Helpful Perspective From A Rockstar Non-Profit And A Tailwind

Do you ever get so caught up in your own head, in your own stuff, that you lose perspective? I can’t imagine a time that would be more inclined to lead us to insular thinking, self-pity, conspiracy theorizing, and perspective losing than this season we’re trudging through.

So in this week’s Financial LIFE Planning weekly installment, you’ll get some perspective that I hope will give you peace and help you make wise financial, and other, decisions:

  • An exclusive FLiP video chat with Michael O’Neal, the Executive Director of global non-profit, ONEWORLD Health
  • A confounding Weekly Market Update with a side of cheese
  • A reminder about our capacity to overestimate our own capabilities

Oh, and Happy Mothers Day, to mine and all of you moms!


Financial Planning

How to Get More Than You Give

Have you ever noticed that when you give to someone whose needs are greater than yours, you actually feel like you have more? Whether it’s a friend in need of a pick-me-up, an investment of your time at a soup kitchen, or a charitable contribution, this change in perspective is one of three major benefits of giving.

The other two? Well, in addition to our perspective being changed, we experience a biological phenomenon, an endorphin rush. Apparently, we’re biologically wired to feel good when we give. Cool, right? And pragmatically, depending on how (or if) you file your tax return, you may also get a rebate on a portion of your financial gifts…check with your CPA.

This week, I recorded a video chat I had with the Executive Director of ONEWORLD Health, Michael O’Neal, specifically for you! We discussed their unique approach to sustainable development work that has enabled them to survive the COVID-19 crisis–and the success they’ve had cultivating relationships with individuals, families, businesses, and even rock bands, like NEEDTOBREATHE, who alone has raised over $2.3 million for the work their doing.

He also explains why we always get more than we give. Click below to watch the nine-minute excerpt, or top off your coffee and click HERE for the full 23-minute interview.

And yes, if you’re jonesing to put that give-more-than-you-get business to the test right now, it’s easy–click HERE and hit the Donate button. And if you choose to give $50 or more, please let me know, because I’d like to send you a personal thank you.


Weekly Market Update:

After two marginally down weeks, the market had another week in the green, almost confoundingly so:

  • +2.56% DJIA (30 big U.S. companies)
  • +3.50% S&P (500 big U.S. companies)
  • +2.71% EFA (~900 international companies)

The biggest question for most people is, “How!? How is the market going up when the economic news is historically bad?” It’s true: Unemployment this week hit 14.7%–the worst since the Great Depression.

Although clearly indeed of a beard trim–sorry, Mom!–I joined Jill Wagner on Cheddar (an online TV channel) to discuss this seemingly odd phenomenon, and to offer some suggestions for the unemployed, under-employed, self-employed, and gainfully-employed in these challenging times:


Life Planning

Is the wind at your back?

I’m not a “cyclist,” but I do love to ride my bike. Last week, I took a new ride, recommended by my good friend–who is a cyclist–that stretched me a bit, and gave me another healthy dose of perspective.

I love to have a destination, so I set my course for the Bulls Island Ferry, a beautiful spot in Awendaw, SC. The total ride was about 20 miles, and on the way there, I felt like an Olympian, averaging about 18 mph. (“Maybe I can call myself a cyclist,” I was beginning to think.

With head held high, I took in the beautiful view, nodded proudly to the couple that I passed on the last mile, and headed homeward. Only then did I realize that I’d had a meaningful tailwind that I’d now be fighting the entire way home. The wind had been at my back.

And as I was thinking about a contingency plan on mile 15–suffering the embarassment of calling my wife and asking her to pick me up in the middle of nowhere, a length to which I thank the Lord I didn’t (quite) have to go–a question hit me like an easterly wind pounding route 17:

How much of whatever I’ve done well in life was actually just thanks to a solid tailwind? Being born into a great family? In the right zip code? Being on the right team? Having selfless friends? Working with amazing people?

How about you? Is it possible that your successes have been aided by a tailwind? If so, who is deserving of thanks? (In addition to your mother, of course!)

How about now? If you feel like a failure at the moment, is it possible you’re just facing the greatest economic headwind of a generation? Who can you ask for help?

Or if you’re fortunate enough to be cranking through this crisis at top speed, who can you help?

And if you think of the people who’ve been your tailwind, I hope you take a moment–why not now?–to thank them.

The spent lungs and sore butt were worth the perspective…and so was the view:

I hope you have a great Mother’s Day and find a healthy tailwind this week!

