Articles
Most of us didn’t get much financial education as kids – certainly not as much as we would have liked. Now, as adults, we know how remarkably valuable it is, and we’d love to go back in time and have someone teach us all the things we know now about finances.
Except it’s not that simple.
Do you ever remember getting embarrassed being seen in public with your parents? Or rolling your eyes when they tried to relate to you? It felt like they just didn’t understand you at all.
As adults, we understand our parents more, but it’s a stretch to think that, as young people, we would’ve been super-open to their purchasing and lifestyle advice.
All of us hate being lectured to, and, most of the time, finance info only shows up as a lecture.
Bottom line – the best information in the world doesn’t matter if you can’t get through to your audience. And yet, parents and financial educators are tasked with teaching the driest subject possible to the toughest audience imaginable, all without any training in style or delivery.
Not surprisingly, personal finance has a perception problem, a low Q Factor, if you will. One of the most useful pieces of advice I ever got about solving this dilemma is: Perception Dictates Reception. Therefore, to change financial education’s reception, we must change its perception.
At the 2016 Higher Education Financial Wellness Summit in Columbus, Ohio, Dr. Annamaria Lusardi explained that anything less than 5 hours of financial education is effectively the same as 0 hours of financial education. Since I talk for less than an hour, you might have thought I’d be discouraged.
On the contrary, I felt excited, because her message wasn’t “Don’t try.” Instead Dr. Lusardi was saying, “Make sure the first hour is strategically designed to get them to a second hour, and then a third. Because if you don’t do that, they won’t reach competence. The first hour is to intended to make personal finance feel empowering, applicable, and, of course, personal.”
I often describe my message A Comedic Guide to Money as “a first hour of finance.” It’s financial education in jeans. This is why I say “Money” instead of “Finances.”
Don’t get me wrong, there’s also plenty of meat in there for advanced attendees. I demonstrate real-world applications of behavioral psychology principles, teach people how to have money conversations, and make the complex world of investing comprehensible to regular consumers. I also design my content so that you can go in without any background in financial education, and still follow along.
I also teach presenters how to add style to their education, because style is a lens that gives the listener access to the material. Style allows you to build your audience’s knowledge while also building rapport with them. It’s that rapport which gets them coming up to you after a presentation, booking a follow-up with you, or feeling safe enough to ask you their financial questions.
Rather than assuming our listeners care simply because they’re sitting in the audience, let’s make our goal as educators to make money seem meaningful, manageable, and accessible.
What about you? What did your first hour, or first introduction to money, look like? Share it on Twitter or Instagram. And click here to download the first chapter of my book for free.
—-
Colin Ryan, CPFC is the author of “A Comedic Guide to Money,” has been featured everywhere from NPR to The Moth Radio Hour, and speaks all over the country.
Articles
In 2009, I saw an ad for a job at a credit union in Vermont to “increase financial literacy among Vermont high school students.” Although I was very good at living off of the tiny paychecks of a freelance journalist, I had no formal background in finance – as evidenced by the fact that the first thing I did was Wikipedia “Financial Literacy.” But I needed a job, and they needed…someone. Apparently me! And the rest is history.
As it happens, financial literacy just means managing money. At the time, I thought, Why don’t they just call it that? After working for the credit union for a couple years, and then starting a career as a financial public speaker, you can imagine I’ve run into all kinds of terms that also just mean managing money. Let me boil a few down for you:
Financial literacy, according to The President’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy, is defined as “the ability to use knowledge and skills to manage financial resources effectively for a lifetime of financial well-being.”
Financial capability, according to the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, considers not just individual financial knowledge and skills, but also access to and engagement with financial institutions, products, and markets.
Financial well-being, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is defined as having financial security and financial freedom of choice, in the present and in the future. More specifically, you have financial well-being when you:
- Have control over day-to-day, month-to-month finances.
- Have the capacity to absorb a financial shock.
- Are on track to meet your financial goals.
- Have the financial freedom to make the choices that allow you to enjoy life.
Whichever of these terms strikes your fancy, what they’re attempting to articulate and measure is an important evolution in financial education: to go beyond simply relaying information to providing tools, structure, support, and guidance for one of the most complex, emotionally loaded, and high-stakes areas of a person’s life.
It reminds me of this old Bob Newhart sketch where he plays a therapist. Any time a client asks for help with an unhealthy behavior, Bob thinks for a minute and says, “Stop it!” When they react in confusion, he looks exasperated. “What don’t you get? Stop it!”
I think we’d all be glad to live in a world where you could just tell other people what to change and they’d do it. But it doesn’t work that way.
Real change comes from within, when the person is ready to accept their own unhelpful behaviors and choose, on their own, to change. This means they need more nurturing, practice, and encouragement and fewer edicts and orders. This, as you might imagine, is a longer, more involved process.
Still, too often in financial education, people receive the information they think they need, and then wonder why they can’t successfully apply it. It’s because the process of change requires tools far more nuanced and effective than “Stop it!”
My work as a financial educator is to connect with the whole person – not just offering up information, but giving people the knowledge and agency to implement these skills for themselves.
Whether you practice or seek out FL, FW, or FC, remember to have patience. Armed with the right information, and buoyed by the right support, you will make the changes you need for a happy, abundant, financially sound life.
—-
Colin Ryan, CPFC is the author of “A Comedic Guide to Money,” has been featured everywhere from NPR to The Moth Radio Hour, and speaks all over the country.
