For a brief time in my life, I worked at the circus. It was part of my accelerated debt pay-off lifestyle where I worked a bunch of jobs that covered my room and board, but, to be honest, it was also just a fascinating experience. I mean, the number of people who can say they have run away with the circus is really pretty small and I’m still excited to have been a part of that number, even a few years after leaving.
It was while working there that I started to get really into personal finance and figuring out my own steps to financial independence. As a result, I saw a lot of connections between circus life and solid financial principals. Here are five of them:
1. You can do amazing things after years of hard work.
Do you think you just up and decide to do a strap act one day or hang your wife from your jaws? Also, how well do you think that went the first time someone tried to do it? I have no doubt it hurt like crazy and wasn’t exactly a show-ready performance. Fast forward a few years though and you’ve got circus-worthy performances happening.
Financially speaking, when you first start out, you are not going to have a killer strap act of a bank account or the mental stamina or skills to save big portions of your paycheck, but if these are your goals, you make a plan and practice until you get there. And if you can’t do a pull-up, you’re sure not going to do a strap act.
In other words, if your 401(k) isn’t set up to even meet your employer match, then your retirement planning probably still has a long way to go too. But you’ve got to start somewhere — pull-ups and utilizing your 401(k) are great first steps for each of those goals.
2. Balance is so important.
In the vast majority, if not all, of the human feats at the circus, balance is key. It might just looks like a cool, giant hamster wheel, but the performers in a wheel act know how important balance is.
When someone can do something masterfully, they are able to make it look so easy that you think you can jump in that wheel too and start running around. But in reality, the pros know that stretching their right arm just a little further than their left could be the difference between whether they jump down and take a bow in another minute or wind up in the hospital.
From diversifying your investments to managing short term and long term savings to figuring out how much you want to save versus how much you want to spend, managing your money is all about finding balance, too. Sometimes you lose your balance entirely and have to work hard to regain your bearings.
3. The key to everything is not always what you’d think.
In my free time, I spent a little while trying to learn how to walk on a low wire. I remember being completely shocked to learn that the real trick to it was really in my core. When I was able to hold my core steady, I could usually make it across the wire, but the second my muscles started to waver, it didn’t matter how much I flailed my arms to try to keep my balance — I was going to fall off.
It’s easy to get distracted and think you know how to solve the problem (clearly the trick to the high wire is in that big pole and using it to keep your balance, right?), but really you need to concentrate on something else (strengthening your core muscles).
When you’re deep in debt, sometimes it’s not cutting out lattes or coloring your hair at home that will fix the problem. Sometimes you should be analyzing why you do some things instead of how you’re doing them.
4. Don’t look back.
So many dare devil acts in the circus are about moving full speed ahead. If the human cannonball shot out of her cannon and tried to look back, she’d die. So much of that trick is about getting your body in exactly the right position and then going for it.
In life, while it’s good to know where you’re coming from, sometimes you just have to let go and move forward. Holding onto your previous financial mistakes doesn’t help anyone and letting them stop you from moving forward will quickly keep you from becoming a financial superstar.
5. Anything can be tamed.
I have seen grown men put their heads in a tiger’s mouth, camels do crazy dancing displays and even house cats master amazing balancing feats. Anything can be tamed and trained — even to do the unexpected.
You might think your debt is impossible to overcome, but you can train yourself to eradicate it. You might think it’s impossible to save 90 percent of your income, but people do. It’s probably not possible overnight, but with enough practice and patience, anything can be trained.
There are still times when I feel like I’m walking a financial tightrope, regularly losing my balance and sometimes falling off the wheel. But increasingly, I find I’m just skittering around it, still on, and trying to catch my balance. I suspect it’s because my financial muscles are slowly getting stronger and stronger.
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5 Financial Lessons From Working at the Circus originally appeared on usnews.com
