Reflecting on Your Financial Structure | AWM Insights #185
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Episode Summary
Creating a personalized financial structure is an intricate process that isn’t a “set it and forget it” task. As our clients move through their lives, they evolve and so should their financial structure.
Accommodating these updates and protecting new, important priorities is the only way to keep a portfolio relevant to a client's needs. It takes constant and clear communication to establish and reestablish a plan that will continue to position our clients in an optimal position to achieve their goals.
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Episode Highlights:
0:00 Intro
1:10 Reflecting on your financial structure
2:00 The value of refocusing and adjusting the plan due to updated circumstances
3:23 Focusing on what you can control and evaluating the sources of news we consume
5:26 Money is a tool, and are the right tools in your shed for your purpose?
6:35 Text us!
+ Read the Transcript
Brandon Averill (00:02): Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of AWM Insights. It's Brandon and Justin here, and we've been going down this series, as you well know by now. Really, the four step goal formula that's been made famous by our good friend Brian Kane, and really breaking that down into how it actually impacts you from a financial structure standpoint, how you can use this formula to set yourself up for success. And it's been a lot of fun as far as really walking through this and hitting on the first three steps. The first was set your intention. What are we actually trying to accomplish? Then schedule it, make it automatic, make it routine. Give yourself that real chance for habit formation around it. Ultimately, you got to measure it. You got to have the scoreboard, know whether you're being successful or not. And then really what we're going to hit on today, and very fittingly at the end of, we're recording this at the end of 2023, it'll get released in early 2024, is reflect and refocus, right?
(01:02): And start to look at the things that, what do we need to stop doing? What do we need to start doing? And then what do we need to continue doing? And so really with that, Justin, I'd love to kick it over to you and just hear from you how you think about reflecting and refocus when it comes to our financial structure and really setting up this new year and what we should be focused on.
Justin Dyer (01:26): This whole series is a great presentation for what we do, financial planning. It's not just mental performance, which are, like you said, our good friend Brian Kane focuses on, but it really it's a success formula overall. It's not just goals, it's not just mental performance, it's just success in general. And that is what we're trying to really help facilitate and support you, our clients, in doing. I think this last bullet, all of them are important, but this last one's probably the most important and really, especially when we're meeting with clients, it's what we are doing. It's what we're hoping to do. Setting the intention is part of it, and then all the pieces in between come with the conversation as well. But really it's, hey, let's come back together. Let's look at our priorities. Are we on track? Does this still make sense? Is this goal still relevant?
(02:20): Right? This is always a moving target. I love telling people that. It's hard to sometimes come up with these big priorities. Hey, what does life look like in five years? What does it look like in 10 years? What does it look like in 20 years? Get into that habit because guess what? Every year, if not more frequently, you get to do this, reflect and refocus. Is this still applicable? Did I save enough? Am I still on track? Have the markets provided what we expected them to provide? All of this is really the culmination in this last bullet here, and I think it's a really, really powerful kind of simple reminder, reflect and refocus. We get to do this as really as often as you want, and recalibrate the plan overall.
Brandon Averill (03:03): And I think the refocus word is really, I think, fitting to me as I start to think about starting and continuing different things. I think ultimately, we've talked about it a lot on this podcast, but control the controllables, focus on the things you actually can control. I think it's a great time to sit down and reflect and refocus even on the information sources that are coming into you. Who are the people that are closest to you that impact you? What are the information sources that you're listening to and how do they impact you?
(03:34): And really evaluate those things. Be conscious about them, be purposeful and say, hey, if I'm getting most of my information from X or Instagram, or take your time, really think about that and go, hey, what is this information being presented to me? How is it impacting me? Is it driving up my anxiety around things and causing something inside of me that I have no control over? And I could filter that stuff out and start to make new decisions for yourself, but that really reflect and refocus should help you to hone in those different information sources to help you set yourself up for the best success.
Justin Dyer (04:15): Yeah, there's really two components to this. I think you're making me think, and as I'm reading Brian Kane's blog post here, stay emotionally neutral in your evaluation, right? There's the pure dollars and cents, the pure quantifiable, here's what markets did, here's how much money you saved, here's how much money you spent. And then there's the behavioral side, which is what you're hitting on. And what his comment here is speaking to, which is probably easier to do when you're analyzing yourself or you're assessing yourself from a mental performance standpoint. And it's really difficult when you throw money into that equation. Money is a funny, funny, funny, funny little thing when it comes to the psyche, and it's probably impossible to stay completely neutral, but that's one incredibly important role we can play to be that accountability partner, to help you think through what is noise, what is actual signal, what is important to you, and think longer term.
(05:19): And getting both of those right are almost equally as important. The dollars and cents maybe is a little bit easier because math is pretty straightforward and black and white to an extent. The behavioral side is a lot more challenging.
Brandon Averill (05:35): Well, and it's challenging and everybody knows it by now, listening to us, and certainly clients that are listening, you hear us talk about it time and time again, money's a tool, right? So there is the black and white, but we often live in the gray, and that's the place you actually want to live. Because if money is really just a tool, it's a tool for you to achieve your priorities, but you better walk through this process of setting the intention, scheduling, measuring it, now reflecting, hey, did I achieve my priorities from this past year? Did things align? And nothing's going to align a hundred percent, obviously. And so it's an opportunity to be reflective, look and say, okay, well I need to refocus on this. This is an important priority to me, and I need to make sure that I set up the controllables in a way that help me to achieve that priority.
(06:20): So hopefully this series has been helpful for you. I know we enjoy going through it. I think it's hugely powerful. As you said, Justin, it's really a success formula overall. You can apply it to so many different aspects of your life. If there's some UIs want to hear us touch on in the upcoming year, we want to hear from you guys. Make sure to shoot us a text, 714-504-7689. We'd love to make sure that we address it as we go into this new year. But until next time, own your wealth, make an impact, and always be a pro.