Face the Bull! Transform Your Story
You've seen the Charging Bull of Wall Street. Erected after the 1987 Market crash, its creator, Arturo Di Modica, wanted it to be a symbol of courage and the "can-do spirit of Americans and New Yorkers in particular."1 It's a symbol of triumph.
As a little girl, I dreamed of living my life in New York as an international business woman, traveling and solving problems and creating things. That's all my young mind could imagine because I didn't know what business people did in their jobs. Everyone in my Haitian/Latin American immigrant community worked in the service industry. My parents, a cashier and a baker (both worked at Publix). My uncle was maintenance at an Embassy Suites. My aunt was a healthcare aid. But I wanted to wear a suit and have a reason to rush around to meetings and to catch flights.
...[He] wanted it to be a symbol of courage and the 'can-do spirit of Americans'...
Earlier this year, I saw another photo of the Wall Street Bull, but this time there was a little girl in the picture! She's small and courageous, fearlessly standing up to him her hands defiantly on her hips. When I saw her, it did something to me.
My parents had come to the U.S. on scholarships, my step-father in engineering and my mother in agriculture. Their futures were bright in pursuit of the American dream. But when funding for their education fell through, they needed to pivot. With four little and medium mouths to feed, working class jobs, and a house I would much later learn was WAY more than they could afford, Mommi and Papi struggled to make ends meet. They both had entrepreneurial aspirations, but experienced difficulty navigating the world of American business.
They tried everything - sales, real estate, network marketing, selling food out of our home - yet somehow, the struggle to get ahead remained. So like all great parents, they poured into us, their children. "Work hard in school so you can be better than me!" my Dad used to always say. "You see how hard I work? Get a degree so you can make money and have a better life."
I didn't think the life we lived was bad; I had no concept how hard and stressful it was for my parents. To the kids at my Pompano Beach elementary school, I lived in a big, two-story house and my dad drove a big black Isuzu Trooper. These meant something to them - not me. Inside that nice big house was struggle, money/marital stress, late bill payments, hours of overtime, having to put up with abusive work conditions for a paycheck, broken dreams, and working very hard but never quite catching up. I never felt it.
Fast forward nearly a decade. I followed all my parents' directives. Work hard in school and get scholarships to college. Check! Go to a good school. Check! Get a degree. I got TWO. Check! Get a good job. Check! Upon graduating with my Master's degree, I earned more than my parents annual salaries combined. I lived in a decent apartment....with no furniture. And I experienced some of the same money stresses - mainly working very hard but never quite catching up.
In conversations with many of my college classmates, I discovered that even when we earned six/SEVEN-figure salaries and worked for Fortune 100 companies, we still experienced some type of anxiety around money. Am I saving enough for retirement? Can I buy a new shirt? I don't budget; I have everything on auto-pay. What will looking at my statements do for me besides make me feel guilty? What benefits do I sign up for? When?
...even when we earned six/SEVEN-figure salaries and worked for Fortune 100 companies, we still experience some type of anxiety around money...
My take away? Our education and our salaries that our parents thought would be the great differentiator between us and them, only made us look better on the outside. We still lacked knowledge and understanding of money and the financial system under which we lived. Sure, college taught many of us to hustle and budget, but what were we to do with all this money besides spend it on new emergencies and larger bills?
After about a decade in education, I transitioned into the world of Financial Services seeking answers. A short stint in real estate and business brokerage taught me that even entrepreneurship alone couldn't save us from bad financial habits and economic anxiety. I met business owners who had been getting by on credit for DECADES - never actually turning a profit and accumulating enormous debt. How could I help these people BEFORE their businesses went belly up?
I found that the answer lie to two facts: 1) Parents shape their children's fiscal behavior2, which is why even with more money so many people exhibit the same bad habits as their parents. 2) You can follow all the 'rules' and accumulate all the 'right products' but without a plan connected to your goals and insight on how to direct these products in service of your dreams, you will continue to be uncertain about your financial picture. This is why I became a financial professional - to help people discover the truth about money and building generational wealth, and to transform their story from one of lack and limitation to one of security and abundance.
...I am here to help people...transform their story from one of lack and limitation to one of security and abundance.
Taking on this charge has meant helping my clients to get past misinformation that may be floating in the zeitgeist and also old treasured adages that teach people to fear wealth and success. They were afraid of the Bull - not knowing how to tame it and put it in service of their hopes, dreams, and goals. They saw what I saw as a child when I saw the Bull of Wall Street - a very attractive, but very frightening potential of prosperity. Today, I help people to zoom out and see the whole picture; to see that they can become like Fearless Girl, ready to grab the bull by the horns.
My parents did struggle with money and understanding the financial system. But the greatest gifts they gave me were bravery - to forge a path for myself that no one in my family had before me - and grit - to get back up after every failure and persevere in pursuit of my passions. Today, I am the business woman I always wanted to be. The Charging Bull of Wall Street, for me, symbolizes my goals, hopes, and dreams coming true in a powerful way. And I am Fearless Girl - I am the master of the Bull. I've tamed it and put it in service of what I want to manifest in this world.
I'm a firm believer that our future is nothing to be afraid of - if we face it. Imagine you've made all your dreams come true; what do the Charging Bull and Fearless Girl now mean to you?
______________________
1Kagan, J. (2019, November 18). Charging Bull. Retrieved November 24, 2019, from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/charging-bull.asp.
2Maher, M. (2018, July 24). Financial Literacy and Career Resources. Retrieved November 22, 2019, from https://www.igrad.com/articles/childhood-money-habits-learned-from-parents.