There isn’t a morning I wake up that I don’t think about the responsibility on my shoulders that comes with managing over $200 million of my clients’ money. Whenever I sit through a new presentation from an investment manager or hear the latest and greatest ideas from industry professionals, I ask myself, “Will implementing this idea add value to my client’s situations or is it just noise that will subtract from the end-goal in some way?” You do the same thing every day. You do your best to filter through all the information at your fingertips and pray you’re making the best decisions with your money. And while there’s no way of telling whether every decision is the perfect decision, I believe there is a framework we can all follow to keep things simple and have confidence that we’re doing our best based on the facts and circumstances in front of us at that time.
- Ask yourself, “Is this subject in my wheelhouse?” I recently had a prospective client ask me to help manage his money because, as a successful real estate agent, he doesn’t have time to focus on doing it himself. It’s not that he isn’t a highly intelligent man, it’s just that he knows he needs to focus on what he does best. Likewise, I can’t imagine selling my own home because it’s not in my wheelhouse. It’s not that I’m not capable of doing it. I just don’t have the time (or energy) to stop what I’m doing, put my business and family on hold, and figure out how to write a sales contract. Furthermore, I don’t have the tools and resources at my fingertips to analyze recent home sales or the experience necessary to price my home confidently in the current market environment. In the end, this prospective client realized his time was too valuable to turn his attention away from what he does best. In other words, by focusing on selling another home instead of spending that same amount of time trying to understand the stock market, he was able to leverage his time. If I’m doing my job the right way, I’ll keep him educated on what he needs to know so that the strategy we’ve implemented makes sense and gives him the confidence he needs to continue focusing on his business.
- Prioritize. There’s only so much time in the day. Unfortunately, we’re all running out of it. But when we drill down to what’s important to us and invest our energy in the people and things that mean the most, we tend to lead more fulfilling lives. Here’s the thing. Money is important. It fuels every purchasing decision we make and can limit our ability to achieve our dreams if we let it. But when you really stop to think about it, is the physical act of managing your investments one of your top priorities? It can certainly be an important responsibility that you want to get right. But do you want to spend your time and energy picking stocks and bonds? If not, you need someone that can help you make wise choices so you can maximize your opportunities and focus on what’s most important to you.
- Pray about it. A mentor recently shared with me that his father never made a bad decision. When he asked his dad how that could possibly be the case, his dad responded with, “I figure if I prayed about every decision and had peace that I was doing what was right at that time based on the facts and circumstances in front of me, then I never made the wrong choice.” That doesn’t mean every decision his father ever made worked out perfectly. It just means that he had confidence that he was doing his best. What a great concept for developing confidence in our decision-making process! If we can lean on our heavenly Father and surrender control to Him, we realize that most of the information in front of us is just noise. It’s often just a distraction from what’s truly important.
If you think the time is right to get another opinion on your investment strategy, let me know. I’m happy to offer my experience and attention on the investment universe to you!
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