Month: February 2022

A Ripple Is a Full Circle Is a Ripple
photo shows overlapping ripples expanding in a pool with blue and yellow tones of water

A rare thing happened recently, an event more than four decades in the making.

Early in my career, making loans was part of my job at Louisville State Savings. One of those loans helped a trade-school graduate buy tools. He was 19 years old and ready to go to work and live on the fruits of his labor. We completed the paperwork at 130 Main—just down the street from where I am now.

This week a 60-year-old man came in to see me at 228 Main. He wanted to get his 401(k) plan rolled over so he could retire and live on his capital.

It was that trade school graduate, back to visit me at the other end of his career.

I was honored to be there at the start, and the finish, of this fellow’s career. It was a greater honor to hear him talk about his experience.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, “when you might have moved to Florida. I don’t want to deal with an 800 number or a computer. I like to be able to come in and sit and talk.” It was about more than his preferred methods of doing business, though.

It was about having someone to be there with him as he navigated his goals. He continued, “I need somebody that understands what I’m trying to do. You were here when I was starting out, you’re here now, and I hope you’re here for a long time to come.”

I have long suspected that every interaction can make ripples that expand to the end of time. We leave tracks wherever we go. The seeds we plant with our words and deeds grow into things we could never imagine at the time. I had a small part in getting some tools into the right hands. That young man setting out no doubt changed many people’s lives throughout his career. And who knows what that help enabled them to do?

I guess what I am trying to say is, life compounds.

Satisfaction is not exactly the emotion I’m feeling, but it’s something like the deep contentment of knowing I’m in the place I’m supposed to be, making the difference I can. Isn’t that what people want out of life, more than anything? To know they make a difference?

Start to finish—it seems like a full circle. But really, one thing leads to another, and another, and another. I’ve been a lot of places, but now I’m in the one with the best view of life, compounding.

Clients, if you want to talk about the next thing to which your life is leading, email me or call.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

A Ripple Is a Full Circle Is a Ripple – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

SMART Goals in a Dumb Pond?
photo shows a ripple growing in a blue pond with green trees in the background

Use SMART goals.

Be smart about it.

Work smarter, not harder.

You’ve probably heard this advice at a juncture in life; maybe you’ve even said it to someone else. Goals don’t get us very far unless they are explicit, meaningful, and can be tracked. Without them, aren’t they just dreams? “Hope is not a plan,” I’ve heard it said.

None of this is meant to be cynical, but I’m thinking about an important distinction: having “smart” goals won’t matter if they’re pointed in a “dumb” direction. So let’s get out of that framework. Smart and dumb are relative anyway (not to mention judgmental!).

The fit of a goal matters. For those of us youngest children who ever wore hand-me-downs, you know that even the stuff in the best shape isn’t quite right if it wasn’t picked for you. Alignment of a goal matters too: the thing better fit into the big picture. Does achieving a big purchase now help me live the life I want, without side-tracking my long-term goals? Just an example.

And your goals stay yours. Then it’s part of our job to make sure our strategies stay aimed at those goals.

We, too, strive for good fit. We don’t splash around in “opportunities” that don’t align with our principles. We seek bargains, we focus on owning the orchard for the fruit crop, we avoid stampedes. If it’s not in alignment, it could be a distraction or a tangent.

Jane Fonda once put it nicely: “If I want to make ripples, I better be sure I’m throwing my pebbles into the right pond.”

“Right” is relative to your life, your vision. We’re just happy to be part of the effort. Time to check in on your goals and their direction? Call or email, anytime.

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SMART Goals in a Dumb Pond? – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

Next Needs and Wishes that Wait

We can do it all… but not all at once. How you might prioritize all the most important financial goals on the path ahead. What are the next needs versus the wishes that can wait?

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Lining Up the Dominoes of Financial Planning
photo shows a line of snaking dominoes falling on a light blue surface

Clients, it’s normal to feel this way: suddenly a change is upon us, and we feel like there’s more to do than we bargained for. For some, it can feel like waking up to a never-ending list.

