217 | Matter-of-fact-ness

Our finances beg us to pen an epic fiction about them.

"More income is the only way forward."

"If we aren't saving, we're falling behind."

"We can't afford to be generous."

"We have to keep cutting back until there's nothing left to cut."

"Our investments might go to $0."

Inevitably, these fictions move us from matter-of-fact understandings of our money to emotionally-charged misunderstandings.

Sadly, the financial services industry tends to ghost write more fiction - projecting unknown futures or marketing silver bullets.

Or confuse us with non-fiction - jargony post-mortems on market moves or urgent updates on tax laws and account types.

One adds chapters to our fiction and the other leaves us with nothing but the fiction in our head.

Somehow we have to add a dash of matter-of-fact-ness to disarm fiction's ability to exaggerate, invent, and pretend.

Some matter-of-fact-ness looks like...

Aggregating our accounts in one place.

Identifying when income exceeds spending, and when it doesn't.

Tracking where our dollars go.

Noticing patterns over the course of a year or two.

With a little bit of fact, our negotiations change, our spending habits change, our investment decisions change, and our saving priorities change.

And the fiction captures our imagination less and less.

203 | Frustrated Toddlers

Brace yourself…

“64% of people with a financial advisor feel unsatisfied in terms of ‘having someone to talk to about money’”.

People with a financial advisor feel unsatisfied.

I appreciate that we have a stat to back it up, but I felt it in my gut the moment I became an adult and realized money wasn't just math.

We all feel it.

Nagging questions of "how do I spend well?" or "am I being responsible?" or "how do I know if I'm on track?” that go unanswered, while we rehash the benefits of a Roth IRA or speculate on the chances of a recession in the next 12 months.

Of course, we're unsatisfied.

Like a frustrated toddler searching for the right words, but only getting another snack so the peace is kept.

What else do we need for permission to do things differently?

197 | No Antidotes

There are no trade secrets.

Or silver bullets.

Or wizards behind the curtain.

The trouble is that we keep hoping a special investment or slick tool or fancy calculation will set us free.

But these things aren’t the antidote for all our uneasy feelings about money.

They're just saturating the market and our minds and leaving us without a clue of how to apply them to our lives.

It's not the best product, tool, or calculation, that we need.

We need help putting a stake in the ground, taking a couple steps, reflecting on what happened, and then repeating that cycle...

Forever.

182 | Creating Space

Everything you need is at your fingertips…

Good questions to reflect on.

Endless lists of pros and cons compiled by strangers.

And all the potential tactics your heart could desire.

But access to these things isn’t valuable.

The value is in creating space to actually reflect on the questions, in order to personalize the pros and cons, which inevitably clarifies if any tactics are needed.

Too often, we chase tactics based on someone else’s pros and cons without creating the space to reflect on the question.

178 | Why So Serious?

The secrets to being good with money aren’t much more than…

Income that gets more fun to generate with each passing year.

Spending as much as you can on things you love and as little as possible on things you don’t.

Saving often enough to prove to yourself that you know how to live within your means.

Investing that cares for some basic principles and then is really patient.

Beyond that it’s mostly emotions, personal circumstances, and dealing with an uncertain future.

None of that requires a conference room. A market update. An investment product pitch. A special type of account. An insurance premium. Or a conversation that makes you feel lost.

We have made this whole money thing more serious than it needs to be.

154 | Why I Am Here 1.0

Everyone has what it takes to be good with money.

And being good with money is so much more than accumulation.

But inevitably, being good with money is not as simple as it should be.

People who we love make it complicated.

People we are around make it complicated.

People who write the rules make it complicated.

Even people who give advice can make it complicated.

Instead of knowing we have what it takes, we’re left trying to make sense of it all.

And everyone is trying to make sense of it all.

Being good with money is simple, but simple is hard.

It comes down to four things.

Generating income in a way that is sustainable.

Spending in a way that drives contentment.

Saving in a way that is accessible.

Investing in a way that is patient.

Yes, being good with money is that simple.

