How to become a financial genius
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- Category: SME toolkit
- Written by with Bridget Olotu
- Hits: 1739
Let me say again, like I have always said in my write-ups, that I am not against formal education. But formal education has shown to be limiting without financial education. If this is not true, how do we explain the wealth that certain individuals who were not privileged to attend the four walls of our educational institutions have? How do we explain the poor social and economic status that some of our graduates are in? Of course, it was because I was educated that I can write in this column and run a company. But the truth is, financial education will enhance one’s academic education and help one to live out his/her dreams. With financial education, the unemployment challenges we have as a nation would be addressed.
No graduate would want to sit at home waiting until one letter of appointment lands on their laps before they do some creative things with their lives. Therefore, developing your financial genius is a personal responsibility that will and can save you from becoming a liability to society and a financial wreck to yourself when you start to make money. The difference between the guy who doesn’t have a degree but has built viable businesses and the graduate who is waiting for an employment from a multinational company or big enterprise is financial intelligence. One man has it, while the other doesn’t.
Some weeks back we treated, “Harmonising the 3 parts of your brain for wealth creation.” There, I identified the fact that we have 3 parts of our brain that need to be coordinated for wealth to be created. The left brain which is concerned with reading, writing, speaking and logic, and the right brain which is often associated with pictures, art, music, and other non-linear relationships that require creativity and imagination still need the third brain, which is the subconscious or primitive brain to function effectively. It is the third brain, which is our intrapersonal intelligence that controls most people’s addictions, fears and decisions. People with high intrapersonal intelligence have the ability to control the subconscious brain’s desire to fight, flee or freeze. Instead of flee, they may decide the best thing to do is freeze. If frozen, they may choose to fight. The point is, they have the intelligence to choose the appropriate subconscious response. If angry, they can speak calmly. If afraid, they can confront their fear.
But the challenge has always been getting the three brains to cooperate and coordinate the activities of and in the human mind. True education therefore isn’t simply teaching students to read, write and memorise answers. To be effective, true education has to align the power of all three brains. Instead of the three brains working against each other, they have to work together. If a person could align and develop all three brains, he or she would have greater chance of success in the real world.
Since the world is ruled by what my financial mentor calls “left-brainers,” the problem with this is that they think there is only one brain and only one intelligence. Many are not aware of the other parts of the brain and the possibility of other types of intelligences. Left-brainers also bring their assumption of one form of intelligence into money making. For them, it is safer to work in an establishment with retirement benefits and it is safer to live below one’s means as a way of achieving financial independence.
By developing your financial genius, you have to work on making your three brains cooperate so as to achieve your financial objectives. By handling the flee, fear and freeze responses from the subconscious brain, you will free your left and right brains to calculate and think up ways to achieve your financial goals. To win the battle of the brains, it requires personal efforts for two reasons:
First, our school systems do not teach us anything about money. Most MBA classes are designed to raise better and well-informed employees, not business owners or investors. We are told to earn good grades, get more degrees, get better employments, especially those that offer retirement benefits, live below our means, save money, stay out of debt, and then by and by attain our middle-class aspirations. This is not bad in itself; it all boils down to what kind of life we want.
Secondly, our schools do not strengthen the subconscious mind. In fact, rather than educate, schools depend on fear to motivate, threaten rather than teach, imitate rather than innovate, punish mistakes rather than encourage, play it safe rather than think bigger, and say what a person wants to hear rather than what a person needs to hear.
Due to these factors, many people buy when they should sell, save when they should spend, spend when they should save, are fearful when they should be brave, and are brave when they should be fearful.
Growing your financial genius will require the following:
1. Build up your library around books that can help you grow
Your library and what you read can tell me where you’re headed. Your learning ability today is critical to your earning capacity. All those who have legitimately succeeded financially today were once students of some financial genius who knew about an investment or business better than most average people. Read financial books in your areas of investment interests. Make someone your financial mentor.
2. Have a financial mentor
All my life, while growing up, I like to ask questions about why certain things are the way they are. I discovered that one of my financial mentors whom I have quoted copiously in these series shared that idea. He started his financial freedom sojourn when he was just 9 years old. His poor dad but very educated dad even was the one who advised him to go to his classmate’s father who was “unschooled” but very wealthy to teach his son about how to make money. His classmate’s father became his rich dad and mentor, raising for us today one of the world’s most successful and celebrated entrepreneurial and investment educators in the person of Robert Kiyosaki, a Japanese American. Robert’s concepts have changed my life, even though they came very late when I’d committed so many financial blunders. You need a mentor, too.
3. Stick to a plan religiously
Listening to Governor Tunde Fashola on the news few weeks earlier talking about his economic blueprint for Lagos state, I couldn’t help but notice the enthusiasm with which he went about his objectives. He even called himself an incurable optimist. You and I need to strengthen the subsconscious mind to serve us rather than to dominate us.
Many beautiful plans, ideas, investment decisions, business proposals, etc, are sitting with us because deep down we think they won’t fly, will fail and they’re too risky. What would the world have been if those who have made it such a beautiful place just sat down with folded legs and arms, daydreaming about the change they wanted in place?
Developing your financial genius is your responsibility, and you cannot afford not to be financially intelligent if you must live a higher standard of living, expand your means and thrive in this hard global financial period. The choice is yours today.
