Becoming a “Know it all”

A Macro Mess (2010)

We’ve heard the saying “Knowledge is power”. So it’s not surprisingthat when my world crumbled around me and I was left powerless; I began my own quest for knowledge. The numbers were not looking good for my lawn business, the great recession was in full bust, and I was about to be evicted. This thing called “a bad economy” was messing everything up. I didn’t know what an economy was, but whatever it was, it had killed off most of something I worked very hard to build and I was struggling to keep up and running the fraction that remained.

My first book on a topic I call “My baby”
See: “Economics: What I think you should know

“The Macro Economy Today” was the first book on economics that I ever bought. “Macro, that’s the one I need to learn about” I thought. The only thing I knew about economics was that there was macro and micro economics and I needed to learn about that big bad one that was cutting into my life. Some poor college student probably paid eighty bucks for it. I got it for fifty cents. It was 450 pages and since it was the 8th edition, I knew it had staying power. I read most of it. I didn’t understand all of it, but I was hooked. I’ve since read 32 according to my Goodreads account. I don’t think a year has gone by in which I haven’t read a book (or several) on economics since then.

The Worst of Both Worlds (1980-90’s)

“I’m like a nerd… but without the smarts” I remember thinking to myself. I can’t remember how old I was, but I was young; maybe fourteen or fifteen. It was true. I had the outward appearance of a nerd without any detectable wit. I was a dumb nerd. It was the worst of both worlds. I struggled through school; all of it.

I think Sam took this picture while I held a mouth full of pizza.

(1988)

“Mom, what are those kids doing?” I asked as we walked up the stairs. I was five and I hadn’t begun kindergarten yet.

“Those kids are in school” she replied.

“Well I’m not going to school.” I declared.

“Oh yes you are.” She retorted with a grin in her voice. “You’ll be starting in a few months.” I’m not sure what my thoughts were after that moment, but based on the memory, I found it repulsive before I had even begun.

(1991-1992)

I flunked third grade and took it over again. After my second year of third grade, my teacher still wasn’t convinced I was ready for fourth grade. My parents pulled me out and home schooled me for a year. Then I spent all but one year after that in Accelerated Christian Education schools. Learning was so boring and hard. I didn’t like the looks of school at the age of five before I even experienced my first day and school felt like jail all the way to the end.

To Be… an Oddity (2018)

“Why are you a truck driver? You should be like in an office somewhere.” Who asked me this question? Who hasn’t asked me the question. It was reassuring at first, but after hearing it multiple times it’s less flattery and more of an indictment.

A picture of my while still on nightshift see: “My Creepy Job”

“I’m here because I want to be” Arlander responded. I pulled the same question on him that I had received before and many times after. He had just started with our company and I had just met him. It was indeed puzzling to see someone with such apparent wit, knowledge and capability doing a job well below his potential. The question was irresistible. Yet, I could tell from his attitude that, like me, things hadn’t quite lined up in his favor. Apparently, he found himself selecting from a subset of cards that were missing a few aces. His criticism of everything happening around him was likely an expression of his inner discontent with his situation. He was exactly where I had been a couple years before when I began with the company.

Knots of Narcissism (2016)

“Oh ya! Well I won’t be here when I’m your age!” I retorted as I leaned forward; inches from the face of the nightshift supervisor. Isreal could have knocked me flat on my back if he wanted to. Instead he repeated calmly,

“But you’re here now.” I had cut down the process of my job to a skeleton of what it was supposed to be. I saw every extra step as senseless demeaning labor, but I had gone at least one cut step too far. Saltwater waste had spilled on the ground and I had no bucket underneath to catch it. The leaky valve had allowed the waste to fill the cavity behind the cap from the last run.

“If your equipment wasn’t all messed up there wouldn’t be any spill” I had accused earlier in the conversation. I had spoken to him as if he was the owner of the company. I wasn’t making sense any longer and there was no saving face. If I had followed procedure, the leaky valve would have been a non-event. It was in that desperate moment that I declared where I would and wouldn’t be when I was in my fifties like he was.

Like Arlander, I was a critic of everything. I was trapped in my own tower of narcissism. I wasn’t were I felt like I deserved to be. I was exactly where I had chose to be. Yet where I wanted to be wasn’t an option. How did I get where I was?

Top Wrung of the Wrong Ladder (2010)

“Today we’re going to learn how to write a letter.” The teacher announced. No, this wasn’t eighth grade. I was a senior in college taking a required class called church education. This same class was required to be taken twelve times. Freshmen through Seniors all took it together. That was ok. What wasn’t ok was that I had to sit for an hour for a class that shouldn’t even exist. They’re called templates. I know where the address is supposed to go because I graduated school, but on the off chance that I didn’t, there was this thing called a computer with templates. I was incredulous and disillusioned. I realized right then and there that this college stuff was a waste of time. I was only five years deep before I figured it out. That’s how dimwitted I was.

The College President Dr. Wendell Evans. I drove him to John Harras’s wedding.

