This mistake is somewhat linked to the first – being too cautious. Maybe that is a symptom of this one, not sure. When I say obsessing about money, I mean thinking about it too much, elevating it to a position in people’s lives by affording it too much mental energy and time.
Often this manifests as obsessing about the news and its impact on your portfolio. Or maybe constantly looking for the highest interest rate for savings to the point of mania. Keeping an eye on the news or getting the best return for your money are obviously not bad things – quite the opposite – but like all things, they can be taken too far, and that just isn’t healthy.
Money, remember, is a means to an end, never an end in itself. It is there to serve your life aims; it should never be an aim itself as it’s just not a healthy pursuit. It’s what money provides and enables that we should pursue, not the money itself.
Sometimes this unhealthy obsession comes from unease borne of ignorance. Please hear me on that: I don’t mean ignorance in a wilful way, just a lack of understanding about how it works. A massive part of my job is working for people who pay me to obsess about the money on their behalf.
That’s entirely right, and is the reason why I’m convinced there will always be a need for financial advisers, even in this disintermediated world of brilliant DIY platforms and low-cost investing available to all.
Sure, most of you reading this won’t need to pay an adviser, but there are many who will get real benefit from doing so. Ignorance, of course, can be fixed by education and understanding – that’s why this podcast exists: I wanted to help those who I couldn’t help one-on-one as part of my day job.
So really, those are the two options for keeping money in its rightful place: Either educate yourself so that you can organise your finances to largely look after themselves, or delegate that to a professional if you’d prefer. Even if that professional just helps you set things up right and then you take it on from there – that’s better than obsessing and constantly tweaking and never being quite sure that things are ‘right.’
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