Articles
How to become a financial genius
Category: SME toolkit Written by with Bridget Olotu Hits: 1739
Let me say again, like I have always said in my write-ups, that I am not against formal education. But formal education has shown to be limiting without financial education. If this is not true, how do we explain the wealth that certain individuals who were not privileged to attend the four walls of our educational institutions have? How do we explain the poor social and economic status that some of our graduates are in? Of course, it was because I was educated that I can write in this column and run a company. But the truth is, financial education will enhance one’s academic education and help one to live out his/her dreams. With financial education, the unemployment challenges we have as a nation would be addressed.
No graduate would want to sit at home waiting until one letter of appointment lands on their laps before they do some creative things with their lives. Therefore, developing your financial genius is a personal responsibility that will and can save you from becoming a liability to society and a financial wreck to yourself when you start to make money. The difference between the guy who doesn’t have a degree but has built viable businesses and the graduate who is waiting for an employment from a multinational company or big enterprise is financial intelligence. One man has it, while the other doesn’t.
Some weeks back we treated, “Harmonising the 3 parts of your brain for wealth creation.” There, I identified the fact that we have 3 parts of our brain that need to be coordinated for wealth to be created. The left brain which is concerned with reading, writing, speaking and logic, and the right brain which is often associated with pictures, art, music, and other non-linear relationships that require creativity and imagination still need the third brain, which is the subconscious or primitive brain to function effectively. It is the third brain, which is our intrapersonal intelligence that controls most people’s addictions, fears and decisions. People with high intrapersonal intelligence have the ability to control the subconscious brain’s desire to fight, flee or freeze. Instead of flee, they may decide the best thing to do is freeze. If frozen, they may choose to fight. The point is, they have the intelligence to choose the appropriate subconscious response. If angry, they can speak calmly. If afraid, they can confront their fear.
But the challenge has always been getting the three brains to cooperate and coordinate the activities of and in the human mind. True education therefore isn’t simply teaching students to read, write and memorise answers. To be effective, true education has to align the power of all three brains. Instead of the three brains working against each other, they have to work together. If a person could align and develop all three brains, he or she would have greater chance of success in the real world.
Since the world is ruled by what my financial mentor calls “left-brainers,” the problem with this is that they think there is only one brain and only one intelligence. Many are not aware of the other parts of the brain and the possibility of other types of intelligences. Left-brainers also bring their assumption of one form of intelligence into money making. For them, it is safer to work in an establishment with retirement benefits and it is safer to live below one’s means as a way of achieving financial independence.
By developing your financial genius, you have to work on making your three brains cooperate so as to achieve your financial objectives. By handling the flee, fear and freeze responses from the subconscious brain, you will free your left and right brains to calculate and think up ways to achieve your financial goals. To win the battle of the brains, it requires personal efforts for two reasons:
First, our school systems do not teach us anything about money. Most MBA classes are designed to raise better and well-informed employees, not business owners or investors. We are told to earn good grades, get more degrees, get better employments, especially those that offer retirement benefits, live below our means, save money, stay out of debt, and then by and by attain our middle-class aspirations. This is not bad in itself; it all boils down to what kind of life we want.
Secondly, our schools do not strengthen the subconscious mind. In fact, rather than educate, schools depend on fear to motivate, threaten rather than teach, imitate rather than innovate, punish mistakes rather than encourage, play it safe rather than think bigger, and say what a person wants to hear rather than what a person needs to hear.
Due to these factors, many people buy when they should sell, save when they should spend, spend when they should save, are fearful when they should be brave, and are brave when they should be fearful.
Growing your financial genius will require the following:
1. Build up your library around books that can help you grow
Your library and what you read can tell me where you’re headed. Your learning ability today is critical to your earning capacity. All those who have legitimately succeeded financially today were once students of some financial genius who knew about an investment or business better than most average people. Read financial books in your areas of investment interests. Make someone your financial mentor.
2. Have a financial mentor
All my life, while growing up, I like to ask questions about why certain things are the way they are. I discovered that one of my financial mentors whom I have quoted copiously in these series shared that idea. He started his financial freedom sojourn when he was just 9 years old. His poor dad but very educated dad even was the one who advised him to go to his classmate’s father who was “unschooled” but very wealthy to teach his son about how to make money. His classmate’s father became his rich dad and mentor, raising for us today one of the world’s most successful and celebrated entrepreneurial and investment educators in the person of Robert Kiyosaki, a Japanese American. Robert’s concepts have changed my life, even though they came very late when I’d committed so many financial blunders. You need a mentor, too.
3. Stick to a plan religiously
Listening to Governor Tunde Fashola on the news few weeks earlier talking about his economic blueprint for Lagos state, I couldn’t help but notice the enthusiasm with which he went about his objectives. He even called himself an incurable optimist. You and I need to strengthen the subsconscious mind to serve us rather than to dominate us.
Many beautiful plans, ideas, investment decisions, business proposals, etc, are sitting with us because deep down we think they won’t fly, will fail and they’re too risky. What would the world have been if those who have made it such a beautiful place just sat down with folded legs and arms, daydreaming about the change they wanted in place?
Developing your financial genius is your responsibility, and you cannot afford not to be financially intelligent if you must live a higher standard of living, expand your means and thrive in this hard global financial period. The choice is yours today.