2020 has confirmed more than ever that everyone, including (and maybe especially) the rich, need financial literacy lessons.
When I left IBM in 1988 I consciously chose to leave a financially comfortable life. My steady income was at the top 5% of women wage earners, and I was being groomed for higher levels of management. But I wanted to Learn as much as I could rather than just Earn as much as I could. My family thought I was crazy.
Since then I’ve been a corporate consultant, a founder of startups, and a successful small business owner of both services and products. I co-created a self-funded business to $1.5M in its second year, and personally made as much as $10,000 for a single day of consulting and made $1500 a day on long term contracts. More recently I’ve looked at substitute teaching. It pays 10% of what I made. $150 per day… at the high end. Wow. That IS crazy… crazy that’s what we pay teachers.
I’ve also gone without any income for wwaayy too long, and gone on financial assistance programs. We dealt with business challenges I never would have envisioned, including the drug addiction of a key employee, the workman’s comp accident of another (he borrowed a ladder from another company but our insurance still had to pay), and losing a big contract in the midst of that. Add to that my husband’s stroke, eliminating his ability to speak or understand and his ability to work in the business. And then cancer. The stresses were both cause and effect. How could this happen to me, an engineer and MBA? It caused me to doubt everything. But it also taught me so much.
If I had stayed in my corporate bubble I never would have known what I know now. My investment in these educational experiences are the foundation of MentaMorph Money a financial education game to be played at various income levels, scenarios, and financial environments. As I learned, my income levels and financial profiles didn’t define my personal value, but they did change the financial decisions I needed to make.
Millions of people are facing financial uncertainty and need MentaMorph Money.
As important, the financial decisions for our country are being made by politicians, business executives and investors with a limited range of experiences of financial decisionmaking. If they experienced different financial positions they would become more financially knowledgeable of the different set of decisions required. That’s possible through MentaMorph Money
It remains to be seen whether my years investing in research and development has been a good one. I’m looking for those who will bring it to market with me in 2021. There is no doubt it’s needed in our current financial environment.