Man in the Car Paradox

When you see someone driving a nice car, you rarely think, “Wow, the guy driving that car is cool.” Instead, you think, “Wow, if I had that car people would think I’m cool.” Subconscious or not, this is how people think. There is a paradox here: people tend to want wealth to signal to others that they should be liked and admired. But in reality, those other people often bypass admiring you, not because they don’t think wealth is admirable, but because they use your wealth as a benchmark for their own desire to be liked and admired.

I drove a Porsche, once...

If respect and admiration are your goal, be careful how you seek it. Humility, kindness, and empathy will bring you more respect than horsepower ever will.

Wealth is What You Don’t See

Someone driving a $100,000 car might be wealthy. But the only data point you have about their wealth is that they have $100,000 less than they did before they bought the car (or $100,000 more in debt). That’s all you know about them.

We tend to judge wealth by what we see, because that’s the information we have in front of us. We can’t see people’s bank accounts or brokerage statements. So, we rely on outward appearances to gauge financial success. Cars. Homes. Instagram photos.

The quotes above are from Morgan Housel's The Psychology of Money book. When you read the title of the book, you might guess that it is only about money and maybe business, but it is about life. With the real time stories shared by Morgan Housel, this book makes stories meaningful and let you know more about personal finance, investment, wealth creation and living a better life. If you like to read more quotes from "The Psychology of Money", you can read:

https://myhighlightz.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-psychology-of-money-morgan-housel.html