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Here on Reel From The Real, i write what i’ve learned in investing x personal finance.
My goal is to:
share optimistic and positive energy - because the hustle is real x rough enough
personalise personal finance that bit more.
😎 To your wealth,
Aila Obiocha
For my first post, I thought it would be great to write something on how I started my journey to financial freedom. A sort of “how it all began”.
I had been working hard for 7 years when I woke up broke. No savings. No assets. No cash. No investments. There was nothing in the world that had my name on it. I owned nothing, and at the same time, I owed money. $50,000.
The first emotion I felt was Shame. Here I was, a first-class graduate of Finance and Economics from one of the top business schools in the world, and 7 years into a well-paying career, I was as broke as I had been when I was a student. As far as my finances were concerned, I may as well have been unemployed and sleeping on my father’s sofa. I had studied money at university for 3 years (or so I thought), and yet, I had none of it.
For all my intelligence, I was super stupid with money, because I hadn’t figured out how to hold on to even 1% of my salary over 7 years. And I had been working. Hard.
To deepen the nail, my younger sister had just bought a house with a 10% cash deposit. She had worked for less time - but already had more assets than me.
Then came the Disgust. I literally could not explain how I had ended up here. Somehow, I had received a salary each month since I started working, and somehow, not a single penny of that salary remained with me. Not even cash in the bank.
At this point, I stopped looking in the mirror.
Where was the result of all that hard work? All that studying around the clock to score A grades in financial engineering classes? All those late nights and weekends at the office? All that CV-building and linking in on LinkedIn? Deep down, I knew I had not wasted my time, but my poverty made me feel like I had wasted my life.
“Your pain is the breaking of the shell,
that encloses your understanding.
And could you keep your heart in wonder,
at the daily miracles of your life,
Your pain would seem
no less wondrous, than your joy. ”
Khalil Gibran
Then I realised. I had not actually done or learnt anything about personal finance. None of the things that I thought were supposed to make me rich could actually make me rich. I didn’t have the tools, the knowledge, or the habits that could actually lead to wealth.
Worst part was, I had wasted 7 years believing that I did.
Here is what was real. I had worked hard, yes, but for my career, not my bank account. I had no money because I didn't know money.
I worked for money, but not with money.
Which was why I could not hold on to even 1% of my salary over 7 years.
It was then that I knew.
If I ever wanted a different financial life, I had to first accept that I didn't know how to get that life - that alternative, better life, the one in which your hard work today actually translates into you not working so hard tomorrow - and then learn how to get it.
“And the day came,
when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful
than the risk it took to blossom.”
Anais Nin
So, that’s what I did, am still doing, and will continue to do, until my bank account convinces me that I'm doing something right.
To Be Continued…
See you next Sunday for part 2.