Suzy Orman's Life Learning to Success

Suzy Orman, a national success and foremost financial expert, started with a speech impediment that delivered long lasting effects that were to wage battle against her for some time. Since Suzy Orman could not speak well as a child, she also didn't learn to read very well. In school she was made to feel ashamed of herself by peers as well as teachers. Although the feeling of being dumb continued to bother Suzy scholastically, it was expected of her by her family to continue her education on to college. Suzy thought it would be a worthless endeavor, and although she had scored poorly on her SAT's, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign accepted her application to attend school. Her parents were struggling financially, so she knew she would have to work her way through college. Her problems with speaking reared its ugly head again in her reluctance to learn a new language, due to her difficulties managing speech in her native tongue. So intimidated, she left school without graduating and earning her degree. Suzy then decided she wanted to see what America looked like.

In her endeavor to see America, Suzy borrowed money from her brother to buy a van and converted the van into a home away from home while touring the country. Too nervous to take on the adventure alone, Suzy talked three friends to join her. With her three friends, a van and three hundred dollars to her, Suzy set off on her road trip. Eventually arriving in Berkeley, CA, Suzy's first job there was working to clear frost-damaged eucalyptus trees. When the trees were cleared, Suzy went on to work as a waitress for the Buttercup Bakery, wereshewould get coffee. While working tables at the Buttercup Bakery, Suzy finally gained the courage to get her degree by completing Spanish classes at Hayward State University and earned her degree from the University of Illinois. Suzy continued to work at the Buttercup Bakery for four more years, a college-graduate waitress, earning about $400 a month.

Waitressing at the Buttercup Bakery was about to bring Suzy Orman one step closer to her true calling. Suzy decided she wanted more for herself than just waitressing, and wanted to open her own restaurant but she lacked the funds to do so on a waitresses salary.When waitressing at the Buttercup Bakery the following day, a regular customer noticed that Suzy was not her usual self andhis name was Fred Hasbrook. Fred asked Suzy what seemed to be bothering her and Suzy continued to tell him of her lack of funds to realize her business dreams. Fred ate his breakfast and then went about the restaurant chatting with other regular customers, he gave her two thousand dollars and raised another forty-eight thousand dollars from the fellow regulars at the restaurant with a note that said, "This is for people like you, so that your dreams can come true. To be paid back in ten years, if you can, with no interest." Fred instructed Suzy to place the money in a money market account at Merrill Lynch until she had raised enough to open the restaurant she had desired. Suzy had no idea who Merrill Lynch was or what a money market account might have been. Fred continued to inform Suzy briefly about what she needed to know, and she went to Merrill Lynch to deposit the monies.

After a rough experiencewitha dishonest Merrill Lynch broker, Suzy lost all herloaned money.Suzy now looks back and states that the company as a whole, "Merrill Lynch is a fine, upstanding and honest brokerage firm, but the bosses in the Oakland office had hired someone who didn't uphold their standards." Later on as Suzy would discover, the Broker Randy had filled out paperwork on Suzy's behalf to make it look like Suzy could afford to risk all of the money deposited by investing the money into one of the more speculative investing strategies.Suzy knew still still had to pay everyone back but on a waitress' salary she had no idea how to do it. While her broker was risking her money, Suzy was watching and learning and decided to apply for and accept a job within the very office that lost her money.

Her new job intimidated her in many ways and she felt she didn't belong on many levels. Through it all Suzy was excited to learn a new world of words, ideas and life. While learning one day for a test that all stockbrokers must pass in order to do their job, Suzy read about a rule that a broker must know his or her customer and by that it meant a broker could not risk investing their money if they could not afford to lose it.Her former broker risked her money even though he had been informed she could not afford to lose it.

She informed management to inform them and they basically told her that she should have known what she was doing when she had signed the papers and that broker made them a lot of money. She was told to simply shut up and return to her work.She knew she had to do something, she sued Merrill Lynch all while working for them and they could not fire her because of that. Merrill Lynch settled out of court with Suzy, paid all of her money back to her plus interest and she promptly paid everyone back for their loans and became a successful stock broker. Suzy later switching to Prudential Securities and then opening her own brokerage firm. Coming fullcircle andturning headlong into her past speech fears, eventually focused ona writing and speaking career to help others. In doingso, Suzy haswon Emmy's for her television shows and been onbest-seller's lists for her books.