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Advisor Highlight: Roger Higa
Living with Gratitude
Gratitude is usually considered a reaction, a result of accumulating the good things in life—a quiet inventory of abundance that leaves us humbled and fulfilled. But, according to 2017 HCF Outstanding Professional Advisor in Philanthropy Roger Higa, gratitude isn’t something you have to wait for a lifetime of accomplishments to feel; it’s something you can make. And you make it, he says, by giving.
“What giving has done for me personally is, it’s allowed me to appreciate life. Every day I live with gratitude,” says Higa, a professional advisor for more than 13 years whose independent firm, Roger Higa Financial Services, LLC, offers full-service insurance and financial services to help his clients build wealth and protect their hard-earned assets. “Helping others and giving back is what gets me out of bed every morning, because, when I get up, I know I’m going to help someone, I just don’t know who it is. And that curiosity forces me to get out and find out who that person might be.”
While that attitude might seem natural for someone in Higa’s roles earlier in his career with the Alzheimer’s Association and Big Brothers Big Sisters, it’s central to his work now as a professional advisor, offering his clients an opportunity to enhance their own lives through giving.
“When you have the opportunity to give, it gives you life! And you want to do more of it!” he says with characteristic enthusiasm. “If I don’t get the sense that giving or philanthropy is part of my client’s life, that’s the flag that tells me I need to educate them. And I’m gonna educate them through my experiences.”
The Kalihi Education Coalition Scholarship Fund of HCF, which Higa set up in 2005 to provide scholarship support for children in need, provides a vivid example. A repeat recipient of the scholarship was a young woman who overcame homelessness and an abusive relationship while raising two children. She went on to earn her master's degree in social work and is now helping hundreds of patients facing similar challenges to access mental health care. “She wrote on her graduation cap, ‘breaking the cycle of poverty by one degree,’” Higa recalls. “That inspires me to just want to give more.”
Higa's advice to his fellow professional advisors for starting the philanthropic conversation is to look in the mirror. “If you're not doing it, it's going to be hard to persuade someone else to do it. So my philosophy is: You do it yourself. You share with them the impact that you have made, and they'll follow,” he says. “When people see that giving is part of my DNA, it gets them to think, ‘Gosh, is that something that maybe I can do, to impact and inspire other people?’”
According to Higa, the effects of giving are endless. “If we don't give, we cannot grow,” he says. “It takes resources to generate opportunity for people. But it doesn't take much if we all work together. And it lasts generations. When you give to someone, it impacts the generation after them and the generation after that. It’s an impact that will go on forever.”
Living with gratitude through his personal life and practice as a professional advisor, Higa teaches a powerful lesson about philanthropy. More than just an add-on to financial planning, it’s a way to enrich clients’ lives, contribute to the growth of our community, and foster gratitude not only for the recipient, but for the one who gives.
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