All of us have a distinct financial personality or what we call our “Money Pulse”, that is probably different than anyone else’s. What you do or don’t do with your money in tough times says a lot about your core financial beliefs. Often we get caught up in a herd mentality and we gravitate toward what others are doing. Consider Bernie Madoff and the famous people who invested millions without asking fundamental questions. An economic crisis is not a time to follow the crowd…it’s a time to know yourself extremely well.
Very few of us have ever trained for or thought through a financial emergency…or any emergency for that matter. My wife is a chaplain for the local county Sheriff’s department and through her experience, I have gotten a taste of what it means to be mentally and physically equipped for tough situations. Last year, after 4 months of preparation, she was a part of the response team at a simulated school shooting. Everything was planned to look like a real event. Yes, it’s tragic that this kind of training is necessary and all involved hope they never have to use what they learned that day, but she is convinced that lives will be saved if…
Similarly, commercial pilots spend about 80% of their training time on emergency procedures. A recent example is the remarkable “Miracle On the Hudson”, where 155 airline passengers were saved in January due to Captain “Sulley” Sullenberger’s superior preparation and crisis management skills. Sullenberger drew upon four key attributes during that eight minute flight which we can borrow to help us manage our money in tough times. More about those in upcoming posts.