Morgan Housel

It's the fastest way to have less money.

Spending money to show people how much money you have is the fastest way to have less money.

And so this is why I think one of the most valuable financial assets is not needing to impress strangers.

It's the most valuable financial asset that you can have on your balance sheet is to say, I want to use money as a tool to give myself and my family a better life.

I do not want to use it as a yardstick of social status.

By and large, because we massively overestimate almost always how much other people are paying attention to us.

I've seen some fascinating studies.

I thought they were so well-designed of a study where some researchers took a woman and they put her in an objectively hideous, ugly sweater, like a comically ugly sweater and sent her into a party.

And she mingled about like with a sense of humiliation.

And she came back out and they said, how many people in the party noticed your sweater?

And she's like, everybody, like everybody's staring at me and laughing.

And they go into the party and they start asking people, did you notice a woman in the ugly sweater?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Nobody's thinking about you as much as you are.

And I think so the idea, it's so easy to tell yourself, if I had this house, car, clothes, whatever it might be.

That other people will notice and elevate my status and pay attention to me and look at me and say, wow, look at Chris.

He's such a cool guy.

And the reality is most people aren't thinking about you because they're too busy thinking about themselves.

Wasn't even there, right.

I think a lot of times, it's really interesting if you meet someone the first time and the conversation goes great.