{"id":70318,"date":"2015-02-14T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2015-02-14T19:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=70318"},"modified":"2024-02-23T15:55:54","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T22:55:54","slug":"2015-02-14-financial-failure-due-lack-motivation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/2015-02-14-financial-failure-due-lack-motivation","title":{"rendered":"Is Financial Failure Due to Lack of Motivation? Why Money Issues Run Rampant"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ll never forget the moment when I made that mental leap — that sudden and forever fateful change in mindset in which I finally and\u00a0abruptly understood that my financial future is in my control — that working until 70 is an option, not a fact of life.<\/p>\n

Financial freedom existed for me in that moment… and not before. I\u2019m sure that many readers here on BiggerPockets can recall similar\u00a0moments. It\u2019s a life changing shift in mindset.<\/p>\n

That change doesn\u2019t happen by accident. For me, it was the culmination of years of study and focus on financial well-being. The very concepts of investing, interest, reinvesting, and compounding had to be beaten into my head dozens or hundreds of times before things \u201cclicked.\u201d<\/p>\n

But why don’t things click for\u00a0everybody<\/em>? Why is it that friends, family, and most of society can’t seem to see what I see?<\/p>\n

The answer is this:<\/p>\n

No one is born to be an investor. We learn to invest. Our motivation\u00a0is derived from what we learn.<\/em><\/p>\n

Motivation to Succeed Financially is Not a Natural Urge<\/h2>\n

Unfortunately,\u00a0children are not born innately desirous of snowballing into millionaires or billionaires over the course of 50 years by\u00a0harnessing the power of compound interest. Yes, some children are born with the will to win, some are competitive, and some are natural leaders. But no child is naturally born with the inclination to hoard something as intangible and (from a practical\u00a0perspective) useless as money\u00a0over the decades.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d invite you to try explaining the concept of the time value of money to\u00a0someone who is financially\u00a0illiterate. I do it all the time with an organization that helps locals in financial crisis here in Denver.<\/p>\n

It is my judgement that these folks lack a compelling reason to intelligently manage their finances.\u00a0For them, the concept of “investing” doesn\u2019t register.\u00a0It\u2019s just not something that is readily comprehensible to these people without a background on the subject. It’s not that people are unmotivated in general — do you think that these famous athletes who declared bankruptcy<\/a>\u00a0all lacked the desire to be successful?\u00a0If you do, why don\u2019t you just go ahead and tell Mike Tyson about how you have more of a\u00a0desire to succeed than he does… just make sure you film it!<\/p>\n

Related:<\/strong> 4 Ways to Build a Strong Real Estate Investing Financial Education Today<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Folks simply don\u2019t understand how to be successful with money. They don’t know the basic rules of the game of finance, and therefore, they are unable to see that there is a way out of their cycle of debt and poverty, that there is a way out of leaving their financial destinies in the control of their employers, and that the way out is not that hard. I\u2019ll repeat that: They just\u00a0don\u2019t understand.<\/i><\/p>\n

What Difference Does Motivation Make?<\/h2>\n

Isn’t it as simple as “earn, save, invest?” you might ask.<\/p>\n

We all know that basic finance comes down to three things: earning, saving, and investing. But that’s just not enough.<\/p>\n

When someone with low financial literacy thinks of saving money, they do so with a very simple purpose in mind: to use that money to buy something.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, when I think of saving money, I think of doing so with the explicit purpose of investing those savings to perpetually generate cash-flow and wealth for me forever.<\/p>\n

The motivating force behind my savings rate and interest in investing is far different and far more powerful than the motivation of someone unable to grasp the concepts of investing and compound interest over a long period of time. Of course I have more discipline and control with my spending and investing\u00a0— I\u2019m saving for financial freedom, security for myself and my family, and the ability to direct my time in whatever manner I choose!<\/p>\n

