What Does Investing Even Mean

For the longest time I didn’t know what investing meant. I had some guesses what investing meant but guessing isn’t the same as knowing. And not knowing what investing meant kept me from investing as it seems overwhelming. It seemed scary and out of reach. Like something I couldn’t do

Have you ever heard anyone talk about investing and as you’re listening they’re voice switches over to Charlie Brown’s teacher speaking, “wah wah woh wah wah” and you can’t understand what they’re saying. Your eyes glaze over and your mind starts racing, thinking of exit strategies so you can quickly get out of this conversation before they realize you have no clue what they’re talking about.


The biggest hurdle I’ve found with learning about investing is feeling so lost that I can’t even think of a question to ask to help myself be less lost. 

Learning about something new means stepping outside of your comfort zone. When you do this, you must be vulnerable and brave as you risk making mistakes. Learning about investing has me stepping way outside of my comfort zone. And I’m ready to learn about investing as I have a friend who when they talk about investing, doesn’t sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher nor am I self conscious in front of them when I make a mistake. It’s the perfect situation to support my learning. 

What does investing even mean?!

Enter the internet. 

I typed “what is investing” into Google. Then I read the definition - “investing is the act of allocating resources, usually money, with the expectation of generating an income or a profit”. Then I re-worded the definition into my head to sound less stuffy:

“Investing is taking money to buy something which will make more money.”

I’d like to make more money. I’m very aware of how to do this through working a job. Heck, I’ve been skilling up since I was 13 to seek high paying jobs and positions (from babysitting, to bakery clerk, to lifeguard/swimming instructor, to nursing). But I’m not sure how to do this using investing as a means to make more money.

 I next typed “types of investing” into Google. Then I clicked around on a couple links, looked at a couple images and decided which types appealed to me to learn more, simply by their name. I decided I was going to learn about making money through stocks.

I needed to next choose an investing style. At least, from what the internet was telling me that was the next logical step as I wasn’t willing to randomly throw my money at the stock market and hope for the best. So with a little help from my friend I was pointed in the direction of a couple podcasts I could start listening to.

This is when I started listening to podcasts on investing. The one in particular I started listening to most was “InvestED: The Rule #1 Investing Podcast”. I choose this one because they started as simple as I needed with my limited knowledge of investing, aka. right at the beginning. It’s also a father daughter combo and I could relate to the daughter’s apprehension with investing. She wanted to invest but was scared by it so avoided it as best she could, until now.


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