Blog | Personal Finance

Trust Your Gut!

A Woman’s Intuition Can Go A Long Way

As you begin your journey to financial freedom, you’ll need to make a lot of decisions. Some will lead you in the wrong direction, but they’ll provide opportunities to learn. Other times, you’ll make good decisions and your journey will go a little smoother.

“What’s the biggest investment mistake you ever made?”

I’ve been asked this before, and I have to say I’ve made many mistakes along the way, including losing deals over bad investment-decisions or choosing a bad partner. And looking back, all of my major mistakes have one thing in common – Not trusting myself. And I get it. When you are starting a new venture with little experience, there is a lot of fear and anxiety involved.

But ladies, don’t ignore that little voice or feeling in your stomach when you make decisions!

It’s easy for me to say this now, after years of investment experience. But I was once in the same place you are now. You can only read and research so much, and then you need to take action as I talk about in the Triple-A Triangle™. And that’s when you have to start making decisions that affect your life, your financial well-being and your overall goals.

For example, several years ago, Robert and I met with a successful investor who told us about his unique and confidential trading system that was the core of his success. We toured his plush offices and met his team, and all seemed to be as we were told. Later that night, we all went to dinner. And after several glasses of wine, the investor and his team members turned into obnoxious, rude, womanizing, and embarrassing people. Other restaurant patrons actually got up and left because of their crude antics! I don’t blame them as I didn’t want to be there either.

I had a bad feeling about these people, but the returns on his investment were too enticing. Greed silenced the little voice I was hearing, and we went through with the investment. To make a long story short, we found out that this investor was a crook from reading a newspaper article!

This man turned out to be a liar, conning his investors out of millions of dollars. He is now in prison for many years. And while I lost money on this investment, I used my mistake as an opportunity to learn a very important lesson:

Trust Your Gut!

According to The James Randi Educational Foundation:

“Intuition has been explained by pseudoscientists in ways ranging from the unlikely to the ridiculous, but the phenomenon itself is very real. In fact, we could not survive without it.”

“Consistent findings that women outperform men in identifying, discriminating, and interpreting nonverbal communication including facial expressions, gestures, body language, and inflections reach back to the 1970s. There are also findings which suggest that women encode expressions more accurately. Men and women differ in a vast array of nonverbal behaviors – smiling, touching others, proximity to others, laughing, nodding, gestures, and so on.”

With this in mind, listening to your “inner voice,” or intuition, can play an important part in the decisions you make, especially if you’re a woman. You’ll become more in tune with it as you become more experienced. In the meantime, here are some additional tips I use to reduce fear and risk when it comes to investing:

1. Have a back-up plan.
   
   When I invest in real estate today, I create three, back-up plans for all of my existing properties in case things go wrong. When making investment decisions, think about all of the things that could go wrong and plan ahead as much as possible. This will help you feel more in control and reduce risk and fear.
2. Find people who know more than you do.
   
   When you’re not sure about a decision, find an expert who knows more about the subject matter than you do and get their insights. This way, you’ll have more knowledge to make your decision.
3. Check with supportive partners.
   
   What does your support team think about the decision you have to make? By hearing different responses, you may look at your decision in a new way.

Little Voices, Big Decisions for Financial Freedom

Sometimes, you have to make fast decisions on your own and don’t have time for the above. When this happens, use your financial education and listen to your gut. Realize that sometimes you have to walk away from a deal, even if you are emotionally attached to it.

But no matter what choices you make, know that you are learning valuable lessons along the way and increasing your confidence and expertise with every step. It’s all part of your journey to financial freedom.

Have you ignored your gut instincts and made a bad mistake? Tell us about your experience below.

For additional resources to help you on your journey to financial freedom, check out our free, financial education community here.

And to give your children the financial education they won’t receive in school, check out Robert’s new book, “Why ‘A’ Students Work for ‘C’ Students” here.