moneyFYI
Financial Freedom Is Merely Organized Common Sense
You Must Know More About Some Things Than Others
Do I need to know much about how an internal combustion engine works before I can use a car? For many of us, they could weld the hood shut and it could be months before we knew. Other things are similar. I don’t need to know much about architecture, or chemistry or botany to get along. I can use the DVD player in my computer without having the slightest inkling of how quantum physics is connected to the laser therein.
In nearly everything in my daily life, holding a black box attitude to things surrounding me won’t hurt.
Other things do matter
Think about relationships. Do they work if you pay no attention to them? Not likely. Would it be better if you knew more about them and could participate more completely? Likely yes.
Think about career planning. You can drift through it but postive results are easier had if you know what you want, what the requirements for success are, and what you must give up in time, money, and effort to get what you want.
Think about raising children. Children are amazingly resilient. Tiny influences can turn out to have profound effect. But it turns out better if parents are competent and and apply those skills.
While not ideal, most of these things work out to some extent with little skill, training, or effort. Skill adds much more value.
What things don’t work out?
You will notice the things that matter and can work out tend to have just you or maybe a few close associates involved. What about other things where the field of play is more hostile?
Think about businesses you deal with. All have a business plan and that plan involves having customers. The business offers what they must to attract and keep customers because that’s how they get money. In most cases, they offer products and services that provide as much or more value to their customers than the money they must give up to get them. I don’t know how much they charge for Windows but If the price went up 20% I would not give it up.
Always remember though customers are part of the business plan and customers will come second if it comes down to what’s best for the customer versus what’s best for the business.
If you want these relationships to work well, you must know more than how fuel injection or flying buttresses work. The relationship is a little competitive at least and you have to be aware of what’s happening and how you fit.
What about financial planning?
People can get quite badly harmed if they know too little. All of the people who arrange things for you know much more than you do. They know exactly how you fit into their business plan. They tend to sell tactics without much consideration of your strategic goals and abillities. Most them provide packages with the advice that you need this. Ther eis little consideration of alternatives unless you ask.
What you need to know:
You are the planner, everyone else is a helper. If you don’t initiate the reason for the product or servie, you are im plicitly following thier lead.
All plans are in the form Vision – Strategic Detail – Tactics and – Logistics.
The helper s fit into this at the tactics and logistics level. They can help in the strategic detail area too but only if they are pointing out voids in your thinking and/or conflicts. Skilled professionals can summarize what youa re trying to do, calculate what you have to get it with, provide tactics that fit with the particular situation, and fit the tactics to other parts of your plan. Then they can make it happen.
You need to know how it works because their best recommendations are in this form.
- “Given what you are trying to do, specifically this, the resources you can apply to the issue, and your priorities, I recommend you choose one of these two ways to get it.”
- Explain. each and how it fits.
- Get a decision.
- Implement.
- The follow up. Easier to do because you have a template and expectations to attach results to.
Easier to stay motivated too because you know the purpose and the interim results you could expect.
If you don’t deal with an advisor who can help you work through your vision and strategic questions, you will not be the planner and they will be. That sometimes doesn’t work very well for you.
I help people understand and manage risk and other financial issues. To help them achieve and exceed their goals, I use tax efficiencies and design advantages. The result: more security, more efficient income, larger and more liquid estates.
Please be in touch if I can help you. don@moneyfyi.com 705-927-4770
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