Tim

Be More Purposeful In 2020 With This Calendar Hack

My work as a financial advisor is dedicated to helping others best allocate their scarce resources in a way that is optimally aligned with their goals and grounded in their values. And while most of that work involves financial resources, I’ve also become somewhat obsessed with the stewardship of what is perhaps our scarcest resource—time.

One of the simplest and best productivity “hacks” I’ve found in pursuit of this obsession comes, almost hilariously, from one of the funniest people on the planet—Jerry Seinfeld.

First introduced to Seinfeld’s prolific productivity by Cal Newport in the priceless book Deep Work, and subsequently illuminated in the must-watch Netflix movie Jerry Before Seinfeld, I learned much about the single tool Seinfeld used to become the world’s top comedian: daily intentionality.

Long before he was a household name, Seinfeld committed himself to the daily intentionality of writing new jokes to hone his craft. He reportedly tracked this habit by drawing an “X” through that day’s box on the calendar.

He identified the most important thing he needed to do every day and then oriented his calendar around the completion of that task. And you don’t have to be a comedic genius to make this work.

What is the most important thing—or things—that you need to do, and how might you adapt your calendar management to improve the probability that it happens? Here’s how I’ve adapted this technique personally, in four simple slashes on my wall calendar:

1) The most important most important thing I need to do daily is to center myself spiritually and mentally. Therefore, the second habit I complete daily—after brewing a very strong pot of coffee, of course—is to sit down in my home office, where I spend about 60 minutes reading, reflecting, praying and then meditating.

The mindfulness exercise at the end becomes the bridge from the spiritual into the practical as I plan out my day—purposefully removed from the distraction of my computer—in my most prized possession: my Bullet Journal.

The completion of this routine earns a vertical line down the middle of the day’s box on my wall-sized, yearly calendar: |

2) The second most important thing that I need to do—not only for my own health, but for the sanity of those with whom I live and work—is physical exercise. 

I aim for three days of HIIT workouts and two days of yoga weekly. I’ve improved the probability of this happening by going to a gym that offers both types of classes. But more importantly, the gym requires you to schedule workouts in advance—and charges you if you cancel, creating a helpful disincentive for this financial planner to make it! So at the beginning of each week, I schedule five classes that turn into meetings on my calendar. These, in turn, help me be more productive in every other activity that day.

After completing my daily workout, I get the satisfaction of adding a horizontal line on that day of the calendar: —

3) Next, I aim to complete my M.I.T., the Most Important Task of the day. As part of my daily planning, I determine what I need to do that day to have the most impact on the projects I’m engaged in. Inspired by author Daniel Pink, I have a whiteboard in my office where I then write down that task.

The key here, of course, is to actually DO it. Pink suggests simply making it the first task of the day, but I’ve also applied some systematic calendar management to further increase the chances of checking off my most glaring to-do, as informed, again, by Cal Newport’s book, Deep Work.

Newport provides convincing evidence that, regardless of how many hours we work in a given day, we only have four hours of optimum productivity, biologically speaking. With his encouragement, I’ve determined what those four hours are for me (generally 10:00am to 2:00pm). I block them on the calendar as my Focus Time, in which I complete my M.I.T. (Other important, but less mentally strenuous, tasks, like email, calls, meetings and errands, are then “batched” throughout the day.)

Successful completion of the M.I.T. earns me a big backslash through that day on the calendar: \

4) Lastly, I discipline myself to offer at least one person a deliberate, if not pre-meditated, affirmation. This idea was inspired by Adam Grant, the author of Give and Take. Grant, who has dedicated his career to helping us get more out of our professions, is almost notorious for his high level of achievement and productivity. But he has a very simple method that guides his weekly and daily planning, as highlighted in GQ:

I try to start every week with three things that I want to accomplish that I care about. And then three ways that I want to help other people. And that’s the compass for the week. I’ll plan my whole schedule around those things.”

This notion of helping other people may be something as involved as reaching out to contribute effort to someone else’s project, but it can also be as simple as picking up the phone to see how a colleague or friend is doing, or sending a word of affirmation or commendation by email or, better yet, a hand-written note. In my experience, I’ve found that the concrete objective of sharing a deliberate affirmation is specific enough that I’ve had higher completion rates than when I’ve left the intention more generic.

What has been especially interesting to me is that the completion of this task—while it tends to be seen as the “lowest” priority and takes the least amount of time—often offers the greatest satisfaction.

