Suze Orman watched her dad run into his burning store to save the cash register — she says it shaped how she sees money

Fortunately, Orman’s father survived the inferno, but when he came back out, Orman said he was holding his all-metal cash register. He suffered third-degree burns and experienced ongoing health complications because of that decision. But his choice on that fateful day was the beginning of several lessons Orman learned that shaped her attitude toward finances.

‘Money is more important than life’

One of the first things Orman said she took away from the fire incident was that “I learned, or I thought I learned, the lesson that money was more important than life itself because I watched my father risk his life for money.”

Orman believed this because she saw her father risk his life to save his cash register, which held all the money he had.

His willingness to save what he had worked for showed Orman the importance of protecting her own financial future, which is something she has inspired many others to do throughout her career.

‘I wanna have conviction. I want to be strong’

Orman also learned from the fire incident that she should be strong and determined. She explained that as a volunteer in the hospital, she watched her father cope with the treatment for the severe burns that he had endured.

While she said the treatment must have been painful, her father was stoic. And she decided she wanted to exhibit the same characteristics in her own life.

“I wanna have conviction. I want to be strong. I wanna be like my father. That’s what I wanna be like,” Orman said on the podcast.

‘I saw that they were never ever going to give up’

Finally, Orman took one more key lesson away from the fire incident. She wanted to emulate the work ethic her parents had shown during this challenging period.