The Pursuit of Happiness

“Formal education will make you a living; self education will make you a fortune.”
– Jim Rohn

Colleges and Universities are good places to learn about a lot of things. And a lot of what you learn can help you make a good living. But the one thing that these institutions of higher learning are not good at teaching is how to build wealth… real wealth.

Wealth-building skills are usually learned on your own. They can be learned through self-learning programs, in seminars, in workshops and through one-on-one mentoring from an expert or coach. These skills usually involve leveraging and compounding your money in some fashion. Common ways to do this is starting your own business, investing in real estate and investing in the stock market.

Most people consider anything that involves leveraging money as risky. Risk is a relevant concept. The amount of risk involved in any venture can be inversely proportionate to the amount of knowledge you have regarding the venture. The more you know about the venture, the less risky it is. For you, building a hotel and casino costing several hundred million dollars would be a huge risk. For Donald Trump it’s not… he knows the hotel and casino business. For you, trading calendar spread options may be a big risk. For Ross it’s not… he’s an expert options trader. But neither one was born with the knowledge and expertise they each now possess. And neither one learned these skills in college. They both learned these wealth-building skills on their own and from others who possessed the expertise they wished to acquire.

Recently a friend, whom I’ve known for many years, said to me “It’s been fun watching your success grow over the years. I wish I were a risk-taker, but I’m not so I’ll never be as successful as you.” I told him I wasn’t a risk-taker. Actually, I am extremely conservative and risk-adverse. I told him the only thing I risked was my time. We all have the same number of hours in a day. I determined how many of them I needed for sleeping, eating and family and used the rest to learn how to build a successful business and invest in the stock market. I then told him that anyone can do it… I’m living proof. I don’t think he liked my response because it put the burden of responsibility and accountability squarely on him.

I have a Bachelors degree from a top University. I also have an MBA. So I can speak from personal experience. My formal education could have made me a nice living. But I chose to add to it self-education through home-study programs, seminars, workshops and mentors to learn how to build wealth. Here’s something else I learned, and for you to consider: My formal education cost a lot more than my self education. I’m getting a much higher return on my investment in self education. You can do the same. You can build wealth investing in the stock market. The more you learn about investing, the less risky it will be for you and the more successful you’ll become. It’s really that easy.

Your Friend,

D. Scott Elder

This entry was posted on Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 7:30 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.