behaviour
Experience Shapes Beliefs
The rule
Your money views come from the small slice of history you personally lived. So judge others softly, and doubt your own "obvious" truths.
Where it flips
Overused, this becomes "nobody can be wrong, it is all just experience," which excuses truly bad habits like never spreading your money. The fix is to accept that experience explains a belief but does not prove it right. Still test your view against evidence, not just your feelings.
Someone who lived through high prices, a market crash, or a family business collapse carries those scars into every choice. So do you. What feels plainly correct to you is really just the lesson your own time taught, not a rule for everyone. This is why an elder who hoards fixed deposits and a young trader chasing fast gains each think the other is a fool. Seeing this makes you kinder about others' choices, and more humble about your own certainty.
A worked example
Aman started investing during a long bull run, so he thinks shares "always bounce back fast." His uncle, who lived through a decade-long flat market, keeps ₹20 lakh in fixed deposits. Neither is stupid. Each simply learned from the years they were handed. [illustrative]
How to spot it
- ·Calling someone's caution or risk-taking 'irrational'
- ·Treating a lesson from your own decade as a timeless rule
- ·Certainty that grows from what you lived, not what you studied
Morgan Housel · The Psychology of Money