Does Your Financial Plan Need a 1% Change? Ep. 84

One of the speakers at the conference referenced a famous quote by author John Maxwell. Maxwell once said, "When you find your why, you’ll find your way.”

Think about it. When I know why I’m doing something, I can do more of it. For example, when I register to run a three-mile race, it’s easier to put in the training miles, because I know why I’m making myself endure the difficulty of getting in shape. Before we do anything, it’s important to ask why we are doing what we’re doing.

The book illustrates the power of small changes by using a plane that’s traveling from

Los Angeles to New York City. “If the nose of the plane is pointed only 1 percent off course—almost an invisible adjustment when the plane’s sitting on the tarmac in Los Angeles—it will ultimately end up about 150 miles off course, arriving either upstate in Albany or in Dover, Delaware.”

Mike Tyson, the boxer, once said, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." It’s easy when the market is favorable and a major bull run is happening to take on more and more risk and it may even be encouraged depending on where your recommendations are coming from.

 But bear market happens, and we get punched in the mouth. After this painful experience, we sometimes figure out we need a better plan, or at least a different plan. But this is normally not the best time to be figuring out our new plan.

A single, seemingly small, positive or negative decision may have a dramatic result.

The author is using this example to illustrate the power of bad habits, but this can also illustrate the power of good or bad financial planning. One seeming small decision to allocate a certain way may result in a wildly different result than you were expecting.

Darren Hardy, the author of the Compound Effect, said, “Unsuccessful people carry their goals around in their head like marbles rattling around in a can, and we say a goal that is not in writing is merely a fantasy.”

Obviously, I want you to be successful and glide through retirement with as much ease as possible. In order to do that, we need to have a well thought out comprehensive plan that looks at all the possible solutions available to you. Together, we can achieve that.

If you would like to receive a one-page written outline of our financial planning process, please  email us at [email protected] and we’ll forward it to you. Or you may call our office at 864.641.7955. This outline explains the steps we go through with our folks and allows you a snapshot of our process.

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