Zaman zaman hayatta başarı için bilgiden çok tavrın önemli olduğunu düşünürüm. Deneyimlerim bana, çok bilgili olanlardan ziyade, iyi alışkanlıklar ve uyumlu tavırlar geliştirmiş olan kişilerin daha başarılı olduğunu gösterdi. Sabır, güven, anlayış, coşku, empati, girişkenlik gibi nitelikler çalışma hayatında olduğu gibi sosyal hayatta da bilgi dağarcığından, kavram zenginliğinden ve hatta güçlü analiz yeteneğinden daha önde geliyor. Okul başarısının ve salt bilginin çok önem kazandığı durumlar elbette var. Ama olumlu tavır dediğim niteliklerin yokluğu ya da kıtlığı halinde, o durumlarda başarı sınırlı kalıyor. Bir de bilgiye ulaşmanın günümüzde çok kolaylaştığını ve eğitim almış kişilerin artık her alanda çok bollaştığını düşünürseniz, tavır dediğim niteliklerin önemini vurgulamak için fazla söz etmek gerekmediğini sanırım siz de kabul edersiniz.
Dün aldığım bir emaili epeydir beslediğim bu kanaati pekiştirdiği için sizlerle burada paylaşmak istedim.
Mektup yukarıda özetlediğim fikir paralelinde çok ilginç bir hikaye anlatıyor. Okuyalım.
It’s a true story about two people.
One is a guy named Richard Fuscone.
Fuscone is a brilliant guy who had an extraordinary career on Wall Street.
He attended Dartmouth and earned an MBA from the University of Chicago. Rising through the ranks of high finance, he became Executive Chairman of the Americas at Merrill Lynch. Crain’s once included Fuscone in a “40 under 40” list of successful businesspeople.
Fuscone retired in 2000 to “pursue personal, charitable interests.” Former Merrill CEO David Komansky praised his “business savvy, leadership skills, sound judgment and personal integrity.” He was the kind of guy that any young person interested in finance would look up to. The next is a woman named Grace Groner. Groner was born in 1909 in rural Illinois. Orphaned at age 12 and never married, she began her career during the Great Depression. She became a secretary where she worked for 43 years, lived in a small cottage, bought used clothes, and never owned a car.
Frankly, she wasn’t exactly the type that finance people held up as a role model.
That’s how the story begins.
Now here’s how it ends.
Fuscone filed for bankruptcy in 2010, fighting to prevent foreclosure of his 18,471-square-foot, 11- bathroom, two-pool, two-elevator, 7-car-garage New York mansion. This was after selling another home in Florida following a separate foreclosure.
“My background is in the financial-services industry and I have been personally devastated by the financial crisis,” Fuscone’s bankruptcy filing allegedly stated. “I currently have no income.” He said his only source of liquidity was whatever household furnishings his wife could sell for cash.
A few months before Fuscone filed for bankruptcy, Grace Groner died. She was just shy of her 101st birthday.
After sorting through her papers, those close to her were shocked to learn she was worth at least $7 million.
She made it all on her own. The country secretary bought $180 worth of stocks in the 1930s, never sold, and let it compound into a fortune. She left it all to charity.
These stories fascinate me because they don’t happen in any other field but finance. There is no plausible scenario in which a country secretary could beat LeBron James at basketball, or be better at brain surgery than a brain surgeon. But that same country secretary can out-finance a Wall Street titan. Money is strange like that. Fuscone and Groner’s story is extreme, but it’s not unique. The link between education and financial success is probably lower than you think.
Lauren Willis at Loyola Law School has shown that financial literacy programs can actually be harmful to people’s financial wellbeing. High school students who took part in a financial literacy course went on to have more problems with their finances than students who skipped the course.
Low-income consumers who took a class on money management “were less likely to plan and set future financial goals.”
How can this possibly be?
Here’s one theory: Financial education programs don’t improve outcomes because they tend to teach fundamental financial concepts, which aren’t that important, rather than behavioral issues, which are.
As Willis wrote, “financial education appears to increase confidence without improving ability, leading to worse decisions.”
Learning the definition of compound interest won’t do you any good unless you understand the devastation you’ll bring to your wealth by panicking and selling when the market drops. Knowing what a Roth IRA is won’t do you much good if overconfidence entices you to take on lots of debt.
If you follow enough financial success stories, I think you find that these basic behavioral differences are what separate the Grace Groners from the Richard Fuscones.
Groner clearly understood patience. She understood frugality. She understood the value of a longterm view and how to not panic – if only subconsciously. Fuscone clearly didn’t. And in the end, that was all that mattered. The traits most important to mastering your finances aren’t typically taught in finance courses. You’re more likely to see them in a psychology class. They include things like patience, an even
temper, being skeptical of salesmen, and avoiding over-optimism. I think it explains, better than anything else, why so many people are bad with their money. And it extends beyond novices. The majority of highly educated, well-trained investment professionals perform abysmally – about three-quarters of professional money managers underperform the market over the long run. This has little to do with their understanding of finance and lots to do with the inability to control their emotions and behaviors.
Want to become better with your money? Don’t worry about memorizing arcane rules, jargon, or financial theories. Realize that the biggest rewards come to those who are patient, frugal, grounded, and prepared.
There are no points awarded for difficulty in this game.
…………………
Have a great weekend,
Tekrarlamak isterim:
Öğrendiklerimiz bizi, daha coşkulu ve mutlu bireyler yapmıyorsa, yaşama sevincimizi artırmıyorsa, yanlış şeyler öğreniyoruz demektir.
Peki siz, yaşama sevincinden yoksun bir çalışanınız, tutarsız bir arkadaşınız, güvensiz bir eşiniz olmasını ister misiniz?
Peki hayatta başarının tek ölçüsü nedir diye sorulsa ne dersİniz?
Haklısınız, tek ölçü olmaz dersiniz. O kadar sistem yaklaşımı çalışmasından sonra başka türlü yanıt veremezsiniz 🙂
Oysa Çetin Altan bu soruyu şöyle yanıtlar: Başarı, hiç kimseye hiçbir durumda yalan söylemek zorunda olmama konforunu sağlamıyorsa, başarı değildir.
