I loved movies, did not went abroad to become a movie maker, so I was determined to take as many courses related to that "7th art": history of cinema was one of them.
As an Industrial Engineer, I had to learn about Marketing, Finances and Production among others.
>Thought: the same story with some magic in storytelling can make a BIG difference. It's a matter of perception.
Marketing was interesting, fun, creative, colourful. Never stopped surprising myself on how Psychologists were among the best in that class; obviously they had that advantage of people behavior and consumer understanding in their blood.
But here comes the moment when that little seed that I had planted when still being a child, would receive a great amount of water and sun that would make it start growing.
Due to coincidences (or as me and a group of friends call it, "Godcidences" as we believe that sometimes God arranges your path as he considers best for you and your dreams) my first Finance class was given by a teacher that I will define like this:
A male chauvinist, funny but scary master of finances. WOW! What a strange guy, yes, but he had among a lot of strange and sometimes bad characteristics, a single aspect that would make a difference in his art of teaching: storytelling.
Not only he started every class by saying: "I'm not here to answer your questions but to ask them" so you'd have to go to class with the chapter well understood or at least having read it to try answering any question or in the contrary become the target of his despicable comments for one hour, but he knew how to transform a supposedly boring and structured class into an amazing, time wrapper structured class by STORYTELLING.
Yes he was scary, grades were low do to many tests he made by surprise, but there was MAGIC in the way he made us learn about finances. By the end of my career, I had taken all my Finance classes with him. Believe me, grades were not the best, but the learning was the difference.
He made me start following what i consider my today's menthors: at that time Buffet, Soros among others. Now I've been following my own menthors in financial freedom and learnt quite few things from them.
During a finances class from my teacher made you feel like your where loosing time!
What? a spectacular class that made you feel loosing time?
Yes! in a good sense. "Time is money" or "Cash is the king" were some of his words; some of them I even don't agree 100% nowadays but at that time he made me:
He made me start following what i consider my today's menthors: at that time Buffet, Soros among others. Now I've been following my own menthors in financial freedom and learnt quite few things from them.
During a finances class from my teacher made you feel like your where loosing time!
What? a spectacular class that made you feel loosing time?
Yes! in a good sense. "Time is money" or "Cash is the king" were some of his words; some of them I even don't agree 100% nowadays but at that time he made me:
- Care about money
- Understand the importance of it
- Get an interest in the game
- Yes! it was a game!
I became aware of it but not just the numbers! it was how to play with the numers.
So! Back to storytelling! let me show you how storytelling changed the way I got interested in finances.
One day he made tests during class like "True or false!". He used to draw on the blackboard a table with numbers like: 0.3 or 0.5 or 1.5 etc. From 0.2 to 2
He took out his calculator and took a random number from it. We were al numbered before so we were simple digits on a 90 people class. He called that number, let's say it was me, and then he said: "Pick a number"
I'd pick 0.5 as an example.
Picking a number from the list would take it out from it so nobody else would be able to pick it again.
Then I'd ask a question on the days topic. Let's say "True or false! a Fixed asset is an asset that implies long permanence in your business, above 1 year?"
You simply had to say True or False depending on your previous analysis.
A good question meant +0.5 on your final QUIZ grade or -0.5 if wrong.
So it was risky, scary as hell but made you understand very well your topic.
Another case was making you understand about vertical and horizontal analysis on a P&L statement.
He used to say: (And you will get why I say male chauvinist)
"On a Playboy magazine you get that big big picture on the center of the magazine.There are two analysis that you have to do:Horizontal: it means that you have to see how she (the girl of the magazine) has evolved on time on previous magazines or early ages.Vertical: it means that you take the center picture (like being the statement you are analysing that day) and focus on big accounts or interesting numbers, generally the big ones and understand again with vertical, how they have evolved"
Trust me, even being male chauvinist, using the woman's figure to make you get the point, YOU GOT THE POINT!
He used games (men against women), he even let you take a small paper with all formulas you wanted during the exams as he believed that the formula was not the key but understand how to use it (totally agree). But you only had chance of a small piece of paper, even with standard measures for everybody. Not bigger, not smaller. You had to make your formulas fit if you wanted them outside during the exam!
Storytelling made it a different wolrd away from structured boring numbers to a world of games, jokes and passion for the output.
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