Louis Barajas Media Clips

For many Latino professionals, graduating means moving out of the barrio and into suburbia. But tonight in our weekly profile of unique public service work in LA's Latino community, we're going to show you the reverse. An accounting whiz who left millionaires row to set up shop in the barrio.

He helps them cut taxes, save money, salt away savings. But to do all this, 32 year old Luis Barajas has had to ignore his own good financial advice. This certified financial planner meet a man.

Who'S come back to his barrio. Luis Barajas grew up here, then left for higher education.

Their investments according.

Now I know one of the things that you've tried to do is you've tried to reach out to the Hispanic community and try and get more of the Hispanic community involved in investing. Tell me a little bit about this effort.

I'm here with Luis Barajas, a certified financial planner with Barajas and Torres. Welcome, Louis.

Hi, Camille.

So what is their English television?

Yeah, we went to the university for the kids. There's going to be English television for them. You're going to reach me through a little bit of both tonight.

And that is where can you find the best interest rate for your dollar? Joining us now for a business center in depth look, Luis Barajas of Luis Barajas and Associates in Los Angeles. Named by Mutual Funds magazine to be one of the 100 top advisors in the. He is also the author of a new book, the Latino Journey to Financial Greatness.

We are joined by Luis Barajas this morning and he is an investment analyst and he has his own company actually Luis Barajas and Associates. And we want to talk a little bit about not just what's happening. When we come back, we'll meet a man who's committed to sharing the secrets of accumulating wealth with everyone, no matter how modest their means.

Investing long term is the way out of the barrio.

This is the book which is part of your company's presentation. It's called the Latino Journey to Financial Greatness. A key belief that creates an obstacle for Latinos to achieve financial greatness is what I call the Patrompion economic system. And in the agricultural past of Mexico, there used to be a landowner who used to take care of everyone, used to take care of all their needs. Medical, housing, food, everything. Bring this down to the year 2003 in the United States. We've got Latinos who are relying on the government to take care of them. Social Security, for example, multi generations of families on the welfare system. We also have People living in their homes, you know, when they're in their 30s with their parents, still, those things have to change if we want. We have to change those beliefs if we want to get to the next level, and that's achieve financial greatness. So imagine if all of a sudden we can change their mindset. Imagine if all of a sudden I can get these people to start putting money away for important things. What's going to happen 5, 10, 15, 20 years? Years. When I'm no longer here on this earth, I know that I would have created an impact in this community. And that to me, is financial greatness. One of the things that I'm dealing with in the Latino community is the idea of scarcity. Two fishermen at the end of a pier. One just gets back from fishing for crabs. The other fisherman notices that he's got three buckets of crabs with one has no lid on it. And it looks like the crabs are starting to get out. And he tells them, hey, what happened? You forgot to put a lid on the crabs. He said, no, don't worry about it. I've got German crabs and French crabs, but the Mexican crabs, I always leave the lid open. He goes, why? Because, you know, as soon as they start to get out, the rest of them bring it back down. They never get out. And that form, that belief of scarcity thinking won't allow us to achieve financial greatness ever. We need to start thinking abundantly. The opposite of that story would be the. That if all the crabs got together and helped push one of the crabs out, because now there would be no weight, the other crab can pull the rest of them out.

So for about a year, I listened to my clients. I listened to their fears, I listened to their hopes, I listened to their desires. I listened to what was creating obstacles in their way. So what I call this is creating a Latino economic revolution, because all revolutions start by changing the way a community thinks. And what I have done is I'm not going to focus today on the how. Some of you think that what you're listening to is you're going to listen to how to invest in an IRA and what the limits are and how to open a checking account and what you need to do and what compounding is. You will hear none of that today. So I want you to understand, because a lot of people, when they've picked up the book the Latino Journey to Financial Greatness, they go, oh, I'll never have financial greatness. They don't understand the concept.

Let me read to you what financial greatness is. Financial greatness is just the focus on growing and using your money to help you express your full potential. It's having an abundance of money, time, health and love. And as Henry Ford once said, the highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life. How many believe? Have you ever thought that it's too late? That it's already too late for you to achieve financial greatness? It is, right? But if you change that thought, it's all in your mind. You have the choice to make that decision. Is it too late or is it not too late? That's up to you. Thank you very much.