If I really want to make an impact on people around me then I need to have a ‘why’ mentality versus a ‘what’ mentality when trying to explain things to them that are important otherwise they won’t internalize it. This makes me think about my little sister. She came up this weekend with my younger brother and his fiancé and spent the weekend at our house. She had never played the game Cashflow. It is a game by Robert Kiyosaki. It teaches you about financial independence. Right now she is a freshman in college and learning about that isn’t really a priority right now. She wasn’t really into the game as she didn’t really understand the math behind it, but if we had been able to explain the WHY of the game then she might have had interest in really learning how to play and what it could mean for her later on down the road.
What I mean by this is that she has goals to be an art therapist, with goals of getting her masters in it and bachelors in psychology I believe. She is one of those people that don’t care about money, but instead of what kind of impact she can have on others. It was lost on me and the other people around her playing the game that we needed to guide her, not tell her, to the ‘why’ it was important for HER to be independent financially. If she were financially independent then she could focus on others to the fullest of her capability whereas now and in her future if she isn’t focused on reigning in expenses and buying assets that cover her monthly expenses she’ll be working for a paycheck at times instead of working for the benefit of others like I believe she’d like to do.
The key is turning your earned income from your job into portfolio income and that is something we missed the boat on teaching her about. Hopefully I’ll have another crack at helping on that in the future.
telling your sister she is being ridiculous because she's 1) getting a degree 2) wanting to get a master's degree 3) pursuing a job where she can work for various organizations and help people makes you sound like you need to learn a thing or two from her. Not vice versa.
ReplyDeleteI think you missed the point of the blog post and as a side note I myself am applying to grad school and hope to get in to start in January. She DEFINITELY has a better heart then I do. She is nice and accomodating to all around her and she'd like to help people through her work. The problem is that with HAVING to work. I can safely assume most people don't work at the jobs they'd like to or aren't doing what they'd really like to do in life whether that is working at what they really want to or spending more time doing (fill in the blank). Without financial independence few are truly lucky enough and able to focus on what they really want to.
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