It started with a library book.
I never planned on becoming a financial advisor or an investor. I am glad my life and career have unfolded this way, though. My long, learning-filled financial journey has benefitted me immensely. It allows me to empathize with and understand a range of people’s financial situations. Whether you are practically allergic to money, a sophisticated professional, or a business owner, my insights might help you. I believe this is true whether you are just starting down—or already wearing a deep groove in—the same life-changing path on which I put myself years ago. Indeed, I have lived the journey. There is a good chance I can guide you on yours.
As a Northwestern undergraduate, I was intent on attending law school or graduate school in history. In hindsight, I had very impractical career goals at the time. Money barely interested me. At least not until I saw my student loan bill, that is.
About a month before graduation, financial aid officers huddled groups of students with loans into a room. They presented our repayment obligations to us. I recall that they served pizza, probably to (unsuccessfully, in my case) take the edge off the sobering information many of us would soon learn. They placed an envelope with my loan repayment information on the desk in front of me. When I saw a five-figure number, I promptly turned an even paler shade of white.
I did not grow up on easy street financially. Compounding the problem, I grew up one of those households that never discussed money. Whatever jobs I had—whether work study or bagging groceries—only made a tiny dent in college’s price. When my day of reckoning came, I realized just how much of my parents’ borrowed money I was spending. Doing so without any clue how I would pay it back left me suddenly feeling terrible. Worse, many friends were prepping for lucrative careers in banking and consulting. I was, well…I was writing long papers about African history. (Which I loved, but it is not the express train to financial freedom.)
After the meeting, I took a walk. I needed to ponder my college career’s financial consequences. I wound up near the Evanston Public Library. By happenstance, I had just watched a television interview with Warren Buffett. This was my first exposure to the man who would become my greatest influence. I decided to venture inside to find a book about him. That accidental stroll changed my life.
I found The Warren Buffett Way, by Robert Hagstrom. This book ignited a lifelong passion not only for finance and investing, but for living rationally, understatedly, and thinking independently. I am as passionate about these topics as I was the day I had my “road to Damascus” moment on that fateful afternoon in 2008.
If I can consider myself financially independent these days, it is thanks to Warren Buffett, his “Siamese twin” Charlie Munger, and their fellow travelers. I would love to pass along what they have taught me from afar to you.