F O U N D E R
O F
C I V I L I T Y
C O N S U L T I N G
Jan Goss
LEVERAGING THE POWER OF LOVE
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arning money by sweeping sidewalks as a seven-year-old child is the first ‘paying’ job Jan Goss can remember. Her memory is not of the “work” but of the relationship of work to money. “I learned from an early age that work equals money and I understood that I loved making my own money,” Goss recalls. However, like many in her generation she was raised in a religious household and taught that money was not important. Through three marriages which resulted in two divorces and left her widowed in her 60’s, Jan spent most of her adult life in financial pain and despair. “My first husband was a businessman who became a pastor. We built a church together. One Sunday he resigned and left the church. On Monday he left me with eight children - three of our own and five foster children - no money and a congregation that looked to me to keep things together. I knew I had to make money, but I hadn’t yet clarified my foundational beliefs about money and the “why” I wanted to make money. I was in survival mode when love began to turn things around.” Born in Munich, Germany to a military family, Goss moved 21 times in 18 years. From an early age, she had a deep spiritual relationship with God and understood that she could rely on that relationship to trust her intuition and listen to her calling. “I have always believed that my relationship with my creator is based on love. Love is the most important thing. I believe that God has given me and gives all of us gifts and talents that allow us to become the person we were created to be. God gave us these things through love and through love we use these talents to give to him that for which we were born.”
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WOW Magazine