I compound that satisfaction by finishing off my successful calendar day with a forward slash: /

Using a strategy like this makes for a messy calendar, but each mark offers the momentary endorphin rush we were meant to enjoy from the act of work completed. It also creates a visual record of our productivity—and lack thereof—throughout the day, week, month and year.

How could it work for you?

This post was initial published on Forbes.com.

Living A Life Worthy Of A Legacy At Any Age

What do you text the father, a good friend, who I’d just learned had lost his 17-year-old son the previous night?

“I don’t have the words. Praying. Anything at all, we’re here for you.”

Father and son fishing
GETTY

I’d spent the previous hour hearing the news, breaking down, sharing the news with my wife and then my sons, breaking down, calling other parents who’d want to get to their kids before they learned in the middle of class, breaking down.

No, a text won’t do. Not in this case, not in this moment. They only live a few blocks away. So began the most painful walk my wife and I have undertaken, to a front door that we didn’t want to open, to see the face of a father and mother still stunned by the worst news a parent can receive.

Thus, we were initiated into a holy cycle of hugging, crying, story-telling, laughing and loving that culminated with a service—the day before Mother’s Day—celebrating Logan Janik’s life, as over 800 family and friends graduated into a new, dimmer reality.

Throughout this cycle, as I grew to know Logan much better through the intersecting narratives, the pervasive thought that stuck was that this young man had left more of a legacy in 17 short years than most leave after a statistical lifetime

And no, these are not the mere musings of a mourner struggling with recent loss. Logan lived his life embodying a few commonly known but uncommonly exhibited traits that, if emulated, would help all of us live a life worthy of a legacy:

First, he made a habit of sharing his self-confidence with those who might lack it. Logan was a six-foot-two, 210-pound athlete with an enviable head of hair and an inimitable smile—the first word that came to mind both as his most memorable feature and the expression he most often inspired.

When my son first stepped foot on the campus of what has now become his high school—attended by over 4,000 students—he was an unsure eighth grader attempting to make the JV lacrosse team. I have no doubt that his attempt was successful in part thanks to Logan, then a seasoned sophomore, who insisted on driving my son to and from practice.

This rhythm continued as my son began his freshman year—Logan’s junior year—causing my wife and I to wonder, “What 11th-grader risks his popularity on an unrelated freshman?” But unlike most of us, even as adults, Logan didn’t see his personal confidence and credibility as an exhaustible resource. He spent it freely, not choosing to invest it only in those who’d provide a relational ROI, but more so in those who really needed it.

Second, Logan spoke words of affirmation. Such words can feel empty when actions don’t coincide, but there was no such incongruence here. For instance, my son wasn’t the only freshman beneficiary of Logan’s encouragement—another young man remembered Logan’s final words to him when, picking him out of a crowd, he simply said, “You’re my favorite goalie.”

In an age where so many affirmations come in the form of “Likes” worth little more than the click they require, a single, timely, genuine word of encouragement can buoy us when we fail and shape us when we succeed.

Finally, Logan extracted a redeeming reality out of circumstances that would waylay most. More succinctly, he was a glass-half-full kid who chose to find the best in both people and situations. 

Of his passions in life, lacrosse may have been the foremost. But despite being an imposing athlete and an ideal teammate, he didn’t always make the team he tried out for, especially at his 4,000-student high school. “He handled it better than I did,” his father told me, when he missed the final cut for varsity.

We would all be disappointed, as Logan was, but our natural tendency is often to cast external blame and protect our vulnerability through embitterment. Logan did neither, and in retrospect, it also gave him the opportunity to play his final season of lacrosse alongside his younger brother, celebrating another high school league championship together just days before Logan’s passing.

Helping came naturally to Logan—but it doesn’t to most of us. We live in a time and place where crafting our individual narrative and boosting our resume is sadly very much a part of adulthood. The perception machine is always cranking, and the very design of “friending” and “connecting” is to pad our own stats and build our own credibility.

Spending time, effort, and social or professional capital, therefore, is seen as the domain solely of the untouchable philanthropist who has acquired more than it appears possible to spend in multiple lifetimes.

“I’ll give back when [fill in the blank],” seems a sensible refrain. But Logan’s example reminds us that our “when” may never come, and that we do not have to wait on an estate to build a legacy. Material riches are not required to make an investment in time or influence.

