long term goals

Designing the Future

Tastes come and go. It’s never bothered me much, as I’d rather sit and watch the fads go by than participate.

Thinking more lately about my home, and its gorgeous mid-century modern style, has me wondering about what makes a style last. I don’t know that anybody’s born with “good taste,” so it must be something in the design that makes the difference, huh?

A sound design—an actual plan—isn’t the same as a touch-up. Anybody can change the drapes or paint a wall. These are surface-level changes. They don’t change the shape of things or how a person might move through this life.

A designer needs to know about the heart of the issues. They might ask…

  • How do you want to use this space?
  • How do you want to feel when using this space?
  • What are your needs now, and what needs do you anticipate?

These questions are sounding familiar. They are fundamental to our conversations about your money and your life!

I’m no designer, but I like the idea that there may be fundamental principles to sound design and to sound financial planning. We collaborate, get the crucial elements on the table, and then get to work.

Maybe I’ve got more style than I thought!

… But maybe I’ll stick to the basics, just to be sure.

Clients, when we need to come back to the plan or think about its design, please write or call.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

Timeless Design – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text can be found at https://www.228Main.com/.

Living on Purpose
photo shows a highway stretching out into a blue sky

Some say the young believe themselves immortal. When our whole lives seem to be ahead of us, it feels like there is plenty of time to do whatever we intend to do.

But we know the mortality rate is 100% in the long run. More than 3 million people died last year in the United States, about 1 person in 100.

And in our experience, many people coming to grips with their own mortality come to believe that life is short—no matter their age.

If it’s true, then how do you fill in the blank? “Life is short, I better ___________.”

In the prior chapter of my life, we filled in the blank with “we better have a little fun every day.” That’s still appropriate in this chapter, but I ponder what else fits in the blank these days.

Interestingly, some things are so basic to our natures they go without saying. A person who is consistently kind and empathetic to others might not think to fill in the blank with “be kind” because it is assumed. So thinking about how you might fill in the blank is another way to be intentional about how you live, to do things on purpose.

Maybe that’s what all this is about. By the end of the road, I’d like to know that I meant the things I did and did the things I meant to.

How about you?

Clients, life is short. How can we serve you—and help you connect your money with your one precious life? Call or email, anytime.

Want content like this in your inbox each week? Leave your email here.

Play the audio version of this post below:

Living on Purpose – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

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

Timeless Design
photo shows paint and material samples arranged on a tabletop

Tastes come and go. It’s never bothered me much, as I’d rather sit and watch the fads go by than participate.

Thinking more lately about my home, and its gorgeous mid-century modern style, has me wondering about what makes a style last. I don’t know that anybody’s born with “good taste,” so it must be something in the design that makes the difference, huh?

A sound design—an actual plan—isn’t the same as a touch-up. Anybody can change the drapes or paint a wall. These are surface-level changes. They don’t change the shape of things or how a person might move through this life.

A designer needs to know about the heart of the issues. They might ask…

  • How do you want to use this space?
  • How do you want to feel when using this space?
  • What are your needs now, and what needs do you anticipate?

These questions are sounding familiar. They are fundamental to our conversations about your money and your life!

I’m no designer, but I like the idea that there may be fundamental principles to sound design and to sound financial planning. We collaborate, get the crucial elements on the table, and then get to work.

Maybe I’ve got more style than I thought!

… But maybe I’ll stick to the basics, just to be sure.

Clients, when we need to come back to the plan or think about its design, please write or call.

Want content like this in your inbox each week? Leave your email here.

Play the audio version of this post below:

Timeless Design – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

Sacrifice or Joy?

canstockphoto17054356.jpg

The ability to delay gratification is supposed by some to be the key to reaching our goals. And it seems to make sense.

If one can spend less and save more day by day, greater wealth results over time. Skipping dessert and taking the stairs instead of the elevator over the weeks and months may improve our health over the years and decades.

This framework casts our future welfare as something that contends with current enjoyment of life. “Sacrifice today for a brighter tomorrow,” and all that. It takes willpower to struggle against today’s desires for distant benefits, somewhere down the road.

We believe there is a more productive way to think about this.

The key is to find the immediate gratification hiding inside deferred gratification. If you are broke but begin saving a little bit of money every payday in a systematic way, you have the immediate gratification of changing your trajectory, of moving in the right direction.

Imagine the gratification of getting your act together in the way that most needs it. You have known it needs attention, and its neglect nags at you. Embarking on a plan gives you the immediate gratification of taking action to improve your life.

In short, you can struggle and sacrifice today for benefits in the misty future, or reframe it so that reaching for your goals brings you immediate joy. It’s a matter of the narrative you choose to tell yourself, the framing in your mind.

Clients, if you would like to talk about your goals or anything else, please email us or call.