99 Problems but a B-D Ain't One
“I’m ready to go in, coach, just give me a chance. I know it’s all psychological. Just gotta stay in a positive frame of mind.” – Ace Ventura
Have you ever felt like a spectator in your personal finance game? Have you had that ah ha moment yet? You know, the moment you realize, despite all your hard work to land a dream job, your time has been leased out to someone else – allowing them to have true financial freedom while you run the hamster wheel? In other words, making it possible for them to own their time?
Mine was in October of 2016. The prior year was spent bargaining with my employer for my leased time back. It was different this time. I didn’t just want a short break or vacation. I needed it back. I needed time with my nephew who was battling a rare and aggressive childhood cancer. Don’t get me wrong, my employer was great and supportive, but after Liam passed, I couldn’t help but think of all the memories that were missed simply because I didn’t own my time. Looking to the future, and considering how it repeats itself, I felt helpless. I realized in my personal finance game, I thought I was ok, but I was really 4th and 99.
4th and 99. Consider the prior three downs, the horrible decision-making followed by ghastly execution required to end up in this position. The funny thing – I worked hard, followed a path to a successful career, a good retirement, healthcare benefits, and an emergency fund. So how did I end up here? How did I become helpless with the end zone so far away? My personal finance game was losing to a team of clueless politicians and greedy corporations, pushing back any possible progress until the goal line was almost out of sight? I needed a star player, I needed a financial advisor, right?
I knew very little about finance. It was not taught in school and I was never great at math. So, I avoided it, and figured a financial advisor could help take me down the road to freedom. Unfortunately (or now fortunately), I didn’t know the difference between a broker-dealer (B-D) and a purely fiduciary advisor. I inadvertently kept picking B-D’s (they’ve got the best commercials). They continually wanted all my extra money to be invested in some janky whole-life policy. I even had a B-D tell me, after stating I wanted to open a Roth IRA, “Yeah, yeah, we do that, but this is what you really want” (smooth-as-butter, he slid an insurance policy in front of me).
Yes, a good fiduciary financial advisor can be helpful (especially for those who can’t keep their hands out the cookie jar), but I understood that their strategy is to prepare people for retirement, while achieving life goals along the way – BUT true ownership of my time will only come from learning and actively doing the things most people ignore to learn or do. I eventually stopped making excuses and realized the only one to blame was myself. With today’s technology, information is available in seconds. Books, Youtube interviews, and podcasts featuring the brightest minds in finance are all available on the cheap (most free) – it was my own fault for not investing the time to learn. In that moment I decided, win or lose, to put on my big boy pants, charge the field, and fight for the end zone. Fight for my time. Fight for my freedom. Even if it meant I needed to get a little crazy, like Ace.
So here I am…4th and 99 problems but the B-D ain’t one.
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