Deb Aronson

Count Her In

Suze Orman Changes People’s Lives By Helping Them Deal With Money Worries

First appeared in Illinois Alumni magazine in January 2001 under Profiles

Suze Orman, ‘77 LAS, once limited her career goals to a single area: waitressing.

“My grades were never great. I had a speech defect, so I couldn’t speak, and I had mild dyslexia, so I couldn’t read. I thought I was dumb,” she said.

Now Orman, a Certified Financial Planner®, is on the road almost the entire year, speaking before groups that pay tens of thousands of dollars to hear her words. She has written three top-selling books (“You’ve Earned It, Don’t Lose It,” “Nine Steps to Financial Freedom” and “The Courage to be Rich”) and is a financial contributor to NBC News’ “Today” show, a regular guest on “Oprah” and a contributing editor to O: The Oprah Magazine. She appears as the host of her own “Financial Freedom” hour on QVC television, where she has sold 1.5 million books, making her that network’s No. 1-selling author. The revenue from the Suze Orman enterprise is in the tens of millions of dollars per year.

None of this fazes Orman because, as she says, “it all doesn’t matter; none of it is permanent.” The fact that neither fame nor riches interest Orman is perhaps one secret of her phenomenal success. Her goal was never to become rich and famous but to change people’s lives by helping them deal with their money worries.

“I care about how people’s lives are being transformed by my words more than about the sales figures,” she said.

Some aspects of Orman’s message are not new: Get rid of credit-card debt; put every spare dime into savings because the sooner you do, the more it can grow; and figure out what you want your money to do for you.

What makes Orman’s message different is that it comes packaged with a sort of Eastern philosophy mixed in. She believes that money has a life force; that if you pay attention to your money, it will pay attention to you; and conversely, that if you neglect your money, it will neglect you.

This is all to say that Orman addresses the emotional aspect of money. She points out that everyone has ambivalent feelings toward money, and those feelings cause people to ignore or mismanage it.

Orman’s frank discussion of the spiritual and emotional aspects of money, as well as explaining things in clear language, has attracted a huge following. “We usually only use the words ‘God’ and ‘money’ together when we say, ‘God, I wish I had more money,’” she observed with a laugh.

Many (primarily male) financial writers dismiss Orman as too “touchy feely.” It’s true that she says things no other financial whiz would dare, such as, “Money is so lonely, it’s like a baby; it can’t do anything on its own.” She shrugs off criticisms, replying, “All these guys claiming and pretending that there is no emotional component to money — that’s a laugh. I just feel sorry for them.”

Of course, another reason financial writers may feel threatened is that Orman tells her audiences that they may not need financial advisers; they can figure this stuff out on their own.

Spirituality and helping others are nothing new for Orman.

“I always believed in a higher authority,” said Orman, who was raised Jewish. “God always intrigued me.”

Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, Orman begged to go to Hebrew School, and even as a child, she looked for ways to help others. She stole money from her father, not to buy candy or treats, but to buy trees for Israel, and she occasionally brought homeless people to her house and gave them her father’s clothes. “Helping people was always a part of me,” Orman said. “That was what God wanted me to do.”

Today, Orman (who anonymously contributes large amounts of money to various causes) urges people to give away some of their money to help others.

“It’s the impulse to give that puts you in touch with the best part of yourself — and the principles of abundance that are alive in the world,” Orman writes in “Nine Steps to Financial Freedom.” “Yes, we help ourselves when we give, but that is not why we give.

“True giving comes as an impulse, so the amount need not be cast in stone, and it may vary from month to month. All that matters is that the amount be meaningful to you and that it be given with thought, humility and gratitude. You must not give less than your inner voice tells you is the meaningful amount, for that is being cheap. … Nor must you give more than you can afford, for that is not being responsible to yourself and your money.”

Perhaps the other secret to Orman’s success is her strong need to be organized. Her friends tease her about lining up San Pelligrino water bottles — in rows, with their labels facing out — in her refrigerator. Her books exhort her readers to tidy up their wallets in order to show respect to their money and the things their money has bought. This kind of organization also enables Orman — with the help of relatively few assistants — to stay connected to every aspect of her business.

