My Why 1/3 - Belief
I love watching videos like this!!!
I love these videos because they're all-around feel-good discussions with successful business people such as Oprah Winfrey, Jack Ma, Bill Gates....entertainers such as Zendaya and Priyanka Chopra...and all they talk about is what fuels them to fulfill their passions, their dreams and their desires for life.
We all have our reasons as to why we chose our career paths. We have built them out of necessity, passion and growth.
What drives most of us is a purpose that we all hope grows into a successful career and a fulfilling lifestyle. This purpose will push you through any challenge placed before you. It is the central source of motivation to make you rise and learn from any failure and push you to grow when you reach your performance plateaus.
My driving force came from 3 key moments in life that lead to belief, valuable advice and delivering true value.
In this article I’ll start with my first one. BELIEF
How I became a believer in life insurance and financial planning.
At one point or more in our lives someone told us how important financial planning is. It may have come in the form of the importance of saving, budgeting, investing, etc. and it most likely would have come from our parents, uncles, aunts, close friends, etc.
In my early 20s I was approached by a Financial Advisor who spoke to me about the importance of life insurance and saving for retirement. What he said sounded important at the time and something I was interested in learning more about in the future but for the time being I felt fine. I was in my second year at University, living at my parents' home and starting to figure out life.
Once my second year of school was done, I realized I didn’t know what I wanted to major in University. I took the summer off to work and figure out what I wanted to do with school before spending more money on an education with no clear direction or end goal.
Later that summer, I injured my back working in a warehouse and had to go through months of treatment with a Chiropractor. I injured my sciatic nerve. A very vivid memory because it was the worst physical pain I can remember to this day. From this experience I learned that if I injured myself to the point where I could not work, I could not earn an income and be in a worse off position.
So I decided to go back to school and start with something I was interested in. I remember when I was able to start walking comfortably again, I walked to Red River College and signed up for an Accounting Program. I spent the rest of the summer hanging out with friends until school started in September.
Then came the night where everything changed. After coming home late at night from partying with my friends I came home to find my father dead.
Please let that sink in for a moment before you continue reading.
If any of you have dealt with the passing of a family member, you may know what it feels like. The world stops and real life hits you right between the eyes.
I don’t remember if it was my mom or I who called 911…. most of it is a blur as I recall these memories.
So how did this experience drive me to a career in life insurance and financial planning!?
One of the most vivid memories I can recall was the funeral planning with my mom.
Being a catholic family, we wanted the traditional catholic burial which includes the body being buried in a casket and a viewing for family and friends. Those services usually take 2-3 days where the funeral home will provide their facilities, staff and other services as needed.
Now the cost of all this is what really made this memory one to remember.
$26,000!!!
That’s right…all this would cost $26,000.
Now my mom had help from the family which made it easier but there were still costs she had to pay.
I remember panicking and feeling useless. My mom worked 2 jobs to support the family, my sister had moved to Vancouver a few years back to start her career and I was just starting College in a few weeks.
We did not have the money to pay. WHAT DO WE DO!?
Then my mom says, “Anak (my child in Tagalog), we have life insurance.” She explains to me what it is and holy smokes…thank you mom and dad for planning ahead.
If they didn’t have life insurance at that point, the alternatives would have been drawing funds from my mom’s savings, working more, getting a loan…options that would have put us in more financial hardships.
Not an ideal situation for anyone.
From that point on we could focus on the planning for my dad’s funeral and start focusing on getting our lives back on track.
This experience showed me just how important it is to plan for uncontrollable events. After his funeral I started school and also wanted to start planning for my future.
I went to look for advice and direction on getting life insurance and proper financial planning. That would lead me to my next experience that drove me to my career path.
VALUABLE ADVICE.
Unless you are a subject matter expert in the field, you will want to seek out advice and direction from people who are. Finding the right advisor and/or the right direction to get the answer you seek can be a challenge. I was about to find out how finding the right financial advisor can significantly impact my life.
That will be the next article I write for you.
