Personal finance is often best compared to personal fitness. Writers often bring up the comparisons between the two, as they relate to goal setting, determination, focus, etc. Screw that. Instead of discussing goals and delayed gratification, I’m going to compare personal finance concepts to the always interesting world of dating. Let’s take a look at what business/personal finance has taught me about dating (or is it the other way around?):
1. Target your audience.
When starting your own small business or freelancing services you have to realize that you can’t be everything to everyone. You’re also much better off segmenting a small piece of a larger audience, than trying to marker to the whole audience itself. This theory also applies to the dating world. You can’t try to get go after every girl you know or every girl in the bar. You can try. It won’t do you much good though. If you want to be successful in business or in dating, you need to always remember to segment your market and niche it down.
Going into a night club with 100 random females is no better than going into a place where you know a few people. This is the same for business. Cold-calling 100 random people is no better than contacting 5 current customers in regards to upgrading their services.
2. The chase is always better than the catch.
Looking for that dream job is a scary, yet fun process. Once you do land that dream job, it simply becomes a routine. You wake up every day at the same time, take the same bus, eat the same lunch, talk to the same people, etc. You know you’re working the job you always wanted as a kid, yet it feels like something is missing.
Us young dudes are always out chasing tail. We get all excited about the thought of going away for a week or going out on a Friday night to a new bar. Then as soon as we get a girlfriend, everything changes. Going out isn’t as enticing any more. We’re not as excited for the opening of a new club. That dream job and that dream girl are never as amazing as they seem to be at first.
It doesn’t matter if you’re after that dream job or dream girl, remember that the chase is always better than the catch.
3. Entrepreneurship is as exciting as single life.
As an entrepreneur you never know what’s going to happen next. You can lose a few minor clients, or you could gain a major sale. Anything can happen at any time. This is just like single life. You can go for coffee on a Monday morning and come home with the number of the cutest you’ve ever seen in your life. You can go to a networking event and leave with the number of a major potential client.
Entrepreneurs never know what’s going to happen next. They thrive off the uncertain (to an extent, they’re not all lunatics!), while many employed in a 9-5 job are a bit wary of losing that comfort zone.
4. How you use your tools is more important than the tools you have.
No, not that tool, you tool. You can have the highest grades in your class, but if you can’t go through an interview with 65 “umms” and 30 “idunnos” then odds are against you that you’ll get the highest paying job out of your peers. It’s all about how you use your strengths. Use your high grades to your advantage. Use your sense of humor to your advantage. More important of all, never let your weaknesses interfere with your goals.
You can be the best looking person but if you have a horrible personality, you won’t land that dream job or dream girl. Use your God given tools/skills to your advantage when it comes to dating and personal finance.
That’s my comparison between personal finance and the dating world. Can you draw any more similarities that you would like to share with us?
I don’t agree with “the chase is always better than the catch”.
I thought that was the case while I was in school, hitting up bars, and chasing tail as much as I could. The catches were never what I imagined as perfect. But I had 2 problems.
I was chasing the wrong type of thing. You can chase the wrong thing for your whole life and yes, the chase will always be better. Chase the right thing though and the chase will pale in comparison to what life becomes after. The focus shifts after the catch. If you’re still trying to chase after the catch, the catch will never be worth it.
My second problem was that I was always thinking about the catch, the end result. All I wanted to do was to get to the end, I never realized how good ever minute of it was. One day it hit me.You will see things differently once you put 100% into everything you do. What’s the point if you don’t go all in? Where is your wandering eye going if you are only 75% in?
Hi,
Thanks for that writeup.
I agree in the sense that sometimes people can be reluctant to ‘pursue’ a relationship like we would in the pursuit of a business goal, or a material thing in the fear of being rejected.
But in any area of our life if we want results we must be clear on what we want and take the steps to get it. And a woman who meets a man and knows what he wants, and is actually doing the right things to attract or find a female will be more attractive then someone who does neither.
In regards to losing the ‘passion’ within a relationship once you find someone, that can be due to a lack of opening up in the relationship, and no matter how long the relationship goes for, passion is always something that can be ignited once again.
I have found some tools to discover your ideal partner, or find the path that leads to them, and I think it could even relate to business as well.
The process is simple in ‘following your heart’ because in business too it’s important to do what you’re passionate about.
But how do we ‘follow our heart’ was a question that popped up in my mind, so there are some different ways you can go about doing this, like ‘heart breathing’ in the mornings and evenings, a simple meditation that synchronizes your brain and heart waves. Very cool. And very useful for finding ‘the one’.
Thanks for the input of this blog.
Cute post but I don’t understand the analogy in “the chase is always better than the catch.” If you were previously going out to bars and chasing girls, and then you get a girlfriend and lose interest in all that, doesn’t that mean the catch was better than the chase?