19 | Are You Saying It's Going to Keep Growing?

In a past conversation, I was helping someone get their feet back under them after a significant life crisis.

We spent a few months building a relationship and slowly organizing all the pieces of their personal financial situation.

Eventually, we got to the point that we needed to talk about investments.

Sadly, our team's canned investment conversation had a lot of financial jargon - equity allocation, cost basis, unrealized gains and losses, emerging market exposure, credit risk, fund manager, etc.

Even more sadly, the conversation included a PDF document that had more numbers than you would hope to see in a lifetime much less in a single hour.

After chatting through the detailed investment plan, we opened it up to questions to be sure we were all on the same page.

Question #1...

"I don't want to ask a stupid question, but are you saying it [the investment account] is going to keep growing?"

Not a joke - that really was the first question.

Chuckle all you want, but I have found there are no stupid questions when it comes to money.

Everyone, I mean EVERYONE, has the same questions whether they are willing to ask them or not and those questions are almost always of the "what-does-this-mean-for-my-life" variety and not the "can-you-clarify-what-you-mean-by-downside-capture" variety.

Shame on me for being part of a presentation that was so complex that someone had to clarify whether we hoped the investments would continue to grow!

Frankly, I think this specific conversation was just one exceptionally good example of what happens a million times a month in a typical annual investment review.

I think some people feel obligated to nod along and "track with the conversation" because it's their responsibility to "keep up with the finances" and make their family's biggest financial decisions. The nitty-gritty investment details must be part of this job description...right?!?

I think others are checked out within a couple of minutes or before the conversation even starts because it doesn't make any sense and certainly has nothing to do with their day-to-day experience with money. The nitty-gritty investment details are way too complex...I guess we'll never be "good with money"?!?

Either way, I don't think the investment review does much to address the uneasy and overwhelmed feeling that comes when most people think about money - that feeling might even be more acute than it was before the meeting started.

For too long, investments have served as a gatekeeper to real financial advice. Investments are important, but they are a fraction of our relationship with money.

When it comes to investments, I think it's OK if all you really want to know is that we're hoping they'll continue to grow.