And where to start improving your Financial Intelligence
Hello fellow Protagonists,
Financial Intelligence runs a lot deeper than thinking about how much money it would take to solve a problem we are currently facing.
If more money was simply the answer to solving all of our money problems then why do we still get some of the following situations:
A family with a household income of £70k who are still in debt and cannot afford to pay off their credit cards by the end of the month.
Somebody wins millions in the lottery and 10 years later has to return to work as their wallet now has moths flying out of it.
An inheritance is received and later that year that person has no idea where it went and their position has not changed as a result.
These people are in situations that could solve some or all of their financial problems, yet they still exist.
That is because Financial Intelligence would tell us that money is neither a good or bad thing.
Money cannot directly cause or solve problems.
Somebody has to do something with that money to make something good or bad occur.
If you wanted to you could grab a £20 note a burn it. There would be no resistance from the note, it does exactly as you want.
You can either give this little experiment a try or just take my word for it.
It is not money that has caused us to take out a loan to cover an unexpected bill. It is also not money that placed itself into our emergency account so that we didn’t have to take that loan. It was all on us.
It is not money that pays us our wage, it is our employer who pays us and we agreed to those terms when signing a contract.
It is not money that costs us £100 a week in food shopping, it is our decisions on what we want to eat that week.
Money will not solve our problems, we have to solve our problems. We can just use money as a tool to solve our problems.
This is a subtle but massively important difference.
The truth is that some people are just not ready to be rich. If you can build up £20K of debt when earning £30k a year, wait and see what mess you can create when you earn £300k a year.
In a strange way this is a blessing for some.
I am grateful that I did not stumble across any great wealth in my late teens and early 20’s as I am pretty sure I would have just pissed it up the wall.
If it was ever going to happen, now would be a far better time. Who is to say I would even be ready now? I think I would be but It is a tough call to make until you are faced with it.
Money problems are managed using Financial Intelligence.
In a nutshell this is knowing the ins and outs of our own financial situations.
Understanding how to create money, save money, invest money and protect money.
Knowing what to do when you get it and where it is going (and more importantly why is it going).
We all need to improve our Financial Intelligence to go on to solve problems beyond the “we just need more money” phase.
So how do we increase our Financial Intelligence?
This depends on the way we work best. Here are a few examples:
Reading books on topics like personal finance, investing and economics
Read blogs (like this one!), watch vlogs and listen to podcasts
Hire the support of a financially intelligent person
Ask questions to people you do know who seem to be making their money work for them
Find courses and workshops
Join online social groups (I would be particularly careful here as I have heard some dangerous financial strategies or just someone who is clearly trying to sell something).
By experience and learning the old fashioned way
Mmm an old fashioned!
As you are already here, I would suggest a good place to start on The Daily Buff would be to read The Mindful £100k series to at least get an idea of how this blogger managed to reach their first £100k net worth.
Financial Intelligence is a continuous journey. There is always more to learn, situations change over time and so do we.
GLHF
Warrick
You can Join The Daily Buff on Facebook and Twitter. Share it if you liked it and subscribe to keep up to date will all upcoming posts.
Other posts you may be interested in:
One dark-side of personal development