Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share The Unasked Question (Episode 8)
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
The Unasked Question (Episode 8)
A family came to me recently. They have a financial professional. They ask good questions. They get answers.
But that professional has never once reached out to them first.
Not once.
They don’t know what they don’t know. The questions they most need to ask ... they’ve never thought to ask. Because no one reached out with a different question first.
This isn’t a rare situation. It’s the norm ... especially below $1M in investable assets, and sometimes well above it.
If you’ve never heard of him, Cornelius Vanderbilt was a key 19th-century transportation figure. He went from a poor farmer to a NYC ferryman, amassing over $100M (over $3B in today’s dollars). His dying wish was to keep the money together. By the sixth generation, it was gone. His direct descendant, Anderson Cooper, works for a living.
Born 50 years earlier than Vanderbilt, Mayer Rothschild built up to only $6M (about $80M in today’s dollars — with the caveat that he was sophisticated and had already partnered with his five sons long before his death, so we’re not sure how much wealth he built into their families before he died). His dying wish was to keep the family together. They’re still there. At its peak, the family is estimated to have held hundreds of billions.
The families that lasted didn’t hold money. They held each other.
This isn’t a story about dynasty wealth. Middle-class families have understood this for generations. The neighbor who calls before you know you need help, like mine who always texts when we forget to close the garage door. The family member who calls you out on what you said you’d do but haven’t yet, like my 8-year-old son does sometimes. The community that shows up before you ask, like my block who started front yard hangouts during Trick-or-Treating to bring the adults together, not just the kids going door-to-door.
The financial industry has sold the myth that the best kind of professional relationship (the proactive, honest kind) only becomes available above a certain number. It doesn’t.
Some of the most significant turning points in my own financial life came from someone saying something I wasn’t expecting.
An attorney once asked my husband and me the wrong question — and it turned out to be exactly the right one. That story is here.
Richard Koch, a billionaire and author, answered a fumbling question from me in a live Q&A with seven words: “The name needs to speak to your strengths.” I’d been wrestling with something for years. That sentence ended the wrestling.
Brandon and I watched a documentary with Mark Willis. What we heard rearranged how we thought about money. It’s the foundation of what we do now.
When one of Brandon’s KPIs dropped, someone in our professional community didn’t encourage us. They said we needed to do better.
When our marriage was in real trouble, a spiritual mentor didn’t tell us everything would work out. They pointed us somewhere specific. We went. It worked.
Each time, we were grateful. Cheerleaders don’t help you get better. They help you feel okay about staying the same. Every one of those moments came from someone willing to say what we might not have wanted to hear. Not to be harsh. Because they cared enough to be honest.
A reactive financial relationship can’t do that.
If your advisor only responds when you reach out, they can never ask the question you didn’t know to ask. And the question you haven’t thought to ask yet is often the most important one.
You and your financial professional are probably spending more time and money managing your investments than investing in the relationships that will outlast every portfolio you’ll ever build.
The financial industry is loud. Returns are measurable. Relationships are not. So relationships get lost.
What if you didn’t have to choose?
What if the financial architecture you’re building is liquid enough to be there when a relationship needs it ... accessible without penalty when life asks something of you ... and designed so the long-term compounding doesn’t stop just because you had to show up somewhere that mattered?
That’s not a pitch. It’s a question.
A good financial planner should be asking it.
Before you think to.
I told you a few of mine. Who’s the person in your life who’s told you something you didn’t want to hear ... and turned out to be right? Continue the conversation on Substack.
Get full access to Live Counterflow at livecounterflow.substack.com/subscribe
View all episodes
By Amanda NeelyA family came to me recently. They have a financial professional. They ask good questions. They get answers.
But that professional has never once reached out to them first.
Not once.
They don’t know what they don’t know. The questions they most need to ask ... they’ve never thought to ask. Because no one reached out with a different question first.
This isn’t a rare situation. It’s the norm ... especially below $1M in investable assets, and sometimes well above it.
If you’ve never heard of him, Cornelius Vanderbilt was a key 19th-century transportation figure. He went from a poor farmer to a NYC ferryman, amassing over $100M (over $3B in today’s dollars). His dying wish was to keep the money together. By the sixth generation, it was gone. His direct descendant, Anderson Cooper, works for a living.
Born 50 years earlier than Vanderbilt, Mayer Rothschild built up to only $6M (about $80M in today’s dollars — with the caveat that he was sophisticated and had already partnered with his five sons long before his death, so we’re not sure how much wealth he built into their families before he died). His dying wish was to keep the family together. They’re still there. At its peak, the family is estimated to have held hundreds of billions.
The families that lasted didn’t hold money. They held each other.
This isn’t a story about dynasty wealth. Middle-class families have understood this for generations. The neighbor who calls before you know you need help, like mine who always texts when we forget to close the garage door. The family member who calls you out on what you said you’d do but haven’t yet, like my 8-year-old son does sometimes. The community that shows up before you ask, like my block who started front yard hangouts during Trick-or-Treating to bring the adults together, not just the kids going door-to-door.
The financial industry has sold the myth that the best kind of professional relationship (the proactive, honest kind) only becomes available above a certain number. It doesn’t.
Some of the most significant turning points in my own financial life came from someone saying something I wasn’t expecting.
An attorney once asked my husband and me the wrong question — and it turned out to be exactly the right one. That story is here.
Richard Koch, a billionaire and author, answered a fumbling question from me in a live Q&A with seven words: “The name needs to speak to your strengths.” I’d been wrestling with something for years. That sentence ended the wrestling.
Brandon and I watched a documentary with Mark Willis. What we heard rearranged how we thought about money. It’s the foundation of what we do now.
When one of Brandon’s KPIs dropped, someone in our professional community didn’t encourage us. They said we needed to do better.
When our marriage was in real trouble, a spiritual mentor didn’t tell us everything would work out. They pointed us somewhere specific. We went. It worked.
Each time, we were grateful. Cheerleaders don’t help you get better. They help you feel okay about staying the same. Every one of those moments came from someone willing to say what we might not have wanted to hear. Not to be harsh. Because they cared enough to be honest.
A reactive financial relationship can’t do that.
If your advisor only responds when you reach out, they can never ask the question you didn’t know to ask. And the question you haven’t thought to ask yet is often the most important one.
You and your financial professional are probably spending more time and money managing your investments than investing in the relationships that will outlast every portfolio you’ll ever build.
The financial industry is loud. Returns are measurable. Relationships are not. So relationships get lost.
What if you didn’t have to choose?
What if the financial architecture you’re building is liquid enough to be there when a relationship needs it ... accessible without penalty when life asks something of you ... and designed so the long-term compounding doesn’t stop just because you had to show up somewhere that mattered?
That’s not a pitch. It’s a question.
A good financial planner should be asking it.
Before you think to.
I told you a few of mine. Who’s the person in your life who’s told you something you didn’t want to hear ... and turned out to be right? Continue the conversation on Substack.
Get full access to Live Counterflow at livecounterflow.substack.com/subscribe