How Often Do You Underestimate the Price of the Assumptions You Make?
Is there anyone in your circle — personally or professionally — whom you’ve dubbed as bad with money, is disorganized, or simply “not a numbers person”? If so, what’s your source? Is it based on behavior you’ve observed over time? Or, is it a presumption because the person doesn’t “look” like they have it together?
I chuckled as I was writing that last sentence because I’ve certainly been guilty of doing the latter.
The neighbor of a friend of mine looks like, as we affectionately say, “we need to give her a dollar.” And yet, she owns several brownstones in Brooklyn. You couldn’t ask for a more fitting example of the phrase: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
This idiom comes to mind as I think about Judith in the Amazon Prime series, “Ride or Die.” She is this amazing concatenation of glamorous and elegant and statuesque. Not exactly what you picture when you think of a trained assassin. And yet…
Like I said previously, I’m loving how this series is tackling perceptions and stereotypes. From my perspective, it’s giving us a wonderful invitation to step out of a fictional environment and get curious about the assumptions you and I make in our lives, our businesses, and with our money. Especially with regard to where those assumptions come from and what they cost.
Particularly since so many of the assumptions we make on an individual level are inherited. They’ve trickled down to us from others — often coded by gender, age, appearance, profession, education, class, etc.
And they often go unexamined — or, at least not deeply. That is: until something causes us to do so.
However, today I’m inviting you to proactively get curious about the assumptions you make, so you can assess what they are costing you.
Let’s start with what it costs the person being underestimated.
My friend’s neighbor — the multiple brownstone owner — is an older Black woman and has almost certainly been talked down to by a banker, quoted a worse deal by a contractor, or had someone assume she needed something explained to her twice. Being underestimated isn’t just an ego bruise. It’s friction. It’s the extra energy required to prove you belong in a room you’re already standing in.
And Judith’s entire life is built on that same premise — her ability to be underestimated is the skill. Nobody double-checks the elegant woman at the party. That’s precisely what makes her so good at what she does.
Which raises an uncomfortable question: how many people around you have quietly figured out that being underestimated works in their favor — and are just letting you believe what you already believe, because correcting you isn’t worth their energy?
Or, perhaps the situation is reversed and it’s not worth your energy to correct someone you feel is underestimating you.
Either way, there’s a cost to the ones doing the assuming.
Let’s say you’re operating with the assumption that someone is “not a numbers person.” You’ve probably also decided, without realizing it, that they’re not the one to loop in on the financial side of a deal — not worth asking to review a contract, not the one you’d bring on as a business partner, not who you’d trust with the budget for a project.
The label doesn’t just shape how you see them. It shapes what you never offer them a chance to do. And, it potentially costs you valuable insight they could've provided.
That’s the real price tag. It’s not abstract. It’s the collaborator you didn’t approach, the client you didn’t refer, the advice you didn’t seek — all because of a story you told yourself about someone else and that you ran with without ever really giving it a stress-test.
And guess what? People are making unfounded assumptions about you, too. You can’t control the assumptions others make about you. They will be what they are.
But here’s the part that stings a little about the assumptions you and I make about others and why I want you to pay close attention — because it stings a little:
The assumptions you make about others are often a mirror of the assumptions you’ve made about yourself. Ouch, I know!
If you’ve written someone off as “bad with money,” it’s worth asking whether some version of that label — “not a numbers person,” “bad with money,” “not built for this” — was handed to you once too. And whether you’ve been living inside it longer than you realized.
Today, I’m much better at not selling myself short than I was earlier in my career — especially as a business owner. But when I think about my friend’s neighbor, I can’t help but wonder how often I sold myself short because I didn’t think I fit in. Thus, excluding myself from certain rooms before even stepping one foot in.
So, back to my earlier question: what are your assumptions costing you? Not just in how you see others — but in what you’ve decided is true, and off-limits, about yourself.
More next week, as we bring this series (inspired by “Ride or Die”) home.
About Jacquette
I love to ask questions and spark aha moments. I love to talk about why success with money is about more than just the numbers, and how the cultural impact on the intersection of money, business, and life matters–A LOT! And, I really hope I help people feel seen, heard, and not judged—especially since money is emotional and personal.
