I must give credit where it is due. Today’s post was
directly inspired thanks to Robert Powell over at Market Watch.
Powell “penned” an open letter to his triplet sons, each a member of the high
school graduating class of 2013. I find the inspiration to “pen” my own version
of an open letter to this year’s high school graduates, because 2013 as a year
has a bit of sentimental value to me. It was 10 years ago right around this
same very time that I graduated from high school, and I will be the first to
tell you that it doesn’t feel like 10 years has passed by. So without further
ado:
To the class of 2013,
First and foremost let me be the next to jump in line to
offer my congratulations. It is no small feat to go through high school and
choose to take actions over a period of 4 years to meet your school’s
graduation requirements. This achievement is the first, in what hopefully will
be a consistent series of smart and intentional actions taken during your adult
life.
As noted in the open,
I graduated from high school 10 years before you. And in all honesty it doesn’t
feel like 10 years. I can also honestly attest that I was an average student.
My GPA hovered around 3.4 and my SAT scores did not exactly win me any
scholarships. It actually was not until a few years after college into my
working career when I started to get my life together. Financially I made
decisions to not live like everyone else and committed to living a debt free
life. Following that I started on the road to healing the hurts, hang ups and
paralyzing addictions that plagued me for over 2 decades.
It all boils down to the choices you and I make that
determine where we go in life. A must read book (review coming soon) is Thomas
Stanley’s “The Millionaire Mind.” In his study of multi-millionaire high income
earners, traits and characteristics are explored and examined in depth, as are
common qualities that are most prevalent among these wealth building
superstars. Words like integrity, honesty, accountability, truthful and transparent
pop up over and over throughout the book. But most important is that negative
early life terms and labels did not deter these people from economic success.
Perfect 4.0 GPAs and sky high test scores are in fact not
the norm among those profiled. In fact, and I am VERY happy to report, that
those economic successes on average had a lower high school GPA than yours
truly and the millionaires next door and I scored eerily close on our SAT
scores.
A college degree was not a magical potion to success. A
fairy tale dream job was not the ticket to economic prosperity. Instead the
individuals Stanley profiled and interviewed for his book, navigated and used
real world experiences and jobs they absolutely hated to (1) become aware of
their talents and skills, (2) find a profitable niche market that harnessed
their talents and skills, and, most importantly (3) became proficient
evaluators of the character of others.
And they put everything they learned into motion with
consistent and deliberate choices and actions over a long period of time. These
people have the mindset of marathon runners, not sprinters. I can thoroughly
relate to this. For roughly 24 years of life I was clueless when it came to
matters of personal finance. I was over $20 thousand dollars in debt and
floating aimlessly in my career. And at a certain point I got sick and tired of
being sick and tired and opened myself up to learn everything I could about personal
finance, because frankly my non-plan wasn’t working. Now I am on the path
that is moving towards a vocation that will fire me up every day, I am debt
free and am moving right along a trajectory to be eligible to participate in a
future Thomas Stanley study!
But this particular post is not about me. It’s about you. And
the best advice I can give, whether this fall you find yourself sitting in a
classroom, working or enlisting in our armed forces, is that consistent and
conscious decisions over the scope of your life will take you exactly where you
want to be. Your GPA doesn’t matter, your test scores don’t matter and whether
you took advanced placement courses doesn’t matter. What matters is whether you
are a person of sound quality and character and that you live with intention
and happen to life, instead of what I did, which was wander aimlessly until
finding a clue at 24.
I made a ton of stupid decisions over the course of my life.
And I still make mistakes to this day. But I’ve mapped out financially where I
want to be in the future and choose every day to live below my means and invest
in quality places with long term track records. And vocationally I’m just
starting to put together the road map to an entrepreneurial endeavor that might
just be 5 years down the pipeline. Your future is as bright as ever at 18, and
if you learn from your mistakes and never stop learning or growing yourself as
an individual, that future will look just as bright, if not even brighter, when
you hit 28. And don’t wait, because 10 years can really fly by in the blink of
an eye, and time is not something you can get back. #compoundinterest
Good reading.
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