By Rick Kahler via Iris.xyz
My research in psychology, along with 35 years of experience working with people and their finances, suggests that how we handle money is more instinctual than cognitive. It’s more a factor of our brains’ hard-wiring than it is learned intelligence. Apparently, some people are just wired to do money well and others are not.
This can sound like a complete copout. The idea that you either have the money gene or you don’t seems simplistic. Yet I believe there is some truth to it.
Researcher and educator Russ Hudson finds that two centuries of data suggest every human being has three basic instincts that are necessary for survival: social (for getting along with others), sexual (for extending ourselves through generations), and self-preservation (for maintaining our physical life and functioning).
For most of us, these three are not equally balanced. One tends to be dominant, a second supports the dominant one, and the third and weakest one typically creates a blind spot. The dominant and weakest instincts give us the most trouble.
Evidence supports the idea that those with a dominant instinct of self-preservation tend to instinctually be successful savers. They are the people who find it relatively easy to, in the words of the late Dick Wagner, “Spend less, save more, and don’t do anything stupid.”
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