New beginning and why am I writing this.

Like most beginnings, it usually starts with a cause and an effect that gives a spark to a thought that escalates into an action. The action can be fueled by various effects like confusion, curiosity, pressure, enthusiasm, fear or anger. The action forms a vision of how things could be and starts a process to build a structure to make this vision a reality.

Or this is how I would describe the outermost layer of how silmis started. Let's fast forward a bit into the layer that gives us the version of a more interesting story as otherwise this would get very very long and boring. This story does include actions that are fueled by all the effects mentioned earlier and shaped the journey of why I'm writing this currently. So let us start from the point when I was still in middle school wondering what is the use of this institution and why should I even lift a finger to learn calculus as I will never use it in my life. Believe this is a thought process quite few of us go through at that point of life, nothing seems to be connected to anything and things have to be done just because.. Well I was never the best student at school, especially in middle school, partly due to this but also as I was just lazy and my interests were somewhere else than learning this seemingly pointless information. This is where the confusion started to take hold. How is this helping me to become like the people I read about in the news or see in the covers of some magazines? How was all this connected to the world that I was raised to become part of? My background is from a working class conservative family where money was not discussed much more than need to work hard to achieve it. Money was just something you got from your labor at work, used to buy food and pay bills and the occasional family trip. We had all we needed to live without fear of losing the roof on top of us or not having bread on the table, it was enough with the occasional ‘what if we would win something..’ discussions. Money was never a thing that was sought after more than just work harder and you get more, this was the only channel. A very conservative way of money usage in every way, save some on the account for rainy days and keep working. My family had no members that had a higher education and it had been like this for generations as far as I'm aware. So why would I need to deal with this headache of school and boring information? People seem to be getting by without all of this just fine.

The first spark of curiosity could be felt during my studies at a vocational school where I learned the basics of finance, accounting and business. My grades were good, I was suddenly top of my class and it all felt like a breeze. This felt like it has some connection to the real world, I could actually see myself doing something like this as my job. I landed a full-time job where I could use some of these skills after graduation and was so excited to start my adult life with my own money. After 2 years of working in this same position the confusion started to creep in again.. Was this it? Now I just keep my head down and work hard and once I retire I'll have enough money to do what I want? Luckily curiosity kicked in quite fast as after visiting my friend who was studying abroad, I came across news that the university he was studying at also had a new business degree program that was taught in english opening next year. After a few months of thinking about this I decided to apply and got accepted to the program.

This is where the pressure and fear got the hold of me for the first time properly. As I was the first of our family to go to university and my track record with success in education was very questionable.. Was I really doing the right thing here? Do I have what it takes to pull this one off? Even my family had their doubts as they were multiple times making sure that i understood that i'm going to a university, you need to actually study there, you sure you can do that? Honestly this fueled the fear and pressure part even more.. But this also turned into anger. I will show you! Was a thought that might have even said out loud a few times in the beginning. During the studies fear, pressure and curiosity were the main drivers and fuels for the actions this time. I was still studying to get a better job and get a better salary, this was the mindset, on the path to become an employee as everyone around me were. The leap of faith paid off, I was able to graduate and get a university degree, even with the doubt that this whole decision was surrounded by. Shortly after I was offered a middle manager position at the same company I used to work for full-time, I had kept working for them during my studies and helping them with what I could during academic breaks.

My understanding of money and how it works had changed drastically during the studies and this whole new concept of owning a company had come up in my head. During this time understanding of the world economy had been totally shattered and rebuilt. So many questions had come to my mind about money but mainly a feeling of anger.. Why did I not know about this earlier?

Simple fact is that I had never been in an environment that could have taught me about any of these concepts before. This escalated quite fast into the world of entrepreneurship and being an owner of a company. Friend of mine who had and still has a very high entrepreneurial drive got me into starting our own startup that we were working on for 3 years. During this time I was still working full-time at the company I've been with for years already while also building up our own compan on the side. I got very familiar with the concept of long working days as 15-16 hour workdays became quite frequent. This is the time passion became the main fuel for the first time, the feeling that was working on something that you truly care about. Even if the daily work that you did was very similar you could end up doing many other similar types of projects or companies, the mindset of working on your own vision and not on someone else's.. Worlds apart. Never felt this freedom and joy to work on excel sheets and presentations before. As you probably can figure out already, the project did not work out and we ended up closing the business.Why this happened and all the things I learned from the experience will be coming out in various forms later on but let's keep on going still so we get to the end of the story.

So there I was, with the same job I already had for many years, no project that was driven by passion, confusion was back on the driver's seat. What am I going to do now? This weird hangover feeling creeped in that lasted for a very long time.. Was I burnout or just worn out? Felt empty. Fortunately this feeling was forgotten quite fast as our first child was born, a totally new set of goals came into my life. At this point I had already totally fallen out of drive at my day job that had been going on in the background all this time, I needed a new direction. During our project I had gotten familiar with a totally new thing for me, programming. I had no idea how to do it but it intrigued me so much. I wanted to understand how software works and how to build these things myself also. At this point we were fortunate enough that I had the possibility to jump back into full-time studying and went back to university, this time subject being computer science. Oh boy could I have used those calculus classes I decided not to lift a finger for back at my earlier school years.. It was a hard but very interesting time at the university.

If you are still reading then I will soon get to the point of the whole story, try to hang on still for a little bit. Let's fast forward a few years from here to the beginning of the story of how silmis came to be. The computer science business did not work out for me, I never got a job as a developer anywhere simply because I was not very good at it. Honestly I would have at best become a medium level developer if I had ever gotten into this field of work. I did work in IT, not as a developer, for a couple of years but ended up being made redundant from the company as the project got closed. The drive was just not there and the passion for the field was just not real.. Was most likely just looking for the good pay that I heard some people get. The driver and fuel became again curiosity, but this time instead of looking outside for an answer I turned inwards and asked.. What do I actually want to do? During the journey so far I had been doing some consulting for small business owners and also discussing personal finances with people who had questions on how to get things on track. I always enjoyed talking with people regarding these topics and got really excited when these topics came up in discussions. What intrigued me the most was the thought process people had with their finances, was it regarding businesses or personal finance did not matter. At his point a question came to my mind, why did I not have anyone to discuss these topics with back in the days? What if this information would be already discussed in schools and not learning it the hard way later on when already drowning with finance struggles. What if there would be a place where these topics are communicated in a clear way so that it is simple to understand the concepts.. List goes on but I'm ashamed how long it took me to understand the hints. The answer was right in front of me, the passion that I have been searching for so many years, OPEN YOUR EYES!

This is how the actions became a vision and now the process of building a structure behind it, so that it becomes a reality begins.

Silmis is a vision of a place where to find, discuss and learn financial literature and psychology all in one place. The place I did not have access to because of environmental constrictions and lack of financial education at schools. This is where my passion is, financial education, the two things I had no interest or understanding about when growing up but come to appreciate later on in my life.

From here starts the journey for financial education that does not need to include pressure, fear, anger and confusion but curiosity and passion for the future of your finances. I will be discussing topics regarding personal finance and also psychology behind the decisions people make but also about entrepreneurship to help existing or coming business owners. Life is not as simple as maximizing income with a formula.. Every formula regarding income has a human factor in them and the influence it has on the outcome is very hard to predict. This is what makes the topic so interesting but also very complex and requires a human approach as much as a mathematical approach. If you have any questions regarding these topics I hope you will contact me and join me on this journey that will change my life for sure but hopefully also your life with a financial clarity