The Fear of Being Embarrassed Could Cost You Your Fortune
I always think Chinese is one of those race who demands respect (yao mian zi) excessively. We are afraid of losing face, spending excessively on wedding banquets, signing for that Rolex on credit terms. While all this may be good, after all, according to Robert Kiyosaki in that all too familiar book, if you wanna be a rich man, you gotta live like one. But this drive to be perceived as Atas (upclass) is a double edged sword. And one of those down factors, is that being embarrassed would take a huge blow on your ego. So today, I'm gonna talk about embarrassment management, or even better, embarrassment disposal.
Let's say you take a walk down Orchard Road, and you've accidentally stepped on a banana peel, taking a huge, ugly tumble.(I know this is a poor scenario cos 1. Singapore cleaners are darn efficient and 2. Singaporeans do not eat a lot of banana ) For many, the first reaction would be to look back, and check if somebody's been sniggering at your misfortune, and NOT to check whether you've dropped your wallet of handphone first, though those actions might come after. This instinct has been so ingrained in us that many of us failed to realize this.
Another fact, i read that for a lot of divorce cases, half of them have already felt that the marriage would be a huge mistake within a week of the marriage but did not pull put due to the fear of embarrassed, of being ridiculed by family, colleagues and friends. For many, this would be unacceptable, but for me, I felt it's better being a day of embarrassment rather than a lifetime of regret.
Cold calling's a huge part of my trade, no matter if its calling for seminars or on a personal basis. Some of us tend to be better at this, but I always need to take a breather before the talk, and I tend to speak too fast. There are times, when we realized that the prospect is some big shot (aka Ang Mohish name, Dr Something, big job titles), this fear of embarrassed starts screwing up with our mind and then we may just choose to skip that lead. And those are the leads that commands the highest net worth!
Some couldn't do public speaking and claims to hate. Again, we are talking about not so much the fear of public speaking but rather the fear of being embarrassed publicly in front of a audience.
So what’s all this got to do with being broke?
In order to become wealthy you need to set a goal to become wealthy. Since having lots of money is a lot more fun than being broke why doesn’t everyone set a serious goal to be rich? The reason is that they are afraid of the embarrassment if they tell everyone that they are going to be rich and then they fail.
So what do we do to get rid of it?
2. The biggest embarrassment and failure is not to try at all. Create a inner you, to challenge yourself, to remind you that you should not fold everytime that you come across an obstacle. If you are letting fear of embarrassment rob you of your potential wealth then you truly are a failure because you don’t have the courage to set a goal and give it your best shot.
3. If you are letting fear of embarrassment rob you of your potential wealth then you truly are a failure because you don’t have the courage to set a goal and give it your best shot.
4. When you set financial goals it is your life that you are aiming to improve. Failure is only temporary. If you learn a bit more, and work a bit smarter then you can turn that failure into victory.
5. Set a financially worthwhile goal. Write it down in specifics, tell more people, raise that stakes till it become a case that you must succeed. If any of your peers ridicule you for it, you cannot find a better class of friends easily, trust me.
