My name is Aries Daijon-Daniel Russell. I want to start this book by letting you know that I'm an idiot. Outside of the situations and subjects I've been directly exposed to I know very little. Despite my ignorance I've been relatively successful in life, having worked in Banking, National Security and Technology.
Due to my sporadic career changes, I've found myself consistently having to learn vast amounts of complex information in very short periods of time, to be able to answer questions from some very important people about some very serious situations. Over time, I grew used to being thrown in at the deep end and being expected to swim.
Not too long ago I started working at an investment bank, on a small team that manages two global trading businesses. Before starting this role, I had zero practical experience in banking or trading, and I knew very little about how banks work or how the economy works, or even what the economy actually is. To put it bluntly, I knew nothing. Or at least I knew 2 things. I knew that I did not know enough and I knew that I wanted to change that.
When I got the phone call and found out I had got the job, it immediately kicked off a chain of events; a plan I made, to give myself the foundational knowledge I would need to succeed in the role. I went online and I put together a list of online self-paced courses that I knew would teach me the basics of the economy, banking, investments, regulation, finance, and business management. I then spent the next four weeks leading up to the start of my new job studying every day; Finishing courses back-to-back. I dedicated most, if not all of my free time, into learning more than a years' worth of information in a matter of weeks.
Now you might be asking, so what did you learn? Well for starters I learnt that a lot of finance, economics, banking and business courses assume that you already know about finance, economics, banking and business, which in some cases almost drove me to pull my hair out trying to understand some of the concepts. Which leads to where I am now: writing this book. I want to make sure no-one else has to experience what I did, I wanted to make a book that would teach the foundations of the economy and banking, but in a way that can be understood by everyone. This book is for you and me, for anyone who, like myself, hasn't studied economics at university, hasn't worked in finance, and hasn't a clue what a central bank does. This book is for us.
