Welcome to the 7th edition of the Tech Financial Planning (TFP) Newsletter.
What are you working for?
And what are you saving & investing for?
These aren’t trick questions.
In this newsletter we will take a detour from our normal planning topics and focus on some ways of thinking about goals and dreams.
TL;DR
Your dreams shape your decisions and your planning
The goal isn’t to go to the grave with the most amount of money
Your dreams should be your own, not someone else’s.
What’s it all for?
Is it to support your family? Or retire early? Or start your dream business?
Or are you working until 65, because that’s when society says it’s socially acceptable to retire?
I can’t answer these for you, but they are questions each person has to answer.
Personally, I don’t want to retire early.
Sure, it’d be nice to have a more money. I’d take nicer trips, go to nicer meals, drive a cooler car, and have a sweet house in Santa Barbara.
But I wouldn’t stop working.
I love what I do and who I get to do it with.
It’s really fun building a business and helping families figure out their path.
And that’s part of the beauty of my job.
Each family has their own set of dreams they are working towards and their own unique journey.
And not everyone has a clear set of plans, like retiring in 10 years with a portfolio of $10 million.
Like most of life, it’s messy, and it’s a process of figuring it out as we go along.
One thing I do know
I know that the goal isn’t to go to the grave with the most amount of money.
If it is, we’ve already lost that battle to Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
But let’s say you do everything “right.”
You start the next Apple or Tesla or Facebook, and you do become the richest person in the world.
Chances are, the best you’ll become is a footnote in history.
Can you name the richest person from 1822 (200 years ago)?
I couldn’t, so I had to look it up.
According to this article, it was Stephen Girard, who I’d never heard of.
A few more:
150 years ago (1870s) - Cornelius Vanderbilt. At least I’ve heard of him.
100 years ago (1920s) - John D. Rockefeller. A recurring name on this list.
50 years ago (1970s) - John Paul Getty. Sweet museum in LA.
Sure I should probably know more about history and these guys, but you get my point.
Despite what most of our current society says, the goal isn’t all the money at all costs.
A quick story
There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small village.
As he sat, he saw a fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish.
The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?”
The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.”
“Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The businessman was astonished.
“This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said.
The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day?”
The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.”
The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman.
“I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to the city, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.”
The fisherman continues, “And after that?”
The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.”
The fisherman asks, “And after that?”
The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!”
The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”
So what is the goal?
Enter stage left, my two favorite words in planning.
It depends.
It depends on what is important to you and your family.
And candidly, that’s a decision you have to make.
Your dreams shape your decisions and planning.
I have some clients who want to hit FIRE and retire at 40.
Others are more comfortable with a traditional retirement, but they want to take a sabbatical in 10 years.
Others really value a top education for their kids.
Each of these clients will make very different decisions than the others because they are planning for totally different dreams!
Some thoughts on goals and dreams
Your dreams should be your own
One of the most common goals people have is to travel.
I wonder how many people actually want to travel versus how travel sounds as a goal.
Because I find that if you aren’t already making travel a priority and traveling now, you probably won’t later.
And that’s ok.
My dad has very little interest in traveling to far off, exotic places.
I used to think he was crazy, but as I get older, I’ve realized he is living a great life.
He loves playing golf, spending time with family, and being a part of his community.
Think about the fisherman in our earlier story. His goals were simple - to catch enough to provide for his family, play with kids, spend time with his wife, and hang with his buddies.
Retirement Shouldn’t Be The Only Goal
Yes, retirement is important.
But the goal shouldn’t be to put off having fun now so you can do it in your 60s and 70s.
What you are able to do in your 20s and 30s is very different than in your 60s and 70s.
I doubt I’ll be playing basketball, surfing, hiking, skiing, ziplining, etc in “old age.”
Sure, I might do some of it, but it will definitely look different.
Plus, we aren’t promised tomorrow.
God forbid you put off all your hopes and dreams until retirement, and once you do, you get hit by a bus.
Not to be morbid, but this stuff happens!
It’s not just what you retire from, it’s what you retire to
Most people think about the job they are retiring from.
Sales director or teacher or business owner.
But they don’t think about what they are retiring to, and what will replace all the work they’ve been doing.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t think the goal is to sit around and watch as much daytime television as you can.
That might be fun for a couple weeks or months, but that gets old.
Is it travel? Or time with family? Or volunteering? Or mentoring?
Again, I can’t answer that for you, but it’s important to think about and plan.
You must take action on your dreams, or else they become wishes
Have you seen the movie Collateral?
In it, Jamie Foxx plays a cab driver named Max, and as luck would have it, he picks up an assassin named Vincent (played by Tom Cruise).
I’ll skip most of the movie’s plot points, but there’s one part that always sticks with me.
Max has dreams of starting his own limo company and taking care of the rich and the famous.
But they stay just that - dreams.
He is unwilling to take the risk and start his own thing, so he continues driving a cab.
So during one conversation, Max says that he’ll open it someday. To which Vincent responds:
“Someday? Someday my dream will come? One night you will wake up and discover it never happened. It's all turned around on you. It never will. Suddenly you are old. Didn't happen, and it never will, because you were never going to do it anyway. You'll push it into memory and then zone out in your barco lounger, being hypnotized by daytime TV for the rest of your life.”
It’s not enough to have a great idea.
You have to put it into action.
If you don’t have a goal, society will pick it for you
If you need to, go reread the story about the fisherman.
Or I can summarize it here.
Make more money.
Buy bigger and better things.
Continue to make more money.
Continue to buy bigger and better things.
Continue this cycle to retirement.
Putting it all together
I’ve deviated from our normal financial planning topics, but I’d argue this is more important.
If you don’t know what you are working towards, then it’s much harder to choose the appropriate strategy.
And again, it doesn’t have to be a perfect, clear cut goal. Nor does it have to be some big, audacious dream.
It can be as simple as the fisherman’s, spending time with loved ones, enjoying a simple (and great) life.
It’s equally as important to know what you don’t want.
IE not having to work past 60 if you don’t want to. Or not working a job you hate, even if it means taking less money.
These are tough decisions, but they are absolutely crucial.
One of my favorite parts of my job is cheering on my client’s dreams as they work towards the sabbatical. Or starting their business. Or scaling back.
I hope this conversation inspires some thought about what you are working towards.
If you ever need someone to bounce ideas off, I’d love to chat and hear your story.
Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:
1. Connect with me on LinkedIn, where I post every weekday (unless I’m on vacation). https://www.linkedin.com/in/marshalljoe/
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