As a good citizen who worked hard all of my life, last year I started wondering what happens to all of my money. I was constantly digging in to my overdraft and couldn’t remember the last time I didn’t have a personal loan. Sure, I had normal expenses. I am the only worker in our house and we run a car along with the usual stuff, mobiles, Sky TV etc.
However what I did not realise was how much was stolen from me by the government. It seemed I had been sleepwalking through adulthood not realising what was happening. I was part of the biggest cash heist in history and I wasn’t the only one! My money, which I work hard for was been stolen from me via taxes, inflation, debt and my diminishing pension. WOW! But what could I do to prevent this?
One thing is certain and it is that there are winners and losers when it comes to money. 96% of us are in the losers bracket, herded around like sheep, happy and content if we have a small amount of money at the end of the month. There are however an increasing amount of people who are experiencing too much month at the end of the money!! When I say increasing I should say cascading.
The last 2 governments have told us untruths about the “global recession”.
Try telling parts of Asia we are in a global recession, I was visiting my best friend in Singapore earlier this year and the future was looking very bright. The massive growth taking place in China and India is all over the press. Sure, they have a long way to go but they are moving in the right direction.
Try telling emerging countries like Brazil that they must tighten our purse strings and save for a rainy day. The truth is that 88% of countries have a higher growth rate than the UK. These are countries like Poland, Azerbaijan, Lebanon, Uganda. Nigeria and Ethiopia to name a very few. These countries are managing their growth perfectly well during this “global recession.”
But what can we do now?
The answers will divide opinion but my own view is we have to become more entrepreneurial. We can no longer rely on the government of the day to look after us. We have to start listening to the right people, we have to change our mindset to adapt to a changing world. Simply put, we have to start to look after ourselves.
We have to change the way we think through education. Schools have 2 types of education, academic and professional. These are very important but they do not teach us financial literacy so we must learn this for ourselves. When we learn it we must start to educate our children and encourage them to educate theirs. Financial education has nothing to do with how academic you are or how much money you make, but more so what you do with the money you make.
Last June InvestUS attended the National Achievers Congress at The Excel Arena on the bank of the River Thames. There were 3500 entrepreneurial minded people at the congress. Most of the people attending were very successful and considered the £250 ticket price, a bargain. The energy created was incredible, the education was mind-blowing and the speakers were some of the most inspiring people you could ever meet.
During the afternoon of day 2, a straw poll was taken. Attendees were asked a series of questions and had to remain sanding if a particular statement applied to them. The net result was staggering! Out of 3500 attendees at this congress, only 7 people went to university, got the grades they studied for and were now working in their field of study. Of those 7 people, all were investors so they were excused by the other 3493 bewildered delegates. The average student leaves University with good grades and £23 000 of debt. If we take the conference, around 2000 people were still standing at the “did you go to university stage”. 2000 people will create £46 million of debt. Many of them will struggle for successive years to pay this money back, this is no way to start your working life. I will leave it to you to work out the relationship between £46 million of debt vs 7 people working in their field of study. My brain is scrambled trying to comprehend it.
I often look at the people who didn’t go to university. In many cases, these were labelled stupid at school. The disruptive one at the back. We all hear stories about how well these “thickies” did in their working life. Most were not bright enough to go to university so they were forced out of education and became entrepreneurial thinkers educating themselves in the real world. We are all aware of the merits and success of high profile entrepreneurs like Richard Branson and Bill Gates who decided for what ever reason that they preferred the education of life as opposed to studying “industrial age theories”. There are however, thousands of people you will never have heard of, for example:
Robert Braithwaite left school with no qualifications at the age of 14. he is now worth £130 million.
Charlie Mullins runs a plumbing business and is worth £14 million.
Lawrence Graff left school at 13 and is now worth £2 billion.
I could list hundreds of these people but you can find them for yourself. We need to have successive generations thinking like entrepreneurs to once again become a progressive nation. Entrepreneurs are not bothered about market forces, they don’t lose their jobs during a recession, they don’t mind who is in government because they position themselves to make money and create jobs whatever happens. They take the good with the bad and move on. They solve financial problems by constantly searching for new answers and we must all be encouraged to take their lead. Sounds like a great job to me!!
I am not advocating that education is a waste of time. I am all for encouraging people to be the best they can in terms of education. What I am stating here though is some areas of the education system have to change. We need educating in finance and free thinking and not in how to become “good employees”. Being good employees will simply put you in the hands of the state, surely this is not what you work all of your life for?