball, like most sports, the goal is to score more points than your opponent.  To do this you have to play both sides of the ball.  This means that you play offense and attempt to score points and you play defense to try to prevent the opponent from scoring points.

It’s a lot of fun to play offense and people typically remember the times you scored.  If you ever watch SportsCenter, you’ll see a lot of basketball highlights of guys making great shots.  For most of us, it’s not a lot of fun to play defense.  It takes a lot of hard work, it won’t show up on the stat sheet and the only thing people remember is when you screw up.  Also, you won’t see guys on SportsCenter playing solid, fundamental defense, moving their feet and helping out their teammates.

You’re probably asking “Why on earth are you talking about offense and defense in basketball on a financial blog?”  It’s because the same thing happens in our financial lives.  We work really hard on the offensive end trying to make money for our families and ourselves.  We go to school for years, we get fancy letters after our name…like CFP : ) , we go to seminars, we take huge risks with new careers or new companies and the list goes on.  This is fun to do because we can achieve high incomes and can afford luxuries that make our friends and neighbors jealous.

However, most of us do very little on the defensive side of our finances.  We buy houses we can’t afford, we buy luxury cars, we eat at fancy restaurants and we travel to exotic destinations.  We essentially do nothing to “defend” our income.  As Dave Ramsey says“ Your largest wealth-building tool is your income”.  If this is true, then we have to fight to protect our income.  We have to work as hard on defense as we do on offense.  This means budgeting, planning, saving and investing.

I meet a lot of really successful people and most of them have worked hard to achieve a high level of income.  They are great at offense and I applaud them.  They are very good at what they do and love what they do.  However, some of them remind me of the “Run and Gun” Loyola Marymount basketball teams of the late 80’s.  Those teams would furiously sprint up the court and try to score as quickly as possible.  Then they would be exhausted and often not even get back on the other side of the court and allow an easy lay up.  They could score 140 points in a game and lose!

Please don’t let this happen to you financially.  Whether you have a stellar offense (income) or just average, you have to learn to play defense.  This is one area where great defense will show up on the stat sheet too.  You will build wealth!

According to a study done by the Wall Street Journal, this is the lowest % of US households covered by life insurance in more than 4 decades.  Perhaps these families are prodigious savers and simply don’t need the coverage, but I believe this is highly unlikely.

My perceptions about life insurance were initially shaped by my mother…a financially savvy woman who knows her stuff inside-and-out when it comes to money.  She was never a believer in life insurance and thought it was a rip off designed to make a bunch of money for insurance companies and their salesmen.  For many years, I just accepted this viewpoint as truth.

However, this viewpoint changed in 2005 when a friend of mine died.  He was 28, making good money, married and had just had a beautiful baby girl.  I heard through the grapevine that he didn’t have any life insurance.  I can’t even imagine the pain his wife was feeling from this loss and having all of her dreams of sharing life with her future husband shattered.  But, on top of that, she now had to figure out how to pay a mortgage and feed and clothe her baby daughter.

I relay this story because it was the first time life insurance became REAL to me.  It was the first time it wasn’t a product, an overzealous salesman, or a rich company, but it was the future of a family forever altered.  There is no bringing my friend back, but he could have made better financial decisions to protect the security of his family.  At his age he probably could’ve provided his family with all of the money they would ever need by acquiring a simple life insurance policy for $50/month.  I want to help my present and future clients avoid this potential catastrophe.  That is why I talk to all of my married clients about life insurance!