A couple of weeks ago, my step-father passed away. It was unexpected to say the least. He was the husband of my mother for the last 28 years and father to three of my brothers. He was a humble and kind man. He was also a farmer. It’s difficult to talk about my step-dad without mentioning farming because it was his love, his life, and his passion. He won tons of awards for his farming. In fact, he was recognized…
Fear has taken over – and for good reason especially with regard to health. I want to do my part to help. I am offering 10 complimentary 30-minute phone consultations for retirement planning. There are no strings attached whatsoever. I don’t care if you use a fake name or whatever makes you feel comfortable enough to schedule. All I need is your phone number and the information you provide via our conversation. Once our conversation is complete, I will not…
We start our lives with plenty of time and good health, but no money. Then we have plenty of money and good health, but no time. Eventually, we reach retirement where we have plenty of time, and if we’re lucky, good health and plenty of money. As most people come to understand, our time and our health are the most fleeting of our resources because most can enjoy a nice life for less than they anticipated. There is a lot…
It’s hard to believe, but the Equifax Data Breach was discovered over two years ago on September 7, 2017. Astoundingly, at the time of the breach, Equifax announced that approximately 143 million U.S. consumers were impacted. Following the settlement agreement, we are now approaching the deadline to file your claim with Equifax if you were impacted by the breach. When is the Deadline to File Your Claim With Equifax? January 22, 2020. So, there is still time if you haven’t…
Most everyone has a plan for their time for their first year in retirement because it’s kind of like the longest vacation they’ve ever taken. Many take it as an opportunity to knock items off their bucket list and accomplish whatever they’ve been holding off doing while they’ve been working. But by year two, it’s a different story. Long-term retirement is a foreign concept for most people – particularly for high achievers. It reminds a Jerry Seinfeld clip about the…
Everything we do in life comes with a cost – whether it is actual money, opportunity cost, relationship cost or otherwise. Make no mistake about it, there is a cost. In the article I wrote a couple of weeks back about designing your days in retirement, I mentioned that I could easily be fooled into thinking that I need to have a huge business in order to view myself as successful. Or maybe more accurately, in order to believe that…
A couple of weeks ago, I attended an industry conference in Arizona that was filled with the creme de la creme of advisors. Being around a group of high-flyers like that, it wasn’t surprising to learn that most of these advisors have big goals. Many want to build large organizations with lots of advisors and “own their market.” They manage billions of dollars and are actively onboarding as many clients as possible as quickly as possible. Further still, many of…
Over the past few months, I’ve started to worry about dying. This sounds morose but stay with me because this is really a post about life. Irrational as though it may seem for a 36-year-old to worry about dying, I seriously do. Oddly though, I don’t worry about dying in a car accident or anything like that – I worry about having a heart attack. Much of this angst can probably be attributed to the fact that I know or…
This site is all about living a better retirement and having a bigger impact. An idea I have heard from a few people recently is to write a letter to your loved ones – particularly those you hope to have some sort of impact on. In my case, I have two young sons. Regardless of their age, I am making a commitment to write a letter to them each year on my birthday (next week I turn 36) where I…
Last week, I was interviewed by my good friend and fellow advisor, Justin Castelli on his All About Your Benjamins podcast. I’m thankful for that opportunity, not because we discussed retirement (which we did), but because he wanted to chat about my childhood. Justin and I had previously shared an offline call where we happened to chat about how I grew up and he encouraged me to share my story as it’s probably relatively unique – or at least not…