Inspired from Vickie's post about the lie and the S& P 500
True story from my days as a staff OT: We had this annual “Let’s talk about your 401(k)” meeting. Picture 27 women in a conference room, coffee in hand, ready to pretend we understood finances. The rep starts talking about yields, diversification, risk tolerance… and I swear half the room went into that polite, glazed-over “I’m listening but also leaving my body” face. Out of all 27 of us, only ONE woman actually knew what was going on. (spoiler alert, it wasn't me!) She had charts. She had notes. She was asking questions that sounded like they belonged on CNBC. And the rest of us? We basically formed a quiet pact: Just tell us what you’re doing, and we’ll do that. Didn’t matter if we were 25 or 55.Didn’t matter if we were scared of risk or thought we were Beyoncé on the stock market stage. Nope. We all just copied her like we were taking a test we definitely didn’t study for. Looking back… wow. What a strategy. Not “pathetic,” but definitely “I hope future-me never finds out about this” energy. But here’s the truth: Most of us were never taught this stuff. I was taught to go to college, work hard, and save a lot (whatever that means). And honestly, we were too busy with our patients to take the time to study up on finances too! So we did the next best thing: we followed the girl who looked like she had her life together. Now, after learning from Vickie, I am the woman who actually wants to know what’s happening with my money. Now I raise my hand. Now I ask the questions. Because being an Undependent Woman isn’t about knowing everything—it’s about not outsourcing your whole financial future to the one coworker who remembered her notebook. We can laugh at it now… “Please tell me I’m not the only one who used to smile, nod, and pray no one asked me about risk tolerance.”