I’m a big fan of financial education. Mastering finances is an important life skill because it has such a drastic impact on how you get to live your life and when you get to live it. The more skilled you are in handling money, the less susceptible you will be to making financial mistakes that can derail your efforts to live the life you want. Financial education can help you manage your money more effectively, leading to saving more, earning more, and spending wisely on things that matter.

During my seminars I ask my audience this question: “Why do we learn how to calculate the area of a triangle but not the power of compounding interest?”

I’d pause, scan the room, and continue by asking: “Why are we taught art, music, and physical fitness, yet the banking and investment industry remains a mystery?”

Many, if not all, in the audience nod their heads in agreement.

I have yet to meet someone who hasn’t agreed with me on the importance of financial education. Yet even with that truth, I find very few people who actively engage in financial education. Let me get this out of the way: Money is fun. Spending is exciting. But financial education sounds like a bore. Think about where you get most of your traditional financial education from: banks, financial services companies, government agencies, and nonprofits. None of these institutions scream fun and exciting.

Without the right financial tools and personal finance skills, you might find that navigating toward your dream lifestyle is more challenging than it is for someone who is better prepared. Think of the right tools as knowledge about the right resources to use, given your financial situation. And think of skills as your understanding of personal finance. In order to learn about the financial tools and grow your personal finance skills, you’ll need financial education.

When I began planning the Road to Financial Wellness tour, I started by talking to friends about the road trip.

I said, “I want to help people understand money. I want to have financial seminars all across the country.”

The majority of my friends were excited about the road trip without ever acknowledging the financial education part of it. That was until I had a friend who candidly replied, “I don’t know anyone that would take time out of the day to sit in a financial education seminar.”

I knew this to be a fact. I knew firsthand that I’d rather be doing something more enjoyable than learning about how I was doing it all wrong.

The opposite is true for self-help seminars—and, dare I say it, get-rich or make-more-money seminars—that oftentimes fill to capacity with people willing to pay to attend. What are these self-styled money seminars offering that financial education seminars do not? They are offering hope for a better tomorrow. They are educating through inspiration, with the underlying promise that by following whatever steps they are selling you can live your dream life.

However, financial education promises exactly the same thing. Being financially educated provides you with the information and skills necessary to make better financial decisions. That in itself can give you hope for your future.

I approach financial education as a form of personal development. Personal financial development is a life-changing skill for improving your life choices specifically as they relate to finances. It is a skill that must be developed and nurtured. Most self-help personal development books are aimed at how you think and challenge you to make improvements to better yourself and your relationships. This book is no different with respect to those goals, as I am challenging you to better your finances and your relationship with money through a shift in mindset. You may have often heard of self-help gurus talking about cultivating a positive mindset. By having a positive mindset, you’re able to achieve the goals you’ve set and overcome whatever insurmountable situation you’re facing.

What Is Financial Education?

Financial education imparts the ability to understand how money works, how someone can earn or make it, how money is managed, and how it is invested. In more basic terms, financial education brings an understanding of finances, credit, and debt, and how that knowledge can be used to make informed financial decisions. There are many different ways to become financially educated: You can do so by attending classes, watching videos, taking online courses, participating in forums, and reading blogs and books.

The following are a few key reasons financial education is important:

• The burden of retirement planning rests on your shoulders. At work you are given many options to save for retirement, such as 401(k) accounts, stock options, employee stock purchase programs, life insurance, and more.
• As the cost of living increases, wages may stay the same, meaning the need to stretch a dollar becomes increasingly important.
• Today there are more choices in banking products, credit cards, mortgages, and investing products. This increase in the number of financial products can lead to a lot of confusion and bad choices.
• Additionally, today there are more financial services companies to choose from. Choosing among banks, credit unions, brokerage firms, apps, and financial technology start-ups can be overwhelming.
• Most important, financial education improves your ability to make sound financial decisions that lead to a higher quality of life.

As I mentioned earlier, most financial education efforts and personal finance discussions remain focused on providing how-to solutions. You can have a manual of how-to information, but if you aren’t aware of why that information is needed in your life, then the manual is quite useless. Financial education is power and financial knowledge is influence. Your awareness and application of this knowledge is life changing.

The ACT Process

The ACT process was created after years of lectures that I had given to help people understand personal finance in a way that would inspire them to act. There are three steps in the process: awareness, creating a plan, and taking control.

Part II of this book covers the Awareness step of the ACT process, which will help you to get clear on where you are and where you want to be as we talk about your values, hopes, and dreams—your vision for your life. This step might be challenging for you, because we’re going to talk about your feelings. However, by the end of Part II you’ll have gained a better understanding of where you are today, and you’ll be able to articulate where you want to be tomorrow. I end that part of the book with what you’ll need to know to get you moving along on your road to financial wellness.

Part III, “Creating a Plan,” is about budgeting for your dream lifestyle. You’ll learn how to identify and set financial goals that align with your values and learn strategies to save better and pay off debt quicker.

Finally, in Part IV, “Taking Control,” I’ll help you take control of your life with actionable steps and ideas that incorporate your new money mindset to achieve goals focused on saving, spending, and living.