But it won’t feel that way until you can see it clearly.

And making it clear is the only reason why I am here.

119 | A "Financial Plan" is a Feeling

We’ve tricked ourselves into thinking that a "financial plan" is a document.

Some of the blame can be placed on our need to control the future - a document makes this seem more possible.

Some of the blame can be placed on an advisor’s need to prove that they’ve done something - a document provides a nice façade.

But time and time again, the word “plan” means something wildly different for everybody.

For some, it’s that feeling of seeing all of your accounts in one place instead of anxiously wondering if you've lost track of a couple.

For others, it’s moving from blind accumulation to a clearer feeling of purpose accompanying each dollar that is saved.

And for others, it's just talking about finances in a safe space, because it's helpful to get jumbled thoughts out of your head every so often.

It’s seeing that large bill and not skipping a heartbeat because you knew it was coming and was a normal cost of doing life.

It’s that bit of financial news or that stock tip from a friend that you can immediately dismiss as a waste of time.

It's knowing that even when finances feel chaotic, that you have a habit of reviewing and reflecting on your money life that will eventually put everything back into proper context.

“It feels so good to have a plan” is a universal experience of most everyone, but only because it’s a universal feeling.

88 | The One Pager: Why and How?

Traditional financial planning uses incomplete information to try and predict an uncertain future.

That's a bad combination.

The one pager uses complete information to prepare for an uncertain future.

The initial build of the one pager will feel like a deeper dive into your finances than you have ever done.

The information is specific, precise, and intentionally selected to tell your "numbers story" in the most concise manner possible.

Many people find that the process of building is more helpful than any other work they have ever done around their finances.

Once the one pager is built, you will have a tool to inform every single financial conversation and decision going forward.

The subsequent refreshers of the one pager will feel easy, effortless, and simple.

But there's an important distinction - it won't feel simple because it is simplistic.

Simplistic is not helpful - it is often incomplete, ignores nuance, and lacks depth.

Complex isn't helpful either - it overwhelms, distracts, and disorients. Complex is the primary residence of most financial service providers.

What you will experience is what Carl Richards would call elegant simplicity.

Elegant simplicity sits on the far side of complexity, but it is not easily attained.

Elegant simplicity is complete, appreciates nuance, and drives depth. It calms, clarifies, and orients.

The one pager was designed to cut through the complexity, embrace elegant simplicity, and change the way you think about money forever.

Here is what we will need...

Things that are easiest to gather online by logging in together…

• Balances from the start and end of the most recent year for all of your bank accounts
• Balances from the start and end of the most recent year for all of your investments accounts
• Balances from the start and end of the most recent year for all of your debt (i.e. mortgage, car loans, students loans, etc.)

Things that you may have to gather before we look at them together...

• Paystub or summary of income for the entirety of the most recent year
• Tax return for the most recent year filed

Things that we will be able to discuss...

• Summary of any real estate that you own
• Summary of any businesses that you own
• Summary of any life insurance policies that you own

77 | The Elegance of the One Pager

As with most pieces of art, there is more than what meets the eye.

The one pager is designed to change the way we all think about money and the way we interact with money.

It's timeless.
It's grounded in reality.
It doesn't lie.
It filters out the noise.
It compartmentalizes.
It's comparable.
It meets us where we are.

Just because we've made finances hard for hundreds of years doesn't mean they have to be hard forever.

James Clear says, "The highest level of mastery is simplicity. Most information is irrelevant and most effort is wasted, but only the expert knows what to ignore."

That is target and the one pager hits it on the bullseye.

It's timeless.

With a shout out to Luca Pacioli, the father of modern-day accounting, the one pager is built with his unbridled genius in mind.

It harnesses the power of basic accounting in a manner that is accessible to the accounting nerd, the creative artist, and everyone in between.

It paints a complete picture of one's entire financial picture without an overlooked gap or an unnecessary addition.

Not only can it travel over time, but it holds up across time and leans heavily on the truth that financial well-being depends on a few simple, but difficult to master concepts.

It's grounded in reality.

