Thread: FEAR - as you pursue financial freedom

It seems that fear stands in the way of success... it can paralyse you (analysis paralysis), lead you to make bad decisions, etc. If you can get the the heart of it, you can come up with a safety net to protect what it is that is most precious to you - or you may walk through the loss - and see that you will come out on the other side okay.

People fear making mistakes, failing, getting it wrong, losing valued possessions, etc.

If the sheist hits the fan - either in the form of personal financial disaster or in the form of a recession/depression, what is the very worst thing that can happen to you financially?

lose your house
credit score tanks
lose your business

For me, it is losing my house. I know that even if I have to start at ground 0 (negative net worth) - I can build again. If I lose a business or all my investment properties, I can rebuild.... even if my credit is shot.

What I can't replace, is my homestead. So, my "back up" plan includes the ability to keep my house.

What do you most fear financially?
How do you overcome that fear?

Originally Posted by AroundTheWorld

What do you most fear financially?
How do you overcome that fear?

Number 1: Losing my health and subsequently, my health insurance.
Overcome: Try to eat healthy, exercise, pay my health insurance bills.

Number 2: Lawsuits -- anything involving lawyers is expensive. People don't understand that a legal battle, whether your case is good or bad, is a losing proposition. If you win your lawsuit, you lose. There are no winners in lawsuits. The cost to defend them is death to a small business owner.

An example is the case of the Korean immigrants that own that cleaners in Washington DC and were sued for $65 million. They are going bankrupt defending the suit even though it is frivolous.

Overcome: Insurance, being over insured usually.

Good post ATW, rep speed +++

Here are some inspirational quotes on fear that I think can be helpful to many.
Remember that FEAR stands for False Evidence Appearing Real.

People living deeply have no fear of death.

Anais Nin

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Bertrand Russell

Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out.

Karl Augustus Menninger

Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.

James Stephens

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
Frank Herbert

Fear: False Evidence Appearing Real.

Unknown

I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today.

William Allen White

Who sees all beings in his own self, and his own self in all beings, loses all fear.

Isa Upanishad, Hindu Scripture

Where no hope is left, is left no fear.

Milton

Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.

Japanese Proverb

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

Helen Keller

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.

Eric Hoffer

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

Marcus Aurelius

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

Henry David Thoreau

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.

Eleanor Roosevelt

In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.

H. P. Lovecraft

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

Dale Carnegie

Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not.

Virgil Thomson

The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but, it is fear.

Gandhi

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark, professionals built the Titanic.

Unknown

Number 2: Lawsuits -- anything involving lawyers is expensive. People don't understand that a legal battle, whether your case is good or bad, is a losing proposition. If you win your lawsuit, you lose. There are no winners in lawsuits. The cost to defend them is death to a small business owner.

An example is the case of the Korean immigrants that own that cleaners in Washington DC and were sued for $65 million. They are going bankrupt defending the suit even though it is frivolous.

More of this can also be found here http://madconomist.com/10-most-outra...olous-lawsuits

bump for all the posts Peter-cat-man provided.

We recently had a conversation with a new acquaintance about what holds people back from taking the financial leap into the fastlane....

• Quit the JOB
• Forgoe the Pension
• Become responsible for health care

Perhaps it is facing fear first - - - that has to be done before one can take the leap of faith.

I'm with you Lance. Once, when I was self emp., my kid needed some medical help and we couldn't afford it. We were forced to pay it off with some unfavorable conditions. It literally made me cry at night. I don't want to ever be in the position of not being able to provide for her again.

I am close to making that jump again. I run the decision over in my head almost hourly.

I would TOTALLY agree with Legacy Dad and Runum. Kids bring out that added fear of not being able to provide.

In my experience, it was THAT fear that pushed my husband and I to do "whatever we needed to" to get out of that position. It was OK for us to be "homeless" and living in our vehicle. But we didn't like to have to have our son in that environment. For us , it meant getting a "JOB"(just over broke) to regroup and build.

It took us a week to move into an apartment, a month to find a job (retirement type that we do to occupy time and have "fun" money), a year to build our dream home, and two years to have opportunities available to start moving fastlane.

