Transparency is a highly valued attribute that is routinely promised—and frequently undelivered. In fact, it often seems that the more loudly transparency is touted, the more opaqueness is practiced. Perhaps Shakespeare’s famous line from Hamlet, “The lady doth...
Encouraging a 20-something friend at my gym to attend a workshop I was giving on investing and financial planning, I quipped, “I’ll teach you how to be a millionaire.” “Really?” she responded. I quickly explained that, if someone her age invested $6,000 a year in...
If you lose your job, what emotional and professional support should you expect from your financial planner? Ideally, the planner’s first response would be, “Tell me more about what you’re experiencing. How can I best support you in this moment?” Since every client’s...
If you learned that your financial planner had their own financial planner, would you be concerned? Would you see it as a confession of incompetence or a sign of confidence and wisdom? Years ago, when I told my clients that I had a financial planner, their reactions...
Whenever I surf television cable news channels, I can’t help but notice the plethora of ads for financial planning. Some of them sound compelling, even to me. I often find myself thinking, “Dang, that’s exactly what we do.” Then I notice the...
