A Lifelong Financial Education
One of the things I've always loved to do is learn. As a child, I drove my mother crazy with questions about why things were the way they were. However, even when she didn't know the answer, she supported my quest for learning and directed me to the library to find the answers.
A new world opens up
Books opened up a whole new world for me about life outside of the neighborhood I called home. I found out there were two types of people: those that read, and those that didn't. Some had no intellectual curiosity whatsoever, preferring to sit and have their cup of knowledge filled by the educational system, while others like me, had a thirst for information which was fed day after day.
I thought nothing of walking up to people and asking them how they did things. Many people were only too happy to oblige my interest, sharing freely the information they gained along the way. I learned several things about people such as these, and one was that they didn't wait for opportunities to come to them, but actively prepared then went out and got them.
"Barriers to entry" was a term I became familiar with. It seemed that the willingness to seek out knowledge became a mental barrier for many, which kept them a prisoner of their own informational inertia. Our neighborhood was very poor, and there were those that almost seemed to wallow in that poverty, while I wanted to get the hell out.
For some, a lesson learned...
I remember attempting to tutor some of the kids in my area. The point was to get them to see the "why" behind different things and the mechanics of how they worked. Knowing how a solution was arrived at is just as important as the result itself.
But to a person, they'd all say "just give me the answer" which did nothing to foster independent thinking, and kept them in a helpless situation never knowing how to combine the information available in order to achieve the results on their own. They would not be moved by entreaties of any kind, and at some point, it was time for me to move on.
self-improvement is a continuing quest which enhances the richness that life has to offer. There have been many times where those little factoids I've collected over the years, have saved the day when I least expected them to. Reading about stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, allowed me to make my first informed investments.
Months were spent in due diligence before choosing my first stock (an electric utility), and a well-regarded mutual fund. Both went on to do very well over the years, more than paying back the time I spent in research.
No matter how much you think you know, there's always more information available that will help sharpen your investment decisions. Everyone I know that found success began their journey from the same starting point. A willingness to seek out and absorb the knowledge that would transform their lives. Let each day become an education, where we can learn and share in the lessons of life.
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