What Every High School Student Should Know About Money Part.2

Part.2 – The Power Of Skills – Featuring Prof. Phillip A. Braun & Mr. Nichols (Economics Teacher)

In this article: skills; High Income skills, opinions and facts. Just keep reading you don’t want to regret it later.

• To have a high income skill is one of the most of powerful things in the business worlds
• Time is your friend
• In terms of debt, time is your enemy
• To hone a skill is something, one can not steal
• “Millionaires have a high income skill that is valuable to the marketplace, multi-millionaires have multiple high income skills that are valuable to the marketplace.” – Iman Ghadzhi (23 year old Iman Ghadzhi with 30 million dollars to his name started a social media marketing course at the age of 16)
• A skill that is very important that could help lead you to success is knowing marketing, and the ability to sell your ideas. There are multiple ways to develop this skill so there is no one way to learn. One way that might help you develop this skill set is to put yourself in a situation where you would sell your idea to a consumer.

E.g: maybe you want to sell reusable sticky notes (credits: Lauryn Marin for this creative idea) ask yourself how would this product reach your consumers, how would this benefit them, why would they spend money on it. Sit yourself down with a family member, friend, teachers etc. and sell it. Put yourself out there and go crazy, you know what they say practice makes perfect.

• Another very important skill that could overall help you in life is people skills, and that is to be able to communicate effectively with others your thoughts and your ideas. Do you want to learn and develop this skill? Talk to random people, go out of your way to compliment someone, ask them how their day was. Over time you would get more comfortable and confident in talking to people you don’t know because that’s how business works, you are constantly meeting new people you don’t know. They could be a potential business partner, client, boss, etc. You never know but if you are confident (not arrogant) when talking that can leave an impression on them.
• You want to come of confident, not arrogant.

Some Examples of a High Income Skill and where to learn them:

Online Marketing – There are hundreds of online marketing courses that you can enroll in. Choose one to your liking and enroll yourself into that course.

Coding – First choose a coding language you want to learn, there is a variety to choose from, make sure to do your research; Java, Python etc. After choosing your coding language of choice, research course options and again choose one that fits best with you.

Content Creation – Choose a platform, Find your audience and what appeals to them. Post Consistently, reach out to brands you want to work with. Build Social Connections.

Sales – Practice speaking in public, Practicing with Roleplay.

On this Journey to learn more about money and business and to write this article I had the honor to interview Northwestern Kellogg Finance Professor, Phillip A Braun, and our Mt. SAC Early College Academy Economics teacher Gabriel Nichols (Mr. Nichols) to get both their insights on “What Every High School Student Should Know About Money.”

Professor Phillip A. Braun:

What do you think every high school student should know about money?
“What an Interest rate is, Second most important thing is compound interest” He said. In his opinion Professor Braun thinks that the younger you are the better to start investing because then you get the most compound interest.

What advice would you give your high school self about money?
When you’re younger in highschool you should be saving towards college, when you’re in college… it’s difficult to say cause you paying tuition and other costs but after you graduate college you want to start saving towards your retirement as quick as possible.

What are the best investments to make in your opinion?
Depending on each individual and their opinion on investments. The big 2 are Stocks and Bonds. “Every individual has different attitudes towards how much risk they want to have in their investment portfolio” Stated Professor Braun. He explains that the simple choice is between stocks and bonds “Stocks are riskier than bonds but over the long term stocks, are a higher return than bonds but some people find stock investments too risky so they prefer investing in bonds” So in simpler terms: Stocks – higher risk, higher reward; Bonds – Lower risk, lower reward.

Why he (Professor Braun) doesn’t believe in cryptocurrencies.
Crypto currency is purely a spectacle of financial instrument right now, what that means is there no underline value to crypto currency, but if you look at stocks, the underlying value to stock is the money the company earnings [ex] so investing in apple stock you receive earnings from apple but with crypto there is no underlying asset, there is no underline value so is truly speculative which means there is no way to figure out where the true value of crypto.

Books and articles recommended by Professor Braun himself: Capital Markets Extended Reading List (2)

Mr. Nichols (economics teacher):

What do you think every high school student should know about money?
“You have to build credit and if you ever want to get a loan in the future, people who will lend you money need to know you are responsible for money and you do that by building credit. High School students when they get their first job get their first source of income, they need to get a credit card. If you get a credit card and monthly pay it off, then when you go get a car, when you go for college, eventually when you go for a home, bigger purchases banks can see that when lend you money, you responsible”

Another thing, high school students need to know about money is that eventually one day you will want to retire one day. Unless you get a job with really good pension (Pension; constant income from the company or government agency you work for, when you are retired) or retirement, you have to do a lot of the financing for the retirement on your own. The best way to do that is the Stock Market. The best way to use the stock market is when you are young. So students who invest at 20 give time for the money to grow. If you put 100 in the stock market and it increases to 150. That 50 you earned from doing nothing, that 50 will go on for the next 30 years and will accrue interest.

What are the best investments to make in your opinion?
S&P 500 – for example Apple inc, you would assume it is very stable. But in 15 – 50 years. What’s apple going to look like in 15 years? But what are the best 500 companies going to look like in 50 years? The best 500 companies are still going to be the best 5000 companies. What about Apple inc. How many more Ipads and Iphones can they come out with? And so if you drop some money in it and 15 years later, Apple keeps making more iphones. Then that’s a great investment, but if Apple takes a bad turn then all your eggs are in one basket.

Thoughts on Cryptocurrency?
Stay away – People have made money instantly, very quickly and people have lost money very quickly. The higher risk, the higher reward but with crypto you can lose your money instantly. What is bitcoin like in 50 years? You want to graduate and drive out of here in a tesla. You throw money at S&P 500. That dream will never get accomplished, But you throw money in bitcoin or something like dogecoin, and it hits. Then you cash it out, you will be driving out of here in a tesla. Where is Bitcoin in 50 years? If you get on something before it’s hot, you’re making a ton

of money. If you wait till it gets hot and you throw your money in like everybody did with bitcoin. And you’re saying, “What about Cryptocurrency?” Like you needed to say that 3 years ago and invest it before everybody else knows about it. But the secrets are out on Bitcoin.

Want to start making some side hustle money? The next part of this article I will be talking about some side hustles ways to make some cash now? Till next time.