Like many people, there are many important things that I overlooked learning in high school and college. For instance, no one could convince me that learning Spanish was a valuable asset for my future. ”I’ll never need to speak spanish” I remember saying to my faithful spanish teacher, Mr. Trujillo. How wrong I was. Looking back at the seven years that I spent working in South America and Spain, I can only shake my head and wonder how much easier it would have been for me to have paid attention in school.
Yet there are many other things which I now understand are critically important to your success and survival that are never even discussed in school. One of those is a solid Financial Education. More simply put: we all need to learn how money works. Too often it works against us. Robert Kiyosaki says this, “What you don’t know keeps you poor”. I would add to that, “how you think about money keeps you poor”.
Here are some basic things I’ve learned (sometimes painfully) that you may consider:
1. Don’t have a scarcity mentality. It is so easy to think that there “isn’t enough for everyone”, but it’s just not true. Now before you start to argue with me; remember that I have worked in the poorest parts of the world, with some of the poorest people in the world – yet I’m more convinced than ever that a scarcity mentality creates poverty.
When people think there isn’t enough they do all the things that chase money and opportunity away. They become selfish, petty and withholding. When there’s not enough it seems reasonably to stop looking for opportunity and just give up. Trust that there is enough. It’s only through greed, waste, cheating, stealing, hoarding and withholding that scarcity develops. Look at what you have available to you and begin to believe that this is enough to make a start.
2. Invest in things of value: too often we get caught up in buying the latest thing or frittering away our dollars on things we consume quickly and they are gone. Put your money into things that have value and will last. This means you might wait to buy a slightly more expensive item if it is better built and will last longer, or wait to ride the bus a little longer until you can afford to buy a car that won’t break down constanly. Here’s a great article on Why the Cheap Will Never Get Rich.
3. Money is attracted to Passion. I’ve never know someone to get rich by doing something they despised. No, people only gain wealth doing something they find interesting, are passionate about, or that they can excel in. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t difficult parts to every job, of course there are. For centuries people have made their living doing jobs they despised, and it has produced nothing but misery. When you don’t love what you do you do it poorly, often with a poor attitude. Trust me, it shows when you don’t like your job.
I’ve observed that some people are so negative they can make any task miserable. Conversely, I’ve also observed that some people are so positive that any task becomes a pleasure. It’s possible that the problem is not the job, it’s you. Yet either way, you will only get ahead by doing something you love.
4. Be a Giver. There are a lot of great classes or books, often free, that you can take to learn about how to think about money but nothing will give you a proper perspective on the proper roll of money in your life than giving. Be a giver. Give your time, resources and energy to help others and to make the world a better place and you will find that it will come back to you. I’ve always been taught to tithe, and have been a regularly supporter of the Mission and other charities as well. Even when i wasn’t making much money at all. It has been a blessing in my life and it will be in yours as well.
David.
