When you ask someone for their opinions about something (business idea, buying a house, design ideas/review…etc), are you more interested in hearing negative feedbacks? At work, when I am proposing a new design or product idea, I wanted people tell me all the possible failures up front instead of nodding along with every thing I say. You can say that I am a negative person, well, that’s not entirely correct and let me tell you why. I just want to mitigate risks or at least have some sort of contingency plans. If you have a house to show my friends, you will get this:
- Friend #1 – an invester: Analyzed the property by $ per sq ft. Looking for only love at first sight. The appreciation rate matters.
- Friend #2 – a feng shui maniac: If all the numbers of your address add to “zero”, it means bad luck. It’s bad luck to have the bed up against the window. “WEST” is a bad direction, no one wants the sun sets on. Stairway goes to the main entrance is a no no.
- Friend #3 – a remodeller: not just some talking head. This friend knows how much, how long and how difficult the job can be.
- Friend #4 – a kitchenette: kitchen kitchen kitchen…the location relative to the house, how big and bright it has to be.
- Friend #5 – a praiser: wow…how beautiful! Hold that comment until the person got the house and moved in.
- Friend #6 – an idealist: wanted a big house with very little cash.
Imaging having these friends together in the same room and listen to their opinions about something … I just don’t think it’s a good idea, maybe having an one-on-one.
-D-
ducle.wordpress.com 
A long time ago, we ran an investment discussion group with me, sam, jie, tim, christine, and a couple other people. It was interesting to hear everybody’s opinion, but it was a like a cacophony of thought, and distilling everybody’s ideas into actionable ideas was very very hard.
I think at the end of the day, I learned that financial decisions are much more about emotion of the people involved than pure math. Kinda like poker.