reflection

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.

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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/.

Focusing on What Went Right

We can put a lot of energy into studying the tape, rolling back through our missteps and mistakes. But what about what went right? What do we have going for us?

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Thirty Years—and Counting
By Mark Leibman, President

50 years ago, I was finishing my first semester of college at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

40 years ago, I became registered to work with investment products.

30 years ago, I affiliated with LPL Financial—December 1994.

That connection was the seed that sprouted into the business you see today, Leibman Financial Services at 228Main.com, online and on Main. We are an SEC-registered Investment Advisor, LPL still custodies client assets and provides services, and I remain a registered representative of LPL.

We might not be here today if not for two features of our relationship with LPL. The first is the spirit of independence, the freedom to build our business to fit our vision—not theirs.

The second is the unwavering support through the years for the voice of the advisor in digital media.

For a while in the middle, the health of my high school sweetheart became an existential crisis. I needed the business for the health insurance and resources to keep her alive. But her care required so much of my time that I could not communicate one-on-one with our clients, as I had before, in the volumes needed to maintain relationships.

That LPL Financial supported our voice in 21st century communications made all the difference. Email newsletters, blog posts, videos, social media—with these, we could talk with all of our clients at once.

Cathy Livingston Leibman fought for years after diagnosis, saw children marry and grandbabies born, before she passed. And I learned, in the daily triage of life, how to focus on the essentials like never before.

The business thrived in the face of adversity, becoming too large for me to operate by myself. So we transformed the investment advisory work into an enterprise, collaboratively owned and managed by three next-gen family members and me. We are now better built for the decades ahead.

And I have more time than ever to talk with you.

We have choices in our affiliations. The choice I made thirty years ago has stood up, and I hope it always will. In a time when allegiances are bought and sold, and short-term profit drives a lot of business decision-making, playing the long game is a competitive advantage.

Clients, that’s how we work with you, that is how we conduct our own affairs, that is why we are marking this 30th anniversary.

Thank you all, for everything.

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30 Years—and Counting – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

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

We Are All Authors

Even heroes get knocked down a time or two when fighting their monsters. There may be a couple of bumps in the road, but what good plot doesn’t have some conflict? With our passions in mind, a little bit of perseverance, and a good plan, we all get to be the hero of our own story. Want to talk through what’s important in your story? Call or email to chat.

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Looking Back from 68 
by Mark Leibman, President

Fifty-six years ago, I got my first paper route.

Forty-seven years ago, my first license to work with financial products.

Thirty years ago, the beginnings of what became the enterprise that serves you today.

Looking back from age 68, I realize that delivering something of value for money was at the heart of that first entrepreneurial endeavor—and remains core to our work at 228 Main.

I’ll never forget the speaker I once heard at a business conference, the one who began with a visualization exercise. Exactly how much money did we want to be making three years from now, he wanted to know. He told us to write the number down and to look at it morning, noon, and night.

His second point was about the importance of being client-centered.

I thought, “Hmm. You can only be ‘centered’ on one thing, and this fellow is centered on money.” Then I walked out.

From the vantage point of my 68th birthday, I see the compounding miracle of being focused on your outcomes. The better off you are, the better off we are—it is a win-win situation. And who knows how that arrangement might continue to build between now and my retirement at age 92? (Only 24 more years to go until that retirement party!)

Some financial types pander to people’s fears, so that they can “save” their clients with right “solutions” (which often happen to be their own products and services). We have always sought to build your confidence to invest successfully, to grow your buckets. Fear shuts down our ability to think—which is one of the reasons positivity pays, in our opinion. If we can keep our heads while all about us are losing theirs, we are in a contest of wits with unarmed opponents.

I still can’t envision walking away from the best clients in the world. If it doesn’t feel like work, is it really a job? And my associates are the best teammates in the world. We’ve built an enterprise; our capabilities as a team are vastly greater than what I had to work with at the kitchen table, back in the last century.

Thank you all, for everything, to this point. Here’s to the next 24 years. That retirement party will be in May 2048, details to follow.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

Looking Back from 68 – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

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

Solid Ideas from an Absurd Sitcom

For a show where “nothing happens,” there’s still something captivating about Seinfeld! Maybe it’s how the characters show up for each other and keep at it, even when life is absurd. Is our own support system pointing us in the right direction?

