My friend Chris Gandy and I were talking. Chris used to play in the NBA. We both went to Illinois, and he reached out to me the first time we met. We are both good networkers and crappy golfers. When I stand next to Chris, it looks like I am in a hole because he towers over me. For the record, I am 6’5”.

Chris recently became the president of NAIFA. He’s perfect for it. When you click the link to their site, you will see why. He and I have been concerned about people and finance for a long time. After we met, we sketched out a business plan to help athletes with finances. So many were going broke, and it shouldn’t have been happening. Once we saw the initial startup hurdles to the business, it made no sense to pursue it. There was no way to scale it.

As an athlete, you have a very limited time to put hay in the barn. Once it ends, it truly ends. A large percentage of them aren’t equipped with the skills necessary to make sure the hay stays in the barn.

One thing that always bugged Chris and me was the term “financial literacy”. Bleh. What is that? It’s ambiguous. Not quantifiable. As I have written here in the past, businesspeople hate non-quantifiable.

We like the term “financial empowerment”. It’s not quantifiable in the truest sense of quantifiable, but it is more actionable because you can more clearly define a mission and goal.

We talked a while about that.

Empowerment means giving someone the ability to be self-reliant.

That means if a person has no or a poor education, they can still be empowered. They aren’t helpless. Arthur Brooks writes about that in his book The Conservative Heart.

Financial empowerment is a core goal of what we will do if I get elected State Treasurer. Join the team here.

My friend Chris Gandy and I were talking. Chris used to play in the NBA. We both went to Illinois, and he reached out to me the first time we met. We are both good networkers and crappy golfers. When I stand next to Chris, it looks like I am in a hole because he towers over me. For the record, I am 6’5”.

Chris recently became the president of NAIFA. He’s perfect for it. When you click the link to their site, you will see why. He and I have been concerned about people and finance for a long time. After we met, we sketched out a business plan to help athletes with finances. So many were going broke, and it shouldn’t have been happening. Once we saw the initial startup hurdles to the business, it made no sense to pursue it. There was no way to scale it.

As an athlete, you have a very limited time to put hay in the barn. Once it ends, it truly ends. A large percentage of them aren’t equipped with the skills necessary to make sure the hay stays in the barn.

One thing that always bugged Chris and me was the term “financial literacy”. Bleh. What is that? It’s ambiguous. Not quantifiable. As I have written here in the past, businesspeople hate non-quantifiable.

We like the term “financial empowerment”. It’s not quantifiable in the truest sense of quantifiable, but it is more actionable because you can more clearly define a mission and goal.

We talked a while about that.

Empowerment means giving someone the ability to be self-reliant.

That means if a person has no or a poor education, they can still be empowered. They aren’t helpless. Arthur Brooks writes about that in his book The Conservative Heart.

Financial empowerment is a core goal of what we will do if I get elected State Treasurer. Join the team here.