Decision making in Money Life matters – Left side, Right side or Both sides?

It is said that a fully grown adult makes about 35,000 decisions a day.

The trillions of neurons in our body which are part of the nervous system continuously talk to each other and other organs, understand the issues, analyse the problems, collaborate among themselves and finally decide to give an output – “a decision is made”. During our conscious decision making process, the inputs to these neurons probably come from our ‘thoughts’ which are a collective representation of our experiences, ideas, beliefs, opinions etc. both about ourselves and the world around us.

Our Brain (part of the nervous system), helps us in actioning these thoughts into reality. As a smart organ system, the brain has clearly demarcated its functions in terms of evaluating a problem both by ‘quantifying and qualifying’ our thoughts.

But as a larger being called a ‘Homosapien’, of which the brain is one part; we somehow miss to clearly evaluate our Money Life problems in the same demarcated way as the brain does. Why? That’s a billion dollar question to answer.

The Left side of the brain functions in the ‘quantification aspect of logic, reasoning, detail orientation, planning, rationality, order and sequencing, language, reading etc.’ – the Analytics

The Right side of the brain functions in the ‘qualification aspect of creativity, feelings & emotions, imagination, non-verbal communication, holistic perception etc.’ – the Intuitive

So, which side of the brain helps us manage better our Money Life?

There is no straight answer to this question too.

History is filled with great examples on how people with the best functioning of the left side of the brain failed miserably in handling their money life decisions etc.

History is also filled with great examples on how people with the best functioning of the right side of the brain failed miserably in handling their own emotions and money-life relationships by missing the holistic perspective.

To end up with a result oriented money life, we need to positively engage both sides of our brain in an effective way, like in allocating weightages in the Asset Allocation process. Sometimes, we use the right side more effectively and sometimes the left side more.

Some examples from managing personal money matters that I can quote of are –

• In Saving, Spending & Investing decisions – we need to use more of our left side of the brain and less of right side. But, it so happens the other-way around for many ☹
• In Insurance – both the right and the left sides are triggered equally strong or maybe, the left side influences more in majority instances. That’s the reason Insurance is bought for the family in many instances.
• While managing Risk – the left side takes a precedence but; it immensely helps to have a creative, imaginative, intuitive right side as well. Infact, its essential.
• In personal Succession Planning – the left and the right side are constantly engaged in a boxing match. A really difficult choice, unless there is absolute clarity of thought in the testator’s mind.

Bottomline, “Managing Money Life is both an Art and a Science using both sides of our brain in an equally impactful way”.