First Seek To Understand; Then To Be Understood

If you are in the community, you would have known about this viral article by one young "ang moh" editor from an overseas website that alluded there's something wrong with you if you have savings in your 20s.

Guess what? Quite a number of those self-proclaimed and self-appointed purveyor of financial literacy, locally and overseas, have taken umbrage and fought back vigorously.

That young editor and the owner of the website she works for must be sipping champagne and giving each other a high five! Now that's how you drive traffic to your website!

No, I'm not giving you the link to that article. LOL!


Don't worry. This post is not about the article. It's about reading people.


Yalor; Yalor 

Readers who came to know about that article from their opinion leaders, did you just read the headlines only - never bother to read the actual article itself - and based on the strength of what your opinion leader tells you, you went "Yalor, yalor"?

You probably do the same with the quarterly results and annual reports of listed companies. Preferring the summaries of others instead of doing your own analysis.  

And in the same breath you call yourself a "DIY" investor.

Feeling a tad more "superior" than those investors who opted for low cost passive index funds; and perhaps a lot more "smarter" than those investors who have outsourced to more expensive actively managed funds by professional money managers...   


You stupid dumbass

Now it gets more interesting!

If we want to win over people who are not in your choir, does it help to call them names like stupid?

Before the elections, at the pro-opposition websites, instead of engaging the rest of the 60% and winning the swing voters over through intelligent discourse, anyone who dares to give any different or alternate viewpoints will be hounded and cyber-bullied out. 

Apparently, 10% switched sides.

And the face palm craziness is instead of asking for feedback on why they left and what must you do to win them back to the fold next election, you start giving these 10% swing voters names!?

Smart. Real smart.

If I'm from the Opposition parties, I'll have a good chat over coffee with these on-line "supporters". Stop and desist! You're killing us!


How to tell a person got high EQ? 

IQ is easy to measure. EQ is much harder to quantify... 

We can't tell what a person is thinking. But from what a person says or do, we can make deductions there. 

Remember your Literature classes? Remember those questions to describe a character from a play or story? What do you do to back up your opinions of this character?

Exactly.

It's not precise and that's where the fun lies! Some will say Macbeth is a victim and not his fault, while some will argue Macbeth got what he deserves for the betrayal of his king.
 
There!

Perhaps now you have some insights as to why your friends and siblings have problems listening to your financial literacy nagging...

The problem does not lie with them.

Have you made the effort to: First seek to understand, then to be understood?