Choosing a Financial Planner

Should You Trust Your Gut?

Crime author Patricia Cornwell made major headlines last week when she won a 50 million dollar judgment against a financial manager she claimed mismanaged her money.

If you’ve ever used, or are thinking about using a financial planner, you already know just how challenging it can be to select the right money manager. The finance manager you interview may have impressive degrees and four different certification abbreviations behind their name, but let’s get real. Most of us have no idea what they even mean.

In the end, the decision to fork your hard earned money over to someone else to manage comes down to trust.

How can you know if someone deserves your trust? Well, you should start with conducting basic background research and make sure they haven’t been investigated, imprisoned, or had a 50 million dollar jury verdict against them--but you also have to trust your gut.

Businesswoman turned leadership coach, Rebecca Heaslip says people have the wisdom to make the right decisions if they trust their intuition. Makes sense, but how  can you be sure your intuition is working?

Here are Heaslip’s 7 tips for trusting your gut with your finances:

1. As a general rule of thumb, if you feel at all uncertain about an important decision (particularly a financial one), step away from it for a day and do another gut check after you‘ve slept on it. Not only is your subconscious actively working to provide a solution as you sleep, a solid night’s rest will rejuvenate your body and mind, allowing new perspectives to emerge.

2. When you first meet with a financial advisor, go with your first impression of him/her - it’s usually right. Don’t second guess or overanalyze your feelings.  You don’t need to understand why a person makes you feel uncomfortable, but you should certainly to pay attention to how they make you feel. If you don’t trust them, move on.

3. Make sure your head, heart and gut are all aligned when making important financial decisions. If you feel anxious or distracted, the incongruence can lead to impulsive decisions. Seek a balance between intuition and rationality.

4. Never make a financial decision when you’re distracted. Whether you’re hungry, tired, in the midst of personal or professional crises, hold off on important financial decisions until you are in the correct frame of mind to focus and make rational decisions.

5. Understand your tolerance for taking risks. Don’t feel pressured by colleagues or family who try to persuade you to buy a particular stock or invest in a business just because they have. If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it!

6. Test your intuitive wisdom with smaller financial decisions and then work up to bigger decisions once you’ve proven success on a smaller scale. This exercise will allow you to be more confident in making those potentially life-changing financial decisions.

7. Practice visualization and affirmation to make your dreams for optimal health, wealth and happiness come true. These repetitive positive images and messages are stored in your subconscious enabling you to make quick, smart, intuitive choices that are aligned with your vision of what’s important.

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