Why You Urgently Need Financial Literacy to Accelerate Your Financial Success

You know the importance of education, no doubt. Otherwise, you won't be literate to read this and hope to gain some knowledge that might help your life. As you know too, education has diverse dimensions. You acquire general education basically to read, write, interact, understand and generally have a better developed mind. Professional education empowers you with specialised expert skills in a certain field. There is often some emphasis on technical education to provide hands-on skills in the technical areas. As you also probably realise, we can't strictly pigeonhole all these modes of education, since all are intertwined somehow. This article, however, is about the education that gives you the leverage to translate any of these forms you have acquired, into a potent force to generate and nurture the wealth you need to meet your financial needs.

Don't get it wrong. A doctor will earn money and get financially comfortable. A lawyer, an engineer, the man on the street, everybody. Two points, though. One, each person, given quality financial knowledge, can substantially advance their position financially, well beyond what is ordinarily possible, without much additional work. Secondly, even the results they currently achieve would invariably reflect some degree of financial literacy, meaning that more financial literacy will mean more success. QED.

What Financial Education is And Why it Matters
Simply put, financial education is that designed to acquire financial literacy and consequently be imbued with money-management skills. Primarily, it deals with personal finance management principles and tools, including strategies to generate income streams, manage earnings, invest for more growth and generally attain a strong financial status by deploying time-tested financial techniques.

Now, if you assume that everybody understands what this entails and possibly implements it in their lives, you will be thoroughly wrong. In fact, much of the din over poverty (or its alleviation) persists because financial literacy is grossly lacking. For many, they get to learn a bit late in their lives, after tonnes of missed opportunities. For others, they never get to learn. The consequence - people undermine their success potentials by not adding the 'key' that unlocks the gate of financial geometric progression. They can achieve results, but these fall far short of what is possible. Much theory, right? Then let's illustrate. Just one quick example. An insurance company, Staco, had an IPO a few months ago, selling at 75 kobo per share. It was part of the insurance sector consolidation. As this piece is written, Staco, now listed, closed the last trading day at N3.41, a 355% gain. If you invested N200,000, it would be valued at N909,333 today. The truth is that most people who push and shove their way on the streets of Lagos in the desperate search for money, haven't advanced their positions by that magnitude over the same period. They're looking in the wrong places! At 75 kobo, that stock was within everybody's reach. Mind you, this doesn't say you should buy stocks or every stock offered in the market; it's just a pointer that knowing what counts can make all the difference.

Gaining Financial literacy is not only important, but pressing, because:

• It's easy to earn a lot of income and still end up without a strong financial standing, just because it wasn't possible to take the steps that would transform earnings into real wealth. Many people face this challenge, not made any easy by the fact that the pressure of sustaining livelihood is heavy, often eroding all earnings. Will financial literacy bring any magic to this? You try. Seriously, that's the idea: to help you work out a strategy, not just for survival, but for building financial capacity, in spite of all the odds.
• People lose a lot of time doing the wrong things or omitting to do the right things. Okay, it's a matter of choice, not right and wrong. People choose to act in a way that doesn't advance their fortunes (hope this sounds less presumptuous), often for lack of the knowledge. By losing time, you forego one of nature's invaluable gifts for turning out the wealth you need. A lot of things you set on autopilot early in life and over time, will do the rest of the hard work for you. Why lose this vital resource? This is one reason we are very committed to educating young people, because, if they learn and choose to act early, life will turn out a lot easier than otherwise.
• Not understanding key principles or strategies of financial management will deny you the opportunity to use time-tested tools that will accelerate your progress. You possibly fail to engage ready tools that will mean better results for reasonable effort, perhaps in preference for much more work for less results. Love that?
• There are things not thought or learnt under general or professional education which must affect your life because we all operate using the medium of money. You simply can't escape some realities of skillful money management (or the lack for it), irrespective of your discipline or position in life. It is a universal need and can actually very much determine or define your quality of life. Not anything to toy with, if you ask me.
• Even when you see the need to take certain actions that strengthen your financial position, you still need the knowledge to act in a manner that provides the leverage to optimise results. Just like with all things, the more you know, the more likely you achieve better results. So, continuing to acquire financial literacy is one dimension of self-development that can be trusted for visible dividends.

It's Worth Your Attention
For yourself, your offspring, relatives and even friends, see it as a challenge to raise their level of financial education. The young ones particularly, because it could mean a lot of trouble off their back. Learning the language and principles of money, though sounding simple, is where the bulk of the populace has missed it and that accounts for a lot of the misery you see. It's not an overnight thing, but one has to start showing interest and learning some basics. Let's hope this triggers some more interest or concern in you. If it does, get someone else involved, too.

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