Contingent. Subject to chance. Unpredictable. Random. Possible.

Life. Everything in life is contingent. It’s the only constant, this contingency. We plan and we plan. We try to control what’s coming next. We miss the present analyzing the past moments, forecasting the future moments.

I taught 70+ girls about money knowledge this week. Six hours spent learning and teaching the idea that money knowledge + mindfulness and breathing + action planning = empowered happiness. Money knowledge is power. Serious power. Spending plans, interest, the magic of compounding, investing, credit cards, pay stubs and taxes, money emotions and feelings, self reflection exercises to trick our brains out of negativity into helping us create positive money habits. Big takeaways like:

• People are everything
• Communicate proactively
• Emergencies happen every single day. S*** happens every single day. Start saving now.
• Our strengths enable us to work smarter, not harder

Another big takeaway: investing isn’t complicated. Like life, it’s contingent. Risk is always inherent. We can do our best to protect ourselves by making sure we have a diverse mix of investments (think index funds, ETFs, target funds). We know it’s imperative to jump into the investment game to reach our financial goals. Our dreams.

We know that where we invest our money, we invest our time so we always make sure our investments align with us. Just like our life investments (people, experiences, careers, loves) align with our cores, so do our financial investments. We choose our investments like we choose our friends.

Contingent. Life is contingent. The man on the plane with the bow tie sitting next to me in row 1 reaffirmed this. We chatted about yoga and breathing, the news, entrepreneurship. New starts. New opportunities.

“Life is contingent. Every single day presents new opportunities and we can always start over. It is never too late.”

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