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This is part two of my “Stop It” guide to personal finance. If you don’t know the origin of the “Stop It” guide, here’s the link to the part one post that explains it. Now on with the show.
Check out this inspiring mail carrier, and make particular note of his pointed self-assessment at the 1:03 mark of the video:
Here’s the pointed self-assessment that begins at the 1:03 mark:
“I don’t have that many skills. The ones that I know I do got are my mindset and how much I’m determined. So I decided to go to the post office because they would give me the most amount of hours.”
I love this guy. He knew he didn’t have the head for law, engineering, or some other high-falutin career, but he knew he could deliver mail and wasn’t afraid of work. So rather than go to college, accumulate a lot of debt, and languish in a career he wasn’t suited for, he decided to be a kick-ass mail carrier. The end result is that he’s making $90K a year. That’s more than I ever made in a year—and my illustrious CV included a vaunted master’s degree, for Pete’s sake.
In honor of our inspiring mail carrier, then, here’s rule two in our “Stop It” guide to personal finance:
Stop It Rule Two: Stop pursuing careers that placate your ego but exceed your capabilities.
If you have a pedestrian brain,* stop deluding yourself that you’re college material. Sure, some third- or fourth-tier college will gladly take your money and give you a bachelor’s degree in film, dance, journalism, criminology, or business. But the odds of you becoming an elite film-maker, choreographer, journalist, criminologist, or manager is remote. You have much better odds of becoming an elite plumber, electrician, welder, firefighter, or mail carrier. And being an above-average mail carrier, for instance, is much more rewarding—both financially and psychologically—than being a below-average journalist or assistant manager.
* For the purposes of this guide, you have a pedestrian brain if you scored 1250 or less on the SAT. A score of 1250 puts you at the 81st percentile, roughly one standard deviation above the norm. A score below 1250 thus puts you in the great swath of people who hover around the mean in cognitive ability.
Awesome logic. I think the corollary to this is that if you do have a nerd brain (99th percentile in my case per the SAT) then you should pick a college major like chemical or electrical engineering that only 90+ percentile people have the ability to attain. That field will always be chronically undersupplied from a labor standpoint and you eliminate 90% of the people you’d have to compete with in careers that only require business or liberal arts degrees. On the other hand some of my richest friends are former craftsmen or technicians who went on to build business empires. I really respect those guys, I feel like they achieved much more business success than I did. I never wanted an empire and was wildly happy being overpaid to work for my corporate masters. But those guys rock!
Excellent qualifications to my argument, my friend. Couldn’t agree more. And I too have a handful of friends who forwent college and developed solid businesses. I could out SAT them, but I couldn’t come close to outearning them. Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend.