231 | Missing Chapters

I’m writing a book that’s been in my head for a decade, almost two.

It started as thoughts and observations that I couldn’t turn into words.

Then it was actually helping people with their finances.

Then it was helping people and getting thoughts into words.

And the combination of helping and writing is when the book started to take shape - an endless cycle of practicing what I preach and preaching what I practice.

And all of it seems to be helping people connect the dots.

But inevitably, there are a couple chapters that leave people scratching their head because the practice isn’t quite the preaching.

Because right now, in my sliver of the industry, some sections of the book can’t be published.

The missing chapters would be too hard for the current publisher to sell.

Many days those missing chapters feel like they’re a silly thing to hold so tightly.

“Just get over them, they are too petty to make a stink.”

“Someone would have already written them if they were actually that important.”

But then there are the days that I see someone longing for them or that I have to recite their placeholder chapters as if they are the real thing.

And those are the days they seem like the key that unlocks the future that I so desperately dream of building.

I want to believe, and on the best days do believe, that the missing chapters will make it a masterpiece.

213 | Do We Have to Tell?

After years of long hours and burn out, a close friend shared that their spouse was pursuing a change at work.

The change would mean fewer on-call nights, more time with family, more baseline energy, relief from a draining routine, more unity in their relationship, and, not surprisingly, a little less income.

While celebrating the promise of relief and extra capacity, the friend said, "But we don't want to tell our financial advisor because it's not in line with the plan that he laid out and we won't be able to save as much as before."

I'd like to extend the benefit of the doubt to the advisor and imagine that our friend was exaggerating, and yet, it's a stark reminder of the fundamental flaws in the financial advice industry.

Charging a fee on managed assets means that good news for one party might not be good news for the other.

And publishing financial "plans" makes some forms of good news seem more like a misstep than progress.

Keeping good news quiet is no way to refine our relationship with money.

That's why we do things a little differently here.

196 | Would You Manage Investments?

I don't manage investments.

Of course, I give advice on investments - advice that rivals (and beats!) folks that manage investments.

But I don't manage investments.

If I manage investments, the investment strategy becomes a golden calf.

If I manage investments, the cost of advice skyrockets as you save.

If I manage investments, you pay way more or way less than your neighbor will pay.

If I manage investments, we're going to spend a lot of time doing things that can be done for us for free.

If I manage investments, inevitably I'll only help the wealthiest get wealthier.

If I manage investments, I limit who I can help before they've even raised their hand.

If I manage investments, I ignore what actually changes people's relationship with money.

Now that I’ve laid it all out, would you manage investments?

184 | Spokes and Hubs

Investment management. Insurance products. Tax planning.

These are the spokes that our industry has turned into hubs of our relationship with money.

By marketing them. By charging for them. By discussing them ad nauseam. By making them more complicated than they ever needed to be.

When you try to make a spoke the hub, the bike won’t go.

That’s why we still struggle to answer the timeless, nagging questions…

What counts as progress?

Am I being responsible?

Am I doing this the right way?

How will I know when I have enough?

What does financial independence feel like?

We can answer these questions when we continually revisit where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re trying to go.

We need the right hub, so the spokes can be spokes.

169 | Discussing “Enough”

If we're not legitimately interested in discussing enough, then we're not going to be a good fit.

That's not meant to be judgy or snarky.

Only an honest admission that I don't like doing less than my best work and my best work is revealed when we're trying to identify enough together.

That doesn't mean we'll know a number on Day 1 (because there is a never a precise number!).

But it does mean that every meeting, conversation, and interaction will be designed to further refine our understanding of enough.

I guarantee the way we do things won't feel like what the financial services industry has trained you to expect, because enough doesn't tend to reveal itself in investment updates, insurance analysis, estate planning, or even tax planning.

If you're up for starting the journey, then let’s do it together.

It you're hesitant, then remember to come back later when you're still looking for enough.

152 | Freebies and Commodities

Carl Richards summarized the tension of a business model based on assets under management too concisely, not to share...

"It gives away everything that is valuable for free, and charges for the one thing that is a commodity."

That’s no way to run a business.

So, we don’t.

117 | Are We Going to Beat "The Market"?

Honestly, I don’t know.

And honestly, I don’t care - even though sometimes I’m tempted to care.

But the moment you tack a fee onto assets under management is the moment you’re putting yourself on the hook to make it happen - or at least begging someone to ask the question.

Of course I want the best investment returns just like every other competitive, Type A, perfectionist-leaning achiever out there, but money is about so much more than investment returns.

I’m interested in helping people engage with how much is enough, use their money for things that actually contribute to building their life, and avoid getting stuck on the perpetual pendulum of hoarding and consuming.

Beating the market is an abstract and confusing metric that doesn’t get me closer to any of those goals.

But when you’re paying for returns, it’s hard to acknowledge that reality.

Our fee is a simple, flat fee that is loosely based on complexity and ability to pay, but is never based on a percentage of assets under management.

