personal history

Depth Is a Choice
photo shows the top of a silver ladder coming out of a blue swimming pool

Some people find money talk awkward, to say the least. To others, it can seem tacky or even rude.

We’re in the business of money talk, though, and we know that there’s no planning for the future without it. What’s more—it can be a real pleasure! What could be more empowering than connecting numbers on paper to one’s real life? Getting a story in motion for a fellow human through a financial planning journey?!

Yep, I’ve been told I’m a little excitable.

But I do wonder how much of folks’ baggage about money talk comes from an unexamined relationship with money (or maybe years of being told what’s “proper” and what’s not?).

Clients, we’re not going to make you check any baggage at our door, but we want you to hear this: we recognize that our work gets really personal, really quickly. We know that our financial pasts and our future goals are intimate stories.

Can you imagine having a planning conversation that wasn’t personal, though? “I currently have a number of resources in several forms, and at a date in the future, I would like to be able to spend a certain amount of money for, um, reasons.”

In her book The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker talks about a facilitator she interviewed who compared coming together to entering a swimming pool. “There is a deep end and a shallow end,” the facilitator told her. “You can choose whatever end you want.”

To borrow this idea, we would suggest that financial planning is “an invitation to intimacy, but depth is a complete choice.”

We believe goals are intimate and individual by nature. We’ve talked before about how your neighbor’s retirement plan won’t be yours, your friend’s recent housing decision isn’t a blueprint for yours… You catch our drift?

All this is to say—we are here for the personal, the more pragmatic, and everything in between. We know the business we’re in, and it’s all about… you.

Clients, write or call when it’s time to update the specifics of your plans and planning.

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

Play the audio version of this post below:

Depth Is a Choice – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://228main.com/.

Depth Is a Choice
photo shows the top of a silver ladder coming out of a blue swimming pool

Some people find money talk awkward, to say the least. To others, it can seem tacky or even rude.

We’re in the business of money talk, though, and we know that there’s no planning for the future without it. What’s more—it can be a real pleasure! What could be more empowering than connecting numbers on paper to one’s real life? Getting a story in motion for a fellow human through a financial planning journey?!

Yep, I’ve been told I’m a little excitable.

But I do wonder how much of folks’ baggage about money talk comes from an unexamined relationship with money (or maybe years of being told what’s “proper” and what’s not?).

Clients, we’re not going to make you check any baggage at our door, but we want you to hear this: we recognize that our work gets really personal, really quickly. We know that our financial pasts and our future goals are intimate stories.

Can you imagine having a planning conversation that wasn’t personal, though? “I currently have a number of resources in several forms, and at a date in the future, I would like to be able to spend a certain amount of money for, um, reasons.”

In her book The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker talks about a facilitator she interviewed who compared coming together to entering a swimming pool. “There is a deep end and a shallow end,” the facilitator told her. “You can choose whatever end you want.”

To borrow this idea, we would suggest that financial planning is “an invitation to intimacy, but depth is a complete choice.”

We believe goals are intimate and individual by nature. We’ve talked before about how your neighbor’s retirement plan won’t be yours, your friend’s recent housing decision isn’t a blueprint for yours… You catch our drift?

All this is to say—we are here for the personal, the more pragmatic, and everything in between. We know the business we’re in, and it’s all about… you.

Clients, write or call when it’s time to update the specifics of your plans and planning.

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

Play the audio version of this post below:

Depth Is a Choice – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://228main.com/.

Only Thirty Years Left

© Can Stock Photo / stokkete

In the merry month of May a long time ago, I graduated from college in a new cheap suit and embarked on my career in financial services. The first entry on the resume was life insurance agent, the Prudential Insurance Company of America.

The insurance companies managed their affairs with vast armies of file clerks and secretaries and bookkeepers, filling towers of offices in major cities. There were no computers on desktops, long distance telephone calls cost a lot of money, and typing a letter was surprisingly time consuming.

Just a few years before, the New York Stock Exchange got so far behind in its record-keeping that it was forced to stay closed on Wednesdays for months in order to catch up the paperwork. This was due to the record trading volume of…wait for it…TWELVE MILLION SHARES A DAY.

Needless to say, times have changed a lot since I got in business.

I don’t understand how it happened, but I am turning age 62 this month. My plan to work to age 92 may be keeping me young. Between our digital communications, expansion of the team, reworking our systems and processes, keeping up with economic and market developments, and talking to you, there isn’t really time to feel old.

Thinking about the arc of this career so far, I began in the 20th century with a company founded in the 19th century. And now we are at the vanguard of the 21st century.

It feels like this unfolding age was made for us. We understand how to communicate with you in the new media. Being straightforward is a big edge when everything you say and do is visible. Word of mouth is a speed-of-light phenomena nowadays.

At this milestone, with so much left to do, we are grateful to be alive and part of it. With the best clients in the world and support by LPL Financial, we are very fortunate.

Clients, thank you all, again, for everything. If we can do anything for you, email us or call. Here’s to a great thirty years ahead, for you and for us.

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.

Leibman Financial Services and LPL Financial are not affiliated.