There wasn’t anything worth having at the end except saving face for all the time and money spent. I didn’t bring up this bitter part of my past to exact my verbal revenge and express discontentment. I actually recommend the college if you want to become a very conservative pastor or work for one, but I’ve never set out to do either.

The shame of quitting college even though I was so close to the end, was an important part of my motivation to learning when I left. It was that cutting insecurity and stigma of being a college drop-out that haunted me into devouring the library. When you find yourself climbing the wrong ladder, climbing your way to the top is still going the wrong way to an erroneous destination. I think I should have gone to business school, but who knows. I can’t change the past and I have no idea where that would have taken me. I express these ponderings in “Second Chance“

Growing an Oasis in a Desert of Ignorance (2016-17)

“I’m a well diversified nerd.” I’ve often said. I’ve enjoined learning about economics, and there are plenty of subcategories within it, but I haven’t stayed there. I’ve learned enough to at least hold a conversation in physiology, neuroscience, biology, cosmology, and many other categories and subcategories. Part of learning is talking about new found information. Of course politics is a topic that perhaps more people than ever can hold a conversation in. Except that in most cases the only education many have had is from their radio. Most of these conversations are talking points regurgitated from some talk show host. I’ve heard them myself over and over when I used to listen on a daily basis. I thought I was staying informed at first too when I faithfully listened every day. Yet, when one actually wants to learn and the guy on the radio has to hold the attention of his whole audience for three full hours, it ends up being a whole lot of entertainment and not much education. I cut that out completely three years ago (2017) and ramped up the quality of my personal education.

The world could use more “know-it-alls” or at the very least more “know-a-lots”

A picture I took representing the 40 books I read in one year

When I first began my book binge, I wanted to better myself and impress others. Seeing me today; my nerd profile complete through and through, it isn’t much of a surprise to anyone that I’ve accumulated a bunch of knowledge. I totally look the part. Yet for a guy who was indeed the dumbest person in any given room most of my life, it is quite the accomplishment; and a fulfilling one at that. It took me three or four years and some fifty books to get to the point where I didn’t feel like the least informed in any given room. Indeed now, at least on a plethora of topics; I am the most informed. It’s not always obvious to measure wit, but it is much easier and obvious to decipher one’s degree of understanding of a subject. I can tell when someone is trying, but barely knows anything about a topic. Don’t expect me to be the one to embarrass them in front of everyone.

The Professor I Never Found (2004-2005)

“Guess who’s going to Afghanistan; (hint) it’s not me!” The voice message played back. I had already received a phone call earlier from a different sergeant that informed me in a less callous, more professional way. It was shocking. I was in the middle of my fourth semester in college. All the progress in that semester would be lost because of deployment. On the upside, I would be packing away a years worth of Bill free income. It also happened to be tax free too. I could buy that mustang that had caught my attention. I could invest the rest.

Like any twenty-year-old, I knew nothing about investing. Fortunately for me, at the time, I didn’t need to know anything about investing. There was a program for deployed troops that would return about 2.5% quarterly. I just needed to max out that program and I would get a nice 10% garunteed annualized return. That was a no-brainer. Now I just needed a plan for my money for after that gravy train ended; the first quarter after the deployment ended.

Read about the deployment

I asked everyone I knew. No one seemed to have a clue. I asked people when I got back too. My grandmother gave me a phone number. It was the guy that handled her investments. I decided to invest in a medium growth fund at my bank. It went up, then back down by the end of the first year. The bank made $500 in fees and I just got my ten grand back. Nothing gained, nothing lost. I hated that the back got $500 while I gained nothing. I split the ten grand and invested half with a real estate investor for six months. He was offering a guaranteed 10% every six months. I made my $500 back with him. Then cashed out. Perhaps I would have done better just calling that number my grandmother gave me. I’ll never know why I didn’t make the call.

When I deposited that five grand back into my checking account, I knew it was the end. I shared with my brother how sad it was for me. Over the phone, he said, “I think I’d be glad to deposit five grand in my bank account.” Understandably, he was viewing things from a different angle. I did the best I knew how to do, but I was going through college, and that was the priority and I just needed to focus on that I thought. My whole year of income I had saved in Afghanistan was gone within two years. It wasn’t until about three or four years later that I would begin learning about how the stock market worked. I spent the next seven years placing my trading bids (virtually and moneyless) in blog form. My average was 15-20% a year. It would be ten years later that I would be able to actually start trading; which is where I am today. Since I started in April of last year (2019), I’ve averaged 10% a month as of this writing (February 2020). I also have help a friend make a 100% return on Tesla in six months. I am the “know-it-all” that I wish I could have found when I needed one those many times in my life.

Final Thoughts

It’s frustrating to look back and see myself like a blind fool clumsily stumbling around to find my way. Certainly, hearing my story, you now understand why I listen to about twenty books a year. (It should be fifty really) In the next part, I will share “Confessions of a ‘know-it-all'”. It’s a world as viewed by me; an apologetic “know-it-all.”

Also look through the pictures provided and click on the links for more that I’ve written relevant to those pictures.

Here’s the next in this series…

https://nutterweb.wordpress.com/2020/06/11/6-confessions-of-a-know-it-all/