Want to learn a little bit more about finance but worry you will quickly get tired of it? A great place to start is to watch some entertaining and, at the same time, educational movies, thus minimizing the chances of getting bored and giving up on learning more about money. So here are the two movie recommendations and the main lessons you can learn from watching these movies. So if you are not sure to keep yourself entertained after all the exams but still want to learn something new, check out the Undercover Billionaire show and Inside Job movie.
The Undercover Billionaire show, starring Glenn Stearns, portrays a successful billionaire who tries to achieve his success from the very begging in a small town while not having access to his existing funds or the opportunity to use his influence. Watching the show will teach you some valuable lessons about financial success. This show might be particularly interesting to people thinking of starting their own business one day.
The show will help you realize that a particular mindset is required to achieve great financial success. This mindset begins with taking care of the fundamental needs by any means because “no job is beneath you.” As the storyline shows, you can start by selling commercial “junk” tires and still reach success. Financial success is about your creativity, adaptability, and self-discipline rather than your environment. Tapping into the herd mentality when selling a product, flipping houses, and privately reselling trade-in cars from dealerships before they are sent for auctions are some different ways to acquire funds and generate revenue while increasing profit margins. Researching a niche market that is growing, in demand, and has the potential to grow on a national scale is an ideal place to start if you want to open your own business. The show also demonstrates that a successful business requires a team with great character for a solid foundation that can help turn rivals into revenue. Glenn used other people’s talent and experience as leverage while borrowing money from the bank to fund the business. Besides all of that, in my opinion, the most encouraging part of the show is that it manifests the setbacks as a critical element of the business and financial worlds, and one should be ready to pivot while persevering through each one of them. The key is to keep the big picture in mind. If you are looking for a show to binge-watch during your Christmas holidays, put the Undercover Billionaire on your list.
The documentary film, The Inside Job, on the other hand, strictly offers insight into the financial sector of the economy. It tells a story of how the 2007-08 financial crisis in the United States resulted from the ideas, actions, and greed of academic, political, and business leaders running the country. The system was flawed with policies that allowed bankers, analysts, and brokers to make massive short-term profits and follow guidelines designed to enhance their company’s net income while neglecting the public interest. As we all know, this ended up costing tens of millions of people their jobs, savings, and houses. The temptation to create something from nothing was too big. Unfortunately, as it often happens, in the end, the poor paid the price for the greed of a few privileged, who were able to walk away unharmed with millions of dollars.
In my opinion, one of the surprising things shown in this movie was how academics were getting paid to write papers and articles in favour of banks and deregulatory policies, which effectively manipulated the opinions of many. The film also reveals how the financial industry has immense lobbying power over the country’s political sector as the same people rotate through the same jobs and, hence, might arguably be considered the most influential and powerful people. The way today’s financial system is set up, the rich are becoming richer, the poor are becoming poorer, and the gap grows every day.
These two entertaining but also real-life applicable movies might make you wonder whether one can depend on a monthly salary and savings to live a high standard of living? From there you might consider financial investments to help you achieve a level of financial stability, while minimizing any sort of liabilities. Books like these might help you get a mindset of investor: The Wealthy Barber, Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Dhando Investor, and Think and Grow Rich. The podcast InvestED is also highly entertaining and educational source of financial literacy. As you build your knowledge and get more comfortable around the terms you might look into self-trading apps.