johnnyBuz

I was not trained as a finance professional, and I did the CFA (though the goal was to build financial credentials and bridge a gap which - for me - it succeeded in doing).
However, I sometimes wish I could remember better what I thought investing was about before I took the CFA program, because I think it is somewhat representative of what the majority of non-professional investors think.  If I could remember that better, I suspect it would offer an opportunity to understand behavioral opportunities to outperform.
The CFA really does change how one looks at investing.  It tends to emphasize that you need to think of decisions not just on “is this individual asset/company good” but also on how you compose your portfolios and manage risk.  
It emphasizes the important role of valuation over things like “it’s a company that makes a popular product” or “it’s going to grow more and more over time.”  It tells you that you can get a lot of the benefits of economic growth and moderization by buying and holding an index levered up or down to match to your risk tolerance, and that to do any better than that requires a butt-load of work and might not even be possible even then.
It also points out that there are different types of investing goals, and although there is a goal to generate the most return that is possible given a set of constraints and accepable risks, the types of constraints can dramatically alter what you end up investing in.
The CFA program isn’t perfect - there’s plenty that isn’t discussed - but it covers a lot and definitely changes one’s approach to investing, even for those who ultimately reject things like the efficient market hypothesis, or the idea that there are such things as beta and alpha.