How to Invest with Stephanie Genkin
For many people, money is a scary and uncomfortable topic. Stephanie Genkin is not one of those people. A Certified Financial Planner, and the founder of My Financial Planner, LLC, Stephanie has made it her career to help clients do smart things with their money. More than that, she’s made financial planning accessible to everyone, with a practice that provides an affordable alternative in an often elitist industry. Stephanie is practical, to the point, and on a constant pursuit of knowledge. Below, she shares some of her endless insights.
What does having an open, honest conversation about money entail or require?
It requires having the courage to recover from past money mistakes and missed opportunities and move forward. I think it's important that people don't judge themselves harshly. We've all made mistakes with money. It's part of life. When I'm talking to clients about their current financial situation and what they want money for, they realize pretty quickly that it's a safe space for an open, honest discussion. I'm here to understand and help, not judge.
Has working with other people’s finances taught you anything about the ways in which we are all similar/different?
Everyone wants to feel secure. A commonality I see is that people want money to help them feel less vulnerable in the world. Working with clients has also taught me that one person's "enough" is another person's “not enough at all.” We all have different goals and expectations about what we should want to have.
What has been the most pivotal moment in your life or career?
That's a tough one because I've lived many different lives and had a number of satisfying careers. I think 9/11 was big for me because it made me realize I needed to come back home to NYC after covering the aftermath at ground zero for CNN. The 2007 Financial Crisis was a wake-up call that my career in television would not last forever and I needed to reinvent myself. That eventually led me to go back to school at night to study financial planning at NYU while working full-time at CNN. They paid for it.
What’s one thing you wish everyone knew about finances?
That saving and investing early helps your money grow by compounding. I wish they taught compound interest in school instead of geometry. People would have a lot more money in their later years. I teach investing in a high school program at NYU. My goal is to make every one of those kids rich later in life.
Besides money, what’s the most important currency to you and why?
Empathy and compassion. Both are essential tools for connecting with others. They seem to be missing in our current social and political discourse.
What, if any, is the correlation between money and happiness?
People aren't necessarily happier when they have more money, but money can help people be happier by using it to support self-actualization and self-discovery, as well as travel and helping others.
When you think of connection, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?
People need people to become who they are.
You have 12 hours and free rein in Blank Studio — what do you do?
Bring in a dozen monkeys to throw brightly colored paint around or hold a witches convention to cast a spell on the President.
What are 5 of your favorite resources right now?
My mastermind group. We are six fee-only Certified Financial Planners and committed fiduciaries (which means all of our advice is in the clients' best interest), who meet once a month at the Yale Club to address practice management issues, explore new technology, refer allied professionals, and discuss articles, books, and best practices. They are my unofficial Board of Directors.
Brooklyn Brainery. They have a class for everything. I teach personal finance topics there every month, but I’m also a devoted student. It's all affordable and the teachers are fantastic.
A daily walk in Prospect Park.
Crystals, crystals everywhere. My house is full of earth's energy: Amethyst, Agate, Amber, Amazonite, Flourite, Kyanite, Smoky Quartz, Citrine, Hematite, Orange Calcite, Malachite, Lapis, Pyrite, Selenite, Lepidolite, and Celestite. Each crystal is a miracle in itself and keeps me grounded.
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