Orman and money were not always synonymous. She grew up in Chicago, one of three children of a struggling businessman and a full-time working mother.

Despite her poor grades, Orman was expected to go to college, just as her father had. Her family finances left a state school as her only choice. She chose the University of Illinois’ Urbana-Champaign campus in order to get a little bit away from her Chicago home and majored in social work. She remembers college as a fantastic time … though not necessarily academically.

Orman worked full time as a waitress at places like the Red Herring, the Red Lion Inn and Bubby & Zadies Delicatessen. Her other favorite pastimes were sitting on the Quad watching other students perform or just hanging out and playing air hockey in the Illini Union.

“These were some of the greatest days of my life,” said Orman. “I couldn’t believe I was lucky enough to be on this campus, watching all the people and the performances. It was the first time I felt like a real part of the bigger picture.”

Orman (who was on campus from 1969-73 but whose degree dates to 1977 because of a certain unfulfilled foreign language requirement) met many people who also went on to fame and/or fortune.

As a freshman living in the Florida Avenue Residence halls (room 222, she says), she met Judy Jacklin ‘71, future wife of the late comedian/actor John Belushi, who lived in the same dorm. The next year Jacklin and Orman roomed together off campus, along with Belushi (“we all thought he was hilarious”). She makes it clear that “Animal House,” the movie that launched Belushi’s career, was straight from their campus life.

In the course of her various college jobs, Orman also met and befriended folk singer Dan Fogelberg ‘71 faa and members of the rock group REO Speedwagon.

“It was such a breeding ground of greatness,” Orman said of her college experience, “and the one link we all had was the University of Illinois.”

In 1973, finished with all her courses except that pesky foreign language requirement, Orman headed West. Those who have read even one Orman book know she worked for seven years as a waitress at the Buttercup Bakery in Berkeley, Calif.

During those years, she became fascinated by the stock market and options. She eventually applied, and was hired, as a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch. After working there for several years, she moved on to Prudential-Bache. At both places many of her clients were older people preparing for retirement. Their experiences form the core of her first book, “You Earned It, Don’t Lose It,” which was published in 1995 as a holiday gift to her clients. It is now in its 25th printing and made the business best-seller lists of USA Today, Business Week and The Wall Street Journal.

The book’s anecdotes make clear that she truly cares about her clients. Likewise, Orman always follows up with people who have appeared on television with her on the “Oprah” show, where Orman has helped people in financial straits get back on track.

“These people go on national television and expose everything for me. How could I not follow up with them?” Orman asked incredulously. “My greatest joy is helping people who no other financial adviser would want to touch.”

Yes, she may love these people wholeheartedly, but Orman’s true strength is that she is — completely and totally — a numbers person. She never forgets a phone number, a room number or a date. She can solve complicated financial problems without even slowing down to grab a pencil.

Little else seems to be slowing down in Orman’s life. Her next major project is a complex financial one — nothing less than to help repair the financial system of South Africa.

“What a challenge — to start with a system everyone has given up on and fix it,” she said fervently. She hopes that her efforts, via her contract with the First National Bank of South Africa, will help “create a new system that doesn’t rip people off.”

Orman, whose trip to South Africa last spring inspired her with this new mission, believes this transformation can be done one person at a time. When she returns to South Africa for a series of talks in June, the admission to many of them will be free (she typically receives $20,000 to $25,000 per one-hour talk).

While much of Orman’s career focuses on more immediate goals, such as improving people’s financial situations, Orman also looks to the long term. She says the charitable foundation she is establishing will enable her to keep helping people after she has passed on. “When I’m gone,” she said of her foundation, “my money will continue to be here, and I want to make sure it always funnels back to people who need it.”

And Orman, not one to aim low, has high ambitions even for her legacy. “When I die,” she said, “I want to be remembered as one of the most extraordinary philanthropists the world has ever seen.”