Financial Management
Truths, tools, and tactics to support your financial freedom goals
“Weh yuh mean teacha?” “So weh yuh go a Georgetown fah?”
I attempt to survive this intense, pointed questioning from my dad.
The trigger?
My not so lucrative post-graduate career choice.
May 2000. Bachelor’s Degree. Georgetown University.
Elementary School Teacher. (How could I?)
Dad’s voice again.
“Weh yuh mean teacha?” “So weh yuh go a Georgetown fah?”
Now I’m facing these doubts that (always ready and waiting on the sidelines) seem ready for yet another hostile takeover.
Maybe I was making a terrible mistake. Why hadn’t I gone to business school or chosen a more lucrative career? …
MONEY | LIFE
To accelerate your learning and allow you the opportunity to make different ones
My friends say that their parents didn’t talk about money when they were growing up. That’s funny. I don’t know if my parents knew how not to. It may be a Jamaican thing. I don’t know.
Hi there, simple and reasonable childish request!
Care to meet, ridiculous adult, money-related rebuttal?
Enter scene
Can you come up to my school and (fill in school mandated request here)?
Mi look like mi have money fi pay bus fare?
Can I buy a(fill in childish gift request here)?
Yuh have money?
Can (fill in childhood friend’s name) do (insert childish game that happens inside the house) with me? …
LIFE
Lessons from the Greats, to maximize your chance of success as you prepare for 2021
Prepare Everyday Like Your Life Depends On It
What does it look like to prepare every day like your life depends on it? Allow me to share, for I have lived it. And I have learned from the Greats before me, including my mom. Let’s start there.
Mom, do you really need all those kerosine lamps in 2020?
Well of course, what if we lose power?
And do you need all six of these umbrellas?
Well of course, what if it’s raining and I have people over for dinner?
OK. Tell me again why you need a second large refrigerator for a household of one, please? …
SELF | LIFE
Prioritizing our time and breaking habits that distract us from our true purpose
You’re Fat, You’re Ugly and Nobody Likes You!
Complete and total destruction. Paper everywhere. Chairs turned upside down. And standing on top of the table in the middle of his kindergarten classroom is the perpetrator; none other than the great Michael Mulligan.
Michael Mulligen, the student most likely to force his teachers and all of his classmates to evacuate a classroom, had done it again.
As I quickly scan the classroom, I search for Michael’s most savory post destruction ingredients. A cup of huffing and puffing, two tablespoons of yelling, and a small splattering of spitting. …
FINANCE | REAL ESTATE
A strategy that accelerated my path to financial freedom
If mortgage evasion is wrong, there’s no world in which I wanna be right.
You see, I haven’t paid my mortgage in years. I haven't paid my water bill, my gas bill, or my electric bill either.
But it’s OK. It’s not a secret. I’m not hiding from my mortgage company. And the utility companies are cool with me too.
I’m involved in the most legal form of mortgage evasion possible. The type where someone willingly pays my mortgage for me, without me having to skip town.
But this is no free lunch. I’ve put in the work. Only slackers want a free lunch. …
BUSINESS | EDUCATION
Learning this can be the difference between growing dramatically, or not growing at all
We want to be perfect. We want to be loved. We want to be connected. We want to be accepted for who we are.
We want to be accepted for who we are because that gives us the courage to want to grow.
We want to grow gently. In a way that acknowledges that though we have flaws, we are not indelibly flawed. In a way that acknowledges that though we have scars, we are not indefinitely scarred.
We want to love who we are currently. But we also want to be equally excited by how much we will grow and what that means for who we become in the future. …
MONEY | INVESTING
Important mindsets and lessons learned on my investment journey
On my worst day, with the worst tenants and the biggest possible headaches, Real Estate will still and always be one of the best things that has ever happened to me financially.
Wait. Let me correct myself on two points.
Point 1: Real estate didn’t happen to me. I chased it the way a lion chases its next prey.
Point 2: Real estate didn’t just impact me financially. It’s a thing that has impacted every area of my life.
And like all things that we chase, we sometimes get beat up and bruised up along the way.
If Real estate were a bully, I’d ask him, “are you worth this fight? Are you worth taking down?” …
LIFE
Sometimes it’s hard to figure out if more is more or if less is more
Striving for more is normal. It’s in our DNA. It’s as old as time.
The fittest during the hunter-gatherer age were those most likely to survive. And those most likely to survive were those who could secure food.
More food = greater chance of survival.
Less food = greater chance of dying young.
The definition of food has changed. Today we call food “resources.” And those with greater access to resources still have a greater chance of survival.
It seems like French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr was ahead of his time when he claimed that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” …
LIFE
What differentiates those who play the long game from those who don’t
The easy way out is seductive. Who doesn’t want to win the lottery, pack it all up and fly off somewhere warm where they can just sip champagne on the beach every day?
Consumers live and die for the easy way. The short game. Fast food. Diet pills. One-touch technology.
The short game serves us:
- ATMs allow us to access cash at midnight
- Plastic surgeons allow us to skip the squats and buy the perfect body
- Amazon allows us to send the perfect gift overnight
- UberEats allows us to not have to meal prep during a busy week
The short game gets us from desire to desire-fulfilled in 3.5 seconds. It serves us because it satisfies a current craving. It fulfills a short term need. …
LIFE
Important mindsets for monitoring default reactions and responding to adversity
Oh To Be A Flight Attendant
For a brief moment around the age of 10, I wanted to be a flight attendant. I’m not 100% sure why. I had never even been on an airplane before. It may have been because you had to be really “pretty” to be a flight attendant. And every awkward little girl wants to feel pretty.
I knew it would have been a long shot. Back in those days in Jamaica, you had to be really light-skinned to be a flight attendant. I wouldn’t have passed the color test. Perhaps for that reason I quickly gave up on that dream.
Today, I try to stick to air travel rules that work best for me. No sleep (the night before.) No food. No bathroom. …
About