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Beginnings and Endings

As the end of the year draws near, it makes sense to look back on where we have been—and to look forward at the path ahead.  

Our lives have threads; the life of our shared enterprise here at 228 Main does, too. One thread is talking with you, meeting you where you are, striving to connect your money to your life. Other threads pertain to finding worthy opportunities in which to invest, managing your portfolios to take advantage of that research, and communicating with you about what we are doing and why. 

It’s been an interesting year! The markets have been challenging. Disruptions continue to affect some aspects of the economy. 

Change brings opportunity, of course, and we are always thinking about opportunities. Our underlying theory is that we persist, some will innovate, and we end up sooner or later with record levels of GDP, income, and wealth. No guarantees, of course. 

In other words, a lot happened in 2023, but the big story has not changed. We are looking forward with anticipation to 2024. 

My sense is that we’re more capable than ever of taking care of business for you—with more time spent by more people searching for opportunities, managing portfolios, attending to the details of service, and communicating with you in more ways than ever.

Clients, what are your plans and planning for the New Year? Any parts you’d like to talk about with us? Email or call, any time. 

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Play the audio version of this post below:

A Note about Beginnings and Endings – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

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

Embracing the Absurd: Some Lessons from Seinfeld 
Picture courtesy of NBC

As we navigate our working years, there will be times of uncertainty. We may question our motivations, our goals, or the impact we are making. We may be searching for a partner to share the journey. We may wonder what it is we’re working toward. Questioning things is completely normal.

There was a fictional group of friends who were often switching careers, struggling in their romantic lives, and just trying to find their way. Anyone else remember Seinfeld? Okay, so it’s hard to say that this show represented “normal,” but it’s all relative, huh?

Seinfeld follows the lives of four friends in New York: Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer. Each character has their own goals, career paths, hardships, and hangups—their lives couldn’t be more different, but they supported one another through it all. Sometimes it takes tough love, but they keep each other humble. (Like when Jerry has to break the news to Elaine that her dancing is atrocious.)

Life can get complicated; Seinfeld reminds us to work with the hand we’ve been dealt. George always tries to take things with a grain of salt. As he once said, “Divorce is very difficult. Especially on a kid. Of course, I’m the result of my parents having stayed together, so you never know.” (George’s life could sometimes be a mess, but hey, we all have troubles!)

The show reminds us that while starting over can be scary, it can also be exhilarating. We get to experience “firsts” all over again. Elaine is a good example. There’s the first time meeting new coworkers, the first time holding hands on a date, the first time we get a fresh paycheck and get to decide what to do with it. Elaine shows us that it only takes a little energy—and maybe a commercial break—to jump back into it. All these opportunities wouldn’t be available if we didn’t keep putting ourselves out there.

There is never going to be a perfect way to handle a hard situation. But that doesn’t mean we can ignore our challenges, to never learn or grow. Kramer tends to think of his life as “doing what I do, the way I’ve always done it, the way I’ll always do it,” but that won’t get most of us very far.

It’s good to remember why we keep at it, too. We don’t want to be like Jerry and think, “Why do I always have the feeling that everybody’s doing something better than me on Saturday afternoons?” We don’t need the same plans as everyone else: we need the plans that work for us, the ones we actually want to be enjoying!

Do our actions align with our goals? Is there anything we could be doing differently? The funny this is, Seinfeld is known for being a show “about nothing,” so it does give us a chance to think about what all this is adding up to. Are we headed for a retirement like Jerry’s parents, with a condo in The Pines of Mar Gables? Are our plans, our support system, and everything else pointing us in the right direction?

Seinfeld may resonate with some of us because we enjoy comedy, but we also enjoy the fact that the characters show up for each other and keep at it, time after time, even when life is at its most absurd. It’s not a bad reminder.

Whether you’re starting a new job, a new relationship, or a new stage in your journey, we wish you the best. It’s aways better if you can lean on your friends and get some laughs in along the way.

Call or email us, anytime—our perspectives are free, just like your friends’.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

Embracing the Absurd: Some Lessons from Seinfeld – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/. Picture courtesy of NBC.

A Wealth of Stuff

Our stuff is not the most important part of our financial planning, but it can certainly be part of it. As you look around at the things of your life, we hope that you see them as a reflection of and tool toward your goals—as part of a happier, healthier, and more sustainable financial future.

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