One of the challenges with financial planning is that, while useful, it has an inescapably boring vibe. Sure, the big financial firms have tried to encapsulate it in a veneer of golf courses, sailboats, and marine mammals, but beneath the surface are spreadsheets, provisions, illustrations, and standard plans that lack some… je ne sais quoi.
It’s a challenge that even us financial planners face. In a recent discussion with my peer And a friend about his own planning, one of the best advisors I know laughed it off with a clear financial goal in the margins—a pretty cool idea to have a food truck in a beach town featuring his favorite treats. When I asked him to tell me more about it, he replied, “Well, I’m not no Serious about it. “
Non-hazardous target
As we were digging a little deeper, I came to believe that this is exactly the kind of target who, however petty and unserious he may seem, can infuse his entire financial plan with a thread of vibrant color. While all of his goals—most of which were serving his family, community, and staff—were premeditated and purposeful, it was the food cart that put a smile on his face. Someone who allows the fullness of his personality to shine through. It was he who made his financial plan truly unique and stand out from other successful plans.
So, what is this “no.” no A Serious Goal That Will Make Your Financial Planning More… You? What goal — big or small — puts a smile on your face, and which almost makes you chuckle when you say it out loud?
For one of my clients, he was renting a Slingshot tricycle for a week to scratch that itch. On the other hand, it was taking a vacation that would finally allow her to write this book. On the other hand, he was retiring from a successful and stressful career to fulfill the dream of teaching at the college level. On the one hand, she was downsizing the main residence and buying a beach house, while she was selling the beach house to spend more time with the grandkids.
Hedge fund manager and author Bill Perkins is asked regularly by friends of the means, “Is this a good investment?” His response is almost certainly surprising: “Forget the money…and let’s just talk about what you’re going to get from it.”
Perkins She suggests that “life is the sum of our experiences” and insists that the sole purpose of money is to finance those experiences. Yes, we may use the money in He lives Today, we may grow Our money to fund our tomorrow, we may choose Give Our money to others, and we may allocate part of our capital to Protect All those other goals – but in the end, it’s all in the service of funding experiences.
Perkins implores us to consider not only our return on equity, but our return as well expertise—because when money goes, it goes, but memories from experiences pay off compounded forever. He says there’s nothing special about earning that extra 3%, especially if you’re already on the right track financially, but “an investment in experiences, on the other hand, can really change your life.” And I will add the lives of those you love.
Therefore, I invite you to consider how your financial planning might change if you look at it from the human perspective of living, growing, giving and protecting in order to maximize your life experiences. Or start simpler:
What is one goal you could consider and/or discuss with your financial advisor that might fall under the “No.” no “Seriously” to make your financial plan more interesting?