Then all you have are your own ideas.

When I was younger my aunt used to drive me crazy. I thought she was obsessed with money and, one day, I told her just that. We got in an argument about it, but, to my shock, later on she actually admitted that I was right. But then she reminded me, “And you should be happy I’m obsessed with money! Because if I’m not obsessed with money I’ll just be obsessed with something else. Like you, for example. Or your Dad. Or my kids.”

She was right too. Realistically I’d rather have her be obsessed with money than be obsessed with me (or anyone else in my family).

Anyway, the reason I tell this story is that one day, after I got carpal tunnel syndrome from my grunt job, I called her up. I asked her if she would give me some sort of a job in her financial advisory business.

Sometimes, as it turns out, it is helpful to know someone who is obsessed with money.

Working with her set in motion a train of events that led to my financial independence. Now I am not an ambitious person by nature. Power is not one of my deep values. But freedom is. And through her, her business and the lessons she taught me, I got my freedom.

See, there’s no real benefit to being “right”. Maybe I was “right” about her obsession, but who cares? Being right didn’t help me out. Listening to someone who drove me nuts did help me out, because she knew what she was talking about, no matter how much I didn’t like to hear it.

It’s a terrible curse to be right, because then all you have are your own ideas. And no matter how good those ideas are, they are still small compared to the combined wisdom of everyone you could be listening to.