Yes, professionals do have carefully chosen mentors who give them advice, but most of what they hear they do not believe without their own research and experience on the subject.

When talking finances and business with most people, I find that they are incredibly negative and ignorant. They want you to fail at your business because it justifies their existence as employees. As a matter of fact most of the people I know, even my close friends, gave me tons of crap while I was starting my company. They thought I was wasting my time and money.

Sure I failed over and over again, but I eventually figured it out as I knew all along I would. However, my friends did not see that, they only saw the failure and thought I was crazy. But each time I fell I got one step closer to my goal.

Most of the people you know base most of their opinions on:

* What their friends and family tell them

* What they see and hear on T.V.

* What they read in the paper

* Their fears

Fear can be defined as: false education appearing real. Most of the stuff you are hearing out of people's mouths is simply their ignorant view, rather than facts or educated opinions. Most people will also dismiss something just because they don't understand it.

Henry Ford understood this well. When he wanted to mass produce the automobile in the 1900's people told him he was crazy. At the time no one ever imagined that someday everybody could afford and be driving an automobile. Henry Ford did. Good thing he didn't listen to everyone who told him he was crazy.

When Henry Ford wanted to build a V-8 engine his engineers also told him it was impossible to build an eight cylinder engine. Mr. Ford had no idea how to build a V-8 engine either, but he believed it could and would be done.

After over a year and a half of struggle, frustration and repeated attempts to tell Mr. Ford the task was impossible, his engineers finally developed the V-8 engine. Only their high salary kept them working on the project for so long. Again, it is a good thing Mr. Ford did not listen to anyone else besides his own inner voice. He also had a lot more persistence than his engineers.

The idea of Federal Express was started years ago in college by a student designing a business of his own for a thesis assignment. He saw the opportunity of flying packages instead of just shipping them on the ground. This way packages could be sent across the country overnight and all over the world at a much more efficient pace.

He got an F on the assignment and the professor told him it was the dumbest business idea he had ever heard of. The dean corrected the grade and gave him a B- because it was well written. But he also laughed at the student who thought packages could be put on planes and said, "planes are for people, not packages."

Because this student did not listen to them he revolutionized the way the world sends mail, started one of the most succesful mail carrying companies in the world, and he opened lines of worldwide communication.

I am not saying not to take advice, just be careful on who you are taking your advice from, and always listen to yourself and your intuition above all else.