Father Sez

Thinking back about all the years I spent in school and university, supposedly getting myself an education to help me in life, I wonder. 

I have always wondered why educators stuff so much technical thingies into us, stuff they themselves must know that is never ever used, other than for teaching others. 

I am not knocking the education I received. I am grateful for it, but I wish it was a lot more skewed towards practical use. I am not alone. In fact, I wrote about this after I read a passionate article in Brian Kim’s Invest in Yourself and Make it Happen.  

In that post, I wrote about 5 skills that, (as also stated by Brian), should be taught in schools. Skills that would have made a very positive impact in our adult lives.  

Even after school, we should pick up some skills to make our lives more productive, useful and / or pleasant. 

I am happy to report that some people do seem to agree with me.  

See this very interesting thread of comments, to “I can’t do one quarter of the things my Father can” featured in October 07’s Popular Mechanics.  

Then there is Anarchangel, who has had, and is having a rich and extremely varied life. He seems to have skills that Rambo or McGyver  would drool over. 

RateItAll, an online community and social network built upon a diverse range of online databases, has posted a list by one of its members on useful skills to have. He invites readers to rate these skills “on their usefulness in this crazy world.”  

We shall over the next few days and weeks, post our stand and views on some of these skills that we should learn. 

What is your take on these additional useful life skills that we should try to learn, or habits that we should form.  See Melissa’s list of 10 classes to, (as she says hopefully), fix her life.

Harrison Loke of Journey to Financial Freedom, has written on Levels of Financial Security. 

He classifies these levels as :- 

a)    Debts,

b)    Break Even

c)     Financial Security

d)    Financially comfortable

e)    Financial Freedom and

f)      Rich 

Harrison puts forward his arguments to define each of these levels, and also explains the steps we should focus to resolve as we work to get to the next level. 

It is paramount for us to know where we currently are, before we can realistically plan to go where we want to be. 

I am totally in agreement with Harrison on the need to know our present position. However, personally, I like the 4 levels as defined by Adam Khoo,  in his book  “Secrets of Self -Made Millionaires”.

He lists them as :- 

a)  Being financially stable 

a.    Having sufficient liquid assets to sustain us, should we lose our income for 6 months and 

b.    Having sufficient life and hospital insurance    

b)  Being financially secure  

a.    Having sufficient passive income from investment assets to meet basic expenses like mortgage, transportation, food, interest payments on all debt and insurance premiums. 

c)   Being financially free  

a.    Having sufficient passive income from investment assets to sustain our current lifestyle. 

d)  Being financially abundant 

a.    This need not be explained. For the record, Adam Khoo’s definition is having sufficient passive income from investment assets to sustain our desired lifestyle.  

Ultimately, it is not the definitions of levels that really matter. What is important is :- 

-                     We must clearly know where we are currently,  

        Facts such as our monthly expenses, our assets and liabilities,interest rates applicable on our liabilities, etc

-                     Know where we want to go, 

        Our financial goals must have been clearly defined and written down.

-                     Come out with an action plan to get to where we want to go. 

-                     And work on our plan diligently!!! 

The Dough Roller wrote a great piece on “How to develop the habit of spending less than we make”.

“Spending less than we make” is the mother of all personal finance advise we can get or give.  

As the Dough Roller points out, it is more easily said than done. He goes on to give some specifics on how we can develop this habit. 

But what really piqued me was the comment given to this article by Damn TV. To quote him….” 

I went from being the worst student in my school at the age of 12, to graduating with over a 4.0 in high school.

The transformation began one day when my TV broke and I had nothing better to do than look at the pictures in my history book. Well, after looking at all the pictures, I started reading the stories that went along with them. To my surprise, the next day I knew all the answers to my teacher’s questions. My teacher was blown away by my 180 degree change. Seeing that I could be a top performer opened my true potential. Mind numbing TV is worthless (except for a few educational programs).

                                                        Unquote 

I can really identify with this. I used to hate and fear mathematics in school. One day, by chance, or by luck or by God knows what, I managed to solve a quadratic equation all by myself.  

Eureka! Voila! It was as if a switch had been turned on. I can still remember and feel the flush now, though more than a couple of decades have since passed. This switch, once turned on, also enabled me to ace the other subjects in school. 

The point I am trying to make is that all of us have a switch. A switch, if found, and turned on will make truly dramatic changes in our lives.  This switch changes all our feelings of “cannot do”, no matter how deeply or for how long ingrained, into an instant “can do”.  

Can we find that “switch?  

For some, external factors such as a specific statement made by someone, the happening of a particular event or even a family misfortune may be the “switch”. 

For others, having a “small victory” might switch them on to take on bigger battles and win. 

Brian Kim seems to think that we can find this switch.

He says that we should start by first creating a belief and coaxing and  convincing our sub conscious mind into believing that that we can. After that it should be easy. 

On the other hand, this calls for us to “want” to create that belief in the first place. Would this “want to create” be the switch?  

I don’t really know, but all of us should be aware that we have this “switch”, an inbuilt power to make dramatic changes in our lives and in an instant.  

Believe me. Damn TV and my experience are proofs.