I have been working in finance for more than 20 years. During that time, I had the opportunity to work for all four of the Big 4 firms as well as in Big Tech. I have worked on large finance organisations, transformations, systems and processes, and I've seen a lot of what happens behind the scenes.
But my interest in money didn't really start there.
It started much earlier, and honestly, I didn't understand money very well at all.
After finishing high school, I studied Management, later completed a Master's in Marketing and eventually an MBA in Innovation Management. I had a good education and, when I started working, I also had a good salary.
But none of that really prepared me for money.
I knew how to earn it.
I didn't really know what to do with it.
At the beginning of my career, I was living more or less paycheck to paycheck. Looking back, the interesting thing is that it wasn't because I didn't earn enough. My perception of money was simply completely different from what it is today.
And changing that perception didn't happen overnight.
It took years.
There were mistakes, changes in the way I spent and saved money, changes in the way I invested, and, more importantly, changes in the way I thought about money. It was a long process of learning and personal transformation before I started to understand what money actually is — and what it isn't.
That's one of the reasons I started writing.
Two books I've been working on
For years, I've been working on two books.
One is about the mystery behind the Big 4 — what happens behind the scenes of these huge professional services organisations and some of the things people outside of them rarely get to see.
The other is about personal finance and what I call Modern Financial Philosophy.
The idea behind Modern Financial Philosophy is quite simple:
I believe this is something everyone should learn at school.
We spend years learning mathematics, languages, history and science. But most of us leave school without really understanding how money works.
What money is.
What money isn't.
How to manage it.
How to invest it.
How our behaviour affects it.
And, perhaps most importantly, what we actually want money to do for us.
What I want to pass on
I had to learn many of those lessons the hard way.
And now I want to make that journey easier for the next generation.
Including my son.
That's a big part of why NobodyToldMike exists. I started it alongside my career because I wanted to take the things I had learned over the years and explain them in a way that people could actually use.
But Mike Petry Journal is different.
NobodyToldMike is where I teach and explain.
This is where I want to write, think and explore.
Here I write about money, wealth, investing, behaviour, financial psychology and financial freedom. But I'm less interested in telling people what stock to buy or how to get rich quickly.
I'm more interested in the bigger questions.
Why do we behave differently when we earn more?
Why does having more money sometimes make us feel like we have less?
Why is it so difficult to know when we have enough?
Why do we spend years trying to earn more, without thinking about what we're actually trying to achieve?
And how can we use money to create more choices in our lives?
After more than 20 years in finance, I have learned that money is much more than a number in a bank account.
Money is a tool.
It can buy you things, but more importantly, used well, it can buy you options, flexibility and time.
I didn't understand that when I was younger.
I do now.
And I think the next generation should have the opportunity to learn it much earlier than I did.
That's what I want to write about.