The Impact of Japanese Culture and RealCap 2016

I am back from my vacation in Japan, and I have to be honest with you – it was tough to come back. My husband George and I truly enjoyed ourselves. This picture describes how I felt – FREE! (yup, that’s me and my crazy self.) Anata ni aitakatta! In Japanese, this means “I Missed You.”

But, our unplugging gave rise to lots of creative meanderings and the ability to just be present and take in the new experience. The market remained relatively calm for me while I was gone…whew! [Side note - When I use to work at JPMorgan stock picking, many of my vacations were high jacked by a few of my stocks blowing up. I do not miss those times!]

Whenever I go to a country for the first time, I am amazed by what I learn and absorb. And of course, I would be remiss if I did not share a little bit with you as it relates to journeying with you when it comes to taking it to the next level with your money.

You ready?

Well, I’ll share one major takeaway each week over the next few weeks.

The Japanese put the community first.

Whether I saw a person covering their face with a full-blown mask so that other people won’t get sick or someone on the street stopped to help us not look terribly lost, someone constantly worried about our well-being.

Ah ha moment – What if we took a community approach to our money matters? As Americans, we tend to keep our money talks to ourselves. Families who do transfer wealth between generations do talk more than the average, but it’s still a little taboo.

But what if we (and, I mean YOU as part of the Charisse Says community) got into a habit of sharing your successes and failures for the benefit of the community?

Challenge - Please share below an investing success or failure you’ve had over the last month or two – I know someone else can benefit. We have just a few more months in this Year of Action, so let me hear it.

Vacation also allowed me to get some good reads in. My book of pleasure was Re Jane, a coming of age book told from the Korean-American perspective. Key takeaway for you – when your family has the opportunity to pull together to make a sizable investment, the results might be favorable. We can often do more collectively than individually. Notice a common theme this week?

If You’re In Town

I’ll be a panelist at this year’s RealCap Chicago 2016 conference. RealCap is a national conference dedicated to educating leaders and newcomers, developers and investors alike on the expanding industry of real estate crowdfunding. In my panel, we are set to discuss “Finding and Accessing Capital,” and I’m pretty pumped up. You can get $100 off by using my promocode: CJ100.