113 | On the Hook for The Wrong Thing

Once we’ve cared for some basic principles of investing, the amount of control that we have over investment outcomes is alarmingly less than any of us probably care to imagine.

Managing investments creates an implied assumption that we are impacting results by pulling special levers that don’t actually exist.

If we’re looking to attribute wins and losses to the correct people, then good and bad investment performance has no business being assigned to an advisor, when the overwhelming majority of investment outcomes are driven by...

Clear expectations.

Having sufficient cash on hand.

Behavior.

And patience.

We review investment options, we review investment performance, we give investment advice, and even help adjust your investment allocation if needed, but we do not manage investments.

112 | Your Plate Isn't Getting Any Bigger

Personal preferences, social responsibility, environmental concerns, and convictions of faith are some of the endless list of things influencing investment decisions in 2023.

Managing investments creates the unfortunate dynamic of having to sell something and disclose all the risks.

The trouble is that there are too many things to sell and too many risks to disclose.

Seth Godin would say, "The buffet line is far too long and the plates aren’t getting any bigger."

Our world is quickly changing to one where people have already been sold on their approach and just need help identifying the biggest risks.

I can’t keep tabs on all the options on the buffet line, but I can help you decide what to put on your plate.

There is no need to limit the buffet line or try to restrict everyone to Italian food when all you really need to do is help people fill their own plate with what they want while giving them a couple nutrition tips along the way.

We review investment options, we review investment performance, we give investment advice, and even help adjust your investment allocation if needed, but we do not manage investments.

111 | Titleist or Taylormade?

The specific investments that you use are like the brand of golf ball that someone might play.

Golf purists might appreciate the nuance of different brands or have eclectic personal preferences.

Non-golfers couldn’t be less interested or equipped to even have an opinion or distinguish between two different brands.

Either way, time spent discussing golf ball brands is either wasted or better done when shooting the breeze over a beer or coffee.

To actually be good at golf you have to be able to hit fairways, hit greens, and make putts - the brand of ball enhances these skills about as much as a couple of phone books would improve a toddler’s ability to drive a car.

Over time, the majority of investments start to feel a lot more similar than different, but for some reason once we’re managing them we can’t help but start acting like they will turn us into the financial equivalent of Tiger Woods circa 2000-2001.

We review investment options, we review investment performance, we give investment advice, and even help adjust your investment allocation if needed, but we do not manage investments.

110 | All You Need is a Fob

There are more than 20,000 mutual funds and ETFs in existence right now.

Anyone who thinks that someone can evaluate them all to discover the best ones is kidding themselves - we crossed that threshold a couple of decades ago.

As a result of this boom in options, we are now more overwhelmed with decision fatigue and confusion about what matters than ever before.

But there is a silver lining.

The redundancy and accessibility of options is greater than ever before. If we can’t get a specific investment, then we can easily find it’s twin brother, sister, cousin, or best friend with the click of a button.

Managing investments used to provide critical access, but now it’s an overpaid front desk clerk who’s watching everyone use a fob to get in the door.

We review investment options, we review investment performance, we give investment advice, and even help adjust your investment allocation if needed, but we do not manage investments.

109 | Wasting Time That We Don't Have

We can’t help it, but managing investments means that we would have to dedicate a lot of resources to investments: talking about them, reporting on them, disclosing them, administering them, and having our eyes glaze over them.

That’s not something that we want to do.

We can’t spend precious time, talking "shop" about investments when we could be extending the horizon on our income streams, refining our spending in a way that drives contentment, or setting money aside in a more intentional and accessible manner.

The behind the scenes work of administration and remaining compliant to industry regulations is substantial and better outsourced to financial technology companies that have figured out how to streamline this work and charge fees that have been trending towards $0 for decades.

The management of assets is like cutting your grass with scissors when there is a lawn company offering to mow it for free - it takes too much time, requires too many steps, risks missing a couple of blades, and gets to the same outcome.

We review investment options, we review investment performance, we give investment advice, and even help adjust your investment allocation if needed, but we do not manage investments.

Additional Resources

A Primordial Take on Asset Allocation by Christine Benz

101 | A Crumbling Pillar: Managing Investments

Investments are a distraction.

For decades, we've tied financial advice to investments in a way that misleads, disorients, and confuses us to what actually matters when it comes to our financial well being.

There are plenty of things to discuss when it comes to investments, but the impact and importance of those things diminishes quickly once you check a few basic boxes.

How we generate sustainable income, find contentment in our spending, and ensure accessibility in our saving drives 95% of the feelings and outcomes that we experience with money, but we've tricked ourselves into believing that income, spending, and saving are stepchildren to a sexy investing strategy.

Just because investments are the easiest thing to market, deliver, and brag about doesn't mean we have to anchor our financial well being to them.

A pillar of the industry is crumbling and we're building a new one - we review investment options, we review investment performance, we give investment advice, and even help adjust your investment allocation if needed, but we do not manage investments.