How Learning About Money is Like Learning to Skate
Like the alchemy of creating a new substance, there are necessary factors that need to be present in learning about money…and in learning to ice skate.
Greetings, dear Talking About Money Community, I am sending you positive vibes. ⚡
For those of you who know me IRL, you may know that I am a former figure skater (though if you know the sport, you know that like Hotel California, “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave”). These days, I have the immense pleasure of teaching adult beginner ice skaters through my participation with the Friends of the Kelly Rink. I have been teaching with this small-but-mighty club since 2007, and though I hate being cold (yes, I get it…ironic), each January I cannot wait to get back out on the ice, greet my returning skaters, and welcome the brave souls who choose to learn to skate as adults.
I have been considering these two disparate parts of my life – figure skating and financial capability – and how the aspects of learning each one has more similarities than you would guess at first glance. Let us look at four important components of learning to skate and see how they do indeed have a lot in common with learning to manage your money.
A Positive Attitude
I just welcomed six new adult beginner ice skating students to my class. And do you know how I knew that they were beginners? First, their furry mittens had a death-grip on the boards (or any human that came near them) that reads “I’m new to this!” The other tell-tale sign was their huge grins as they made their way through their first lesson with me.
A truly important component of learning to skate is a willingness to try. I’ve had high schoolers and retirees in my classes. I’ve had immigrants from Sweden and South America. I’ve had students whose only other experience with ice was in a cool, refreshing drink. But each student who spend their eight winter Saturdays with me has a willingness to try something new, and to maybe fall down a few times in the process.
How does this compare to learning how to manage your money? I believe that a can-do attitude and a willingness to try new things is a prerequisite to developing increased mastery over your money. Can you picture your new clients or students when they first start coming to your counseling sessions or workshops? Can you sense that they are white knuckling through their first interactions with you? It’s their positive attitude that keeps them coming back, as their incremental skill acquisition becomes a virtuous cycle.
Professional Instruction
The second component to learning to ice skate is having a good teacher. While I’m not saying that I’m the best, I know what goes into skating and I am able to explain it so that an adult mind can understand it. I take time at the beginning of each session to explain the anatomy of an ice skate blade, the proper on-ice posture that you must maintain (Lift that chin! Bend those knees!), and where to direct your kinesthetic energy as you perform each skill.
Every now and again I will get students in my class who originally learned the basics of ice skating from friends or by copying others they saw on public skating sessions. While well-meaning, sometimes those friends or strangers made some innocent mistakes in their instruction, and now I need to work with my students to correct their bad habits.
Professional instruction comes into play in financial literacy as well. I’d bet that you have some clients or students who are your biggest fans. They’d follow you to the end of the earth to learn from you. In short, they trust you and your expertise. And most likely you’ve had clients or students who come to you with financial myths that you need to bust, like it’s not worth savings if you can only save a small amount, it’s always better to buy a home, or that you don’t need to think about retirement until you’re 40. Your training and experience go a long way in helping your students master their money.
Proper Equipment (or Appropriate Products)
The third requirement in learning to skate is having the proper equipment. This means well-fitted skates with properly sharpened blades, waterproof pants in the almost-universal event of falling, gloves or mittens to keep those fingers warm, and elbow/knee pads and a helmet if that gives you the feeling of an extra layer of protection.
Many new skaters tend to make use of the rental skates that’s included in their lesson fee. While convenient, my new skaters tend to complain about them. A lot. They dig into their feet, their arches hurt, the blades are dull and slippery. I always give my students the acceptable excuse of “equipment failure” if they have trouble performing a certain skill on rental skates. I tell adult learners that if they think that they might like the sport, it makes sense to invest in a pair of recreational ice skates that they can call their own and use for the rest of their lives.
Like having the proper equipment to feel safe and protected while skating, your clients or students need to have access to safe and appropriate financial products. They need to be able to conduct their business with an FDIC-insured institution. They need bank accounts structured with their spending habits in mind, ideally with little or no penalties or fees. They need safety and security so that their identity is not compromised. They need investment opportunities that are easy to understand and that take their natural risk tolerance into consideration. Without safe and appropriate financial products, your clients or students can only achieve so much on their journey towards greater financial stability and security.
The Right Environment (or the Right Policy Landscape)
The final requirement to increasing the likelihood that a newbie skater is going to gain the confidence to practice their burgeoning skills is good ice. Yup, good ice. There is nothing that compares to a fresh sheet of ice that the Zamboni just finished laying. To this day I can conjure up that feeling of standing by the boards, waiting for the Zamboni to finish doing its job. The air is crisp and there is that specific ice-rink aroma that I can only guess is a combination of Freon and Zamboni exhaust. Then there’s that feeling of taking your first strokes across that pristine surface, your blades leaving crisp etchings behind as you fly across the ice. I get tingly just thinking about it.
Nowadays, I teach at an outdoor rink operated by our state government. At this facility we are always at odds with the weather. Yesterday’s rain can leave the ice surface bumpy, like you are gliding over hundreds of tiny speed bumps. Warm days leave the ice with a top layer of slush. And bless you if you fall, as you’ll end up a shivering soggy mess. And if springs decides to arrive too soon, our instructional program can be cut short, leaving beginner students to wait until the following winter to resume their lessons.
Like having “good ice,” your clients or students need their financial lives to be undergirded by social policies that protect them and their finances, allowing them to grow and thrive. Workers need protections like predictable work schedules, equitable pay, and opportunities for advancement. Families need paid time off to care for babies or aging relatives. Parents need affordable childcare and universal pre-K. Without the right combinations of social polices to provide this foundation, your clients and students can only achieve so much with their positive attitude and your professional services.
