I\nhave been intrigued for several years with Ethan Lang, a junior majoring in\nfinance. From his freshman year forward, I have heard parts of his story of\nentrepreneurialism and strong work ethic. Ethan was introduced as an ambassador\nof the Robbins College of Business and Entrepreneurship at the fall RCOBE\nAwards Ceremony, where he received several scholarships. So I reached out to\nEthan to let him know how impressed I have been with his accomplishments and to\nlearn a little more about him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\nwas first introduced to Ethan weeks before he began his freshman year as a\nresident of the Dane G. Hansen Scholarship Hall. At the time, I was involved in\nconversations around the programming for Hansen Hall, a living and learning\ncommunity that creates opportunities for residents to travel, compete, win\nawards, learn from successful entrepreneurs, and develop skills to advance\ntheir careers. It was then I learned a new freshman, Ethan Lang, was managing\nan investment account and had started a popular blog to share information with\nhis peers. I couldn\u2019t wait for this young man to move in and make an impact at\nFHSU. That is exactly what he has been doing ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ethan\ngrew up in Hays and chose to continue his education at FHSU because of our\noutstanding financial planning program \u2013 a concentration within the finance\nmajor. He was particularly excited to take classes such as retirement planning,\ninsurance planning, and estate planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ethan\nshared with me that he became interested in personal finance and investing\nearly in high school when his dad opened an investment account for 15-year-old\nEthan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\nstarted investing in stocks and tried to learn everything I could, and I\ndefinitely made mistakes along the way,\u201d Ethan said. \u201cI ended up buying a\ncourse about day trading and thought I was going to ‘get rich quick’. I thought\nI was smarter than everyone else, and I’d be retired in my late 20s, sitting on\na beach. To say the least, I was widely wrong. I made money on the first few\ntrades, but my luck ran out. I lost over 40 percent of my portfolio in a day on\na call option.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ethan\nexplained that at the time, his portfolio was $500, so that loss was $200.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut\nit was devastating to me, and I knew something had to change,\u201d he explained. \u201cI\nwent back to square one and started educating myself, and this time, the right\nway. I consumed all of the information I could. I read books, watched YouTube\nvideos, and listened to podcasts about personal finance and investing, trying\nto learn the right way of doing things. And you know what? I started to figure\nit out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ethan\nsoon started a blog and an Instagram page to share what he was learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\ndidn’t want anyone to go through what I did, falling into these\n‘get-rich-quick’ schemes,\u201d he said. \u201cI decided to make it a business and call\nit, \u2018Making Cents of Finance.\u2019 To my surprise, people actually loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ethan\nshared with me that his definition of entrepreneurship means helping and\nbringing value to others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m\ngoing to open up my own financial planning firm in Hays upon graduation, and of\ncourse, I\u2019ll charge for my services,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019ll always focus on\nproviding more value to the person on the other side of that table, even if\nthey don\u2019t decide to work with me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last\nyear, Ethan placed first at the Faulkner Challenge, an annual business pitch\ncompetition. He won $6,000 which he invested back into his business. Given his\npassion to share knowledge, part of that money funded the Young Wealth Podcast,\nwhere Ethan interviews guests who built wealth at a young age, so Ethan \u2013 as\nwell as his listeners \u2013 can learn from them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ethan\u2019s\nInstagram account has over 240,000 followers. Along with his Young Wealth\nPodcast, he manages other platforms such as TikTok and YouTube. All platforms\nshare the goal of educating the next generation about personal finance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ethan\nis a member of the 2021 financial planning team. Recently, the team made the\nElite Eight in the National Financial Planning Challenge and finished third\noverall. By the way, this is the 13th time in 14 years of competition that we\nhave had one of the top teams in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ethan\nis also president of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization (CEO) and is\nhelping create an entrepreneurship club at FHSU to further help more aspiring\nentrepreneurs. He is a member of the Tiger track and cross country teams, where\nhe is an MIAA league champion, an NCAA Division II All-American, and a\nthree-time school record holder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our\nstudents inspire me every day. I am encouraged by their caring hearts for\nhelping others, their thirst for knowledge, and their dreams for building a\nbetter world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tisa Mason is president of Fort Hays State University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have been intrigued for several years with Ethan Lang, a junior majoring in finance. From his freshman year forward, I have heard parts of… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12323,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Mason-Tisa-040A6662.jpg?fit=750%2C1050&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61347,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61346\/revisions\/61347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}