As soon as that concept is understood<\/i>, motivation kicks in. It\u2019s easy to behave correctly after that. It\u2019s a no-brainer.\u00a0It\u2019s obvious<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I hate to break it to you, but just being on BiggerPockets doesn’t make you any more of a naturally competitive person than your neighbor down the block. You aren’t smarter, and you weren’t born with more self-control. The truly powerful difference in your accumulation of wealth over the long term is the reason behind why<\/em> you invest. You understand that in a surprisingly small number of years, you can buy back your time, take control over your day, and have infinitely more opportunity by saving, investing, and reinvesting.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m lucky. I made a study of finance almost immediately after graduating college and had my moment of revelation as I began my working career. But the problem with finance is that you either get it or you don’t. It\u2019s not obvious to everyone. It can\u2019t be taught in an afternoon. It took me years to fully grasp the basics of earn, save, invest, reinvest.<\/p>\n

Why Doesn\u2019t Everyone\u00a0\u201cGet it?”<\/h2>\n

Now, I\u2019m not excusing the grown men and women that I\u2019ve worked with\u00a0—\u00a0or those professional athletes mentioned earlier — from their responsibility to manage their own lives and finances.\u00a0A lot of those folks made decisions that directly resulted in hard times.<\/p>\n

Those choices were probably their\u00a0fault.<\/p>\n

But how about the fact that folks are unable to\u00a0grasp\u00a0the totally unintuitive and complicated system of\u00a0earning, saving, investing,\u00a0and reinvesting that we all know and love here on BiggerPockets? Why\u00a0don\u2019t they understand that it is possible and that it can even be an automatic\u00a0process to harness the financial forces that can allow one to \u201cescape the rat race,\u201d \u201cretire early,\u201d \u201cFIRE,\u201d etc.? Why don\u2019t these folks feel the need<\/i>\u00a0to invest?<\/p>\n

That is due to a lack of education.<\/p>\n

Do you think I would be investing in Real Estate if I hadn\u2019t learned about the concepts of compound interest and passive income?\u00a0No way! I\u2019d be spending every cent I earned living it up!\u00a0Without the education<\/i>\u00a0I\u2019ve accumulated with respect to personal finance, I\u2019d be displaying a very different set of behaviors<\/i> with my money.\u00a0I\u2019d still be my super competitive self in every other aspect of life, but it\u2019s impossible to compete in a game if you aren\u2019t even aware of its existence!<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

Financial success is not the result of innate motivation to succeed. Motivation must always have a source.\u00a0 Concepts must be learned, reinforced, and ultimately believed.<\/p>\n

Related:<\/strong> The (Totally Unfair) Secret Advantage of the 1% \u2014 and How to Level the Field<\/a>
\n<\/em>
\nThat\u2019s the power of BiggerPockets. Here, we teach, repeat, and inspire. It was because of BiggerPockets that I took action and invested in Real Estate. And it\u2019s because of BiggerPockets that I was exposed to free, high quality education on one of the most\u00a0important topics in our society today.<\/p>\n

But often, we on BiggerPockets forget that we are too educated on matters of finance to relate to the people\u00a0who\u00a0just can\u2019t get by. Their situation is\u00a0unfathomable to us\u00a0because we forget that we\u2019ve grasped fundamental financial\u00a0concepts that are so far over most Americans’ heads that it is incomprehensible to us that they spend too much, go broke, and can\u2019t hold a job.\u00a0We\u2019ve got a ridiculously<\/i> unfair advantage over most of the population when it comes to long-term wealth accumulation. We\u00a0forget that we’ve\u00a0got the ultimate reason to accumulate wealth — and not to spend it!<\/p>\n

How many others have realized that it\u2019s possible to control their own destinies because of BiggerPockets? Is it possible that they became\u00a0motivated<\/i> after they learned it was possible?\u00a0<\/i>Is it likely that the knowledge they gained from BiggerPockets encouraged them to take\u00a0action\u00a0<\/i>to succeed financially?<\/p>\n

I\u00a0think it is wonderful that it is our job to inspire and teach as many people as possible.\u00a0And I hope that\u00a0with this piece, I can encourage at least a few of you to\u00a0join us\u00a0in pursuit of that goal.<\/p>\n

What has your journey in financial education looked like? Have you ever had the opportunity to teach someone the basics?<\/em><\/p>\n

Leave me a comment, and let’s discuss.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ll never forget the moment when I made that mental leap — that sudden and forever fateful change in mindset in which I finally and\u00a0abruptly understood that my financial future […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1676,"featured_media":70394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7385],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wealth-management"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}