Steph in the News

I wanted to share an article from last week’s Denver Business Journal that featured my practice.  I think they did a nice job of communicating the unique value I bring to the market.  The column was on women in business and focused mainly on the great work that I do with women and talks some about how I help couples.  If you enjoy the article, please feel free to share it with others who are looking for wealth confidence.  Thank you for your continued support of my practice.

Education and Change

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”  Nelson Mandela

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in a focus group for a new non-profit centered around the educational needs of affluent women.  When I posted this on my Facebook status, a friend commented that it seemed funny to her.   But it’s true, affluent women do have educational needs just like everyone else.  They are often isolated from others as a result of their wealth and if the wealth is inherited, it can be very destabilizing.

So I took another shot at rephrasing the organization’s purpose.  What if there was an organization that created a very safe environment where affluent women could develop in areas such as leadership, philanthropy, financial literacy, relationships and other key aspects to achieve total well-being?  What if these women were to use this education and bring their authentic selves and their resources together to change the world?  The truth is that we need more women to spread their feminine wisdom throughout the world. 

The Harvard Business Review recently produced a study showing that work teams that comprised both women and men were more successful than teams of men. Women approach issues and team relationships differently than men.  This doesn’t mean we think women are better or that we are against men (I myself have been married to several of them.)  We know, however, that women and children make up at least 70% of those in poverty.  Women still earn less than 80 cents on the dollar for what a man earns in the US and we are hugely underrepresented in corporate and government leadership.  If we could balance this out and have men and women working together, what good could happen in the world?

If you want to see, just visit Women Moving Millions -- an organization comprised of women who have donated a million or more to women’s charities.  The organization was founded by Helen and Swanee Hunt and has inspired many others to give a record $180 million to women’s charities. Here in Colorado the Women’s Foundation of Colorado has been able to use these donated funds to find out why girls are dropping out of school and in funding organizations that are successful in reducing this trend. 

Of course, every one of us can make change -

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

Women As Heroes, Not Victims

I recently had the opportunity to meet Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of the Dressmaker of Khair Khana.  Gayle is a former journalist who went to Harvard Business School and wanted to research women entrepreneurs in Afghanistan.  Yes Afghanistan.   What she found was not only amazing, but inspiring. 

Under the Taliban regime, women were prohibited to attend school or go to work and had to keep their entire bodies and faces covered with the exception of a small slit for their eyes.  They could only go out with the accompaniment of a male relative.  These were professional women, educated women, who needed their 12 year-old brothers to accompany them to do the family shopping.

Not only was it difficult to go shopping, it was hard to buy anything because the women could no longer work and bring in money to the family.  Many of the men had to leave for foreign countries for fear they would be kidnapped or forced into the Taliban.  With no men to provide support and the inability to go to work, the women had to develop ways to survive.

Gayle found many women who did not let these limitations stop them.  In the case of the dressmaker of Khair Khana, she not only supported her family through a dressmaking business, but trained and employed many other women in the community so that they too could support their families.  Her story helps change the face of women as victims of war to women as heroes of war. 

Although we have faced hard times in the United States in the last few years, we still have the ability to move about freely, to educate ourselves, and to seek employment.  If the dressmaker of Khair Khana can survive, so can we.

What Changed?

In my quarterly review meetings with clients this week, I have many times been asked “What changed?”   Well let’s see - the US has an enormously high debt burden, but yep that was known.  Oh and Europe has sovereign debt issues, but that too was known. Unemployment remains high, but yet again we knew that. 

When I took my first finance class in the fall of 1987 we studied modern portfolio theory.  Markets are efficient and contain all known information.  But in 2008 we discovered there was a lot we did not know about credit default swaps and the leveraging of the US financial markets.  We lost trust and we lost confidence. What has changed in the last week is not what we know, but how we feel about it.

On Friday S&P did take the step to formalize what we already knew about US debt, but oddly enough people sought to buy debt after it was downgraded and sold off their equity investments.  So it wasn’t new information that changed, it was the sentiment.  In my meetings I heard disappointment in how our government is handling our debt crisis.  I heard a realization that corporate profits are the highest they have been since 2007 and that the job many people relied upon before is no longer needed so we need to figure out a new way to contribute to this new economy which won’t happen overnight.  I heard that although we are growing, it is slow.

Then I was asked the question, “What will get us out of this?”  I recall a quote by Henry Ford “If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”  We may have an extremely high debt burden in the US, but we also have one economic system (and not 17 different ones like Europe) to be able to address it.  We may not have the manufacturing jobs we once had, but we have companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Square.  Call centers may be in India, but companies like Zappos who have thought more creatively and given their employees more autonomy are succeeding here in the US.  Every Starbucks is selling so many Mocha Frappuccino’s that people are nearly lining up out the door.  Stalwarts of the economy like Proctor and Gamble and Coca Cola continue to throw off great dividends. 

Yes, we have issues.  We also have the talent to address them. While we may once have looked to great leaders for hope, it is now time to look within ourselves.

Changed Your Name?

Katie Stone (formerly Murray) in our office was recently married and alerted me to a service that helps people like her organize the documents needed to take the hassle out of the name change.  The service is called Miss Now Mrs, but don’t worry – it works both ways.  According to the now Mrs. Stone, they provided all of the forms and instructions to make it a breeze.  Know someone getting married or perhaps going the other way?  Share this service with them.

Did I mention I still have a CFP certificate that says Stephanie Shepard?  I wonder if they can help with that.