This post brought to you by American Century Investments. The content and opinions expressed below are that of Lazy Man and Money.
The main focus of this blog is to save money, invest it, and reach financial freedom. At that point, you can do whatever makes you happy. Most experts say that leading a meaningful life is a critical ingredient to being happy. In my opinion, it is more important than money. What if there was a shortcut to leading a meaningful life while you are investing to reach financial freedom? That would be worth considering, right?
Let me introduce you to Jim Stowers Jr. with this video.
For those who are too “lazy” to watch the video, here’s the main message: Jim Stowers spent his life building the mutual fund company, American Century Investments. (As a software engineer, I appreciate the punch cards in the video. This is a subtle hint to go back and watch the video.)
The late Jim Stowers Jr. was a cancer survivor as is his wife, Virginia. That makes it easy to understand why they’d want to help fund the fight against the disease. I feel this at a very personal level. Not to be a downer, but my father died of cancer when I was 13… he was 45. I will turn 40 in just a few days. I often feel like I’m “racing the clock” just in case genetics deals the same hand to me.
What they did is create the Stowers Institute for Medical Research with a whopping $2 billion dollar endowment. Here’s a video telling you a little more about that. It stood out to me that they have 550 employees that are focused on more than just cancer. When I saw the video about their day-to-day activities, it surely looks like they are doing some great things to advance medical research.
More than 40 percent of American Century Investments profits have been distributed to the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, a non-profit basic biomedical research organization. The Institute is the controlling owner of American Century Investments and has received dividend payments totaling over $1.2 billion since 2000.
Here’s that shortcut that I mentioned above. While you are investing to reach financial freedom, you can rest easy knowing that you are investing with a firm that supports a higher purpose.
On a personal level, the idea of creating an endowment for a great cause changes my perspective. I’ve been focused on being frugal and using the savings to invest for financial freedom for our family. Maybe I’m being “self-limiting?” Watching the video made me think about how I can be like Stowers and create a similar endowment.
Even though this is a post sponsored by American Century Investments, I want to reiterate the good that can come from responsible investing. Life is about the impact you can make to a greater good for everyone directly or indirectly. Considering the opportunity to do so is worth your time and mine.
I had no idea that was the background on American Century!
On an unrelated note (and may be a future post), given the medical history have you loaded up on life insurance?
1. Live your own life, don’t look at when your father died. My wife worried for YEARS that she would never live past the age her mother died (38). When she did, she was so used to worrying, she had to find something to worry about (getting cancer). I am 100% positive that her worrying about cancer helped cause her to get cancer.
2. Back in the late ’80s my sisters and I started investing monthly with American Century. My father lost his pension and 401(k) when the company that bought his used those funds to help fund the purchase of the company. The company went bankrupt, my father and all the other workers lost their retirement savings and after working there 30 years, that hurts.
Anyway, after saving monthly with American Century for 7 years (and with the help of a great stock market) we were able to hand my parents a check for $65,000 to help ease their concerns about retirement. American Century helped us directly to do the greater good for our parents.
That’s some great advice. Thanks jmhays.