Don’t waste your time
One of the most frustrating aspects of getting into personal finance is how hard it is to persuade others of the benefits. I imagine it’s a bit like being some kind of evangelical, convinced that yours is the only path to salvation and desperately trying to get others to join you.
I actually wrote about this in 2013 before this site existed.
I have one friend in real life that I can talk to about personal finance, and one family member. Other than that everyone I know dismisses the concepts we talk about here, or hasn’t been willing to consider them yet.
Occasionally I will get comments here or on Facebook like ‘it’s not possible to save 20% of your income if you have children‘, or ‘I’m not going to retire, I’ll just keep working until I die‘, or ‘investing is too dangerous, so we just keep our money under the mattress‘.
It’s taken me a long time (I’m a slow learner) but I have come to understand that it’s not possible to change people’s mind by explaining things. A lot of people are emotionally invested in their ideas, so arguing or debating with them is a waste of time and just likely to produce unnecessary stress.
Apparently Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t -you’re right.”
People who think they can’t save, can’t reduce their consumption, can’t learn about investing, can’t plan to retire, can’t.
All we can do is offer encouragement, information, and support to those who are interested, are looking to change, who think they can. And maybe keep bringing it up occasionally with others 😉
How about you? Any success stories in persuading family or friends?
I’d only say I’ve actually persuaded one friend into seeing the ways, but I’ve failed many more times. It seems those who need it most are least likely to listen, and those who were better off in the first place are the ones that will.
I’ve settled into focusing on talking about happiness instead, talking about the benefits of less/minimalism. With those that talk about how they can’t do it, etc., some useful ammo could be telling them how the successful tend to have a more internal locus of control. Maybe we need to get more creative with the message. 🙂
“I imagine it’s a bit like being some kind of evangelical, convinced that yours is the only path to salvation and desperately trying to get others to join you.”
Holy crap! This is exactly how I feel when I talk to my friends about personal finance/financial independence and I couldn’t put it to words, you nailed it.
You have more or less hit the nail on the head, which mirrors my own experiences of trying to convince peers to invest for their future.
Been met with large doses of skepticism, as people want to see those who do practice what they preach. Will probably try again 20 years down the road – showing them a robust balance sheet while selling the merits of low cost index investing.
But of course, at that point of time it also means A LOT less time to compound returns for them!
I suspect it would be damned if you do, damned if you don’t…
Now you have no ‘proof’ it works because you’re not rich yet. In the future you will be rich but it won’t count ’cause you’re ‘rich’ and they aren’t 😉
It’s really scary how literal you are being. I just recently started to get really serious about personal investing and your blog so naturally my interests come up in conversations.
Last week I was having dinner with a new professor. Highly educated person with a Phd and she tells me she and her husband don’t want to invest in a 401k because “its too dangerous”. Well, I changed the subject. Yesterday at lunch with a different group of colleagues, again highly educated people, the topic came up and someone literally said “investing is too dangerous, its better to keep the money in your mattress”. Its like he took the words right out of your blog post.
I think the scary thing is, I am way behind the ideal curve of savings, but I am WAY ahead of the average curve of what people have actually saved.
The sad thing is that just thinking about this stuff puts you way ahead of most people. Actually getting started makes you an anomaly!
Well for us in Japan, good advice would be to stay away from “Financial advisors” in Tokyo who are selling actively managed funds such as those hosted by Friends Provident.
I wish someone would have warned me about them when I first arrived here.