Upselling – Part 3 – My Turn

(Continued from previous post)

My turn.  I place my t-shirts on the counter.  Having heard the dialogue before, I now know what is in store for me.  I begin to think about my answers…”how can I be polite? How do I not show my frustration with this process?  I know that she is required to do this…be nice…”

The salesperson asks, “Did you find everything alright?”  I respond, “Yes.”  My response is abrupt.  I dare not look her in the eyes.  I act disinterested, nonchalant even, hoping she’ll see that I don’t want to engage in conversation and thereby, just maybe, I can dissuade her from engaging me in the round of questions I know are sure to follow.

She starts to scan my items and I notice on the scanner that the t-shirts are coming up at $10 each.

Wait a minute…on the tag it says $16.50.  On the register it says  $10.  What…just…happened?  In my head, I begin to wonder if I should say anything?  Is it a mistake?  Is it wrong to not say anything? I can’t not say something, so I blurt out, “I thought those were $16.50?”  She responds as a matter-of-fact, “Oh, these are on sale, they’re $10 each. There should be a sign next to the shirts. Was it not there?”  “I don’t think so…” I reply, but I don’t remember at all if there was a sign next to the shirts.  I was so distracted by my own thoughts and anxieties that it’s possible an elephant could have walked through the store and I wouldn’t have noticed.  Figuring out all of the colors, doing all of the math, figuring out how many books I could have bought with the same money…what sign? I struggle for a minute, reflecting, was there a sign that I didn’t even notice?  I feel a little bit embarrassed, but then, it dawns on me – Hey! The t-shirts are $10 each!

With this information I begin running some numbers in my head.  A moment ago, I was prepared to pay approximately $115, but now, I’m looking at paying $70.  I have a dilemma.  I ask if we can stop the transaction because I’m mentally calculating, trying to figure out if I should get more shirts or just enjoy the “savings.”  I am having a hard time deciding what I should do.  I feel a cramp in my brain.  I’m no good at this stuff!  I feel so torn about what to do that I stare blankly at the green dots on the register that has my running total at $70. “Do you mind if I run back over and take a look at some more shirts?” I ask.  She replies, “Not a problem.” She smiles politely, knowingly, devilishly and I think for a moment as I move away I hear her laugh – the “we gotcha” sort of laugh.

When I first came into the stores, I picked out the shirts I wanted and then I made a direct line to the counter, head down.  I was a man on a mission.  Now, walking back to the shirt rack, I cautiously lift my head to look around and notice the signs that say “Select Items On Sale.”  Upon seeing the signs, I believe I can actually notice the dopamine showering my brain with yummy feelings, my tummy getting butterflies and on overall sense of excitement.  By the time I get back to the shirt rack, my head is spinning and I have reached a state of giddy-ness.  I notice that there was indeed a sign saying that the t-shirts were on sale for $10 each. How on earth is it possible that I missed the sign – it’s right in the middle of the rack? It’s huge!  I had to pass by it at least 6 times as I looked at the shirts and I never saw the damn sign!  But…there it is, and I say to myself, “Alright daddy-o, I can get some more!”

I convince myself, I came to the store knowing that I was going to spend around $100 so I might as well find 3 more shirts, you know? It’s almost like I’m playing with the house’s money so anything goes, right?  I spend more time reviewing my options, feeling the texture of the shirts, pulling them off the rack and holding them up to my body.  Really deliberating, considering my next move.  I decide on some shirts in colors that I wouldn’t ordinarily purchase, because somehow, this all feels like it’s extra or free or, I don’t know… it just doesn’t feel the same at all.

Heading back to the counter, I begin to tell myself what a good shopper I am! Feeling like a hunter with a prize kill, I swell up with pride.  I lift my head with confidence to view the newly conquered landscape and notice that the “Sale” signs are all over.  I make a mental note to myself that I, Shawn the Super Shopper,  might just have to come back and look at some of these amazing deals!

 

Rational Behavior Education and Your Budget

In the world of economics they have the concept of “Homo Econimicus” or “Economic Human.”   This concept indicates that humans are rational beings that act only in their best self-interest.  This is typically used to explain markets and economic theories but in most circles, especially the academic and professional/political circles, it is a quite predominant perception of how humans act in regards to their personal finances and economics.

Well, a lot of education on how people should behave has a very similar approach.  I call it the theory of “Rational Behavior Education.”  My theory on this is that most education is based on the idea that humans are totally rational and if provided with a good rationale as to why a behavior should be changed, the human will naturally see the benefit of such a change and quickly adapt the new behavior.