I’ve heard it from young folks, just starting out. Once they become aware of the state of their finances, it can be both empowering and overwhelming. It starts to seem impossible to accomplish everything that stretches out ahead of them: big purchases like houses or degrees, big goals like travel or retirement, and all the unexpected stuff in between? Daunting.

Other parts of life can prompt a sense of being overwhelmed, too, like the passing of a partner, a big move for a parent. It can feel like there’s no way to do it all.

Things are not as they seem, though. No one can do it all… at once. That’s the key: nobody can do it all at once.

We’ve talked about this idea before in terms of the many hats we wear in life. Perhaps a better way to think of financial goals, in particular, is dominoes: only one domino needs to fall at once, but the momentum means that each one affects the next. Starting the chain reaction takes the most energy. The rest of it builds on itself.

Think about the prelude to most people’s spending and investing goals: the emergency fund. Once you’ve got this resource in place, you move onto the next goal. But you’re not starting all over from scratch for the next goal. It’s the opposite, because now you have a firmer, better foundation to build on. You’re already on your way with more freedom than before!

Meaningful goals compound. They become a resource in themselves.

Clients, what’s next for you? Where does it fit in the big scheme? Reach out, anytime.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

Lining Up the Dominoes of Financial Planning – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

On Roots and Wings
photo shows a bird sitting on a flowering branch

Usually when we’re talking about love at 228 Main, I’m expounding about my passion for this work: I love my work, I love talking with you, we love what we’ve got going here.

It’s another week filled with sentiments and gestures surrounding love. Whether you like or loathe the Hallmark stuff, I’m thinking a little differently about this theme.

Our financial lives are full of choices. This or that, this plan or that one. We set savings goals, retirement plans, and contingencies. You can have some of everything, but each move comes with a tradeoff. Not every area can get all of our attention. It wouldn’t be possible.

It’s not so with the principle of “love.” It’s another resource—one that compounds.

Perhaps love is about being able to look at ourselves and others, note the human complexities and contradictions, and embrace it all for what it is. That’s where freedom is, where joy is possible.

But we can’t get too precious about it, either. We’re not forever stuck on past loves; we’re not forever reaching for future loves. We hold all of it, together, as parts of ourselves. They are strengths that move with us as we navigate the present. They are gifts, tools.

American newspaper editor Hodding Carter once wrote, “A wise woman once said to me that there are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these she said is roots, the other, wings.”

There’s no need to hold too tightly to either our roots or our wings—just the wisdom to embrace it all as it is.

Where are you headed? Where have you been? Clients, what a joy to be on the journey with you. I do so love this work. Call or write when it’s time to connect.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

On Roots and Wings – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

In Any Language, There’s One Simple Investing Goal

Hope, optimism, belief, confidence… In our line of work, it doesn’t matter how you say it. We’re banking on the idea that, overall, we’ll see more up than down.

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A Loving Plan for Your Relationship with Money
photo shows a yellow sun rising above a silhouetted mountain and clouds in purple and pink below a blue sky

With another Valentine’s Day, folks are reflecting on their romantic entanglements or interests, but it’s making us think more deeply about all sorts of relationships.

What does a healthy relationship with money feel like?

We are not here to give personal advice, per se, but there seem to be some fundamental principles that could serve us well in any partnership.

1. Make way for reality.

The most important of life’s conversations require some vulnerability—and bravery. Whether we’re talking about romantic commitments, financial health, or other big relationships, everyone involved would do well to be on the same page from the get-go.

Start by getting everything relevant out on the table: face and work with the reality of your financial life. The important conversations deserve honesty, even when it’s “just” you and your money!

2. Check your expectations.

For any endeavor, idealizing a relationship can doom it in an instant. Instead, we’d recommend checking in with your expectations about money. Is baggage adding weight to a current financial issue? Does it feel like progress is coming way too slowly?

Sometimes the problem isn’t the issue itself: the problem is how we are framing the problem. Goals can be wonderful, but even as we’re playing the long game, embrace what author Lynne Twist calls “experiences of sufficiency.”

They are those moments when things feel whole and life is full of “enough.”

A meal that satisfies. Sunbeams falling across the countertop. Clothes on your back.

