A little history behind Camp Millionaire…

When I was 38 years old, I was struck by an aha that has driven me ever since…I realized, quite simply, that the only reason I didn’t know about money as an adult was that no one taught me about it as a child.

That one simple realization has led me down several amazing paths and those paths eventually met at an intersection that allows me to help other women find their own voice and story and in turn, go back to doing the thing we seem so good at doing.

First, that simple aha motivated and inspired me to create a financial education camp for kids and teens called Camp Millionaire that not only taught them how to USE money but how to THINK about it in a completely different way…as a tool to reach their dreams and a resource in order to do more good in the world.

That program has been a huge success for not only myself but over 200 people I have trained around the world to do the same thing. 

But I didn’t stop there. 

As I spoke with more and more parents over the years (the first camp was in 2002), they kept asking me for an adult program that taught them the same tools and information their children were learning. After some contemplation, I realized that if the parents didn’t have the information, not only could they not teach their kids about money in the first place, but they also couldn’t reinforce the information their children were learning in my camp. 

So I next set out to create a powerful life-changing financial program for adults. It was great, but, I noticed right off the bat that it was mostly women who were attending. The men, it seemed, attended mostly because they were dragged along by their spouses or partners or friends; not because they really wanted to learn about money or even admit they anything to learn.

About the same time, I started to notice that the girls in our coed youth camps seemed to struggle when the camp had more boys in it than less. For a couple of years I asked the girls, on a whim, what they thought about having an all-girls program. The answer was unanimous. Every time I asked this question, I got a resounding, “YES!” from every young lady in the room.

Now I had some thinking to do. Should I just teach all girls and all women? Was there something deeper here that I was missing? How would the experience be better or different for them with only girls/women in the room? Was there information I should teach them that was different than what men needed to learn? Did they need me to teach the information in a different, more feminine way?

The answers that came changed my life, and my focus. 

First, I added an all-girls camp to my summer line-up. It was a huge success right off the bat. The girls loved being without the energy-ladened testosterone-filled boys so they would think, contemplate, work together (girls are more cooperative whereas boys are mostly competitive), write down their feelings, etc. They thrived in this new program and their parents were happy with the results.

So, with that first test a tremendous success, and with the help and inspiration of a dear friend, I happily went on to convert my adult program into a unique women-only financial empowerment program that now leaves women full of hope for their futures…hope they tell me they haven’t felt down deep for an awfully long time.

Along the way, I continue to practice what I preach, and I continually ask women what they need, to be the women they want to be; what they want to learn to move them forward in ways that fulfill them at a deeper level than just ‘the money’ part of their lives. Money, as it has turned out, isn’t really want women want. It simply ‘represents’ a ticket to a freedom and deep sense of security all of us girls are craving in our lives.

And through it all I have used myself…I’m just a girl who acted on a dream and had more than enough support for making that dream come true than I needed to succeed. 
Knowing myself and continually exploring women’s issues and simply asking other women what they want and need, helps me see what it takes for women to again, feel like women in the world.

A huge percentage of women live in poverty. They live lives of quiet desperation as it is often described. Lives full of yearning to ‘do it differently’, wondering what happened to the good old days when men went to work and women took care of the families. 

I can’t change the way things are back to the way things were but I help women, every day, see their lives for what they are and help them authentically turn those lives into something that brings them joy, satisfaction, freedom and security so they can do the things that we all seem so hard-wired to do…take care of others.

And in taking care of them, I take care of myself.