Let’s take smoking for instance.  We all know smoking is bad for human bodies.  But most education is focused on discussing the fact that it is bad for us, by telling us all of the negative side effects of smoking.  I was a pretty extreme smoker for over ten years and this is what people would tell me over and over, “Your lungs are black, your breath smells, it costs a lot of money, it makes your teeth yellow, it causes cancer, oh, and you could die.“  Now, I know at one point in time, people did need to be convinced that smoking did harm to their body, but that time is long gone.  We know it.  We have heard it for decades.  We know!  But if we were totally rational humans focused solely on our own best interest, we would see quite clearly that smoking is not good for our body, costs a lot of money, makes us smell (which could prevent potential mating possibilities, maybe), and make our teeth yellow, makes our clothes smell and so on.  We would see all of that and we would stop. But do you see the problem?  Yeah, we’re not rational.  Humans can be rational.  We can be unbelievably rational creatures.  We may be, perhaps, the most rational beings on this planet – maybe anywhere in the universe. But we are not ALWAYS rational.  And educational efforts about behaviors aimed solely at our rationality that neglects to touch on how irrationality and emotion plays a significant role in our behaviors will be minimally effective.

In the world of Rational Behavior Education, if we could just teach everyone how to create and manage a budget, a person’ personal financial life would be sunshine and happiness.  But telling people that smoking is bad for them and that they should budget their money is only occasionally, mildly effective.

 

The Perception of Money

A key concept in Meaningful Consumerism and improving your financial health and  is to understand our perceptions of money and how money operates as a component of our financial health.  However, most people who I work with tell me that they don’t have any money, don’t have enough money, can’t save money, don’t know how to budget their money, and/or feel stressed about money.

So before we can really get any deeper into the discussion on financial health, I recommend that we should probably have a little bit better understanding of this term “money.”  So I’d like to ask you…What is Money?

In all my years of teaching, I have never met anyone who wouldn’t like to have more money.  In fact, the vast majority of my students view more money as the ONLY solution to their financial troubles – their golden ticket to being able to stick to a budget, save money for the future, improve their credit, reduce the amount of stress they experience in their daily lives, and to have a good life.  So, what is money?  When I pose this question to one of my classes, the responses I get are typically verbalized with vigor.  Money is power!  Money is status!  Money is opportunity!  Money is evil!  Money is freedom!  Money is worry!  It’s bad, no, it’s good.  It’s paper, it’s electronic.  It’s imaginary.  It’s government conspiracy.  It’s control. It turns out to be a lot of things.

Let’s use our imagination for a moment.  Imagine you had a hammer sitting on a table.  Does the hammer have any use just sitting there on the table, without a human to interact with it?  No.  The hammer can’t get up and start pounding nails into the wall on its own. All it can do is sit there on the table, patiently waiting for a human to pick it up and use it.  On its own, it has no use.  Sitting there on the table, the hammer merely represents the ability to do several things – some good, some not so good. It could put nails in walls, take nails out of walls, knock something loose that was stuck or push something into place.  On the other hand, it could also smash your thumb, knock a hole in a wall, make dents in things, or potentially seriously injure or even kill someone.  The hammer is simply a tool.  You get to determine how to use it and until it is being used it is neither inherently good nor bad.  It just is.

Money is really no different.  If left sitting in the wallet, it will do nothing.  If left sitting in the bank account, it will do nothing.  It might draw some interest, but until it is used, the interest will do nothing too. By itself, money doesn’t do anything, and it doesn’t do anything to us.  It does not move without us “willfully allowing” it to leave our possession, a behavior commonly referred to as spending.  In order for money to leave your possession, you have to willfully allow it to do so – always.

If you have a $10 bill in your pocket, it can represent many possibilities – but it is neither inherently good nor bad, it just is.  If you have $100,000 in the bank, it might mean a lot of different things to you, but until it is being used, it is neither inherently good nor bad, it just is. That $10 or $100,000 can be used to make purchases that will be beneficial, or it can be used to make purchases that are not beneficial. In the same way that you get to determine how to use a hammer or any other tool, you also get to determine how you will use your money.

So, as a reminder, money is simply a tool.  Money might come in many different forms, like paper, coins, or electronic information, but ultimately, it’s still just a tool and we get to decide how to use it.  All of those other things that we think about money, they are just reflections of what money represents to us.  And it is good to know that about ourselves as well.  But we will come back to this point over and over, money is a tool and it is a neutral object that we use.  Money does not use us.

 

A Closer Look at Problems with New Year’s Resolutions

So what’s the problem?

The problem is that resolutions are typically attached to some change that we would like to see in our lives.  And change can be tricky.  It is easy to pick something to change, any change – I’ll pick “weight loss” Johnny!  But losing weight, while in all appearances might seem like it should be a straightforward goal, anyone who has struggled with this issue will tell you that it is anything but.

Resolving to make a change in our lives is much more challenging than any of us ever think it is going to be.  A lot of people seem to think that change is all about willpower.  And the word resolution sort of reinforces that.  I’m resolved to do this or that.  I’m just going to do it this time.  So, they’ll just set their mind to it and make that change.  It sounds so easy, doesn’t it? Well, I’ll just stop eating this, or quit drinking that, or stop smoking this or start running around that.  I’ll just…I’ll just…I’ll just…

And so you start and you are JUST doing it.  You are a living Nike Ad.  Look at me, I’m just doing it. And then a week or so later, for some reason, you’re just not doing it as often, because something has come up. Then a week or so later you are just doing it hardly at all, because more stuff came up – and eventually, you are just not doing it at all.

