Financial freedom isn’t about achieving a certain portfolio value – it’s about sizing a lifestyle.  We have wealthy clients who can’t “afford” to retire, and clients with modest incomes who will probably have little difficulty stepping away from work when they want to.  The difference in these clients is in how they have sized their lives.  Seems obvious, but I didn’t see it until I had worked with enough clients to tell what was going on.  Do you know what your lifestyle costs?

I don’t know what you don’t tell me.  Huh!? What I mean is, I know a lot of things about what I do and how I can help, but I don’t know what you have (or what you want) until you share it with me.  This point really came home working with a family that had very different goals than I surmised.  When it came time to put the plan into action, it fell apart because it didn’t match what the client really wanted and the client didn’t know until I put a plan in place. Do you know what you really want?

Everyone poops.  Ok, that’s a bit gross, entirely true, and has nothing to do with my profession – it simply had to do with life.  There’s a real book by this name written to help with potty training. So what was my “aha”? In the end, we’re all pretty much the same. We may dress ourselves up differently, but we all want to be safe and secure. We all want good things for our loved ones and ourselves. And we rarely want to put in the work to make it happen.  My job is to meet clients where they are and help them as best I can.