A financial advisor was trying to get the business of a wealthy, retired man in San Diego. At their previous two meetings, the advisor talked about making big returns on the client’s money and had the client pegged as an “aggressive” investor. At the next meeting, the advisor was going for the “close” and had fancy charts to cement his presentation and what he thought was a sure sale. As the client sat stoically the advisor asked, “You seem somewhat distracted. Have we missed something?”

The client proceeded to tell the advisor that he didn’t like his strategy and his proposal to invest in risky stocks made him somewhat angry. He explained that his father died penniless after investing too aggressively in the stock market. He went on to explain that his father lost his manhood and his money and that wasn’t going to happen to him.

The lessons in this story are two-fold. First, the advisor failed to ask the right questions. Secondly, he didn’t respect how the client’s life experiences impacted the way he viewed money, which he would have learned had he asked the right questions. We are a product of our environment and life experiences. We either learn from them or we are destined to repeat the mistakes of those who influenced us.

My parents were hard-working people. My father was a career Marine and my mother a stay at home mom. We lived paycheck to paycheck during my childhood though I never felt I lacked anything. My parents never had enough money to even think about saving for retirement as they were busy paying for necessities for my brother, sister and me. So they never thought about retirement income. Fortunately, my father had two pensions and Social Security so they ended up in a financially ok place when my father retired from the City of San Diego.

As a result of my life experiences, I had a keen interest in money and finances growing up. As a kid, I sold flower seeds door to door and I had two paper routes to earn spending money. In high school, I worked at the local drive-in theater.

Not only did I want to have a more comfortable financial life than my parents, but I also wanted to know all about personal finance. That thirst for knowledge drove me to a career in financial services. I have certainly made my share of financial mistakes along the way; too much credit card debt in the past, investing in a “sure thing”. The good news is that those mistakes have made me a better teacher and advisor. They have also made me more prepared for retirement than I probably would have been otherwise.

How about you? What lessons can you take from your life experiences with money? Here are three suggestions to make the most of those experiences:

1. Write down the mistakes you and/or your parents made with money. Be specific. How do you feel about them? Have they helped or hindered you?
2. What lessons have you or can you take with you to improve your personal financial life? Write them down in a Financial Journal.
3. Write down your short and long-term goals in your journal. These could be to get out of debt (long-term), start saving for a grandchild’s college education (long-term), decreasing your spending (short-term), not using credit cards (short-term), etc.

Finally, as we learned from the story at the beginning of this post, find a financial advisor or coach who you trust and who asks the right questions to get to know you and your financial life. There is no such thing as one size fits all when it comes to your unique financial goals and concerns. Don’t let anyone short change the experience for the sake of their personal gain. You are in charge! Please leave your comments below. You can also check out my FREE personal budgeting course here.