In addition, somewhere along the way, as your “resolve” was retreating, some whispering began, either in your own head or in the minds or mouths of others.  “Well I just don’t have any willpower.” Or Something else like, “I suck” or “this sucks.” Or “This was a stupid idea” or “who am I kidding” or any other number of things we tell ourselves when our efforts don’t exactly pan out the way we intended.

So, what is the problem?  Really, there are two problems.

First, we are not typically educated on how or why we behave the way we do and/or how to change our behaviors.  We are educated on a lot of other really neat stuff, like the Pythagorean Theorem or Lincoln’s Birthday but not on the trivial stuff like managing our behaviors.  Which leads us to the second problem.

In the world of economics they have the concept of “Homo Econimicus” or “Economic Human.”   This concept states that humans are rational beings that act only in their best self-interest.  This is typically used to explain markets and economic theories but in most circles, especially the academic and professional/political circles, it is a quite predominant perception of how humans act in regards to their personal finances and economics.

Well, a lot of education on how people should behave has a very similar approach.  I call it the theory of “Rational Behavior Education.”  My theory on this is that most education is based on the idea that humans are totally rational and if provided with a good rationale as to why a behavior should be changed, the human will naturally see the benefit of such a change and quickly adapt the new behavior.

Let’s take for instance smoking.  We all know smoking is bad for human bodies.  But most education is focused on discussing the fact that it is bad for us, by telling us all of the negative side effects of smoking.  I was a pretty extreme smoker for over ten years and this is what people would tell me over and over, your lungs are black, your breath smells, it costs a lot of money, it makes your teeth yellow, it causes cancer, oh, and you could die.   Now, I know at one point in time, people did need to be convinced that smoking did harm to their body, but that time is long gone.  We know it.  We have heard it for decades.  We know!  But if we were totally rational humans focused solely on our own best interest, we would see quite clearly that smoking is not good for our body, costs a lot of money, makes us smell (which could prevent potential mating possibilities, maybe), and make our teeth yellow, makes our clothes smell and so on.  We would see all of that and we would stop. But do you see the problem?  Yeah, we’re not rational.  Humans can be rational.  We can be unbelievably rational creatures.  We may be, perhaps, the most rational beings on this planet – maybe anywhere in the universe. But we are not ALWAYS rational.  And educational efforts about behaviors aimed solely at our rationality that neglects to touch on how irrationality and emotion plays a significant role in our behaviors will be minimally effective.

So the problems are:

1. We are typically not educated on how change works, and;
2. The education about behavior change that is typically provided is from the point of view that humans act rationally in their own best interest.

I think that leads us to feel very frustrated when we can’t figure out why we are struggling so hard to make changes in our lives, I mean, it should be so clear and simple.  But here’s the deal – it’s not.  It’s messy and muddy and can be complicated. But why? I hear you say.  Why, why, why is it so hard to change?  Why does it have to be so messy and mucky. Well, because we’re human.  And learning in the head does not always mean that we’ve learned it in our heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is Financial Health?

In terms of looking at our personal consumption a little differently, we will be offering some slightly new definitions to some old terms, or even creating new definitions all together, so that we can approach these terms a bit more holistically.  The first term I’d like to go over is “Financial Health” because I want to move us away from the concept that our personal finances and consumer behaviors operate in isolation.

Investopedia defines Financial Health as: “A term used to describe the state of one’s personal financial situation. There are many dimensions to financial health, including the amount of savings you have, how much you are setting away for retirement and how much of your income you are spending on fixed or non-discretionary expenses.” You will note that “health” in this definition refers to one’s financial situation, and not to the soundness of one’s body or mind. And when I bring up financial health, in almost all contexts, this is what people think about.  I think it is a bit too siloed.

The World Health Organization, on the other hand, defines “Health” as: “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”   While in this definition, a person’s financial situation is, at best, implied, the World Health Organization does further elaborate on this concept in their explanation of Health Promotion.  Health Promotion is described as:  “The process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health. To reach a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being (their definition of health), an individual or group must be able to identify and to realize aspirations, to satisfy needs, and to change or cope with the environment. Health is, therefore, seen as a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities. Therefore, health promotion is not just the responsibility of the health sector, but goes beyond healthy life-styles to well-being.”

Well now, that’s very interesting.  “Health is seen as a resource for everyday life…Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities.”  Let’s break that down a bit, Health is “a concept emphasizing resources and capacities?”  Hmmm. That sounds a little bit like economics to me.  I like this definition as it would support what everyone I’ve ever discussed this concept with already knows – that is, health is an invaluable, intangible asset closely aligned with the ability of a person to maintain or grow economically.

So, that being said, I would like to offer the following definition.

Financial Health is:

The dynamic relationship of one’s financial and economic resources as they are applied to or impact the state of physical, mental and social well-being.

Your personal finances and all of your financial decisions impact so many other areas of your life and we want to begin to draw attention to these intersections.