Jia Jiang came to the United States with the dream of becoming the next Bill Gates. But despite early success in the corporate world, his first attempt to pursue his entrepreneurial dream ended in rejection. He was crushed. Jiang realized that, like so many others, his fear of rejection was a bigger obstacle than any single rejection would ever be, and he needed to find a way to overcome his fear.

And with that goal in mind, Jiang's "100 days of rejection" experiment was born.

We were joined today by author of the new book Rejection Proof , Jia Jiang. 

Jia Jiang is the founder of the popular blog and video series 100 Days of Rejection. His story has been covered by dozens of news outlets, including Bloomberg Businessweek, Yahoo News, The Huffington Post, Forbes, Inc.com, MYV, Gawker, the Daily Mail, Fox News, and CBS's The Jeff Probst Show. A native of Beijing, China, Jiang came to the UNited States as a teenager to pursue his dream of becoming an entrepreneur. Jiang holds an MBA from Duke University and a bachelor's in computer science form Brigham Young University. 

For more on Jia Jiang:

Rejection Proof

www.fearbuster.com 

Personal Finance Cheat Sheet Article:

http://www.cheatsheet.com/personal-finance/how-schools-can-improve-their-personal-finance-education.html/

You can listen live by going to www.kpft.org and clicking on the HD3 tab. You can also listen to this episode and others by podcast at:

http://directory.libsyn.com/shows/view/id/moneymatters

or

www.moneymatterspodcast.com

‪#‎kpft‬

‪

"Its not how much we give but how much love we put into giving."-- Mother Teresa

DEFINITION of 'Charitable Donation'

A gift made by an individual or an organization to a nonprofit organization, charity or private foundation. Charitable donations are commonly in the form of cash, but can also take the form of real estate, motor vehicles, appreciated securities, clothing and other assets or services.

We were joined today by Jeff Gerold who is a Vice President and Charitable Planning Consultant with Fidelity Charitable.

Jeff Geroldis a vice president and charitable planning consultant for Fidelity Charitable^®, an independent public charity with a donor-advised fund program.

In his current role, Mr. Gerold is a resource on charitable planning for advisors and their clients in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. He helps advisors understand and stay abreast of charitable planning strategies and ways to incorporate charitable giving into overall financial and wealth management plans.

Prior to joining Fidelity Charitable in 2007, Mr. Gerold spent three years at Fidelity Investments Life Insurance Company. He began his career at Fidelity Investments in 1998.

Mr. Gerold is a graduate of the University of North Texas and a Certified Financial Planner^® (CFP). He has participated in charity events sponsored by A Little Helping Hand, a nonprofit organization working to better children’s lives.

About Fidelity Charitable

Fidelity Charitable is an independent public charity that has helped donors support more than 190,000 nonprofit organizations with nearly $19 billion in grants. Established in 1991, Fidelity Charitable launched the first national donor-advised fund program. The mission of the organization is to further the American tradition of philanthropy by providing programs that make charitable giving simple and effective. For more information about Fidelity Charitable, visit http://www.fidelitycharitable.org.

Personal Finance Cheat Sheet Article:

http://www.cheatsheet.com/personal-finance/how-schools-can-improve-their-personal-finance-education.html/

You can listen live by going to www.kpft.org and clicking on the HD3 tab. You can also listen to this episode and others by podcast at:

http://directory.libsyn.com/shows/view/id/moneymatters

or

www.moneymatterspodcast.com

‪#‎kpft‬

‪

"The most important thing is getting clarity about the big picture so you can cope with the unexpected. Maybe you’ll lose the job you thought was secure; you’ll take a financial risk that doesn’t pan out; you’ll have twins when you were only budgeting for one. In other words: Life will happen." Carl Richards

Today we were joined by the author of the new book The One Page Financial Plan, Carl Richards.

Carl Richards is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and the director of investor education for the BAM ALLIANCE, a community of over 130 independent wealth management firms throughout the United States. He is the creator of the weekly Sketch Guy column in the The New York Times, and is a columnist for Morningstar Advisor. Carl has also been featured on Marketplace Money, The Leonard Lopate Show, Oprah.com and Forbes.com. In addition, Carl has become a frequent keynote speaker at financial planning conferences and visual learning events around the world.

Through his simple sketches, Carl makes complex financial concepts easy to understand. His sketches also serve as the foundation for his first book, The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money (Portfolio/Penguin). Carl's art appeared in a solo show at the Kimball Art Center, in Park City, Utah. Other showings include The Parson's Gallery in New York, The Shultz Museum, and an exhibit at the Mansion House in London. His commissioned work is on display in businesses and educational institutions across the country. He lives with his family in Park City, Utah.

We were also joined by Suzanne Edwards from the Houston Business Journal for our monthly check in on the local Houston business news. Suzanne discussed the oil market, mergers and acquisitions and roboinvesting.

