Compounding Interest as a "Confidence Snowball"

Each year at the Forge we take our students through a money management training. One of the key principles of that training is explaining to them how the rule of compounding interest works in their favor in terms of investment, but works against them in terms of debt. It’s a great lesson to teach and it is one that I learned in high school from an honors English teacher of all things. He stopped class for 2 days to teach us about money. It was the only lesson on money I received from anyone in my life as a teen.

Well, the other day I was doing a Zoom call with some local high schoolers and their teacher talked about their need to have experiences. That teacher and I have discussed at length the idea that part of what the Forge is disrupting is the scarcity of experiences that many teens seem to have these days. We do this by giving them jobs, skills, and mentorship. He mentioned that these experiences compound over time in life and I began to think about compounding interest as a social mathematical factor rather than simply as a financial one.

The reality is that investing in human beings operates by the same principles. You need to invest in them early and often and keep moving forward trusting that the good work will compound over time. And just like retirement, the likely returns may not happen while you are around. My faith teaches me this idea repetitively. I serve a God who invests for the long haul rather than the short fire sale. I serve a God whose way of doing and being requires that I trust at every turn without necessarily being able to see the eventual outcome become realized. Half the time I am not even sure what the final picture may look like.

What triggered all of this was that a student’s parent had texted me the other day to let me know that simply bringing her out for a few landscape jobs has boosted her confidence. She is learning that she can earn money and that she is capable of doing things…including socializing. It’s provided an opportunity to compliment her on what she is good at: detail work, following instructions, and keeping moving.

What that mom was saying, without knowing it, was that she can see the downhill roll of a growing “confidence snowball” that is critical to every adolescent becoming a healthy adult. Each one of those experiences with caring adults, caring community, and accomplished tasks will compound over time in terms of her ability to interact, take risks, and clear hurdles. That interest will further compound if we can help this student to realize that she also has a calling to then serve others in a similar fashion. And I remain convinced that kind of outward investment is fulcrum point at which the compounding curve explodes upward. We become most fully human in helping other to become image bearers of God. We begin to lift when our sense of what matters proceeds beyond ourselves. Christ models that. Christianity insists on it.