"Money is numbers. And numbers never end. If it takes money to be happy, your search for happiness will never end." - Bob MarleyOn January 17th, 2020, I lugged the last remaining boxes from my office and sat in my frozen car, stunned at what had come to fruition. The âbe careful what you wish forâ adage poked me in my tear-filled eyes. I didnât even try to hold them back⊠Months of stiff-upper-lipping-it meant the floodgates were now safe to open. Whoosh!
No more client meetings.
No more financial plans to construct.
No more market-fluctuation counseling sessions.
No more copious notetaking, proving I had a clientâs best interest at heart.
No more rigorous compliance audits. No more pleading with underwriters.
No more feeling like an imposter.
And, I hoped, no more stomach-aches.
It had been a ten-year financial slog to re-acquire my client base in exchange for majority share ownership in the family business. And that decade of payments ended the day I chose to exit stage left. The âhouseââif you willâwas finally paid for. But it was too late. I was done.
Guys, who does this?! I mean, who puts in all that time and abandons the rewards right when theyâre finally accessible?
Apparently, I do! As the reality of my situation took hold, I continued to sit in the car like a statue, staring at the door I would never walk through again at will. I had surrendered my key, my clients, and my livelihood. At forty-six years old, I walked away from that little goldmine.
Some thought I had gone completely bonkersâa midlife crisis unfolding before their curious eyes. âDonât you still have bills to pay?â âThe girls are so young!â âYouâre throwing away sixteen years!â But my reasons for leaving will become clear as I outline a few life lessons Iâm taking with me on my new path. Most of these insights have come directly from helping my clients.
Lesson #1: Life is precious. And, short.
Insert eye-rolling, and yawn! Yes, we all know this. But do we really?The gift of life is a miracle. That you exist defies all oddsâabout 1 in 400 trillion, according to Google. While you let that sink in, know that your life also matters. Greatly. And whether you feel the magnitude of that statement yet is immaterial. One day itâll tap you on the shoulder when you least expect it.
You were put on this earth to have an impact that only you can have. Because, there is no other you.
But what if I told you that vast potential could all be wiped away in one catastrophic, single-engine plane crash? You might say, âNah, I donât make it a habit of getting in those things!â Or that youâd soon find out you have an inoperable tumor that will rob you of the chance to see your daughter walk down the aisle next year? âDude. Iâm a vegetarian with no family history of Cancer, so stop with the Debbie Downer sh*t.â
If this sounds dramatic, I get it. Realistically, we all face life and death at any given moment. The above are the kinds of situations I dealt with all the time in my practice⊠Walloping, unexpected curveballs that changed everything.
None of us has sorted out the business of living forever. (Except maybe that Wolverine guy. My twelve-year-old says he kicks ass at immortality!) Yet, some bank on the illusion that if we work tirelessly now, weâll get to enjoy the good times down the road. You know, like, in retirement.
This is foolâs thinking!
My clients showed me the fragility of life. The idea that tomorrow is promised has set us up to live as though weâre in rehearsal, just practicing for the grand event that will eventually be our life. It plays into the âIâll be happy whenâ mantra, where we chase an elusive carrot on an ever-turning treadmill. (Only to find weâre going nowhere but around in circles.) We magically expect that once we hit that golden age of retirement, weâll have made it! Phew! Now, I can really live!
One time, I delivered a life insurance cheque to a young widow whose husband was taken from her at the precise moment she was on the phone with him. Can you even imagine? His truck literally exploded while they shared a routine conversation. Thanks to this level of extreme perspective, Iâve come to a place where Iâm not interested in practicing at life.
Iâm going to live it. Every day, and on my terms. Not on the assumption that tomorrow will stick around and wait for me. Note: even in saying this, I recognize the privilege and know that many people are just trying to survive, let alone thrive.
Life Lesson #2: You canât take it with you.
Some of my clients had more money than they could spend in three lifetimes, but they wouldnât spend any. The truth is, it gave them a sense of security. Most of these people grew up in a time of austerity or came from parents who served in one of the World Wars. They fought hard for every nickel, and their values around money were simple: accumulate and save. Iâm not judging, and I understand where the mentality comes from.But added to this was often a desire to leave a legacy to their children and grandchildren. âWhen I die, I want to leave all this to the kids.â I found it fascinating that these clients were sacrificing so much of themselves, even though they didnât see it that way. I always believed that money doesnât mean anything until you trade it for something. Their altruism for the future generation touched me.
It also bewildered me. I wondered if there wasnât an opportunity to impact their next-gen-kin while these folks were still young and impressionable? Parcel out bits of that nest egg and play a role in teaching them how to handle money? Or, relieve some of their financial pressure while they duke it out with education, finding jobs, and getting established. Itâs not easy being twenty-something today.
And yet, forget that! What about spending some of it on yourself? Get out there and make a bucket load of memories with the people you love! Put it into the world and watch it come back ten-fold, especially when itâs invested in more than just funds. Which brings me to my next life lessonâŠ
Life Lesson #3: Diversify your investment portfolio. Make deposits into your Memory Bank. These will pay dividends that can last a lifetime.
I confess I had a slightly unconventional style when it came to dispensing advice in my financial practice. Sure, I subscribed to the importance of shoring up risk and planning for tomorrow. (None of us wants to eat cat food in retirement!) But youâd never hear me tell a client not to take that trip with their kids just so they could max out retirement contributions.Screw. That. Noise.
Investing is an interesting phenomenon. You dump the energy youâve earned (thatâs money) into something you hope will make it grow. Thereâs a headache of upfront homework required, including assessing your risk tolerance, understanding what it is youâre investing in, and then paying attention along the way through the ups and downs of market performance. It takes discipline and patience.
What I think we can all agree on is the end-goal of our investing: to make money on our money. (Letâs not split hairs about feeling good for supporting young entrepreneurs and other social enterprise start-ups. This isnât about that.)
But what about investing in your Memory Bank? Is that even a thing? Because if it is, boy does it sound hokey!
Guys, itâs a real thing. Four years ago, my husband and I came into a bit of money, giving us the privileged opportunity to get thoughtful about what we should do with it. The options were endlessâ including, but not limited to, fixing our roof (not sexy), topping up our girlsâ education funds (boring), or paring our lives down to one backpack each and hitting the road for a South American adventure. Winner, winner; chicken dinner!
We called ourselves The Traveling Gong Show, because, quite frankly, we were a disaster at the best of times. A family of four: set to bicker and bumble their way through Ecuador and Peru! Our only goals? Slow our lives down, bond hard with the kids, and show them a piece of the world that offers a new cultural perspective. (They were thirteen and eight at the time.) Again, peeps thought we were a little crazyââWait, youâre going to be on a bus for fifty-two hours? Are you nuts?!ââbut that didnât stop us.
Iâll admit that we even wound up taking on a bit of debt by the time the three months were up. See, when you donât work thereâs no income (go figure), and, we didnât know if weâd ever have another chance like this, so we embraced as many opportunities within reasonable proximity as we could.
But the money spent was a fair trade-off for all the memories we made⊠Hiking the Salkantay Trail to Machu Picchu. Dune-buggying in the Peruvian desert. Swimming with sharks in the Galapagos. These investments were far more epic than reading the Fund Facts for a medium-risk growth portfolio! And while itâs true we short-changed an opportunity to save more for their educational future, we actually wound up shaping their lives in ways I couldnât have dreamed possible.
Thanks to this experience, my eldest daughterâs goals for her future now include how she could make a difference on a global scale for some of the inequities in the world. Who knew that our bebopping around on a shoestring adventure would inform her budding ideology about life, culture, and social responsibility? ... read more
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