I shoved a book in his hand, "Blue Chip Kids," a basic, but excellent explanation of how markets and financial instruments work. The book's author, David Bianchi, wrote it after setting out to teach his own 13-year-old son about money.I then showed him another book, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds."
And he repeated a mantra that resounds in my head today: buy and hold mutual funds, don't buy or sell on hype, invest in tax-deferred vehicles as much as you can, and don't spend money on frivolous things. He did so by paying close attention to money and investment management, spending hours reading financial and tax publications.
Soon afterward, that bank went bust in what was the first big wave of bank failures in the nation since the Great Depression. My father told me years later that the best thing that ever happened to me was losing my shirt on that bank, because it cured me of the idea that I had any talent for stock picking.