Financial Intelligence – By Aniekan Ini-Edem

“You may be a great salesperson or an inspired engineer. You may be terrific with customers and employees. Your concept for a company is probably fantastic. But if you don’t know finance, you’re operating at a disadvantage in the world of business.”

Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs,

Money is an important part of our lives. Most of us trade our time for naira. We sometimes choose our careers based on the income potential the career offers. Whatever we learn in schools and colleges might not be useful in our daily life. But we never learn about money management and investment skills, which we use on a daily basis. We get our financial education mostly from our parents and observing other people around us. If our parents don’t have good financial management habits, unfortunately we learn the same bad habits. We don’t realize this until we are in deep financial trouble.

Investing tips

It is the direction of the cash flowing that determines if something is an asset or a liability at that moment. An asset puts money in to your pocket. A Liability takes money from your pocket.
 

Investment is not risky. It is the investor who is risky.
 

Investing is not a race. You are not in competition with anybody else. All you need to do to make more money is to simply focus on becoming a better investor.
 

There was risk in driving the car. But driving the car with hands off your steering wheel is really risky. When it comes to investing, most people are driving the car hands off the steering wheel.

The true investor is prepared for whatever happens. A non-investor tries to predict what and when something will happen.
 

How do you prepare? You need to focus and keep in mind what other investors are already looking for. If you want to buy stocks, then attend classes on how to spot bargain stocks. The same is true for real estate. It all begins by training your brain what to look for and being prepared for the moment investment being presented to you.
 

If you are prepared, which means you have education, experience and find a good deal, the money will find you or you will find the money. When a person finds a good deal, the deal attracts the cash. If it’s a bad deal, it is hard to raise cash.
 

Reduce risk through financial literacy. Learn to read financial statements. Most people cannot. Financial literacy is one of the important investor basics, especially if you want to be a safe investor and inside investor and rich investor. Remember that your expenses are someone else’s income. People who cannot control their cash flow make the people who control the cash flow rich.
 

You don't have to be a genius to invest well.. just learn the basics.
 

Entrepreneurship is a lifestyle. Embrace it.