I wasn’t one of those kids who grew up loving math or money.
In fact, I picked my degree in finance after one of my smart friends was telling me how hard it was for him to pass his freshman engineering class (true story).
I was interning at a land surveying company and taking CAD classes in high school for years. I graduated high school with engineering credits and civil engineering skills. But that path didn’t look promising - and I needed to pivot.
Call it what you want - a dumb decision made by an 18 year old or a lucky break…
But I’m now experiencing the benefits of that lucky break.
Here’s what I mean:
Finance is a foundational skill
Health. Wealth. Relationships.
Those are the 3 major consumer markets that have always existed.
People want to be healthier, wealthier, and have better relationships. Those things never change.
So it makes sense - in hindsight - to pick a career in any of those.
Congrats to me, and all of you, who did the same thing!
Finance, whether corporate or personal, is all about increasing wealth. And to most people, it’s extremely intimidating.
Finance is transferable
Finance has a couple large expressions:
Corporate finance.
Personal finance.
And I must admit - after 12 years obsessing over the first, I’m starting to obsess over the second.
Don’t worry, this newsletter will still be focused on corporate finance, but will also be my way of sharing the personal finance career angle to all this.
Because once you’ve been working for a while and achieve the success you want (for me, that is Head of Finance over a sizable P&L), it’s natural to ask “what’s this all for?” and “what’s next?”
It turns out that the same skills that make us excellent in corporate finance, make us masters at personal finance too.
Ownership = Success
Ownership is clearly the goal in personal finance.
And once you hit a level of corporate finance success you find yourself with moderate levels of ownership in the form of equity (typically).
If I was going back in time, I’d encourage myself to set my target as having equity with a legitimate chance of materializing.
Why?
Because equity/ownership allows you to separate your earning potential from your time investment. Every hour of work both earns your salary (plus bonus) as well as maximizes your equity value.
It’s the same reason we shove our extra money in 401k, HSA, and brokerage accounts every month. Those can also be forms of equity but often less potent due to diversification.
How we maximize wealth
At the risk of over-sharing, I do want to share what I’m obsessing over right now:
Creating sustainable cashflow (expense discipline, 401k contributions, deferred comp, local business ownership, other private investments)
Tax reduction strategies (deferred compensation, HSA, IRA, Roth, asset location, and asset allocation)
How I’m uniquely positioned to maximize wealth for myself and for others
If any of this is interesting to you, let me know by liking the post, commenting, or replying. I don’t plan on sharing a ton of the details but would consider sharing more if enough people want to go on the journey with me.
As finance professionals, we are best suited to understand and maximize the world of personal finance.
My goal is to do that for myself.
Next newsletter I’ll share my ‘first 45 days’ takeaway as the Head of Finance for a $20B business unit.
Stay tuned!
How we can help:
Build your own FP&A Operating System so you can drive more impact through a best-in-class FP&A process.
Looking to elevate your FP&A leadership skills? Steal our Finance Manager Playbook to help you drive a healthy, high-performing finance team culture.
Get step-by-step video instruction on designing your perfect FP&A Flywheel. It’s the exact process we use when transforming FP&A teams.
Brett Hampson, Founder of Forecasting Performance
