When I finally got my first full-time job at 17, I wondered why I found myself a few years later in my early twenties, penniless and struggling to make ends meet. After all, making more money while moving up the “food chain” would solve my problems, right?

Why did I shortly find myself living paycheck to paycheck? Most likely… it had to do with my upbringing and ethnic culture.

Does it really matter if you are in the minority in the US when it comes to your level of financial education and your ability to make smart decisions about money? Does it really matter to be raised on the “other side of the tracks”?

According to various reports, it absolutely does.

1) Lack of Financial Education and Awareness

In the late 1990s, I was in the midst of my second enlistment serving on active duty in the United States Marine Corps. Returning from a drug deployment to the Bahamas, I walked into my home located in military housing at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro and found a stack of credit card bills. oh happy

My wife at that time had collected over $15,000 between 3 credit cards. As a corporal, this was close to a year’s worth of annual salary. Needless to say, this was a major area of ​​contention between us that ultimately led to our divorce and two years of child custody battles. (An inside military joke, but not really, is that you can’t leave active duty without getting married, having a child…and then getting divorced. Ask, it’s sadly true.)

What was my attempt to obtain financial aid? I would ask other Marines, senior leaders who happened to be black and Hispanic, only to find out that they also faced the same financial difficulties just on different levels. In short, they had no answer. It was the blind leading the blind.

I learned my first rule of thumb in personal finance…stop asking your bankrupt friends (and even your family) for financial help.

If it hadn’t been for retired Master Sergeant Carleton Enloe, whom I met in the bathroom of a Best Buy in Laguna Hills (don’t laugh), I never would have started on a journey of learning how to win the money game. He worked at a financial firm that opened my eyes and took me under his wing.

My solution beforehand to get out of the financial pit was simply to find ways to make more money in the city, off-duty, as a Jiffy Lube hood technician and bartender at the Officer’s Club on base.

When I share this story at financial conferences and even in our weekly financial workshops, I find that this scenario hits just about everyone in the room…even non-minority Caucasians who also grew up on the same side of the tracks. that I.

2) Neglected, abandoned and biased by the financial services industry

The fact is, if you are African American and Hispanic, you are sorely neglected by the financial services industry. Most financial firms won’t even extend a conversation to help a potential client unless you have at least $250,000 of investable liquid assets or don’t have the one-time $500 (some as much as $5,000) planning fee to pay for an advisor. investment manager/certified financial planner just to tell you that you… “are broke!”

I spoke at a Women’s Diversity Conference and became friends with a financial planner who was the ONLY black financial professional in the ENTIRE state of Illinois for his national company. And yet, his office was in the suburbs… not near the city.

Think you can find a minority financial professional that you can relate to and understand your cultural struggle and desire to get out of the financial rat race? They are not very common. The American Council of Insurers exposes a significant gap in pass rates for only minorities who pass a simple life insurance exam as an entry point into the financial services industry.

3) Educational and Cultural Financial Ignorance

Does it have to do with cultural trends and the education of parents to manage their personal finances? Comedian Kevin Hart launched credit score jokes towards dark-skinned women, for which he later apologized, in connection with a common characteristic of bad credit.

Sure, it’s comedy, but could it be true? When was his parents’ last memory of him teaching her the value of credit and how to build her credit score at the kitchen table?

You know the answer.

Like me, you’ve had past experiences holding your breath while eating with friends hoping the waiter won’t come back asking for another form of payment.

Over the past two years, I have been proud to help build a financial movement where we have recruited and trained a new generation of financial professionals entering the business of money.

The level of connection with our audience, regarding their financial problems and finding solutions to transform their financial lives, has been nothing short of transformative.

We’re helping close the sizable $100,000-a-year minority income gap, where today less than 5.9% of people with six-figure incomes are Asian, 5.6% are Hispanic, and 5.5% are Hispanic. % are black. (Source: Wikipedia.com)

Of the 43 financial professionals I have mentored as a marketing consultant and trainer, 35 are Black, Hispanic or Asian. 8 are biracial couples raising biracial children. We already have a Hispanic woman with a six-figure income and a retired Filipina nurse whose cash flowed over $13,000 last month.

My advice? He continues to love his friends and family, but unfortunately, the facts indicate that they are not the ones who will help him lead the way to financial freedom.

From what you learn about money, bring that back to your community and be that change agent within your family…regardless of their negative views of you. Stay strong, stay strong, stay focused, stay disciplined.

Come closer, search and gain the mentoring and association of people who want to have more, be more and be willing to DO more. Look beyond the color of your skin. After all, money has a color and a desire to hang out with those who know how to take care of it.

Your children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren will be glad you did.