There is one word that so many of us find hard to resist – free. We love free snacks, free games, free rides, free anything.
There’s something about getting something for nothing that appeals to our nature.
But not everything that’s free is good. In fact, I’ve learned firsthand how free advice can be downright costly.
You see, it’s ok to get advice from someone who knows what they’re talking about but the problem is that we often take the advice of friends who have no place giving it.
One friend of mine likes to offer me financial advice.
Just one problem, he’s poorer than I am. Moreover, the advice he gets is from Jim Cramer on CNBC.
Now, I have nothing against Mr. Cramer personally but he has over 100,000 people watch his show.
And I’m sure that some people have done well following his advice but you’re putting your financial future in the hands of someone who gets paid to be entertaining and from selling advertising which means the more viewers he has, the more money his show makes.
His advice may be free, but it can be costly as many people found out when Lehman Brothers crashed.
No matter what advice you get, in the words of my mentor, Jim Rohn, “Make sure what you do is the product of your own conclusion. Take what someone else says; process it, ponder it, debate it and then when you go take action make sure the action is your own conclusion.”
Another thing I’ve found is that most of the time the effort we put into something is directly proportional to how much we spend on something.
If I paid $1000 to attend a seminar I’ll be damn sure to record every moment I’m there. I’d sit in the front row, take notes and wouldn’t let anything distract me from getting my money’s worth.
But had I got in for free, it’s very likely that I’d have a lackadaisical attitude. After all, I got in for free, right?!
So if you want to learn something, be willing to pay for it. You’ll be amazed at the difference in results.
Now with that said, I would like to say that there is an incredible wealth of information on the Internet that is worth its weight in gold, but I’ll save that for another post.
Keep your eyes posted.
Adrian Shepherd