The One-Page Financial Plan

You can find out more about Carl Richards  by visiting the website at:

#behaviorgap

@hbjsuzanne

April is here and many of us are done with taxes. Now what? April is also Financial Literacy month and celebrated locally as Houston Money Week. Houston Money Week is a financial education initiative for people of all ages. FREE workshops are scheduled from April 11 - April 18, 2015.

We were joined today by Houston Money Week Partner Ogadi Fields

#

We are at about 75,000 Energy and Oil job losses nationwide since the drop in oil prices began. Here in Houston we all have friends or family members who might have been in this initial round of layoffs. The bad news in that it is not over yet. According to our guest the 2nd round of cuts will be coming shortly down the road. The good news is that there is hope. If you know someone who has been let go or is worried that they might be let go soon then please share this episode with them.

On today's show we were joined by Brian Newkirk of Search Group International and Todd Brinegar of Fikser.us. We discussed:

- When are the next round of cuts coming

- Mergers and Acquisistions

- The partnership of SGI and FIKSER working to get Houstonians back to work in similar fields or new jobs

- What to do if you have been laid off

-The biggest mistakes made by those looking for work

and much more....

Learn the secrets to maximizing your Social Security benefits and earn up to thousands of dollars more each year with expert advice that you can’t get anywhere else.

Want to know how to navigate the forbidding maze of Social Security and emerge with the highest possible benefits? You could try reading all 2,728 rules of the Social Security system (and the thousands of explanations of these rules), but Kotlikoff, Moeller, and Solman explain Social Security benefits in an easy to understand and user-friendly style. What you don’t know can seriously hurt you: wrong decisions about which Social Security benefits to apply for cost some individual retirees tens of thousands of dollars in lost income every year.  

On today's show we were once again joined by Suzanne Edwards, Money and Legal reporter for Houston Business Journal. Suzanne updated us on the local banking trends in Houston in relation to the oil market.

We were joined at the halfway mark by author Laurence Kotlikoff and discussed his newest book Get What's Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security.

Laurence J. Kotlikoff is William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor and a professor of economics at Boston University.  He is also president of Economic Security Planning, Inc., a company specializing in financial planning software.  His company websites are ESPlanner.com and MaximizeMySocialSecurity.com.  He is author or co-author of sixteen books, including Spend ‘Til the End and The Coming Generational Storm (both with Scott Burns).  His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Forbes, The Economist, Huffington Post, and other major publications.  He has served as a consultant to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, governments around the world, and major U.S. corporations including Merrill Lynch, Fidelity Investments, and AON.  In addition, he has provided expert testimony on numerous occasions to committees of Congress.  He lives in Boston.

When your child has picked a school and decided they want to go to college the next step is paying for it. After we get over the sticker shock that is the current cost of college tuition we most figure out where the funds to pay for school actually come from. Today we answer the question how do we pay for college.

Jackie Aguilera has over 20 years experience in adult education and curriculum development. She has taught literacy, college success courses, and workforce readiness skills development at UH Downtown, University of Houston, Houston Community College, and the Houston Center for Literacy. Currently, Jackie is the Literacy Coordinator at East Side University, a community based learning center in Third Ward, and serves on the Houston Center for Literacy Advisory Board and on the adult education committees of Houston Money Week and the Alliance for Economic Inclusion.

You can find out more about Jackie Aguilera and East Side University by visiting the website at:

www.esuvclc.org

You can listen live by going to www.kpft.org and clicking on the HD3 tab. You can also listen to this episode and others by podcast at:

http://directory.libsyn.com/shows/view/id/moneymatters

or

www.moneymatterspodcast.com

‪@kpft @houstonmoneywk

For me a car has always been a tool to get you from point A to B. I have said in the past that a car is a depreciating asset as soon as you drive it off the lot. The only exception to this rule is classic and/or collectible cars. I recently toured a classic and collectible car facility here in Houston that made me change my thinking. After learning about how much some of these cars have recently gone for at the auction I wanted to learn more about collecting cars. Even more interesting than the cars are the people behind them.  

Today we popped the hood and looked at the collectible and classic car market with Michael Foertsch, Owner of M. Brandon Cars.

Michael Foertsch is the owner of M. Brandon Motorcars, a small automobile dealership located in Houston. He specializes in Ferrari models from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, as well as other "interesting" sports cars. He is currently an apprentice concours judge for the International Association for the Conservation and Preservation of Ferrari Automobiles (IAC/PFA), and his personal cars have won Platinum awards at the prestigious Cavallino Classic. Before opening his dealership, he spent almost 20 years as a software engineer, and was a high performance driving instructor on the weekends.

Things to consider when buying a car - Chris Hensley

http://youtu.be/_P2LjWPnKsM

Tune in Tomorrow Morning at 10 AM to hear me on Business Newsmakers Radio W/ Lou Garino 1110 KTEK AM Wall Street Journal Radio. We will be talking about Houston Money Week and much more.

http://www.businessnewsmakersradio.com/