Hello and Welcome to another edition of Wisdom & Wealth. Thank you for joining me. Some time back I walked through a career decision with a friend. It was a tough decision between two different options and involved a change in geography component as well. There was some hesitation around making the wrong decision along with the usual questions around giftedness, calling, timing etc.

Given my personal background, this particular instance tugged at my heart strings due to some similarities. Many if not all of us have been there. You know that a decision needs to be made but are tempted to do nothing. Once you decide to make a move, you worry about making the “right” decision. Then you struggle to measure intangibles with the math of the decision. My friend had the right mindset and made a great decision and it occurs to me that in some moments it is possible to be so self-aware that you are not making a “right decision, or a wrong decision” but a “different” decision. You are, in God’s providence, simply working out a different part of or chapter of your growth at one time vs another. I think when we look back with the advantage point of eternity, we will realize that the point of decision fatigue wasn’t to help us make the right decision, but rather to help us realize we are not in control and that we must move on. We must move forward and seek the future as best we can.

Yes, you guessed it. This applies to our financial planning and investment lives. Here is how. I think many people get hung up on worrying about the future, worrying about the unknown because we are hoping for greater returns. Things we literally cannot control. Since they have the power to choose how we invest, we can then be deceived into thinking we can have an outsized influence on future results. Somehow, we confuse the responsibility for choosing a starting point with the power to influence the end result. While we have a responsibility to make choices and weigh the tradeoffs today, we cannot influence those outcomes…If you can, I suspect that you are in a shall we say “non regulated” industry (Fortune telling for example).

So here is what I’d rather a client focus on.

Am I making a wise, historically sound, principled decision based on what I know of my family, situation and financial fundamentals? All content people that I know have come to peace with the idea of tradeoffs. They understand that you are giving up one thing to get another. When we become comfortable with tradeoffs which are worth it, it allows us to be more steady than the average person because we have already done our homework. Show me someone who gives up and I’ll show you someone who didn’t fully understand or weigh the cost of their decision. Rather they saw one potential outcome and fixated their attention on it.

The second trait which I think is universal amongst the types of people who are successful is that they focus on what is in their sphere of influence. They control what they can control. They are productive in this way. They are the first to suggest that they spend less, save more, work longer, give away more etc. These are the people who don’t hide the bias and are willing to see how their actions affect different goals. And yes, the thing that no one wants to hear is that one of the most powerful wealth creation techniques is to continue working. But I think our society needs to hear it as a truism. We as a society for several decades have treated work as punishment rather than a privilege. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating that you have to stay in some career that you do not like. What I am saying is that rarely do people think through changing careers at age 60, taking a step back in compensation and responsibility and letting their assets grow for 10 years. The idea that someone could work till the day they died and love every second of it, is a gift reserved for someone else. I think our society makes assumptions about work in a binary way and does so to our productive, spiritual and relational detriment.

Who we Hire

The next thing which comes to mind which I believe is critical to someone’s success but which is overlooked by so many, is having similar economic and investment beliefs as the person you are working with. If your first principles of investing are a mystery to each other you are most likely setting yourself up for heartache at some point. The worst thing I can ever hear from someone is: “I work with so and so… he’s a genius. He’s got this black box money making machine.” I cringe every time. Maybe he or she is…maybe they do have an edge, but all edges evaporate eventually. Don’t you want to understand what value you are providing in the marketplace?

Asking for Help

Successful people know their limits and know when and how to ask for help. It’s one of the most humbling things I can ever come across, because I work with some really smart people, who humbly come to me saying, “I know I’m smart, but I need help from someone I trust to ensure I and my family don’t go wrong.”

To summarize, make your investment decisions personal, make them matter to your family. Don’t be afraid of quantifying them by balancing the tradeoffs. Be proactive by knowing what you can control and what you cannot. Lastly, make sure you don’t forget that asking for the help of someone who has the same investment worldview as you is a must.

I’ll leave things there for now. Have a wonderful week and always know that I’m wishing you continued Truth, Beauty and Goodness on the road ahead.

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