K. WOODWARD PERSONAL FINANCE
  • Start
  • WealthBlog
  • MyBooks
  • MoneySpot
  • Coach
  • Contact

Aspire To Be A Freak To Get Wealthy – Reject Social Norms

28/1/2015

2 Comments

 
Picture
Human beings are hard-wired to conform. Back in the hunter-gatherer days you had to conform because if you didn’t you’d become a social outcast and that basically meant you spent a lot of time alone. No one would make friends with the guy or gal that had been relegated as unfit for the community for fear that they too would be tarnished with the same brush.
 
Even now, the more homogenous a society is, the more you feel the pressure to conform. I grew up within a homogenous culture back in Malawi. Everyone pretty much had the same core beliefs so if you thought differently you just kept it to yourself. You wouldn’t admit you were an atheist or gay for instance, you would just keep it to yourself.

Even then, some of my closest friends were gay but it was a secret that you kept sealed tight. As for not believing in a God, I had such strong views on the matter (I didn’t understand why you wouldn’t believe in God) that it took me about 7 years of living in Britain – a very Cosmopolitan country – to get my head around it being acceptable to be agnostic or simply not to believe. Anyway, I digress.

WHY DO WE CONFORM?

We conform because we want to be liked. That is the key reason.

We want to be part of a community. We want social approval. Our own self-worth and value tends to be so wrapped up in what people think of us.

Picture
WHY COULD IT BE BAD TO CONFORM?

Unfortunately, conforming is what keeps many people in wage slavery or stops them pursuing their dreams – we’re afraid to take massive action or even to take small risks because of what people might say.

Quitting a job to start a business is a massive risk and a couple of negative comments are enough to discourage most people from taking the chance to create something special.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO GET RID OF THE FEAR OF DOING SOMETHING DIFFERENT

Stop caring what everyone thinks.

When someone gives you an opinion, you have no idea why they are offering that particular perspective.
  • They may be basing it on their own fears and failures. 
  • They may be jealous and not wanting you to succeed.
  • They may care about you massively but be super conservative. 
  • They might not be able to visualize what you can because they simply can’t get their head around your goals and plans.

Everyone sees life from a different point of view and everyone has different goals. Compromising your dreams based on other people’s opinions isn’t a good strategy for personal growth. Frequently, the people that will stop us are our very own parents; parents tend to be massively afraid of children breaking from societal norms.

Good examples of people who believed enough in their dreams to stop conforming.

Picture
Sara Blakely:

She is the founder of Spanx. In a Bloomberg Game Changers documentary I watched about her she revealed that she was so afraid of people thinking her idea was stupid that she told no one about it until it was already rolling. Now, she is the youngest ever female entrepreneur to build a billion-dollar company. She succeeded with real products when everyone else was going into tech. You have got to admire that.

Arunachalam Muruganantham:

He is a school dropout from a poor family in southern India and he completely revolutionised menstrual health for rural women in developing countries by inventing a simple machine for making cheap sanitary pads.

It took him years to get to the perfect design. People laughed at him and called him weird as he carried out research on menstrual periods and it all culminated in his wife leaving him because he had become a social pariah. The irony was he started on this entrepreneurial path to help his wife.

I have massive admiration for this guy.

I’m giving you just two examples here but I could give you many more. I could even talk about my own life and the mocking that I went through in high school but I chose to use third-party examples. I hope these people inspire you to take some risk, to stop conforming and to ultimately take the massive actions that will buy your financial freedom.

References:

The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary, BBC
How to fail your way to your first $1 billion, Entrepreneurs Institute

Picture
Want to Build a 6-Figure Beauty Business from the comfort of your sofa? Then my course is designed for YOU! 

"Beauty" includes a WIDE range of products from the not so obvious non-perishable foods and crafts to the more obvious hair, makeup, fashion, health & fitness.

2 Comments
Kerry
30/1/2015 03:45:24 am

Interesting and engaging article Heather. I admire your spirit. As a freelance writer, research entusiast, cake decorator and supporter of entrepreneurs successes, this snippet of information is always motivating. I look forward to your webinar as I determined to be discipline in saving money, and living a all-round successful life.

Reply
Heather K-W
3/4/2015 01:54:01 pm

Good luck, Kerry! I wish you every success.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Heather on Wealth

    I enjoy helping people think through their personal finances and blog about that here. Join my personal finance community at The Money Spot™.

    Categories

    All
    4% Rule
    About
    Accounting
    Action
    Admin
    Airbnb
    Amazon
    Ask Heather Katsonga
    Assets
    Attitude
    Beauty Industry
    Black Culture
    Black Economics
    Branding
    Budgeting
    Business Cash Flow
    Buy To Let
    Careers
    Cars
    Cash Flow
    Change
    Children
    Content Creation
    Credit Karma
    Credit Score
    Critical Illness Cover
    Dave Ramsey
    Debt Freedom
    Decreasing Term Insurance
    Defined Benefit Pension
    Diversification
    Earning More Money
    Ebay
    Education
    Emergency Fund
    Energy
    Entrepreneurship
    Equity Release
    Estate Planning
    Etsy
    Experian
    FAQs
    Fear Of Risk
    Fidelity
    Financial Crisis
    Financial Freedom
    Financial Independence
    Financial Planning
    FIRE Movement
    Freelance
    Graphics Design
    Habits
    Halifax
    Hargreaves Lansdown
    Health
    Implementation
    Income
    Initiative
    Insurance
    Investing
    ISA
    Iweb
    Jobs
    Junior ISA
    Junior SIPP
    Legacy Business
    Liabilities
    Life Insurance
    Life Story
    Lodger
    Luck
    Mindset
    Mompreneur
    Money
    Money Mistakes
    Money Spot Program
    Mortgage Insurance
    Mortgages
    Net Worth
    Nurture
    Office Of National Statistics
    Online Selling
    Opportunity
    Organisation
    Parents
    Passion Business
    Patience
    Pensionbee
    Pensions
    Personal Balance Sheet
    Planning
    Poverty
    Priorities
    Priority
    Productivity
    Property
    Racism
    Refunds
    Relationships
    Rental Insurance
    Renting
    Resources
    Retirement
    Risk Taking
    Rule Of 72
    Sacrifices
    Saving
    Self Discovery
    Self Employed
    Self-Improvement
    Side Hustles
    Single Parent
    SIPP
    Sleep
    Social Norms
    Spending
    Stamp Duty
    Start Up
    Start-up
    Stay At Home Parent
    Stock Market
    Student Debt
    Tax
    Teenagers
    Time
    Unemployment
    Vanguard
    Wage Slavery
    Wealth Protection
    Will Power

    Archives

    April 2025
    December 2024
    September 2023
    July 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    November 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    May 2019
    June 2018
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014


© 2007 - 2025 Heather Katsonga-Woodward, a massive personal finance fanatic.
** All views expressed are my own and not those of any employer, past or present. ** Please get professional advice before re-arranging your personal finances.
Photos from Got Credit, www.hickey-fry.com, focusonmore.com, Francisco Anzola, SortedForYa, Prachi More, osipovva, Got Credit, focusonmore.com, Free For Commercial Use (FFC), Cory M. Grenier, jerseytom55, Got Credit, wuestenigel, trendingtopics, EpicTop10.com, mikecohen1872, mrmatthogg, focusonmore.com, jijake1977, North West Transport Photos, homegets.com, scott.allison
  • Start
  • WealthBlog
  • MyBooks
  • MoneySpot
  • Coach
  • Contact