Skilled Migrant Professionals February 2015 | Page 36

Finance
how to ‘fix’ it, so they skip the difficult parts
and choose someone with their ideal body
and appearance. They get sliced and diced to
resemble Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lopez, Brad
Pitt, or anyone else who happens to possess
their desired look. Some truly horrific outcomes of these pursuits of perfection are well
documented in the media. Google ‘Catwoman’ if you want an extreme example.
In these instances, narcissism is clearly malignant and they provide undeniable evidence
that we have become dangerously self-obsessed as a society. However, there is one area
where I believe that this sort of narcissism (even
taken to extremes) could be hugely beneficial
to us as individuals and to society at large.
The area where nearly everyone seems to
be wearing blinders is their personal wealth,
which is my passion. Very few people are
comfortable having an up-close-and-personal relationship with their money. One of
the major manifestations of this relationship
reluctance is getting rid of acquired money
as quickly as possible. In most countries, approximately 80% of the population practise
this strategy religiously. In fact, they have
fine-tuned it to the extent that they spend
their money before they even get it.
The second strategy used by many people
is to pass the buck, meaning that they turn
over the decision-making role to someone
else, often their spouse. Unless your spouse
is a financial specialist, then you should be
personally involved with your finances to a
certain degree.
The most effective and successful segment of the population works with trusted
experts in their effort to achieve a set of predefined goals. The idea behind this strategy
is not handing over your finances to someone else and hoping for H