You can become a Millionaire

As I have said before, working for one of the largest asset management companies in the world allowed me to meet some great people. Today, I would like to tell you a story about one of those people. We will call him Mr. Black to keep his identity hidden. May his story inspire you and help you change your perspective when it comes to money.

Mr. Black originally scheduled his appointment with one of the advisors I partnered with. This advisor had the belief system that if there was no opportunity with the client, he did not want to meet with them. The only process the advisor used to tell if there was an opportunity, was to look at the client’s assets. Mr. Black passed the asset check for the advisor. However, he still called me in to be a part of the meeting as well.

When Mr. Black arrived at the office, we received a Teams notification. Both I and the advisor walked out to bring the client back. To my surprise, Mr. Black did not look like most of the clients that would come through our door. In fact, his attire would be better visualized as that of a homeless man. I am not trying to be mean. He wore some old shorts, a T-shirt, and a windbreaker jacket. All of which did not come together in a cohesive way.

As we walked back to the office, Mr. Black held a cup of coffee in his hand. He let us know that he had some questions about his accounts, but he would not be taking up much of our time. When we got to the office, Mr. Black sat down and started voicing his concerns. His main thing was making sure that his accounts were making money, but he was also interested in hearing our ideas to grow his accounts even more.

The advisor thanked him for sharing his concerns with us. He brought up his accounts to be seen on the large computer monitor and started asking more questions about his financial situation. As the meeting went on, the advisor presented Mr. Black with some product solutions. Mr. Black said that he would need time to think about it. The advisor stated that that was fine and scheduled another appointment for a later date.

The week of the next appointment came, and the advisor told me that he wanted me to “run with it.” I got the impression that he did not believe Mr. Black was going to go with any of the solutions that he presented. I told him that I was fine with taking the appointment alone and looked forward to the upcoming meeting.

When Mr. Black arrived at the office, again, his attire was that of someone who could care less about how he walked out of the house. I greeted him and we walked back towards the office. Once we sat down, we started discussing his accounts again. Only this time, the conversation was a little different. Mr. Black started talking about why he is the way he is with money. He told me that he had always lived below his means. He felt like that was the best way to live life. In digging deeper, I found out that he paid his home off in the late 90s. A little before that, he had started working for the Post Office.

His time with the Post Office reached 40 years before he retired. It was there that he started building his wealth. He contributed to his 401k consistently. By the time of his retirement, the account had reached over $800k! Outside of his 401k, he also had accounts at other institutions. These accounts included annuities and an emergency savings account. All these funds together totaled to be over a million dollars.

During the time of our meeting, Mr. Black was in his 70s. He was not married and did not have any children. If anything were to happen to him, his plan was to leave everything to his nephew. He mentioned that he had long term girlfriends over the years, but none of them stuck around. He stated that the latest one tried to get him to help pay on her mortgage that was overdue. Mr. Black did not want to be used for what he had and believed that her lack of financial independence was not attractive.

Mr. Black’s financial position shows that you do not have to be a CEO or even a Rapper to be a millionaire. You can work a normal 9-5 job to acquire the financial goals that you may have believed were only obtainable in your dreams. The recipe involves time, intention, and mindset.

I will leave you with this: “Dishonest money dwindles away, but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow.” ( Proverbs 12:11 NIV) See you in the next post!