Email: Where do you go for financial learning?

I have added a new category: Email. Every now and then, I will post an email up here and answer it.

Ahh, time to stick my hand in my mailbox and what shall come out? Here is the letter:

Hi Malstrom

I was reading your post on “Bad economy” is excuse for bad business models, and you advised on learning about money. and i just would like to ask, where would be the first plave to start, have you got any resources you can recomend, i have been doing a lot of reading about passive income streams and creating money from your hobby and i am interested in taking some form of control of my life, i think they call it living life by design. Any way it would be great if you have any recommendations.

As a disclaimer, keep in mind that I am not rich and that I am not financial super-star. All I have are observations.

From wealthy people I know, they have two attributes: 1) They work really hard. 2) The love what they do. Number two negates number one. They work really hard, but since they love it, it doesn’t seem like work.

The people you surround yourself will determine much about your life. Surround yourself with losers, and you will become one. Surround yourself with smart people, you’ll become smart. Surround yourself with gamers, you’ll become a gamer.

I’ve seen people retire FOR LIFE at the age of 25 as well as 22. In those young cases, the reason how they were able to retire so soon was because their parents taught them the correct financial lessons. Their fathers were business builders. During the dinner table, instead of Dad getting a beer to pass out at the next football game, the father was instructing business to the kid for his lifetime. Look at super wealthy people and then look up their parents. You’ll find their parents, such as Bill Gates, were quite well off and were involved either in business or law or both. The rest of us, we just auto-default to go into massive debt to get a college degree where we hope to work for college drop-outs like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Michael Dell.

Books, seminars, TV shows, and all are nothing. Knowing people is the way.