I'll allow all of your assumptions about my hometown stand... One night, while watching the evening news, like my mother and I did every -- single --  day, a story about homelessness in Baltimore aired. After watching the story share the incredibly sad and disheartening stories about people from where I'm from, I turned to my mother, at six, and said, "Mommie, I want to build an apartment complex for all of the homeless people to live! I'm going to pray to God to bless me with money so I can do it!" My mother looked at me, gave her encouraging words AND rebuttals... Little did we BOTH know, God was moving even then.

My freshman year at Spelman College, I sat in a financial seminar... I had no idea how my life was about to be changed! During that seminar, the panel discussed finance, business, entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and all things money that I could not relate. At the beginning of the seminar, one panelist asked the question, "If any of you had a $500 emergency, how many of you could handle it with no problem?" A little more than half of Cosby Auditorium raised their hand but I just barely paid my tuition so I couldn’t raise mine. That stuck with me...