Sometimes It Does Take a Rocket Scientist

Portia Jackson believes that people should be able to design their finances around their lives and not their lives around their finances. A business strategy coach and former rocket scientist who is studying financial planning, Portia joined our team this year for a long term financial planning internship. I recently had a fascinating conversation with her about her world view and why she is pursuing her CFP® designation. The future for this mother and financial wellness evangelist looks bright!

Why did you become a personal coach? What influenced your decision to pursue the CFP® designation? How do you see combining those two paths?

I became a business strategy coach after many of my original podcast listeners (I used to host a podcast for working moms, Working Motherhood) kept emailing me and asking me how I was able to run a business, work full-time and manage my family, including a daughter with special needs. I loved my podcast and it gave me fulfillment, but as I started working with the members of the Working Motherhood, I realized I LOVED coaching so much more! I get to help people see an immediate difference in their lives? Yes, please!

I decided to pursue the CFP® designation after teaching a workshop course on tackling debt for many years. I loved the impact I was making on people’s lives and seeing the weight lifted off their shoulders after they realized they wouldn’t be in debt forever made my heart sing. I wanted that feeling all day every day so I decided to change careers and become a financial planner. I also wanted to do it right so I knew I had to be a CFP® professional. The two paths easily combine because I believe the combination of a solid financial plan (i.e. 6 months emergency fund, zero debt, fully-funded retirement and college plans, home ownership, estate plan, tax minimization and proper insurance coverage) with working at something you love to do is a complete path to financial wellness.

How does your background as an engineer influence your financial planning and personal coaching style?

My engineering background helps me as a financial planner and coach because I’m very data-driven. I work off of action, not just “what could happen.” If something isn’t working, I can course-correct. Planning a launch of a billion-dollar rocket and launching someone’s business or retirement plan are both very important so I use my strategic background to reduce some of the uncertainty that can surround those areas.

What’s your personal mission? Who do you most want to help?

My personal mission is to free people from financial stress and bondage so they can then pursue their personal mission in life. I feel that many times the amount of energy people put into worrying about money (even if they are doing everything “right”) can be put toward their personal calling in life. I believe everyone has a specific purpose in life and that purpose often goes unfulfilled because they are stuck in a job they dislike just to pay the bills and then they are too exhausted to do anything else or sometimes people are doing everything right and still can’t afford a decent lifestyle.

They aren’t trying to keep up with the Joneses. They just want to be able to own a home, have insurance, travel maybe 1-2 times a year and send their kids to college. In an expensive place like Los Angeles, that can easily add up to a lot.

What is the biggest mistake you ever made with your money, and what did you learn from it?

The biggest mistake I’ve ever made with money was buying a rental property at the age of 23 in a bad neighborhood with no money down in 2005 in Chicago right before I moved to Los Angeles for grad school. I really don’t know what I was thinking when that happened. Actually, I do. I was focused only on the POTENTIAL cash flow. Those late night real estate ads were apparently very convincing to me.

The property was a big pain the butt. It sucked up all of the money I won from a game show I was on and commercials I booked while I worked in Los Angeles. It also caused a LOT of stress for me during what should have been one of the most exciting times in my life.

What have you learned about money and marriage that you can teach the rest of us?

I’ve learned that communication is key and that understanding each other’s personality types is really important when it comes to family finances. My husband and I have monthly financial meetings, where we review our budget, our net worth statement, our financial goals and the financial mission statement we’ve written for our family. I’m the CFO of our family and while I can typically recite the budget down to the penny, he is the bigger visionary and wants to see where we are going.

When you got married and had children, did you feel prepared to deal with the financial aspects of partnership and parenthood? What do you wish you had known in advance?

We felt pretty prepared going into marriage because financial planning was part of the two pre-marital classes we took. (We like to be thorough, haha.) When our kids came (very soon actually, we had a honeymoon baby) it wasn’t too much of a disruption to our budget, although the budget for sending kids to daycare could feed a small country for a while.

How do you teach your kids about money?

Our kids are just 4 and 2 right now so we haven’t really had the money discussion yet, but we plan to use the envelope method that I used growing up — one envelope for giving, one for saving and one for spending. They will earn money through chores as they will not receive an allowance. As parents, we believe that we are to be mentors to our kids and train them for the real world and in the real world, there are very few handouts.

Is there anything that really surprised you about coming to intern at Financial Finesse?  Why?

Yes, I was surprised that workplace financial wellness as a type of  business actually existed. When I was searching for a place to complete my required experience hours for the CFP® designation, I came across many opportunities to sell products or gather assets, but I never heard anyone lead with the benefit of changing lives and offering unbiased financial guidance with no ulterior motive or sales pitch, which is what we do at Financial Finesse. The passion that everyone has here for helping people and for extending this vision to more people is truly amazing and a rare jewel in the financial services industry. Unlike in my brief wire house days of seeing people get excited to close a sale, people at Financial Finesse are excited about a great Financial Helpline call or one-on-one planning session.

Do you have a question you’d like answered on the blog? Please email me at [email protected]. You can also follow me on the blog by signing up here, and on Twitter at @cynthiameyer_FF.

 

 

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