Watch the Details

April 19, 2010 10:30 am

Braun Mincher

Braun Mincher is the author of “The Secrets of Money: A Guide for Everyone on Practical Financial Literacy”. This blog entry is from Chapter 10 of his book, Your Keys to Financial Success and the 11th of 20 entries on this subject. For more on Braun click here.

People tell me that I “micromanage,” but that is okay with me. Any time that I have let go of control, it has cost me money—sometimes a LOT of money. Other people, no matter how good they are at what they do, generally do not have the same alignment of interest with you. Nobody will do the same job as you—not your attorney, not your CPA, not your best property manager. It is ultimately up to you to control your financial destiny. Accept responsibility!

Yes, this will take time from your day. But don’t believe for a minute that this is counterproductive or unproductive. If I bring in a specialized repairman to fix a piece of my equipment, I watch what he does. Why? Well, for one thing, there’s always the possibility that I can learn to fix it myself the next time around and save a lot of money. For another thing, some repair people charge enormous amounts of money for “replacing parts” that they never really replaced or that never needed replacing. Watch the details! You don’t have to get nasty about it; just watch what’s going on and ask questions.

Question bills. Maybe you couldn’t pull yourself away from a business crisis in order to watch the repairman. But when he hands you his bill, read it and ask intelligent and serious questions. If he says he replaced some part, ask him for the old one. That’s made more than one crooked repairman sweat. Ask what a part does. Ask for a breakdown on exactly what it was that went wrong with the machine in the first place and how you can avoid having it happen again.

Don’t just write out checks so you can quickly go back to reading the newspaper!

Always remember the anecdote about John D. Rockefeller and the solder on his oil barrels. Transfer that story into how you should go about doing everything in your life. I call it a “healthy distrust,” and I don’t apologize for it. Again, the difference between me and someone with a reputation as a crazy man is that I don’t do this sarcastically, nor do I lose my temper. In fact, let the other guy lose his temper. If that happens, it’s often a good indication that you just caught the fox in the henhouse, stealing your eggs.

Ask questions, don’t walk away until you’ve gotten answers that satisfy you, and don’t be afraid to say what it is that you want and how you want it. These are the details. Only settle for a compromise willingly and knowingly. In life, you won’t always get your way, but don’t not get your way because you didn’t even know what was going on until it was too late.

Listen to Braun speak on Financial Literacy.

Braun Mincher with Neil Cavuto on Fox Business News

Braun Mincher talking about Financial Literacy on Fox Business

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