My Journey

---

 I am a survivor of the 9/11/2001 attacks at the World Trade Center in New York from the 51st Floor of the North Tower.  I say that right up front not to shock you or elicit any sympathy, but rather to help you better understand my perspectives and my motivations. I was given a gift 20+ years ago at a second chance in life and I have tried to empower myself ever since with a vow to live each day to the fullest, only doing what makes me happy, only spending my life energy on what I believe to be important.

My career in the financial service industry spans over four and a half decades.  I spent half of my career in the Institutional bond markets and the other half in helping individuals and business owners build and manage financial plans and risk management strategies to pursue their long-term goals.  EMP Financial Wellness is the first page of the next chapter on my journey. Our educational services are applicable to all, and my only criteria is your personal commitment to working towards empowering yourself financially. I want to help empower people to take ownership of their financial well-being.

All of the above is central to understanding the genises of the Empowerment Money Project.  My decades in the financial services industry have taught me many things across many topics, but one stands above all others: Complexity is the veil that Wall Street uses to ply their wares upon an ill equipped and under educated population. Fancy wrapping paper and pretty bows are deployed to make the products superficially attractive, all the while obscuring the mind numbingly complex and inherently expensive solutions being offered. When all the fluff is removed, all the mathematical gymnastics performed, all you are really left with are the three elemental building blocks of all financial products: Cash, Debt and Equity. That is to say, you can store your money, you can lend your money and you can be an owner of a business with your money. Every financial product ever invented is built upon these three pillars.  

It is this clarity of simplicity that drove the creation of the Empowerment Money Project. Our efforts are not focused on anything Wall Street, but rather training individuals with freely available online tools that will help them develop a fundamental set of skills and knowledge, thus empowering themselves to achieve a brighter financial future.