Welcome back!
Step 6 - Trusting Yourself More Than You Trust Others
We all tend to defer to “experts”. Elementary school has taught us that there are Big People who know more than we do, and the consequences of making mistakes are terribly painful, and therefore is is better to do what we are told than to think for ourselves.
This attitude might enable you to have an average life financially, but bear in mind that studies have shown that the average financial life results in a retirement of struggle, poverty and dependence. Is that what you really want?
Financial freedom comes from taking the road less travelled.
“When it comes to every financial decision you will make for the rest of your life, you will choose correctly if you go with the answer that reflects your instinctual response.” Suze Orman
To most of us, this advice just sounds wrong. We don’t think of ourselves as having good financial instincts. Or financial instincts at all, really.
However, the truth is that nobody else can possibly make you financially free.
Your financial freedom is your responsibility, and it can only be planned and brought about by you. There is no “expert” or “insider” who knows better than you what you should do.
We are all equipped with an emotional guidance system. It’s just that we are not taught how to use it. In fact, most of us are taught not to use it at all. And certainly not when it comes to money - money is supposed to be unemotional, isn’t it?
The little-known secret is that our unemotional mind, the logical part of your brain, is a little handicapped. Actually it’s incredibly handicapped. It is like one of the autistic savants who can do complex multiplications of huge numbers in their heads, but can’t manage the simplest of human interactions.
Our logical mind is only capable of considering a very limited number of variables when making a decision.
Fortunately, we have another mind as well. The subconscious mind is capable of noticing and taking into consideration hundreds and hundreds of tiny pieces of information all at once. It makes much better decisions, but it communicates those decisions as feelings, not words.
While the logical brain is looking at the numbers the salesman wrote on the paper, and the graphs of projected returns, the subconscious mind is considering the subtle twitches of tiny muscles in his face which show that he is feeling contempt and impatience. The numbers all look good, but you feel uncomfortable about going ahead with the investment.
At this point, you need to trust your intuition. It can’t draw you diagrams of facial expressions and show you photographs of the fleeting glimpses that gave away the saleman’s selfishness. All it can do is communicate to you, “don’t do it”.
Your logical mind, on the other hand, is great at arguing. It will go over and over the facts and figures, pushing you to do what is “logical”.
Financial freedom results from trusting your intuition. It will lead you to another salesman, who may even be selling the same product, but who genuinely has your best interests at heart. And investing with someone who cares about you will bring you a sense of freedom you could never experience with someone who secretly views you as a meal ticket and nothing more.
The 9 Steps To Financial Freedom are a journey of self-discovery. Read more of Suze Orman’s 9 Steps To Financial Freedom at our website.