But if altruism isn’t enough motivation, there’s also a pragmatic case to be made. Helping others—without any expectation of reciprocity—is an entirely valid strategy for those (read: most) of us who are still in the accumulation phase of building a meaningful life, personally and professionally. Indeed, it is the premise of Adam Grant’s book, Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success, and the inspiration for his weekly productivity routine:

I try to start every week with three things that I want to accomplish that I care about. And then three ways that I want to help other people. And that’s the compass for the week. I’ll plan my whole schedule around those things.

Adam Grant

As I’ve been stumbling my way through Logan’s loss, I found myself asking a question about the equity of my accomplishment/helping ratio:

How much more of an impact could I have if I followed through on my best intentions, specifically relating to helping, affirming and building-up others versus striving toward my own accomplishments?

Would you consider asking the same question?

Consider allowing yourself, as I have been, to be humbled and inspired and challenged by a kid, an “old soul,” whose legacy will extend long beyond his life.

In loving memory of Logan Michael Janik: December 6, 2001 – May 7, 2019

TODAY Show Appearance: Talking Debt, Budgeting, Market Highs And Maintaining Motivation

What better way to start off the New Year than in New York with the TODAY Show?  Despite the 18 below windchill whipping through the city streets, I had a blast with Sheinelle Jones and Craig Melvin discussing the most damaging forms of debt, the top two budgeting apps, the best kinds of checking accounts, how you should respond to market highs–and lows–and how best to stay motivated to turn those financial resolutions into long-term habits!

Click HERE or on the box above to watch the segment.

3 Books To Help You Be More Civil, Memorable And Inspired in 2018

I’m a sloooow reader–so I’m never going to impress anyone with the total number of books I read in a year (other than myself!).  But I do try to immerse myself in as much reading as possible each year.

In the past, I’d try to read a lot of specifically financial books considering my vocation as a financial advisor and writer, and I confess I even suffered guilt about reading anything other than non-fiction until more recently.  But because of my conviction that personal finance is more personal than it is finance, I’ve worked to broaden my base of reading.

This year in particular, I learned a lot about people (and therefore money) through biographies, historical non-fiction and fiction, books on charity and spirituality, and an increasing number of well-written novels, in addition to a couple financial books. (Otherwise, I’ve found that the world of financial planning is so ever-changing that I get the most current information I need from articles, white papers (zzzzzzzz), blog posts, podcasts and conferences.)

Below you’ll see my top three favorite books that I completed in 2017 with short reviews, followed by a list of the remaining books I read this year and links to my Goodreads reviews:

3. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

There’s not much more to say than, “Wow.” This book is a masterpiece, and it’s impossible not to leave it without concluding, again, that Lincoln was a mastermind.  His ability to be civil while strong, conciliatory while persuasive, articulate without condescension, and especially to be a friend to political foes whom he knew sought to undermine him–all at the unquestionable height of our country’s political division–seems so far from what is exhibited in our present.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is certainly among those precious few non-fiction writers who  craft a narrative out of lifeless facts that comes to life like a novel, without sacrificing any of its veracity.

To be clear, this book is neither new (it was published in 2006) nor short (944 pages–I “read” it on Audible), but it seems at no time more prescient–or necessary–than now.

Entrepreneur Shares ‘Life-Saving’ Career Change

This was given to me, because that was going to kill me,” entrepreneur Lee Janik told me.

“That” was the job of owning and running a construction company he started in Ohio in the mid-2000s.

“This” was the sacred experience of fly fishing, and ultimately building a multinational craft rod-making company.

SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP/GettyImages)

“It’s like going to church.” That’s how Janik describes fly fishing, his passion, which nursed him through the Great Recession as his commercial real estate development and construction company hung on for dear life.  

The company survived, and ultimately thrived, but his therapeutic hobby grew into something more. At the moment, “this” has evolved into Clutch Fly Rods, the company Janik founded selling high-end fly rods that is fast becoming a disruptor in its space.

The Elephant In The Room: How The Financial Industry’s Shunning Of Emotions Fails Its Clients

I don’t think professor Richard Thaler is going to return my calls anymore. Sure, he was gracious enough to give me an interview after his most recent book, Misbehaving, a surprisingly readable history of the field of behavioral economics, was published. But now that he’s won a Nobel Prize, something tells me I’m not on the list for the celebration party.  

(Although, if that party hasn’t happened yet, professor, I humbly accept your invitation!)

But I’m still celebrating anyway, because Thaler is a hero of mine and I believe that the realm of behavioral economics–and behavioral science more broadly–can and should reframe the way we look at our interaction with money, personally and institutionally, as well as the business of financial advice.

