Pushing 30, Financial Awakening

[Stephen Bagnani]

Hello everyone. I am so thankful to have found this resourse and community. I have spent my life under the rule of the "Poor Dad" mentality, always bearing witness to the financial struggles of my family and watching my parent's marriage get torn apart. 

I had an itch for something different, and regardless of how many times I tried to fit in, I couldn't fit into the School/Trade Job mentality. I dropped out of college about 4 times, dropped out of Boot Camp, and wove in and out of jobs.

It got to a point where I hopelessly questioned what I was doing wrong, what was wrong with me? It lead to a lot of soul searching and I eventually joined a Christian Commune where I lived in Community working for free for 3 years. There I learned the value of freedom...having none...

I retraced my steps back to So. California to find two parents breaking up, lives in disarray, siblings getting devoured by life and addicted to drugs. I was lucky enough to land a full-time job down here. 

I worked down here for the last year or so, I began to feel that same dark shadow of uncertainty come over me again, but this time it was answered by a Book by Tim Ferriss, the 4-Hour Body...ironically enough I heard about it from a DnD podcast on youtube. Tim's insights about health struck me deeply, and I began to read his other works, one was 4-Hour Work Week.

This was the beginning of my financial awakening...I began to surf youtube for more information on this "New Rich" concept. For so long my mind was switched on to think that Wealth was something like winning the lottery, a pie in the sky thing...I began to hear to people referencing another book. Rich Dad Poor Dad. Then there was a few excerpts from Robert K.'s Seminars. They changed me.. I soon read Rich Dad Poor Dad. My eyes were opened. All along, I and my family have been stuck in a hamster wheel, wage slaves. Directionless, with no financial backbone. Finally I am seeing why I have always felt uneasy with the way things have been, restless and rebellious with the norms taught to me by my parents and school.

Poetry aside I am supercharged to begin my life as an investor. I look back at the last year with my new eyes and I kick myself for getting myself into a Lease for 270 a month of a brand new Honda. Now I am begging God that someone can take it off my hands because it would be 330 dollars of cashflow in my pocket...but that's another matter altogether.

I am charged up to begin investing. I know the first step is education and I want to become a sponge. I would like to invest first in a mentor, because to me that would be the most worthwhile education in the long run, am I correct in thinking this? I am not quite sure where to start, as I have been until recently, living paycheck to paycheck, but I have trimmed a lot of expenses (ugh that car) I have joined this community, and I am working on repairing my FAIR credit as we speak. I wish to stand upon the shoulders of giants because that is where I will buy my freedom.

Thanks Again!