A plan that you allow to inspire some hope. Speaking of…

3. Use goals to light the path you’d like to take.

Not every day of a relationship will be great, but the point isn’t total control of the outcome. Security comes from having confidence that, generally, things are headed the right direction.

So what are the milestones along the way that will remind you of that? That will spark joy, serve others, or continue to connect you to what’s important?

In the end…

Love is all you need! Thanks to the Beatles for this one, but it works. In short, compassion is a great foundation for a healthier relationship with money.

If you’d like to talk about what this means for you, please write or call.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

A Loving Plan for Your Relationship With Money – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

Seek Perfection or Change Perception? What My Travels Taught Me

I had the great joy of heading on a trip south recently. Vacations can be tricky business, can’t they? Sometimes these breaks are a highlight for the whole family, a chance to reconnect with a partner, or a major outlay from the entertainment budget each year.

The meanings we bring to vacation can hoist the expectations. We might tell ourselves (and those around us), “You’re going to have fun whether you like it or not!”

So what did I learn on my winter vacation?

I stayed in a classic Florida hotel in a charming location, adjacent to a marina, on the water. Seeing the fish jumping and the birds fishing, feeling the sea breeze in my hair again and the sun on my face, it was lovely. Except.

Except the walls of the hotel room were quite thin. Conversation and TV sounds came through from one side, snoring from the other. It was hard not to focus on those noises. My perception was the hotel was not up to modern standards: it was not acceptable the way it was.

Then I downloaded an app for my phone, a white noise generator. In two minutes, it was as if those other noises weren’t getting in anymore. I only heard the soothing sounds of a waterfall coming from the phone.

I woke up well-rested and realized that the phone app had, for all practical purposes, thickened and insulated the walls of the hotel room. It turned a flawed vacation spot into a near-perfect one.

The lesson of the stay in the old hotel is that sometimes, we need to be intentional about changing our perception so we can change our reality. We didn’t choose the world we were born into, but we do choose how to focus our attention, where to direct our response, and thereby, how we experience and shape our world.

Clients, when you would like new ways to focus on your world, please email us or call.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

Seek Perfection or Change Perception? What My Travels Taught Me – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

There’s the Planning and the Plan

Folks love a good before-and-after story, but big transformative goals tend to obscure the steps in between. We highlight the accomplishment, not the accomplishing. So how does the doing get things done? Making sense of your plans and planning with Mark.

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On Having a Seasonal Bout of Whiplash
graphic shows a white question mark sitting on a ledge against a bright blue wall

Trying to make sense of stock moves during earnings season might make you sympathize with Elmer Fudd.

Maybe you’ve seen the classic cartoon that goes like this: Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, chased by the hunter Emler Fudd, start arguing over which animal Elmer is supposed to be hunting.

“Duck season!” Bugs yells.

“Rabbit season!” Daffy insists. They continue this way until Bugs seamlessly switches his response to “Rabbit season!” At this point Daffy Duck counters with the only logical response… “Duck season!”

Elmer promptly shoots his foolish prey.

And now everyone’s shouting, “Earnings season!” Each company that issues publicly-traded stock must report about its financial wellbeing quarterly. In theory, the effects of this process should be simple for investors: a company that posts a good performance should see stock gains, and a company that posts a poor performance should see stock losses. Right?

But many folks view earnings reports through the lens of their expectations. A company that does well might still seem like a disappointment to those who expected even more from it. And when a company beats consensus expectations, some investors may second-guess the showing and bet on an even bigger blowout.

Stock prices can swing wildly up and down in response to earnings reports, with less logic than the duck season, rabbit season debate. If you listen to market commentary you may hear many different (even contradictory) explanations for why a company dropped on seemingly good earnings or rose on seemingly bad earnings.

Zoom out: ten years from now, do you think you will remember what one of your stock holdings did in response to one earnings report those many years ago?

The big investment news stories worth remembering will be about bigger issues than a quarterly earnings report.

We already know stock investing involves volatility—and some of it comes around like clockwork every three months. Clients, if you are ever wondering about sudden market moves, give us a call before anybody goes daffy.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

On Having a Seasonal Bout of Whiplash – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.