17 Sep We Don't Need MORE Information, We Need The RIGHT Information
“I must have a prodigious amount of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up!”
― Mark Twain
How many decisions are we faced with every day? From the minute we step out of bed we need to make choices – from what to wear and what to have for breakfast, to the kind of decisions which will determine the future of the businesses we own or work in.
This article looks at the research behind how we make decisions – and how easily, and how often we make poor decisions. One phrase which stuck with me after reading this was ‘You don’t need more info. You need the right info’.
We see this nearly every day at Bloomsbury. It might be at a review meeting with some existing clients where they are facing a choice about their future, or it might be at a first meeting with a potential new client who is exploring whether to work with us. The difference between the two scenarios is stark.
For our existing clients they are making an informed decision within the context of their overall plan. Their plan is there on the screen in front of them. We can model a number of different scenarios there and then, which will show them the potential short and long term effects – based on various underlying assumptions – and what each choice they have might mean in terms of their current or future financial independence. They have ‘the right info’.
For potential new clients, they often suffer from a form of paralysis in making decisions because they lack the context of a financial plan to inform and guide them. Without a plan based on where they are now, how do they have any clue how they will get to where they want to be in the future, and what might be the best path to follow to get there? Without that perspective they do nothing, simply because they don’t have ‘the right info’. Eventually they find their way to us, when either the pain of doing nothing becomes too great, or they reach the point where they no longer have the luxury of procrastination.
“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
~Martin Luther King Jr.
Carolyn