There are no projections or predictions about the future.

There are no assumptions or placeholders.

There are no calculations because detailed calculations aren't necessary.

No, that's not a typo. And yes, I know it probably contradicts every other financial conversation you've ever had. That's the goal.

The one pager is a concise, efficient summary of what has happened so that we can establish a shared understanding of reality and then spend the rest of our time looking and moving forward.

Because what we have experienced is so much more compelling than what we have been told, it would be a waste to do it any other way

Additional Reading
Reality as reassurance by Seth Godin

It doesn't lie.

With a shout out to Rasheed Wallace, the one pager doesn't lie.

If something needs tweaking in your finances, we'll all be able to see it.

There will be no lectures or lessons.

Only simultaneous realizations of what needs to happen next.

Your habit of saving (or not saving) will be in plain sight.

Your level of cash on hand will be as apparent as ever.

Either way, those two things alone tell us almost everything we need to know regarding our technical skills for managing money.

Sometimes the truth feels right and sometimes it hurts, but the truth always sets you free - eventually.

Additional Reading
Productive assets and useful flows by Seth Godin

It filters out the noise.

At first, the one pager will probably feel a little disorienting.

It will feel too simple.

You might even wonder if it ignores the layers of depth that exist in managing finances.

This is only a symptom of how we've been trained to hunt for complexity.

The beauty of the design is that it sheds a bright light on 95% of what moves the needle with our finances and allows the remaining 5% to fade into the background or, better yet, never even hit the radar.

If you get the majority of the 95% correct, then you will like the outcome.

If you get the majority of the 5% correct, you'll keep the hamster wheel spinning.

When you filter out the noise it's OK if it takes some time to get used to the quiet.

Additional Reading
Significant digits by Seth Godin
Your Wealth Doesn’t Have to Make You Anxious by Jared Korver

It compartmentalizes.

Oftentimes, it's easy for a surprise in one area of our finances to impact all the other areas.

If we're not careful, we'll even make some impulse decisions that don’t change the circumstances in any way.

If we feel like we're "behind", we start contributing to investment accounts at a unsustainable level, which in turn drains cash on hand and increases the stress felt in the day-to-day.

If we feel like income is going to be a little tight, we toy with the idea of making a lump sum payment to a mortgage only to realize that it will only reduce our accessible resources even more.

If our investments decrease in value, we begin pinching pennies in every spending category only to realize that we're allowing money to make our decisions for us instead of making decisions about our money.

The one pager allows us to attribute financial progress and setbacks to the correct things so we don't try to fix things that aren't broken or allow the things that are broken to hijack the mic.

It's comparable.

I double-dog-dare you to sit down with someone else and have an open, honest conversation comparing and contrasting your one pagers.

Most finance conversations get lost in rabbit holes and stuck on insignificant details leaving everyone more disoriented than they were at the start.

Conversations centered around the one pager cut to the heart of our biggest financial decisions and feelings right away.

The chaos of the numbers is replaced by the essence of the story.

From Buffett to Bezos to you and to me, everyone's finances fit in the one pager and the underlying emotions and themes are eerily more similar than they are different.

It meets us where we are.

Whether we love finances or hate them, our brains weren't designed to handle that much information at one time.

Almost 70 years ago, the psychologist George A. Miller asserted that the span of immediate memory and absolute judgment were both limited to around 7 pieces of information.

The financial services industry treats this law like Americans treat speed limit signs - nearly total disregard.

As soon as you've said S&P 500, diversification, ETF, tax efficient, emerging markets, asset allocation, and bull market, you've used up a normal person's allotment of digestible information and haven't actually addressed anything that will improve their relationship with money.

Was the one-pager designed with complete intellectual awareness of Miller's Law? Sadly, no.

But it was designed with the knowledge that when it comes to finances, you can't make it simple enough.

And let's be honest, even if we didn't connect the two from the start, it's pretty cool (and validating!) that the one pager has 7 colored bars.

Additional Reading
The complex middle between “simplicity” and “elegant simplicity” by Carl Richards