Well, first of all, it’s good to be back; I missed opining at everyone for a whole two weeks! Now down to business: I promised that I would share with you what I learned in the two-week Personal Financial Planning summer intensive as part of my Ph.D. program. Simply put, it’s this question: “What have we learned?” You see, Personal …
A unique opportunity has arisen in the financial services world over the past decade or so: Investing in your beliefs. Now that isn’t to say donating to non-profits or your church, but the actual advent of investment products designed to allow you to invest in companies representing your beliefs or to avoid investing in those you don’t want to support. …
We all have money scripts. They’re immutable psychological principles that were founded in our early childhood and that have been informed by the terms and perspectives we’ve observed in others around money as we’ve grown up. Positive examples can be “a penny saved is a penny earned” or “pay yourself first”, while more destructive versions can be “there is never …
We’ve all had that job. Whether it was THE job or just part of A JOB, we’ve all found ourselves staring at the clock and waiting to go home. But what does that say about the expectations we have for our work and the expectations our employers have? After all, if I’m AT work, shouldn’t I HAVE work to do? …
Yesterday a well-known financial planner who is the employee of a larger firm asked this question on Twitter: “Business owners – what were the most helpful resources or learning you’ve had regarding being an owner vs employee? What advice would you give others?” This a common conversation and question that financial planners face with both clients and the general public. …
Culture is an interesting area of interest, both public, private, personal, and professional. While every individual brings a genetic heritage and traditions in tandem, each business develops its culture from the top down in a positive light or the bottom up in a negative one. From small businesses to enormous institutions, culture is the force multiplier. An institution with the …
Well it’s official, as of Monday June 8th the S&P 500 Index returned to a Year-to-Date positive return, representing the fastest decline of the market and recovery from the decline in a single year in market history. While the technicalities of the causes for both the fall and rise of the market can and will certainly be contested between finance …
I don’t like to bring up that I’m a Veteran very often. It’s not out of some sense of secrecy, shame, or other emotional motivator. Rather, simply that I’d rather not identify myself forever more by a six-year period of my life. I was fortunate enough that my time in the military was unremarkable, and moreover lucky that it was …
I recently posted on social media my humble honor of being asked to be one of the faculty for the Financial Planning Association’s 2020 Summer Externship. The Externship is designed to provide hundreds of students around the country (over 500 as of today), with a replacement for their internships that have been cancelled due to structural or budgetary issues caused …
Often a growing business will look to add staff as quickly as possible. After all, a growing business is limited by the bandwidth of it’s human workforce, each of whom come with their own personal complications (i.e. work life balance). It is not uncommon for me to hear a business consultant or even an owner toss out something about trying …