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Your Life will Always go the Way You Expect… Until it does not Any More

Last Wednesday, one of the co-worker that grew closer to told me his friend has a financial talk.

He said that since I am more “financially aware”, I could be interested in something like this.

It so happen that they day falls together with FLT’s EGM, so I should have some time to pop by and accompany him.

Over lunch one day, he shared his difficulties in finding people that are interested in going for things like this.

As someone who writes about money, and also organizes events as such, I probably am in a good position to chip in a comment or two.

People are interested about money… but may not be really conscious about it

I find it impossible for you not to be interested about money.

You may encounter the friend who always say they prefer to prioritize the “more meaningful and fulfilling” aspect of life than to be a slave to money.

While I think they are right, managing your money well could give you more sustainable and possibly a greater “meaningful and fulfilling aspect of life”.

Often or not, this train of thought is used to cover up their insecurities of not knowing how to manage money well enough.

Financial Advice needs to be Sold most of the Time

Some people do not need people to sell them financial advice:

  1. a person goes through some ordeal and come out of that situation realizing how important managing money is
  2. a person brought up in an environment where money values are passed down well
  3. a person is a nerd who tends to embark on skilling up areas that they are not very competent in

In most other cases, a person have a strong identity and belief that money works in a certain way and that how they deal with it is correct.

If in your opinion that is not the case, then someone needs to sell it to them hard.

Competent advisers would be able to get this across to their clients.

If my co-worker cannot get it across to his friends, it means that his skills to convince is not good enough.

Some of us are us are afraid of the Upsell

When I was proposition to go to a free seminar, there tends to be an upsell.

This is unless the organizer is a government or non-profit entity.

Else these seminar tends to be a form of lead generator.

I tend not to go if I think I cannot handle myself well. What I mean is that I do not know the subject well, yet a lot of time I end up agreeing with advice that sounds very rational, but might tend to be otherwise.

Due to this, I steer clear of many seminar that have some form of upsell.

I think there are many of you that fall into the same situation. You know what is coming, and you wonder why do you get yourself into a situation where you have to find creative reasoning to say this is not for you.

There is no need for the Alternative… Life is Ok

The most powerful argument against financial independence and retirement is that why do we want to retire when we don’t foresee ourselves not working.

If you have a career on an upward trajectory, these concepts sounds incredulous and does not make much sense.

However, we often extrapolate a lot of what we have now and think they will go on forever:

  1. Our good bosses will always be there
  2. Our ability to master competencies are the same for all the skill set we need
  3. Our energy and health will always be similar to how it is now
  4. We will not leave our job. If we do it is for a higher pay
  5. We will always be employable as long as we remain very competitive
  6. Our belief of how life is supposed to be will not waiver

As someone reflecting upon this in my late 30s, I can say almost all of these are more volatile than we think.

Money doesn’t solve all the impact brought about when 1 to 6 change, but they mitigate a part of each change.

However, the time for many to look for help, is often when things are too late.

This week, I also have the privilege of listening to Joshua Sheats over at Radical Personal Finance explain the Danger of a Financial Plan Built on Extremely Low Spending Projections.

In it, he explains how his view of how he should handle his dog, if they come to a situation where it gets sick and require a treatment that is very expensive.

In the past, he would do his best and then put the dog down.

Now, as the dog have become such an integral part of their family, this becomes difficult.

The key danger is that your idea of what is necessary will expand to an extend that planning on a limited amount of money is dangerous.

This is why I feel Financial Freedom and Independence are milestones that are appealing but not as readily functional and practical as Financial Security.

Summary

I told my co-worker, do the best for yourself. Try to set a good example so that, when it comes time when they face their own challenges, they know who to turn to.

At BIGScribe, we are quite clear who we are targeting when we organize seminars and meet-ups:

  1. People that are at least financially conscious
  2. People who wish to expand their competency and figure out best practices
  3. People that know a bit but aren’t sure the important parts of things
  4. People who would like to learn how others do it

You cannot help everyone. You will expand more effort on these endeavor then you realize.

You have to be the sort of person who could be altruistic and tolerate disappointments.

Otherwise seek the person to have some skin in the game.

Kyith

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