Richelle Hofer

What is “financial power”? What does financial freedom really mean?

After nearly two decades in the financial planning industry, this past year I’ve had some time off. Over the last few months I have spent a lot of time thinking, reading, and watching the world from a slightly different angle than I did for most of my life.

Like a lot of the nation, I have been completely wrapped up in the Alex Murdaugh case. I have read many news articles, spent HOURS listening to “The Murdaugh Murders” podcasts, and watched every Dateline, 2020, etc. with the word Murdaugh in the title. If you’ve somehow managed to miss this story, a quick Google search will bring you quickly up to speed… and it will blow your mind.

There are so many captivating components to the story, but “financial power” is the vortex sucking us all in.

Financial power. What does that even mean? To most of us “financial power” means: the rules don’t apply. It means: the system bends to your favor. It means: greed and arrogance. It is rarely associated with anything good.

What a shame.

I grew up a pastor’s kid. My dad had a heart to change the world… and a bank account that could barely pay the bills. From a very early age I was so frustrated by how much money limited us. There were so many opportunities to impact the world… but it all took money.

I remember one year my dad was going to Uganda to do some missions work. Five dollars would feed a child there for an entire week. Just FIVE dollars. I felt desperate to send him with as many five dollar bills as I could gather.

When I was in fourth grade I ran 3 paper routes 7 days a week: one before school and two after school. I was absolutely determined to shake off the chains of “not enough”. I was on a mission to find financial freedom.

15 years later I entered the financial industry still motivated to find financial freedom – for both myself and my clients.  Because money is the obvious key to financial freedom, right??

As I worked in the industry and accumulated money I realized it’s a lot more complicated than that.

Turns out there is no financial freedom in accumulating money for the sake of simply adding more zeroes to your net worth. There is no freedom in working so much that you never have time for anything else.  You might find financial POWER with a strategy like that, but you will not find freedom.

There is no financial freedom in greed. Greed will wrap its tentacles around you so tight that it will dictate your every move.

Financial freedom does not mean financial power. In fact, they might be complete opposites. Financial power leads to bondage – figuratively and in some cases, like the Murdaugh’s, quite literally.

True financial freedom comes through living a life of gratitude and generosity.  It comes from using money as a tool to live out personal values and fulfilling life missions.  It comes from a deep understanding that while money is important, it is only one of our assets.  

And wouldn’t it be cool if we could redefine the meaning of “Financial Power”? If every time we heard that term we immediately thought of people who were using their money to fight injustice, to right wrongs, to impact the world in a POSITIVE way?

As I move forward into the next chapters of my life I’m still in pursuit of financial freedom… but I have a lot clearer picture of what it actually looks like.

It might seem naive but I believe that we can change the world.