Sharon Lechter, Financial Literacy Guru Says “Pay Your Family First!”

Sharon Lechter has dedicated her life’s work to financial literacy. She has served on the Dean’s Council 100 of the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University and is a national spokesperson for the National CPAs Financial Literacy Commission. Sharon was also appointed to the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy for both President Bush and President Obama in highlighting the need for financial literacy in our nation.

Sharon Lechter, Positively Powerful Woman of 2012, says “Pay your family first”. In fact, she believes in this so passionately that she is the founder of a company by the same name. Pay Your Family First is a financial education organization that also includes  YOUTHpreneur, which sparks the entrepreneurial spirit in children.

What is Pay Your Family First?

What can we do? Be Part of the Solution! It is never too late to improve financial literacy in your own life or in the lives you touch. Here are some Pay Your Family First solutions that can be applied not only to your own family but people that you mentor and members of your community:

• Talk to your kids about money
• Play the ThriveTime for Teens game with the youth in your life
• Sponsor a Pay Your Family First program
• Teach a Pay Your Family First program
• Get the Money For Women By Women DVD
• Read. For example, Sharon’s authored Think and Grow Rich – Three Feet From Gold in cooperation with the Napoleon Hill Foundation, updated Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill and is known world-wide as the co-author of the international best-selling book Rich Dad Poor Dad and the Rich Dad series of books.
  

This Positively Powerful Woman continues to do her work in other areas as well. Sharon currently serves on the national board of Childhelp. (We need our children healthy and safe. Did you know that every year 3.3 million reports of child abuse are made in the United States involving 6 million children; that’s because reports can include multiple children. The United States has the worst record in the industrialized nation – losing five children every day due to abuse-related deaths. Source)

She also serves on the national board of the Women Presidents’ Organization. The WPO is a non-profit membership organization for women presidents of multimillion-dollar companies. Its members take part in professionally-facilitated peer advisory groups in order to bring the ‘genius out of the group’ and accelerate the growth of their businesses. (The 50 Fastest Growing Women-Owned/led companies in North America generated a combined $4 billion in 2011 revenues (mean of $80.1 million) and collectively employed 26,883 in 2011 (projected 34,550 employees in 2012). Now that’s financial literacy in action! Source)

Recently Sharon traveled to Ghana to speak on Getting Your Finances Right. Her message has universal appeal. She advised her audience to use caution against “sudden wealth syndrome”, to resist the temptation to spend rather than steward and to grab the tools, education and resources they need to manage their finances wisely. Hear her message:

  “You can control your own destiny!  Just like here at home; the message is very similar.  We want kids to understand that they have the power within themselves to create a stable, secure future.  They just have to want it badly enough, and be willing to work hard to get there.”

To paraphrase this quote about Sharon Lechter’s book, Think and Grow Rich – Three Feet From Gold: May you find encouragement and motivation to believe in yourself, discover your own Personal Success Equation™, and never give up. You are just three feet from gold! Begin today and Pay Your Family First!

Sharon Lechter is one of six influential women who will be honored at the Positively Powerful Woman Awards. She will also be a panelist on Financial Literacy at The Conversation On Leadership Summit that will follow the Awards presentations. The theme of the Summit is “From Vision To Reality, What Does It Take?”