This morning, I went back to Eminence Elementary School to speak to 4th and 5th graders about what I do at their Career Day. I’m sure that my presentation was much more boring to them than when they got to speak with a police officer or an EMT, but I hope I was able to at least teach them something. I tried to keep things very high level through asking for examples of goals that they have and how to reach them as well as goals that they have for their money. To my surprise, many kids had savings goals that they were working towards by saving their allowances or money they get from doing chores rather than spending that money when they get it. Some had very realistic goals of things they wanted to buy and would be able to afford in a relatively short time-frame and some had goals that they’re not likely to be able to afford themselves, but maybe their parents will help them out with. Overall, most students were able to explain a goal they had whether it be financially related or not.
Moving on from financial goals, I had kids give me some examples of needs, wants, and wishes for their money. I explained to them that your money should first go towards your needs, then towards your wants if you have money leftover, and if you have a lot of money, or if you’re really good at saving your money, then you can begin thinking about those wishes that may be very far off or very expensive.
After these exercises, I explained to the students what I had to do to become a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional, some of the things that I do in my job and and skills that it requires that they could relate to, and the outlook for these types of jobs when they’ll be entering the workforce. You can see the slides I used below although I tried to speak more conversationally than rely on the slides:
Juniors & Seniors
After speaking with the 4th and 5th graders, I went and spoke to a small class of 5 juniors and seniors. This was a free-flowing conversation without any real structure and we mainly spoke about their plans for the future and what college was like for me. The students were all very intelligent and had some awesome questions.
8th Grade
Finally, I went to my mom’s classroom to speak with 8th graders and answer a bunch of questions that they had for me. They had a lot of different types of questions. Here are some of them:
- Were you the smartest kid in your class?
- Are you a Trump supporter?
- Where did you go to college?
- Why did you decide to do a podcast? How did it come about?
- How did college go for you (coming from Eminence)? Did other college students treat you differently?
- What was your back-up plan? (if your current job didn’t work out?)
- Why do you want to be a financial planner?
- Did you always want to be a financial planner? (what did you want to be when you grew up??)
- Do you think you are good at your job?
- What is your advice for us going into high school (to make sure we get into college)?
- What was your strongest subject in high school?
- What do you consider your successes in life so far?
- Did you feel like it was dangerous when you studied abroad? (do other countries really hate Americans?)
- What podcasts do you listen to /subscribe to?
- Who are your role models?
- How long did it take you to prepare for this job?
- Iphone or Samsung?
I think that some of these students have been led to believe things that aren’t necessarily true like that others would treat me differently when I was in college since I was from a small town (and specifically from Eminence), that it’s dangerous to travel outside of the US because everyone else hates us (I’ve found this to be the opposite), and they can’t be successful simply because they’re from Eminence.
I’m not sure why the students believe these things, but it seems to me that there must be some authoritative figure in their lives telling them that nothing/no one good comes out of Eminence when, in fact, I know a ton of successful people that have.
I truly believe that you get out of anything what you put into it and that you can be successful no matter your background or who you are if you’re willing to put in the work, do the right things, and do it for a long time without seeing immediate results. Consistent persistency. Maybe I’m fooling myself, but I hope not and I don’t believe so.
It’s hard to beat the person who won’t give up.
