We often hear from financial advisors that we should diversify our assets. Diversifying isn’t just good advice for our finances, but it’s also good advice for many aspects of our lives that indirectly impact our financial standing. It’s tempting to surround ourselves with people who always agree with us and never question our thought process, our accuracy in understanding facts, and our ultimate decisions. Nobody likes to hear he or she might be wrong about anything, let alone really important things. And, if we’re making decisions in concert with someone else or if we are heavily relying on information from a particular source that turns out to be unhelpful or even catastrophically wrong, it can be intimidating to break free from those negative influences. To admit we are wrong is not always an easy step. Adversity is challenging, but it’s really one of the best ways to learn and grow and improve our prospects in whatever our endeavors might be. Avoid cocooning yourself in a bubble and you will instantly find that your decisions will have a positive outcome. Here are three areas (other than your financial assets) where you should start diversifying immediately.
Diversify your personal contacts. Don’t wall yourself off from people that have a different world view or appear different. Nobody is saying you have to be best friends with everyone, but you should not be afraid to hear other points of view and ask questions. Composure and grace is all it takes to have a civil conversation, even when the participants in the conversation oppose each other’s view point. You should also make deeper contacts. Mere acquaintances might not feel comfortable telling you a brutal truth, that while difficult to hear, is still very important to know about yourself. If you happen to have a large family, you will usually have plenty of deep connections to individuals that have much to say about all of your choices. It’s not always a bad thing to have your behavior and your judgment tested. Nobody is perfect and when you have trouble understanding the detriment of something you are doing, it helps to have people around you that care enough to keep you in check and on a healthy path. Sometimes you’ll completely disagree with someone’s assessment of your decisions, but every now and then, you’ll hear a crystalizing word that will make an issue so much more apparent to you that it will benefit your decision-making process.
Diversify your news sources. Get used to gathering your news from all platforms. Don’t just rely on social media or TV news programs or print or one particular news organization. Instead, use all of those platforms and always make sure the sources are credible, meaning they have a good track record of accurate reporting. Also, learn to recognize the difference between actual facts (points that can be proved) and mere opinions. You will be so much better for it. Facts (rather than delusions) are your friends and essential to making good decisions.
Diversify your experiences. We often fear the unknown. There is no better way to overcome your fears than to know more and there is no better way to know more than to actually immerse yourself in experiences that will permit you to see a side of situations you are not normally exposed to. The more you know, the better you are for it. Nobody ever says he wishes he knew less or that he is worst off for his deeper and accurate understanding of World, domestic, and financial affairs. There are so many easy and free ways to diversify your experiences. If you’ve never volunteered, give it a try. If you’ve never visited a museum or a public library or watched a documentary, etc., give it a try. If you’ve never attended a single religious service or the religious service of a particular faith, try sitting through one service. Learning about a faith is different than following it. Nobody has to ascribe to what they are learning for the lesson to be valuable. Learning about a faith, an ethnic background, a socioeconomic group, a particular neighborhood, a nation, a political group or party, a corporation, a non-profit organization, etc., will help you understand some of the things that drive members of that group. You will have a better understanding of the challenges they face and the positive influences they offer.
We all know the saying that knowledge is power. Don’t give up power by closing yourself off to learning about actual, real-life situations while accepting exaggerations of a single uninformed individual or organization that happens to be loud and has an agenda that is not focused on the truth. The knowledge you gain will help you quell delusions (we almost never make good decisions when working with inaccurate information) and give you the power to make smart choices. And most choices in your life, even non-financial choices, will have an impact on your finances. From the leaders you choose, to the type of society you build, to the personal values you embrace, you will find that all of those non-financial choices will have an indirect, or even a direct, impact on your personal finances. Knowledge is power and power leads to financial security. The time to wise up is now.