When I started out my career in Investment banking I didn’t have the confidence to know if I would be successful.
I felt outnumbered surrounded by 20-year-olds, whose dads talked about business and finance with their sons since their teenage years.
My work colleagues were years ahead of me.
I felt intimidated.
But I loved modeling. Not modeling in front of a camera, but financial modeling with excel.
I figured out the beauty behind accretion and leverage.
Then I thought about how these concepts could also be applied to personal finance. (WACC)
Personal finance isn’t really about budgeting, it should be about leverage.
In my opinion, what is driving the great wealth divide is:
- those who can afford to borrow ;
- those who understand how to use leverage or debt accretively and invest in assets
Leverage is the most important financial concept that exists.
But to every good story, there is a villain.
The reason why there are bubbles and ups and downs in the stock market and investing is that guys get overly confident with too much debt right at the point when they shouldn’t be.
This is when the music stops. It hurts like during 2008. Now in China with the property markets.
You need to know as parents how to talk to your kids about debt and the math behind good debt and bad debt.
Please reach out to me to make sure your kids fall into the right camp.