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Windsor man passionate for teaching about the dollar
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Windsor resident Steve Maxwell poses with his financial fluency book, “Wise Up-What You Don’t Know About Money WILL Hurt You.” Maxwell is a commercial real-estate investor, author, business owner and a financial teacher, helping others become smart and knowledgeable about money.
Jennifer Moore
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Jennifer Moore, (Bio) jmoore@mywindsornow.com
May 3, 2008
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Steve Maxwell believes money is a different language.
And after working 19 years at a large cooperation, the Windsor resident wanted to explore, learn and then teach what most people are never taught about the dollar.
"When I first got out of college, I didn't know how to balance a check book," Maxwell said.
He is now a commercial real-estate investor, author, business owner and a financial teacher, helping others become financially fluent.
"I'm so passionate about helping others become financially fluent as I know personally how rarely it's taught and most of us have to learn it from the school of hard knocks," Maxwell told Windsor Now.
Windsor Now sat down with Maxwell and discussed why money matters and how he helps others.
Windsor Now: Tell me about yourself.
Steve Maxwell: I'm married to my wife Fran. We have three kids. Natalia is 16 and she is my outgoing artist. Alexander is 13 and I call him my LEGO engineer. Benjamin is our youngest and he is 9 and we adopted him from Cambodia. I grew up in Rifle, went to school at Colorado State University, studied engineering and then I went to work for Intel for 19 years.
While I was there (at Intel), I always had an interest in money and numbers. I had a lot of people start asking me questions, everything from should I refinance and I'm in debt what do I do, and I tried to find the answers. I read as much as a I could, I asked as many experts as I could, and then in 2003 I ended up leaving my job at Intel and decided what I wanted to do next. On one hand, I wanted to be a school teacher because I really like to teach and on the other hand I thought about engineer consulting. It's funny how bad things sometimes turn into good things, I had surgery that year and I was in bed for six months. I got to thinking a lot and reading a lot, and it propelled me to what I'm doing today.
WN: And talk to me about what you doing today?
SM: There are a couple focuses I have, but they all tie together with money. One, is I work with business partners (The REALWealth Company) and I have some commercial real estate investments. I started out doing residential real estate with rentals and since then I'm more focused on larger properties like apartments and shopping centers. Within the real estate, I handle all the negotiations, money and numbers. Most of our properties are in other states, although we have one large property in Aurora and it happens to be our biggest property.
Because I'm focusing on what I'm good at, it really does not take that much time. So it allows me to work with my real passion, and that's helping people with financial fluency. I've done that in a number of different ways including coached people for pay, teaching at numerous seminars and now providing training at companies such as Wal-Mart.
What I try and teach people is what's best for you with money. How can you learn? If you can just learn some of the basic fundamentals, it makes such a difference.
And more recently, I've been helping my daughter with her art business and one thing I've learned is that you have to want to learn. So my daughter had some of her friends (Windsor High School students MacKenzie Norlin and Jasmine Aas) over and their parents. They asked me what I did, and I told them. They asked me if I would teach their daughters a class on business and money. We've had a lot of fun. We've even talked about some life skills with business and how to set goals and achieve them and many other different topics.
The people I talked to told me 'Steve you should write a book.' I really do enjoy helping people, it's so fun for me, but how could I help more people. So, this past year I wrote my first book "Wise Up-What You Don't Know About Money WILL Hurt You." It's a foundation book. I've read a lot of great books, but I've found that a lot of books talk about the mindset, which is very important, but I've found the actual subject of money and how it works with a tool is not there. So I put in what I think are the foundations that everybody needs to learn.
My book is meant to be very hands-on and practical.
WN: Why should students start learning about money?
SM: Things that I know now that are a given and make sense, I had no idea back then. I was 21 years old, a college graduate and I didn't know how to balance a check book. So, it's the simple things like how do I get customers, how do I advertise and then how are you going to get paid?
WN: What's the hardest part of your business?
SM: How to choose and focus on what's the most important. What has helped me with that is focusing on what I do best. Also, what I've learned this year is to set a goal for something. In the years past, I wouldn't want to set it because I wouldn't know how to get there exactly.
WN: What's the most beneficial part of your job?
SM: One is being able to see people make changes and the difference it makes for them. Secondly, the choice and freedom I have both with money and time.
WN: What are your goals for your business?
SM: One is to promote my published book. The hard part is when you don't know how. Long term, I see myself impacting millions of people with financial fluency.
My motivation used to be do well enough to support you and your family, but also be able to help other people. Really what I see is as long as I'm loving it, having fun and making a great positive difference, I want to do well in order to help a lot of people.
WN: What advice do you have for others when it comes to money?
SM: Take time to learn and don't just depend upon other people. I believe there are a lot of great advisers and I've gotten a lot of help, but I've found the advice you get can be limited to how much you know.
Business Spotlight:
Free financial fluency e-mails and other information, and also 25 percent off Steve Maxwell's "Wise Up-What You Don't Know About Money WILL Hurt You," financial fluency book just for the Windsor Now readers, visit www.therealwealthcompany.com/windsornow. A money-back guarantee if for any reason readers don't like the book they can ask for a refund, and if readers don't see ways to save or earn at least $500 from reading this book they can ask for a refund.
Business Spotlight
If you would like your business featured in Saturday's Business Spotlight contact Windsor Now editor T.M. Fasano at (970) 392-5631 or at tfasano@mywindsornow.com.
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