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When I was a young man, I had a poor relationship with money. The “money blueprint” I had inherited from my parents didn’t give me the skills I needed to build wealth. The only positive financial role-models in my life were Phillip Drummond and Ricky Stratton. It’s not a good sign when a boy is taking money lessons from sitcoms.
And so I made mistakes. I accumulated credit card debt. I didn’t save for retirement. I bought crap I did not need. I did not look to the future.
At twenty, it’s hard to know what we will be at thirty. Or forty. Or fifty. We have plans, and we have dreams, but life takes us directions we cannot imagine. The Positivity Blog recently posted a commencement speech that Steve Jobs delivered at Stanford University in 2005. His remarks illustrate this principle in action: small, seemingly unimportant events mark the dots that connect the lines which represent our lives.
It’s never too late to change direction, to start making smart choices. If you’re 40 and don’t have retirement savings, start as soon as possible. If you’re 30 and staggering under the weight of credit card debt, cut up your cards and make a commitment to change direction. The wonder of the future is that it can be built upon the ashes of the past.
At 38, I can look at who I am and can connect the dots back through my life. Though I regret not saving for retirement, though I regret accumulating massive credit card debt, though I regret living a consumeristic lifestyle, I see now that these experiences made me the man I am today. Without them, I wouldn’t be motivated to help others make smart money decisions. (And let’s be clear: I am not advocating that others repeat the mistakes I have made.)
Draw upon your experience. If you’ve made some poor choices, don’t let them get you down. Don’t continue to repeat them. Use them to launch yourself toward a new way of life.
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February 17th, 2007 at 10:56 am
One of the best things about your blog JD is that you are willing to share your personal thoughts and experiences. Real stories affect people in impactful ways. Hypotheticals affect little.
I share a history similar to yours, although my financial indiscretions were tied to a failed marriage. Now, I have no debt (other than my mortgage) and save a considerable amount for retirement and my son’s education. I also have cut my work week down to 32 hours.
It is absolutely amazing how much happier I am now that I have escaped the bonds of materialism. Getting out of the failed marriage and surrounding myself with people that care about me for who I am and not what I am/have has been key. Being rich is really not about money at all. And I have gotten that way slowly…
February 18th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Great article J.D. It reminded me of this little story I keep around:
The Artist
One evening there came into the soul of Auguste Rodin the desire to fashion an image of The Pleasure that abideth for a Moment. So he went forth into the world to look for bronze, for he could only think in bronze.
But, alas, all the bronze of the world had disappeared. No where in the whole world was there any bronze to be found - save only the bronze of the image called The Sorrow that endureth for Ever.
Now this very image Rodin had himself, with his own hands, fashioned, and he had set it on the tomb of the one thing he had loved in life. On the tomb of the dead thing he had most loved he had set this image of his own fashioning, that it might serve as a sign of the love of man that dieth not, and a symbol of the sorrow of a man that endureth for ever. And in the whole of the world there was no other bronze save the bronze of this image.
And Rodin took the image he had fashioned, and set it in a great furnace, and gave it to the fire.
So it was that out of the bronze of the image of The Sorrow that endureth for Ever, Auguste Rodin fashioned an image of The Pleasure that abideth for a Moment.
February 19th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
[...] Building Success from the Ashes of Failure [...]
February 24th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
JD,
Great post. I’m also in the boat you talk about. Of course, for myself I can’t just say it was poor money management… it was poor life management. But it is good to know that I can use those mistakes and turn my failures into successes today.
And yup… those were my best money role models as well.
July 9th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
[...] Steve Jobs has all sorts of stories surrounding him. He is a rock star, movie star and super star all rolled into one. His value as a person in our society is widely debated but for the 14 minutes and 30 seconds he [...]