When I was a kid, I used to take violin lessons with an angry Russian man named Mr. Gurevich (I might be misspelling that).
If you were casting the role of “grumpy Russian violin teacher” in a major Hollywood blockbuster, you couldn’t have done any better than Mr. Gurevich. Surly. Cold. Withholding. He was the total package.
To make matters worse, these lessons were at something like 8:30 AM on a Saturday. So neither I nor Mr. G were in the best of moods…
And yet, I really enjoyed going to these lessons.
Not so much for the lessons themselves, but for what would happen afterwards.
Afterwards, my dad and I would go out to breakfast at one of a few local restaurants that we had on rotation.
And while we were eating, he would regale me with the story of some big historical moment that I hadn’t learned about yet.
The French Revolution. The Civil War. The Boston Tea Party. The Battle of Waterloo.
I don’t really remember everything we covered, nor do I remember many details. But I do remember the thrill of sitting there and learning about something that I’d never learned before.
It was like my dad was giving a podcast (before there were podcasts) for just me.
It was amazing (I’m sure I sound like a big nerd now… well, I was. So if that was your impression, you weren’t wrong. Still aren’t!)
One thing that I’ve always admired about my family, whatever their faults, is that we’ve always had a deep curiosity about everything.
Any topic. Any subject. We just want to learn more more more…
And I think that’s been very beneficial to me in my life. In fact, I would never have reached where I am today without that backbone.
When I left college as an English/Political Science major, then spent three years getting a Master’s Degree at a Presbyterian Seminary, I didn’t know the first thing about the stock market — and if you’d asked me then, I probably wouldn’t have particularly wanted to.
It wasn’t high on my list…
But when I got the chance to start writing a freelance newsletter about political news, and found out the business was actually mostly focused on stock market research, that same old curiosity that I had sitting across from my father at the table at Uncle Bill’s Pancake House reared its head again.
And while I still wouldn’t consider myself an “expert” in the same way that many of the extraordinary people I get to work with every day are, I now know more about trading and the stock market than I ever would have dreamed was possible!
Now, my point isn’t to tell you my life story…
It’s simply to encourage you with this one thing: be curious.
This morning, I jumped on the Opening Playbook with Nate and Jamie, and I learned a ton.
Tomorrow, we’re going to be hosting a First Saturday Roundtable session (register here) with Lance, Alex, and Chris, and while I don’t have a crystal ball, I’d bet the farm that I’m going to learn a ton.
And I want to encourage everyone reading this to have the same attitude.
Come to as many events as you can and see what you can learn. Be curious about everything.
Maybe you’ve never traded crypto and never even thought about trading crypto. But if you see a webinar about crypto, go ahead and attend it, anyway. Maybe you’ll pick up a valuable tip that you’d never heard before. Or maybe you’ll be converted into a believer!
Same goes for gold, oil, options… whatever you think you’d never be interested in, you might surprise yourself if you just let your curiosity run wild a little bit!
Anyway, I’ll get off my soapbox now. I just love learning (again, I am clear-eyed about how nerdy that makes me sound)…
And I think one of the very coolest things about studying the markets is that there’s always more to learn.
On today’s session, Jamie told us that he learned a ton from Nate, and Jamie’s been doing this for nearly 40 years.
You’re never “done” learning until you’re dead. And hopefully (here’s the seminary kicking in) not even then!
So, in conclusion: be curious. You never know where it might lead you.
To your prosperity,
Stephen Ground
Editor-in-Chief, ProsperityPub
P.S. And if you haven’t gotten the three stocks that have historically popped in May, grab them here now.
