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In our personal-finance class, we have a unit on investments, and I always get the same two comments: “What should I invest in?” and “Should I buy bitcoin?”
I don’t understand bitcoin, so I can’t help there, but since I believe you should only invest in what you understand, the answer to the first question is easy: Invest in yourself. As your chosen investment adviser, I have three key strategies (and a story for each one) that will help you down this path. This advice, as always, is free.
Investment strategy No. 1: Be curious and ask questions
When I was a kid, I never really liked going to church. There were a variety of reasons, but my parents didn’t care about any of them, and so over time I started to notice what everyone was doing. Stand up, sit down, stand up. Then I started to notice what everyone was saying. One day, Father Delbert proclaimed: “A reading from the gospel, according to Mark.” Now, I had no idea what a “gospel” was, and I didn’t know Mark, but those concerns were immediately overshadowed by what happened next. For as you all know, the correct response is, “Glory to you, Lord,” but what my 7-year-old ears heard was “According to you, Lord.” What made it more unsettling was that this crowd response was in a hushed voice, as if they didn’t want Father Delbert to know he had made a mistake. This seemed really odd to me, and I kind of felt sorry for Father Delbert, but I didn’t ask any questions.
As the service ended, same routine: Stand up, sit down, stand up and then Father Delbert said, “Please join us for fellowship in the foyer.” Now, I did not know what “fellowship” meant, and I didn’t know where the foyer was, but I followed everyone through a door near the back of the church, down a hall and entered a room to see tray after tray of doughnuts. And I thought to myself: “I love fellowship.”
As I was stuffing that third doughnut into my face, I performed my own little cause/effect analysis: Maybe this doughnut festival was God’s way of thanking us for giving him the appropriate props 30 minutes earlier when we made it clear the gospel was according to him and not some guy named Mark. Again, I didn’t ask any questions, I just went with it and put my flawed theory to the test.