When I started my Financial Education journey, I didn’t know a thing about finance. All I knew was how to make money, and I was great at spending more then I made. My YOLO Lifestyle was a financial disaster, and I decided that I needed to focus on my financial education.
After obsessively learning about finance for years, I came across the 10,000 hour rule. The rule says that if I spend 10,000 hours of practice on anything, I can achieve “mastery” of whatever I study. I decided to document my journey to achieve 10,000 hours of Financial Education on my way to financial freedom.
This post documents the start of that process, and I will continue to update this page as I progress. Will hitting 10,000 hours focused on my financial education make me an expert? Let’s take a look,
The Road to 10,000 Hours of Financial Education
My journey from financial failure to financially free has been a long one. Only when I was failing at life and in real trouble did I read the Barefoot Investor years ago. That instigated my financial awakening, and I became passionate about financial freedom. I experienced the stress and misery that comes with severe financial hardships. And when I got out of that mess, I vowed to never go back to meaningless spending and a YOLO lifestyle.
But my financial education didn’t stop there. I wanted to know more. I progressed to Robert Kiyosaki and Rich Dad Poor Dad. My basic financial literacy evolved. I became interested in stock markets and macro economics and I went deep into the topic. And I enjoyed learning the details from various sources and voices.
I read and listen to a lot of financial content. And as a data and business analyst in my real life career, I naturally make connections between pieces of information. While I read and learn, I find new angles and connect dots between different books, people and information.
Recently, I made a few new connections that made me think about my level of financial education.
The Importance of Financial Education
In Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki wrote about Financial Literacy, or Financial IQ. This was a new concept to me at the time. But a Financial IQ is the synergy of many skills, including accounting, investing, understanding markets and the law. Kiyosaki believes that a high financial IQ can build your asset column, but most importantly, it helps develop your greatest asset.
“The single most powerful asset we have is our mind”
I love that quote. And I have always worked to expand my mind. I have learned from the masters, studied them and applied their thoughts and ideas to my own finances. Over the years, I continued to learn from the best.
I recently read and studied Steve McKnight’s Money Magnet. That was an amazing book. McKnight believes that your level of financial literacy reflects your ability to speak, read and write the language of money. The better you understand it, the more money you will attract.
It made me wonder what is my level of financial literacy? How could I measure my level of financial education beyond the amount of money in my bank account? How can I quantify my ongoing work to learn and apply my knowledge profitably?
Then I made another connection after I read the book Outliers.
The 10,000 Hour Rule to Achieve Financial Mastery
Outliers is a fantastic book by Malcolm Gladwell. It looks at a broad range of topics related to why some people achieve more than others. Gladwell focuses on rock stars like the Beatles, and computer geniuses like Bill Gates. He normalizes these inspiring people and their abilities.
The central idea is that these outliers, these special people were not amazingly talented by accident. There may have been other external factors that guided these gifted people. Such as unlikely opportunities, or living in a certain area, or being born in a certain month or year. These circumstances helped their success. But the main factor that helped them excel past others was their dedication to their passion.
This dedication translates to hours spent on a passion.
The research in expertise outlined in the book found that the “magic number for true expertise is 10,000 hours”. In study after study, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, they all achieved a level of mastery after 10,000 hours of practice. It seems that “the brain takes this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.”
These superstars excelled in their field, because they achieved 10,000 hours in a short period of time, at the right time and became famous for their mastery. So is it possible to use that same theory to become an outlier myself, and boost my financial expertise?
The Science of 10,000 Hours
This idea came to me at the end of 2023, and I wondered how much time did I put into my financial education every week. And what if I measured the time I spent listening to finance podcasts, learning macro economics, reading finance books, blogs and newspapers? Would the time I spent studying finance translate into a higher financial IQ. And then, will that increase my financial education and boost my net wealth?
If I’m aiming to measure the time I spend, why not aim for 10,000 hours and see if I increase my financial expertise in doing so. And will the time I spend on my financial education turn on the “financial afterburners” as described by Steve McKnight. Can this extra focus accelerate my wealth building ability.
This blog will document my road to 10,000 hours of financial education. I have already clocked in many hours over the years, but I will start measuring time spent from January 2024. I estimate that I will achieve 1,000 hours a year, so I should achieve 10,000 hours within 10 years.
Ideally, I’d like it to align my 10,000 hours of financial education goals with my actual financial goals. My primary goal is to pay off my family home and be debt free and financially free by the time I turn 50 in 2030. And it will be interesting to see if this alignment of goals will help me achieve my financial freedom goals faster.
And will becoming an outlier myself, help me break away from the herd and achieve something spectacular?
Final Thoughts
My goal is to achieve 10,000 hours by 2030 to boost my financial education and achieve complete financial freedom.
I already read and study a lot of financial content. When I hit 10,000 hours, will that make me an expert? Or a genius? Who knows, but I’m confident that my skill level and wealth can only increase. Let’s see how I go, and any thoughts or recommendations, let me know in the comments.
M. Moneyman
References
I have embedded the data sheet I update to keep track of the books, blogs and pods I learn from. I will update this as I go along and I will look to make the data visualisation a bit better in future.
Please note, data is separated by Month and the Green items are the ones I enjoyed or learned the most from in the month.
