have you ever felt that finances overwhelming just too scary to be compelling a new era is here fresh story without fear here and it's time to move on time to feel strong Finance is beautiful Finance is beautiful add a little color to my spreadsheet baby make it a picture so I can see add a little color to my spreadsheet baby I'm in command and of my [Music] [Applause] money growing up in Georgia my father read me poetry and played me rock and roll I loved philosophy psychology language Finance wasn't really on my radar then in
college I signed up for a marketing internship but when I started my role shifted to finance and suddenly I was immersed in the world of numbers I saw entrepreneurs walk in with ideas they were passionate about and then the banker would walk them through the financial strategy to bring their dreams to life and that is when I realized that Finance can be part of something beautiful so then right out of school I joined a wealth management firm I was there for 12 years and in that time I noticed that many people do not in fact
experience finances beautiful mostly they find it to be overwhelming confusing boring even scary in my early career I'm sitting in a conference room there's a senior financial adviser the client and me the meeting begins and the client is presented with a thick stack of financial reports and within moments the adviser launches into an investment Soliloquy about the history of interest rates Emerging Market valuations the fed and within about 10 seconds I see the client just check out and I can see in their eyes to them it seemed like Finance was overwhelming confusing and boring and
just like that they had checked out of their own Financial life and that is when I realized that if we want people to engage in their financial lives then Finance needs to be clear approachable and beautiful but maybe that's just my personal feeling does making Finance beautiful really matter okay so have you heard of the great wealth transfer it's actually happening right now trillions of dollars are changing hands in the US as older Generations pass down their assets to younger ones basically boomers are passing substantial amounts of money to Millennials Gen X and gen Z
and notably a large portion of this is expected to shift into the hands of women however traditional Financial education has often failed to effectively engage people in particular women and younger Generations if they received any Financial education at all and so if we want the next Generations to be empowered and engaged in their financial lives then the world of Finance needs to be clear approachable and beautiful which begs the question why are so many people disengaged in finance I remember going to the mechanic to fix my car it stopped working I had no idea why
and the mechanic started explaining how the engine worked the Pistons and the fuel injectors and after a few minutes I said look can you just make it go and that's how so many people feel talking to a financial professional it's a one-way technical conversation that's hard to understand and it's hard to tell which parts relate to my actual question which is what Financial steps do I need to take today for me and my family so that's the first challenge Financial advice is often presented as a monologue and not a dialogue people also tell me that
the world of Finance feels like it's written in a completely different language when I first read Shakespeare in high school I was confused it was definitely in English but it felt like a foreign Lang language and I couldn't really appreciate the text and that's what it feels like to so many people trying to deal with financial jargon they can read the words but it's like a totally different language and like many Industries professionals within the financial industry tend to have very Technical Training and they speak with each other in very technical terms but when we
go to speak to non-finance folks it's so easy to forget how overwhelming and daunting these terms can be equities fixed income yield curve cost basis Alpha Beta bull market be Market hawkish devish squish okay I made up squish but when people don't know the terms their definitions or how the concepts relate to one another it's disorienting which makes it difficult to engage in a meaningful conversation and so we've got a few Generations who feel talked at in a foreign language about Finance no wonder they're not engaged and at the end of the day Finance can
feel kind of scary and so it's common for us to behave like Financial ostriches with our heads in the sand okay so what can we do instead as a young adult I took a creative writing class my writing teacher Donald picked up a copy of King Lear and brought it to life with a performance that fully captured the story finally I was able to understand and appreciate the beauty of Shakespeare and that's what we need to do for people in the world of Finance bring it to life in a way they can engage with so
today I'm the founder of a boutique wealth advisory I don't pretend to have all the answers but I can share what's been working for us we've been using creative tools like visuals stories metaphors games and yes music to engage people in their financial education inviting them to look at Finance in a whole new way so let's talk about it okay stories so early on in working with a new client we asked them about their money stories what are the early experiences and lessons that have shaped how you think feel and make financial decisions today for
example I remember my grandmother saying it's not polite to talk about money and for a long time I felt super uncomfortable having Financial conversations which as you can imagine made it rather difficult as a financial adviser when my job was to help people with their money so identifying this financial story was important for me because I realized it wasn't serving me and I could rewrite it to [Applause] it's essential to talk about money in one of my sessions someone said I'm just not a numbers person and so I said okay is that serving you and
they said no it has me turn off my brain the second I start thinking about numbers and so I said okay what would serve you and your financial goals and they thought about it and came came back with a beautiful breakthrough with practice and focus I can learn anything remember you are the author of your financial stories your money stories aren't right or wrong the question is are they serving you and your financial goals if not you get to rewrite them and experiment with what works for you so stories we also use metaphors I'm a
nature person so a lot of my metaphors have to do with trees or the garden so imagine your finances are a garden a garden like your finances is alive it grows changes and evolves with the seasons and stages of your life growth isn't always linear and not everything blooms at the same time what matters is that you tend and cultivate a diverse Garden to support you in different conditions and seasons over time as you nurture your garden your garden will nurture you okay so stories and metaphors are useful tools for engaging people in their financial
lives I'm also partial to using songs to impart Financial Concepts which I'm known to do to unexpecting open m crowds and tedx audiences oh you thought this Sweet Southern girl was going to whisper sing an acoustic song not today here comes some face melting Financial Rock okay so stories metaphors music all good and of course we also use games and I want to tell you about one game in particular that we call the values game you see before we look at a single number financial statement or spreadsheet we ask people what they really care about
what they value we engage with the things we care about and values represent what we truly care about so let's play a quick version of the values game right now so take a look at the values you see up on your screen there are many more you can choose from but here are some choose just one that calls out to you okay got it now put your imagination caps on and picture it's one year into the future and you're expressing the personal value you just picked engaged in activities that bring it to life now ask
yourself what is one action you can take to align your resources your money or your time with this value in the next 12 months for example I know someone let's call her Linda who dreamed of travel all her life but there always seemed to be other obligations when she identified Adventure is a Top Value and desire of hers she was able to focus the use of her time and money and set off to experience the world or maybe learning or education is one of your top values and so you set up a special account and
put some money into it automatically each month just to save or invest for that but it's not always about money in one of my sessions someone identified connection is one of their top values and so they decided to host a potluck for their friends once a month someone else chose that same value of connection and decided to start volunteering in a nonprofit in honor of their mother so again think of your value and ask yourself what is one action you can take to align your resources with this values in the next 12 months wealth is
more than just money it's having what you value your dreams come to life and that's the point of the values game to clarify your values so that you can use your resources efficiently to create wealth beautiful right okay so visuals stories metaphors Games music oh my and it's exciting because right now there's a growing movement of holistic financial planners YouTubers ticktockers bloggers podcasters all experimenting with ways to help the next Generations connect and engage with finance and I love to see it so why is finance beautiful because it is a tool to exppress express your
values and bring your dreams to life and if we can Embrace this perspective then we can access A Whole New World of possibility when it comes to engaging with our finances we can see that money is a means to an end and not the end and and of itself that numbers can be a creative and interesting medium and wealth is more than just money it's the experience of living a fulfilled life defined by you grew up thinking investing not my scene but now I'm taking charge I'm a finance Queen the most moment I engage I
start to turn the page left brain right brain Finance is whole brain Finance is beautiful Finance is beautiful Finance is beautiful thank you
