Kim’s Advice to Her 18 Year Old Self – Episode 582

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[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Prosperity thinkers, welcome to the podcast. This is coming from a polled audience. That’s today’s topic, which was asked, okay, I set it up. I do a financial education podcast. And I said, what is something that you would want to ask a financial expert with decades of experience? And they said, what would Kim give advice to her 18-year-old self? What is that advice? And so, Kim, we’re going to turn the spotlight and put it on and say, what is it? So fun. So at 18, I had already earned probably about $80,000 in my childhood, which is a lot of money for an 18-year-old because I milked cows, sold the milk, and was able to put myself through four years of a private

[00:58] liberal arts college in Elsa, Illinois, called Principia that I loved. And so I came at personal finance very differently than a lot of my friends because, so this is where the advice comes in, I knew how to work. And when you grow up on a farm and you’re milking cows, and we did 4-H with all the shearing of the sheep and showing of the animals and et cetera, et cetera, you put in some serious hours. You know how to work physically, mentally, emotionally, all aspects of it. I mean, it was a major part of our lives and I played sports also. So there was all kinds of stuff going on and there was so much good. Now I, at that age, probably wouldn’t have admitted that. Nevertheless, so much good.

[01:45] And it’s an extreme challenge for kids today because they are not really able to go out at the younger ages and get work because of some of the laws that we have, but it’s solvable. We just got to get in the right communities and find the right places. So work, very important. Savings, right? I saved up all this money. I could have spent massively more as a high school kid particularly, but I never had a car, even though we lived way out in the country. I didn’t spend extra money on clothes. Obviously there was some. I really watched personal habits. Like I had friends already spending a lot of money on hair and nails and that kind of thing. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it’s a value play.

[02:30] And I knew what was important to me. And what was important to me is to be able to go to college without debt. And that 30, 40, however long ago it was, 1984 to 88 was not the thing that it is today, but it was still a thing. So that’s my initial advice. What would yours be? You know, for me at 18, to give background, I was involved with music quite a bit, so I had actually cut a couple of albums. I had a song on the radio. I thought I was, I thought it was awesome. I mean, I wasn’t, but I thought I was. And that’s where I put a lot of my focus. I was a sponsored athlete, so I competed. I really went all in. What I would have done different is that I would have seen opportunities and raced to them much quicker.

[03:25] So I graduated in 97 to give context. I’d spent a lot of time down in Silicon Valley in the mid late nineties, because I had friends. And so I was firsthand around the boom of the internet. I was building websites back in 95 and 96. And I would have seen where the cutting edge of innovation is and spent even more time there. So I had the other skills in place, but that’s where I would have been. And fortunately I did take advantage of that, but I feel like, and I felt like I was playing catch-up and I would have put myself in a driver’s seat more. So a little different. Now, going back to your background, Kim, which is earning, and that’s a substantial amount of money for up to the age of 18.

[04:30] Yeah, especially in the eighties. Substantial, like that’s serious. There is, and I’m actually like not a therapy session, but I’m going to go, I’m going to go and ask a difficult question. Okay. All right. Um, by earning that money and putting in the work, there were probably students that you met at Principia that didn’t have to, what was the relationship turmoil that you had to go through? I really, I’m curious on this. Well, it was extremely obvious, the kids that had their schools paid for versus the kids that paid for their schools in terms of classwork, in terms of community involvement, in terms of seriousness, in terms of applying ourselves. And I worked while I was at college also.

[05:34] And it was a whole different community inside the community. So the school is very small and the professor’s very involved in the kids’ lives, really cool space. But I can almost vision two subsets inside that community, those that paid and those that worked for the pay and the schooling. And it’s amazing the difference. Now there were, you know, both sides that crossed over, of course, but that’s the answer to your question is the distinction and how quickly then you find your own community, right? You learn very quickly not to hang out with the kids that are going to the pub, we called it, and getting a shake every night for, you know, $3 or whatever it was, not only possibly not, and I’m just using

[06:24] that as an example, but possibly not healthy, but also expensive. You don’t hang out with those. You hang out with the kids that are doing their homework and engaged and eating the food that’s on campus, because that’s already paid for and that kind of thing. Did you ever see any of the kids that didn’t have to earn it? Do you ever see them cross over to be the responsible ones? Absolutely. Like I said, I really think there were kids that crossed over from both sides because there were some that paid that still couldn’t understand the connection or were some that got paid that absolutely understood that either this is a huge gift that I’ve been given from, you know, my grandparents or whoever paid the bill and I must apply myself in gratitude

[07:09] for that gift, or I just feel better when I apply myself and I want to do well in life and that requires starting now, and so yes, there were absolutely kids that crossed over. Okay. So we’re going to enter into a time machine. Chem 18, just now, and you had put in the hard work and we’ve fast forward your career where you put in the hard work and now we take the role of a financial coach, okay, 30 plus years later, and you have the wisdom of knowing that you put in the work and you have the wisdom of knowing that some clients are fortunate enough to be born or given money. Some are born with the opportunity to work. You’ve been able to help both. Can you give us a couple of nuggets for both parties so that we can help

[08:15] them because there’s people that have just been handed something and we’re not going to say it’s good. We’re not going to say it’s bad. And there’s people that had to earn it all and we’re not going to say it’s good, we’re not going to say it’s bad. What’s the advice? Well, both begin with gratitude. So being handed something absolutely will turn out so much better if you’re grateful for it and you take it and leverage it up. Like you said, in your example, you take what has been given, whatever that is, and help make it be even more. And that is only possible when you’re grateful for it. And then on the work side, it’s the same. It could be very easy to be frustrated or feel second class or whatever

[09:10] because you weren’t given something, yet look at all the lessons that you learned from the hard work and how well that will serve you over life. So again, gratitude first, and then second, elevate that, leverage it, up-level it, whatever word applies to the situation so that you can get even more of the good and the learnings that occurred from the work. Okay. So for me, I want to take a couple of line items out of this. So for listeners that happen to be blessed with financial capital, access to it, relationship capital, social capital, whatever, start with gratitude, and for them to look at it and say, okay, what needs to happen is they’ll manage it properly. And for the people that had to earn it, don’t become bitter.

[10:11] Look at it and look at the skills and work from there. What is the channel that you would send our listeners to if they’re working through that? Is it the email? Is it an ebook? Is it a newsletter? What does that look like? Well, I absolutely enjoy communication and email is actually a favorite of mine. So hello at prosperity thinkers.com. I would love to hear responses. I would love to hear your advice to your 18 year old self and any questions that you have. Perfect. Kim, thank you for sharing this with us today. We appreciate the old stories. It helps us to get to know you and how you think and the foundation of prosperity. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you,

[11:07] visit ProsperityThinkers.com.