personal improvement

Resolved: I Will Do Away with Resolutions
Spruce branches surrounded by a clothes clip holding a note with New year, New chances, New goals, New Start, New results all crossed out with red marker

by Mark Leibman, President

With serious planning and determination, many of us are gearing up for the next round of New Year’s resolutions. The change in the year will be the time we finally lose weight, or drink less, or exercise more, or wake up at 4 a.m. like those social media productivity thought-leading rockstars do!

As for me, I will not have a New Year’s resolution. I won’t be hustling to be the oldest participant in the hardest 5k in the state in 2026. I will not be striving to achieve or maintain a specific weight. I will not be avoiding or including certain foods in my diet. No resolutions. Not one.

Many of you have heard me say that I’m planning to work to age 92. Will any New Year’s resolution make that happen? There’s nothing magical about December 31 (except perhaps some fireworks at midnight!). I don’t measure my health by a calendar.

Instead, I measure my efforts every single day.

When you really think about it, doesn’t wealth work the same way? Even though we measure markets on an annual basis, that’s really just a long-held standard for consistency. You may have heard that in 2025, the stock market (as measured by the S&P 500) was up 12% for the year, January to December. But we have the tools to calculate the return for whatever 365 consecutive days you’re interested in. We can look at the results birthday to birthday, or any other range we’d like.

The process of becoming financially independent—of gaining the option to live on your wealth instead of your labor—uses essentially the same process as my health goals. Steady decisions, over time.

And we’re here to help anybody navigate the process. We try to offer guidance in your journey through the economic ups and downs, the noise of market pundits both on business channels and at the café. To focus on your financial health overall, instead of some calendar-year resolution.

Just like my health goals don’t change when I buy a new calendar, my wealth goals don’t need to either.

Clients, don’t think we are against all New Year’s resolutions. There’s actually one I highly recommend: in 2026, help someone learn what’s going on here at 228 Main in beautiful downtown Louisville. I know I’ll try to stick to that one too.

Thank you all, for everything.

Content in this material is for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly.

All investing involves risk including loss of principal. No strategy assures success or protects against loss.

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

Play the audio version of this post below:

Resolved: No Resolutions – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

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

Resolved: I Will Do Away with Resolutions
Spruce branches surrounded by a clothes clip holding a note with New year, New chances, New goals, New Start, New results all crossed out with red marker

by Mark Leibman, President

With serious planning and determination, many of us are gearing up for the next round of New Year’s resolutions. The change in the year will be the time we finally lose weight, or drink less, or exercise more, or wake up at 4 a.m. like those social media productivity thought-leading rockstars do!

As for me, I will not have a New Year’s resolution. I won’t be hustling to be the oldest participant in the hardest 5k in the state in 2026. I will not be striving to achieve or maintain a specific weight. I will not be avoiding or including certain foods in my diet. No resolutions. Not one.

Many of you have heard me say that I’m planning to work to age 92. Will any New Year’s resolution make that happen? There’s nothing magical about December 31 (except perhaps some fireworks at midnight!). I don’t measure my health by a calendar.

Instead, I measure my efforts every single day.

When you really think about it, doesn’t wealth work the same way? Even though we measure markets on an annual basis, that’s really just a long-held standard for consistency. You may have heard that in 2025, the stock market (as measured by the S&P 500) was up 12% for the year, January to December. But we have the tools to calculate the return for whatever 365 consecutive days you’re interested in. We can look at the results birthday to birthday, or any other range we’d like.

The process of becoming financially independent—of gaining the option to live on your wealth instead of your labor—uses essentially the same process as my health goals. Steady decisions, over time.

And we’re here to help anybody navigate the process. We try to offer guidance in your journey through the economic ups and downs, the noise of market pundits both on business channels and at the café. To focus on your financial health overall, instead of some calendar-year resolution.

Just like my health goals don’t change when I buy a new calendar, my wealth goals don’t need to either.

Clients, don’t think we are against all New Year’s resolutions. There’s actually one I highly recommend: in 2026, help someone learn what’s going on here at 228 Main in beautiful downtown Louisville. I know I’ll try to stick to that one too.

Thank you all, for everything.

Content in this material is for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly.

All investing involves risk including loss of principal. No strategy assures success or protects against loss.

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

Play the audio version of this post below:

Resolved: No Resolutions – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

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

You Can Rig the System, Too

© www.canstockphoto.com / AlexMax

Politicians are telling us that we would be doing better if the system was fair. “The system is rigged” is a bipartisan theme this season. Through incompetence or malevolence or greed, the powerful few are supposed to be holding us down.

If you know us, you know we don’t spend a lot of time arguing politics. It is no surprise that any human endeavor has room for improvement. More pointedly, there are things about our society that are terribly unfair—including some things that are deeply rooted.

Each of the seven billion of us retain the ability to wake up each day and make the most of what we have to work with. Our resources may be few or many; our challenges may be petty or life-threatening; each one of us has our own story and our own situation. But we can each make the most of what we have to work with, day by day.

In key ways, YOU can rig the system in your favor. This thought was inspired by a list going around the internet, ‘Ten Things That Require Zero Talent.’ We can judge the merits of this list with a simple thought experiment.

Imagine that you are an employer, providing a valuable product or service to the rest of society. Among your employees there are two in particular you are considering for promotion and a good raise. One of them has all ten of these traits, the other has none of them. Here’s the short version of the list:

Being on time; having a good work ethic; putting in the effort, having positive body language; demonstrating energy, attitude and passion; being coachable and prepared.

So as you think about the free items on this list, which employee will you choose to promote? (Please accept our apologies for asking such a silly question with such an obvious answer.) The simple fact is that one employee rigged the system in his favor, and the other did not.

Our point is that each of us has considerable influence on our own destinies. In election season we discuss political and societal issues, we challenge things that need challenging and support things that deserve support. As we do so, let’s remember that our first job is to wake up each day and make the most of what we have to work with.