I have a friend who is a really great project manager. His go to phrase when dealing with a large complicated project is always, “you eat an elephant one bite at a time.” I thought about titling this post with that phrase but eating an elephant would probably offend some people so I switched it to building a house one brick at a time.
I’m writing this post on behalf of my friend “Riley” that constantly asks me to help her with her personal finance situation but gets overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things in the personal finance world. Riley and I are about 15 years apart in age and she had a rough start in the world but we’ve known each other now for about 15 years and she’s made great personal progress most of it on her own.
One Brick At A Time
I’ve given Riley a link to this blog and some of the resources links but when I asked her what she’s done the next time I see her she always says the same thing, “it’s too much stuff to learn.”
We then spend 10 minutes going back and forth and I explain to her that I didn’t learn all of the things I know overnight. It literally took decades to get where I am today. I started with a book then another then another. It then grew to personal finance blogs, websites, YouTube videos and talking with lots of people smarter than me to get where I am today. I keep using the phrase, you build a house one brick at a time.
I Don’t Have Time
After exhausting the “it’s too much” argument, Riley then jumps on the “I don’t have time” excuse for why she can’t progress her financial journey. We spend the next 10 minutes asking what she did with her time on a particular day like Saturday and she will say something like watching Tiktok videos for hours or watching conspiracy theory stuff on YouTube or some far fringe website.
It’s All Boring
After we both agree that learning one thing at a time is a good way to approach the issue, and agreeing that Riley does indeed have time to learn (by cutting back on TikTok) we get to another issue of “it’s all boring” as the excuse for lack of progress.
On this we also both agree, personal finance is boring. Bonds are boring, stocks are boring, currencies are boring, commodities are boring and being broke is boring. On that last one, we both get a good laugh but we know it’s true.
The sad thing is that I can’t make personal finances, stocks, bonds, or other investments exciting. The exciting part comes when you built enough wealth to see it literally grow day by day or if it’s lots of money, hour by hour or even minute by minute. Wealth is built one investment brick at a time.
Life Is About Choices
We conclude our discussion by me saying almost the exact same thing every time, “Life if about making choices and you will get out of it what you put into it.” She understands what I’m saying and I think she genuinely leaves wanting to do better but it almost always goes nowhere. I will keep trying and I hope to be surprised some day with her telling me that she’s read a book, understood a concept or website or liked a YouTube video and put things into action like finally opening that brokerage account but until then, I will keep helping her one brick at a time.