Have you ever found yourself trapped in the Google quicksand?
Google is great when you are searching for factual information.
Need to quickly find Pi to the 27th decimal place? Easy.
Looking for a 24 hour plumber in your local area? Done. Which bank is offering the best interest rate on term deposits? Who has the cheapest LG 50” Smart TV? Not a problem.
Try looking for something that requires an opinion though.
I noticed this recently while looking for tips and race strategies to prepare for the upcoming Boston Marathon.
Having never run this iconic event before, I was looking for ideas to ensure I was properly prepared both mentally and physically. So I went to Google and searched for “Boston Marathon Race Strategy”.
Within half a second I had 624,000 results to choose from.
In addition to that there were alternate searches I could try including:
- best strategy for Boston marathon
- Boston marathon pace strategy
- Boston marathon race plan
Looking at this I realised I had made a basic error in not narrowing my search to the ’best strategy for Boston Marathon‘– of course I only wanted the best advice. So I duly clicked on this link.
The results narrowed to 621,000!
I actually felt sorry for the 3,000 who dropped out. I wonder what they did wrong to deserve that?
Then I started reading from the top, and I clicked through every link on the first couple of pages and read everything I could.
The result?
I was more uncertain than when I started.
While there were similarities in many of them, they were all subtly different. In a race like the marathon these subtle differences in strategy can make a big difference to your result if they are not right for you.
The problem then is how do you work out whose advice to trust, and which plan and strategy is the one that will make your race a success?
My next thought was to look for information on financial advice. I had learnt my lesson from before, so searched for ’best financial advice’ first off. I expected a few more results than for my Boston Marathon query, but wasn’t expecting the tally to be 134,000,000!
Don’t even bother looking at “Best Cancer Treatment” – there are 487,000,000 results.
I am sure there is gold somewhere in those results, but where would you start looking for it? How would you separate the gold from the others? And finally how would you evaluate what was most applicable to your circumstances and objectives?
Ultimately I will rely on the experience of the person coaching me to my marathon goal. We’ve been working together for a number of years now, and he knows probably better than me what I am capable of and how best to achieve those results.
Similarly the families that I work with rely on me to work with them to develop their financial resources, allowing them to do the things that are important to them. They want me to show them what is possible so they can have confidence, and make it easy for them.
If you would like a lifeline to help pull you from the Google quicksand, why not take advantage of our Second Opinion service by contacting me on 02 9959 0550 or simply Click Here.
Or if you prefer, we now offer a quick, online 9 Point Financial Health Check. It should only take you five minutes, and you will receive a personalised report including suggested areas for consideration if necessary. To take this first step simply Click Here.
