In the blink of an eye

August 29, 2011 at 08:00 PM
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One of Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling books, "Blink," attempted to change how we trust the way we process information. He asserted that people with many years and countless hours spent studying and working in a discipline could take in massive amounts of data and make surprisingly accurate assessments of the situation in the blink of an eye. He called this ability "rapid cognition" and it has myriad implications.

We use rapid cognition in any number of ways. Everything from dating (love at first sight) to hitting a curveball in baseball allow us to use this hard-wired or hard-won superpower to become an expert.

In the context of financial planning, I ask you this: Can the tools required for rapid cognition be shared with others? More specifically, can the benefits of an advisor's rapid cognition be put to use for our client's and our own benefit? After all, thousands of hours invested in studying, analyzing, synthesizing and applying financial principles and strategies give us advisors more "blink-ability" than someone who doesn't have the same experience.

Here's how we do it

We know that most people make financial decisions using myths, misconceptions and misinformation and don't see the consequences of those decisions until years later. To help people avoid this unfortunate experience, we teach clients the questions to ask themselves and their other advisors before making financial decisions. Questions like "How will this plan affect my future tax liability?" can enable the client to see into the future to avoid missteps.

Our ability to "Blink" can be transferred to our decision-making-process as well. If you feel like you're being sold a questionable outcome, ask yourself if you're being taught the right questions to ask before risking your hard-earned wealth.

For more on the decision-making process, see:

Adam Cufr is a founding principal of Fourth Dimension Financial Group, LLC. He is the creator of the web-based coaching program The Life Insurance Blueprint, a prolific blogger, and an expert author on Ezine Articles. For more information, go to http://adamcufr.com/blog.

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