Financial Education #2: Group Think

I agree more to the fact that, we as a nation cannot solve a large financial crisis with the same old thinking. This entitlement mentality is everywhere. In fact, it has become epidemic in our economy.

Photo: Group Thinking

I guess we've all probably heard the term "groupthink" by now. It's that old herd mentality that seems to bring out the best and the worst in people. By the best, I mean that sometimes a shepherd will surface. But that's an unlikely scenario. It's usually the wolves that will surface first, and the herd will be primed and ready to follow. What I'm trying to do here is break up the herd before we are incapable of seeing, hearing, thinking and doing for ourselves. People who are capable of thinking for themselves will rarely be part of any herd.

While we are focused on the groupthink that keeps people from thinking for themselves financially and has them blindly turning their money over to financial advisers, it reminds me of another story I read recently;

For a radio program on Clear Channel, Someone decided to speak about "Object Orange." This isn't about Jeanne-Claude and Christo's "Gates" project last year in Central Park, but about something happening in Detroit, Michigan.

Detroit has a problem with ramshackle, empty homes because the city has lost nearly a million people in the last 50 years. A group of artists in the city was tired of looking at vacant, dilapidated buildings around town. So they decided to do something about it.

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To call attention to the abandoned buildings, the artists secretly painted the eyesores bright orange overnight. Because it's hard to miss a bright orange, rundown building, several of the houses have since been torn down - which was the goal in the first place.
The artists are remaining anonymous because obviously they could get in trouble for trespassing. They are also hoping other renegades with paintbrushes will join their project. This is a great example of people taking action and accomplishing something. They took matters into their own hands instead of waiting for someone else to do something about it. It's unconventional, but it seems to be working.

City of Detroit today

It's an overused term at this point, but "out-of-the-box" thinking is obviously alive and well-certainly in Detroit. Artists aren't the only people around who have the right to exercise that part of the brain-we all do. Let's try to start thinking like that no matter where we live or what we do. The worst thing for us, individually and as a nation, is to become passive observers - or to slowly sink into our comfort zones. As I've said before, the best way to have an edge is to live on one. We are not in a position - even if we are the so-called superpower - to rest on our laurels. That is the first indication of impending decline. We've got some challenges ahead, and it's best to be aware of them. Let's not succumb to the Big Groupthink, which is really just a good way of sinking our own ship.

Today, more than ever, people must change the way they think about their finances and their financial futures. I want you to expand your thinking. We can all benefit from the wisdom of Descartes:
"I think; therefore I am."
Think bigger!

Catch me in my next steem education.