Jean found that people ask themselves all the time what’s the difference between me and my boss or neighbors since they have it so good, so she wanted to find the answer, too, especially since 75 percent of wealthy families in the U.S. didn’t start out that way. What she found that being born with money or inheriting it are not key at all. Some of the more interesting surprises included personality traits of being confident, happy, optimistic, competitive, and non financial behaviors of socializing with friends at least once a week, exercising two to three times a week and reading newspapers regularly.
Research clearly showed that there were seven distinct traits of the wealthy personality that included optimism, resilience, connectedness, drive, curiosity, intuition and confidence. While some of those may not be surprising, drive and confidence, for example, she found it extremely notable that intuition, curiosity and optimism were so important. Most wealthy individuals read and learn constantly and report that their parents read to them when they were a child. They trust their intuition and optimism is an expectation that good things are going to be plentiful, that life will bring good rather than bad outcomes. Optimism is a wealth magnet. Her theme is that happiness is short term, optimism is forward thinking, and research has shown that people who are considered blissfully happy or blissed out often have had bad financial habits. So you have to be appropriately happy. Moderation is the key. Some of the newer research indicates we’re born with about 50 percent of the resilience, optimism and intuition we can have. The rest of it is in our control to be developed and practiced. Her feeling is happiness is a choice and prosperity is a habit and learned behavior.
She said you may hear people talking of the current downturn in the same way as those who survived the Great Depression. She hopes we’re going to produce a generation of better savers. Her feeling is we know from neuro-economics that the brain doesn’t like saving as much as it likes instant gratification. We all hope this newfound savings behavior will last.
At Sound Financial Planning we believe that we are in a new paradigm in the U.S. economy, and hopefully many consumers will learn the lessons that there is a big difference between what our basic needs are and what our wants are and that in the past the U.S. economy was driven approximately 70 percent by consumers. For a healthy economy it should be the exact opposite, 30 percent should be driven by U.S. consumers and the other 70 percent by long-term investment and saving. In this scenario we would have a far more stable, healthy economy in the long run. As always, if you have any questions or comments please contact us.
Sincerely,
William T. Morrissey, CFP
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