Chapter Five: Lesson 5
I have been teaching professionally since 1984. It has been a great
experience and a rewarding one. It is also a disturbing profession, for
I have taught thousands of individuals and I see one thing in common
in all of us, myself included. We all have tremendous potential, and
we all are blessed with gifts. Yet the one thing that holds all of us back
is some degree of self-doubt. It is not so much the lack of technical
information that holds us back, but more the lack of self-confidence.
Some are more affected than others.
Once we leave school, most of us know that it is not so much a
matter of college degrees or good grades that count. In the real world
outside of academics, something more than just grades is required.
I have heard it called many things; guts, chutzpah, balls, audacity,
bravado, cunning, daring, tenacity, and brilliance. This factor,
whatever it is labeled, ultimately decides one’s future much more
than school grades do.
Inside each of us is one of these brave, brilliant, and daring
characters. There is also the flip side of that character: people who
could get down on their knees and beg if necessary. After a year in
Vietnam as a Marine Corps pilot, I got to know both of those
characters inside of me intimately. One is not better than the other.
Yet as a teacher, I recognized that it was excessive fear and
self-doubt that were the greatest detractors of personal genius. It
broke my heart to see students know the answers, yet lack the courage
to act on the answer. Often in the real world, it’s not the smart who
get ahead, but the bold.
In my personal experience, your financial genius requires both
technical knowledge as well as courage. If fear is too strong, the
genius is suppressed. In my classes, I strongly urge students to learn
to take risks, to be bold, and to let their genius convert that fear into
power and brilliance. It works for some and just terrifies others. I have
come to realize that for most people, when it comes to the subject of
money, they would rather play it safe. I have had to field questions
such as: “Why take risks?” “Why should I bother developing my
financial IQ?” “Why should I become financially literate?” And I
answer, “Just to have more options.”