BOTTOM LINE: Just do it!

I suppose my biggest fear is making a decision without enough knowledge, and losing lots of money and my husband. My husband is not entrepreneurial, and even with a degree in finance has no desire to pursue financial freedom until retirement. Because of this we split finances and assets early on. Currently, I avoid putting a lot on the line- because it's more than money, it's our relationship- how can one member of a team strive for financial freedom while the other clings to security? I know that he dislikes me doing (or trying to do) my own thing, and that breaks my heart. I suppose I feel the need to give him the stability he probably thought marriage would give him, and I always feel like a failure at that. Because if I give him that security, then I'm miserable.

If I were to go bellyup, and it could be tied to my husband, he could lose his job (which he loves, and has dedicated his life to) and his security clearance and he'd probably deep down he'd resent me for the rest of his life.

...I suppose any venture I do, or continue to do, wouldn't affect him if it was in the right entity and as long as the BP was solid I could always apply for additional financing- so maybe this fear isn't real at all- it's just hasn't been thought through until now. Hmm...

Thanks for bumping this. I don't think that I had seen those quotes last time around.

Yves, I bumped another thread about minimizing risk. There is a fine line between enough data to pull the trigger and analysis paralysis.

http://www.thefastlanetomillions.com...read.php?t=626

Eliminate by really defining words and numbers. Be a comparison shopper to define. Everything is relative: to contrast something is to better define it.

Courage is coming out against fear, work is coming out against laziness. Love is either work or courage.

Love is either work or courage, their are no exceptions (M Scott Peck)

The above are all linked, now you know what people are going to do before they do it and human skills will trump technical skills every time.

Originally Posted by unicon

Eliminate by really defining words and numbers. Be a comparison shopper to define. Everything is relative: to contrast something is to better define it.

Funny, something as simple as this says an awful lot. It struck me and then I saw the post by Russ. It is nice that there are so many ways to say something.

One quote an old mentor of mine would remind me of...

"Worry is the most sincere form of prayer"

[Having a dickens of a time finding that article about the kid who (purposefully) started a new life with only $25 and ended up with a job, a truck, and an apartment in a few months.]

Maybe just because I'm young, but I'm not scared of losing it all. Resetting to $0 wouldn't kill me. It would suck, don't get me wrong! But I have the time and energy to try again.

I DO FEAR losing more than I have. Negative net worth is not a part of my backup plans.

Thanks for the understanding! As Rk say teaching is learning. The response was to someone way off point. To produce something is to generate friction. It is amazing sometimes the resistance we have to the truth in things.

Health is definitely a fear as stated. I no longer fear legal I am still attempting to cure it, box it in, put a framework around it, it has cost alot because of the friction involved. The system is - seems to be the biggest dilema. It is adversarial as opposed to consensus based. Comes from the word adversary, meaning devil. The biggest fear is losing freedom.

I've been thinking about this thread since it first came out, and discussing it with my husband. I don't really have any primary fears about making a bad deal / investment, because I know we have enough buffer in our monthly income to cover a "multitude of sins". So the fear is really secondary. Since my share of the family income is based on contract work, I fear that at some point that market could suddenly run cold, then we would go instantly from a position of excess, to a position of negative cash flow almost overnight.

So this makes me analyze the deals I'm looking at with an even sharper eye. This effects my decision process in subtle ways. For instance, I want to get the FICO just 20 points higher to help ensure the best possible interest rates = one to two more months. I want to save another $xx in my rainy day fund, just in case we need to dip into that for household expenses for a while = another months or two. Then, I've "wasted" 3 or 4 months, and fear that I will now rush into that deal without sufficient due diligence, etc, etc, because reading this forum reminds me every day how very little I know about real estate investment (which is the direction I am interested in).

I mitigate these risk-based fears by working on ways to cut back on expenses, keeping my resume current, and simply by knowing that I could always do the ebay thing to stay afloat.

So I'm not being paralyzed by them. But they're always in the back of my mind when I run a Q&D analysis of something. eg. What if the RE market here tanks at the same time my industry goes flat, and I can't find another gig? How long could we afford to negative-cash flow? I'm constantly running "worst-case" scenarios.