Education Undercover

I often think about how much high level medical knowledge I have, or conditions that I know how to pronounce, simply because of years of watching Grey’s Anatomy.

Or how we fancy ourselves as amateur sleuths after devouring countless episodes of CSI: Miami, NCIS, Criminal Minds and Elementary (I can keep going).

This isn’t just general entertainment, but it’s often pretty accurate information, even if a little dramatic. We can learn so much, without even meaning to.

I refer to this as stealth education.

So, where are you stealth learning about money from?

Watch your sources

Are you watching very specific stock market news bulletins that are all about individual shares, percentage movements, and are filled technical jargon?

Or are you watching a TV show, or listening to a podcast, that’s aimed at consumers that are 30 years older than you?

Do you get information from your parents who have never had a financial plan and are simply relaying their third-party knowledge?

If we accept that we’re constantly taking on new financial information from a variety of sources, we need to be clever about where we get it from.

Curation is the key

The trick is to step back, assess the sources, and be a bit more picky about where we get our financial information from. 

Let’s find something that we find entertaining in the money-realm, but that’s relevant to where we are at, so we can absorb more — without feeling like we’re watching a webinar by the Australian Tax Office.

We may not know exactly when or how this knowledge is going to come in handy, but I can guarantee you were better off for it.

You’d be surprised at how often I say ‘haemochromatosis’ or ‘fibromyalgia’, and I thank Dr. Miranda Bailey for giving me the confidence that I’m pronouncing them correctly.

Let’s find good sources of confidence when it comes to our cash.