Some of the most important people in my life, that mean the most to me, are women. I have a wife, three sisters and three daughters. Growing up, my sisters and I were never educated in financial literacy. We knew nothing about saving, budgeting or investing. It wasn’t until later in life that I was fortunate enough to learn about these concepts.

Once my wife and I had our children, we wanted to make sure that, from a young age, our kids learned the basic financial principles that I never did. We especially wanted each of our daughters to have the information, education and the tools to take care of themselves financially no matter what the circumstances, because, in working in the investment business for over two decades, I’ve discovered that most women don’t receive a basic education in finance until it’s too late – which is to say, after they are widowed or get divorced and find themselves forced to deal with everything at the worst possible moment.

As my children got older, my wife and I wanted to spark their interest in investing and have them actively engage with one another to build their confidence in speaking about money, so we created a family investment contest. I established Roth IRAs for each child with enough money to invest as they saw fit. The objective of the contest was to produce the highest returns over the course of a year. The only rules were that each account needed to be diversified among at least on stock, one mutual fund and one ETF. The prize was a small deposit at the end of the year into the winner’s IRA. Our family’s investment contest was so successful in the first year, that we’ve continued it ever since. Not only has our family investment contest help create conversation around the markets, but it’s also helped teach our children about concepts like compounding growth, security selection and investment loss. I strive to help educate all of my clients about the power and importance of investing, as I still do with my daughters. Making sure that our girls have the confidence to make educated financial decisions is a must in our household, because, all too often in the wealth management industry, women are overlooked and mistreated. One of my goals, as a financial advisor, is to facilitate change in the finance world to make it a space where women feel powerful, knowledgeable and confident when talking about money.