If you knew Suze…

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Nov, 1998 by Robert Frick

Even in the Bay Area, showing up for work circa 1980 with a big power-channeling crystal caused a stir. "Everybody was saying, `I hope that's a paperweight,'" says Clif Citrano, a former Merrill Lynch broker who befriended Orman and acted as her mentor. Citrano explained different types of investments, and Orman would consult her crystal to test their merits. (For the record, Orman no longer consults crystals. Now she realizes that "I was the crystal.")

With her clients--who "weren't quite in bell-bottoms and love beads but did dress in tattered jeans and tie-dyed shirts"--Orman had "an uncanny ability to put stuff into layman's language," says Citrano. And she was a potent salesperson. "I've met much better investors in my time, but no one who could market to investors better."

Her greatest fear at the time, she says, was of not deserving her new status. Every day she'd eat lunch in the parking lot at Taco Bell sitting in her 1967 Volvo station wagon, "because that's where I thought I belonged." It was then that she decided to take a page from Norman Vincent Peale and harness the power of positive thinking. She began repeating to herself, "I am young, powerful and successful, and I produce at least $10,000 a month."

It worked. She became a consistent producer, mainly selling annuities to older clients. She also presented retirement seminars to employees at Pacific Gas and Electric, a connection that would pay off in years to come.

But big paychecks didn't buy bliss, much to Orman's own surprise. After about three years of being a broker, she found herself dreading Fridays because--outside of reading Barron's and watching Wall Street Week--her weekends were empty.

So she picked up her spiritual quest again, taking up meditation and eventually traveling to India and Nepal in 1983. Standing at the helm of a boat traveling between Bombay and Elephanta Island, in Bombay harbor, Orman claims to have experienced an epiphany. "I remember feeling like Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, wind blowing through my hair. I just felt like chanting. I turned around and all these Indians were looking at me. But they were looking at me as if I had seen God." She doesn't allow for the possibility that they just thought she looked loopy.

Although she no longer saw money as the key to happiness, she wasn't about to shave her head and wear a saffron robe. "In my own way, I think money is one of the most spiritual things," says Orman, suddenly very serious. "Money will not set you free. It's your control over your thoughts and fears about money that will set you free."

Orman moved to Prudential Securities in 1983, and four years later started her own financial-planning firm (she's a certified financial planner and at one time was also a registered investment adviser). Once again, her business venture got off to a rocky start. A wave of early retirements at PG&E helped sweep a boatload of clients into her office, and she put much of their money into annuities. But when the commission checks came back, they were stolen by an employee, Orman says.