Behavioral Economics In Action

The Elephant and the Rider

Of course, even if you’re meeting Thaler for the first time, his work likely has already played a role in your life in one or more of the following ways:

  • Historically, your 401(k) (or equivalent) retirement savings plan has been “opt-in,” meaning you proactively had to make the choice–among many others–to do what we all know is a good idea (save for the future). But our collective penchant for undervaluing that which we can’t enjoy for many years to come led most of us to default to inaction. Thanks largely to Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s observations in the book Nudge, more and more companies are moving to an “opt-out” election, automatically enrolling new employees in the plan with a modest annual contribution.  
  • Better yet, many auto-election clauses gradually increase an employee’s savings election annually. Because most receive some form of cost-of-living pay increase in concert with the auto-election bump, more people are saving more money without even feeling it!
  • Additional enhancements, like a Qualified Default Investment Alternative (QDIA), help ensure that these “invisible” contributions are automatically invested in an intelligently balanced portfolio or fund instead of the historical default, cash, which ensures a negative real rate return.  
  • Some credit card awards now automatically deposit your “points” in an investment account while some apps, like acorns.com, “round up” your electronic purchases and throw the loose virtual change in a surprisingly sophisticated piggy bank.

No, you’re not likely to unknowingly pave your way to financial independence, but thanks to the work of professor Thaler and others, many are getting a great head start without making a single decision.

What is most shocking to me, however, is the lack of application–or the downright misapplication–of behavioral economics in the financial services industry.  

‘Someday Came’: How Our Vision Of The Future Shapes Our Saving In The Present

While on vacation recently in the Abaco Islands, on the outer rim of the Bahamas, I found myself on an important mission: taking the golf cart to the local market to restock our dwindling supply of the necessary ingredients for piña coladas.

I was stopped in my tracks en route by a welcome sign announcing a new resident’s beachside home. It read: “Someday Came.”

The obvious implication is that these folks decided to act on their “Yeah, I’m gonna do that someday” daydreams.

But it raises many questions, right?

Who are these people? What’s their story, financial and otherwise? Did they hammer this sign into the sand after scrimping and saving, finally realizing their retirement dream following a lifetime of toil? Or are they the professionally mobile couple with young kids you see on HGTV’s “Caribbean Life,” who decided they’d just had enough of the rat race?

I’m glad I don’t have the answers, because the big question for the rest of us is worthy of consideration:

How do we define our “someday”? How do you define yours?

Solving for the Qualitative Deficit in Financial Planning

“The whole financial planning process is wrong,” says George Kinder, widely recognized as one of the chief educators and influencers in the financial planning profession.

But what exactly does he mean, and how does he justify this bold statement?

First, let’s separate the work of financial planning into two different elements–let’s call the first quantitative analysis and the second qualitative analysis.

Quantitative analysis is the more tangible, numerical and objective. It’s where planners tell clients what they need to do and, perhaps, how to do it. For example:

  • “Your asset allocation should be 65% in stocks and 35% in bonds.”
  • “You need $1.5 million of 20-year term life insurance.”
  • “Have your will updated and consider utilizing a pooled family trust.”

The qualitative work of financial planning is the intangible, non-numerical pursuit of uncovering a client’s more subjective values and goals, and, hopefully, attaching recommendations like those above to the client’s motivational core–their why.

If quantitative work is of the mind, qualitative is of the heart.

Qualitative planning often has been dubbed “financial life planning”–or simply “life planning.” It is defined in Michael Kay’s book, The Business of Life, as the process of:

Take More Risk In Life And Less In Investing

“I just really wish I’d taken more risk in my investment portfolio,” said no one–ever–on their deathbed.

Life Planning guru, George Kinder’s,  famous three questions are elegantly designed to progressively point us toward the stuff of life that is the most important–to us. The final question invites us to explore what benchmark life experiences we would leave unaccomplished if we only had one day left on this Earth. And as you may suspect, achieving a more aggressive portfolio posture never comes up.

Meanwhile, most of the answers to this question represent experiences (not things) that are often outside of our comfort zones. Question answerers almost universally wish they’d have taken more risks in life–personally, educationally, relationally, experientially, professionally, and vocationally.  

Similarly, those most meaningful experiences they had enjoyed thus far in life were the ones that pushed the boundaries of their comfort zones, expanding their personal risk tolerance.

But what about financial risk tolerance?