Advise on Advice
"money is for the living" and other online advice
Hello and welcome to another issue of this newsletter.
Generic Advice
One thing I found interesting in my one-on-one sessions is that the everyday advice is easy to spit out, actioning on the advice is an entirely different game.
It is very easy to say build an emergency fund, save X% of your income, live below your means etc.
Working on these tips, improving your finances is not just a numbers gain. It is beyond the cents and dollars.
While these tips are useful and helpful, it is important to understand that not all finance tips will work for you.
At the end of the day, these tips are generic and might necessarily be fit for you or your current position.
Taking Personal Advice
It is common to see what worked for someone, especially in social media, but that it worked for them, or they preach an approach does not make it right nor wrong. It worked for them.(maybe not)
And unless you are in the same situation, it might even be detrimental to you.
Here are some useful tips (tongue-in-cheek) you should consider before acting on advice:
The person has gone through similar experience. If the person has gone through what you are going through, it makes sense that they’d give you advice on what worked for them, what they did or did not do, and even what they think they should have done better. 1
You (in the future) want to be where they are. If you implement their advice, and succeed, will you be happy with the end result. (this sounds like career advice) If you are on a path, and you look at the people ahead of you, are you satisfied with the position/condition they are, or you don’t want their lives? 2
The person giving you advice is knowledgeable about the subject and knows where you are in your journey, for example a therapist or a psychiatrist one is seeing. They are knowledge and understand you (personally).
Your values align. If you want different things, then their advice might not be the best for you.
So whenever you see advice (financial advice, career or relationship advice) especially online (including this one), it is important to pause, and ask yourself does this apply to me or not?
Filter before proceeding.
I hope this helps.
See you soon.
this is also tricky, because, it might be different times. The way they think/approach a situation is more likely to help than the exact actions they took, because the external conditions will likely be different.
they are also facing other problems, but are you willing to face the problems they are currently facing now? Or, are the problems they are facing better problems than the one you are facing?