past present future

Humbug-Free Financial Planning

 

Say, are you catching any holiday specials this season? There are even more movies this year spinning their own version of the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol. Hard to believe the story is more than 170 years old, but many of its lessons have stood the test of time. 

Life is often about learning and changing, isn’t it? Our work with you has some similarities to this classic tale. (But in our version, I suppose, no one is the Scrooge. We’re all already trying to grow and do our best!) 

Our first meeting, we meet your Ghost of Financial Planning Past. The past is formative—and informative. What brought you into our shop? How did you get here? What are the relevant parts of your past that have shaped you? 

We get a collaborative sense of what your story has been, up to this point. The Ghost of Financial Planning Past is someone you’ll have to introduce us to. It’s just where our story starts! 

As our work with you goes along, we stay in touch with the Ghost of Financial Planning Present. This is the spirit of action, the one who is most aware of the pertinent things going on in your life right now. They help us write the story anew, each and every day. 

The Ghost of Planning Present is the one managing those big life shifts: job change, big move, or early retirement on your mind? The spirit is there, helping draw your attention to what matters most to you. 

We are a key character in this part of the story, too. If you are living on your capital, for instance, we help arrange the ongoing details of how you finance the present. Or when your situation changes and adjustments need to be made in your plans and planning, then you can get us involved. 

Finally, we all must be ready to face the Ghost of Financial Planning Future. This specter is always a little blurry at the edges: nobody can know them that well, after all. But this is the spirit that helps us imagine what awaits us. We must live with the consequences of our choices, so how might our hopes, dreams, and goals shake out? 

The future is where your plans meet reality. When we are able to sketch out our aims, we have a better chance to befriend the Ghost of Planning Future. We can’t fully script this part of the story, but where there’s some arithmetic to do or strategy to implement, we’ll be there to help shape the story. 

It seems we are never done visiting with any of the spirits. The longer we know you and grow together, the past expands behind us. The present is always unfolding, day by day. The future is ever-changing too, as tomorrow becomes today. The future keeps skipping ahead just out of reach, the past grows, and all while we live in the present. 

The present is where we turn the future into the past. And we love striving to help you make the most of it! 

Clients, if you would like to talk about any of the parts of your life, please haunt us at your convenience. It’s our pleasure to be part of the story.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

Humbug-Free 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/.

The Great Myth of Mind-Reading
photo shows a large white question mark on a chalkboard

A friend of ours tells the story of an argument they once had with a parent. Both parties got more and more frustrated, realizing that they were not on the same page—and things were only getting more tangled.

Things escalated until the parent threw their hands up helplessly and yelled, “Listen to what I mean, not what I say!”

Funny, huh? Yet it sounds so familiar to many of us.

We do our best here at 228 Main to express ourselves clearly. We want to make our expectations known, to expedite understanding, but we know that words have their limits. When I say “chair,” you may picture a dining chair while I was thinking of a throne! When you say “retirement”… well, see where I’m going with this?

It happens in the financial news, too. Pundits think they can get into the minds of investors, to read each decision as if it were the same as an inner monologue. If anyone could read minds, though, wouldn’t a lot of people be right a little more often?

Instead, we like to remember our limits. How many resentments, how much confusion could be eased if we turned to the important people in our lives and said, “Oops! Forgot… You can’t read my mind.”

We believe an important ground rule for our work is that we will not treat each other as if we’re all mind-readers.

Clients, fair enough? With this in mind, please reach out when you’ve got anything worth mentioning—and we’ll do our best to check our understanding, together.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

The Great Myth of Mind-Reading – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

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

Your Life In Three Acts

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Life is a three-act play.

Act One is where you came from. What are you, what shaped you, how did you get here?

Act Two is the present. This is a part of the story you begin writing anew, each day when you wake up.

Act Three is the future. It includes your hopes, dreams and plans.

When we think about our collaboration with you, it begins when you tell us your Act One. This helps us understand you in your most fundamental characteristics.

As our collaboration with you goes along, you keep us informed about pertinent things that are going on in your life. This is Act Two, and it is mostly about you. Sometimes we pitch in. If you are living on your capital, we help arrange the details of how you finance Act Two. Or if your situation changes and adjustments need to be made in your plans and planning, you get us involved.

Act Three, the future, we work to help you script that part. Sometimes there is arithmetic to do, or investment plans to implement. The future is where your plans meet reality. We believe you can make the future you want more likely, by planning it.

It seems we are never done with any part. The longer we know you, the more we learn about your Act One. And Act Two, the present, continuously unfolds day by day. Act Three is ever-changing too, as tomorrow become today. The future shrinks, the past grows, while we live in the present.

The present is where we turn the future into the past. We love striving to help you make the most of it!

Clients, if you would like to talk about any of the parts of your life, please email us or call.