Whether you are a fan of Rachel Ray or Julia Child or Emeril Lagasse, consider this for a moment: why have they chosen to openly share their hard-won trade secrets with millions of people? Rather than simply open a restaurant and make their famed dishes night after night for their fans to consume and delight in, they open up their cookbooks for others to actually do what they do. Think about that.

I don’t claim to be Emeril, but I take very seriously the responsibility to educate clients about the choices available to them in the world of financial services and products. In fact, my biggest fear is that a client of mine is asked why they own a particular financial product and they respond by saying “because my guy sold it to me.” Unacceptable.

As I share often, particular financial products are neither good nor bad. They just sit there on a shelf until someone puts them to use. Instead, it is how they are put to use that determines their effectiveness…their “goodness” or “badness.” Translate: if you own a “bad” product, it usually means it was sold to you for the wrong purpose.

The great chefs understand the role of education in their process. They understand that their willingness to educate their “clients” turns them into raving fans instead of remaining customers. It’s a big difference.

Caveat: raving fans are those who actually use the cookbooks and make the dishes described in the recipes. The same works for recipients of solid financial education and advice. If you don’t really want to know how things work, that’s your decision. The best relationships and outcomes involve both the educator and educatee to share the same goal. That’s when the magic happens.

The clearer your intentions, the better the outcome you can expect to achieve. This sounds simple enough, but the very concept of becoming clear on one’s intentions involves doing something really, incredibly difficult. Saying no.

You may argue that saying no is easy, but that’s really a misnomer. For example, what if I offer you two choices: 1. a fully-paid trip to Hawaii, or 2. a fully-paid trip to Des Moines, Iowa. Which do you choose? That’s easy, Des Moines. Wait, what? Why would anyone choose Iowa and say “No” to Hawaii? Oh, the child you and your spouse have been hoping to adopt for six years is being born tonight in Des Moines. Pack your bags.

Choosing investments, insurance, and financial products offers the same reason to take pause. After all, Mutual Funds and Exchange Traded Funds both offer an opportunity to diversify among asset classes. So which is better? Wrong question. Instead, the question should be “Which is better suited for a 62 year-old with $1.7 Million of investable assets, considerable investing experience, immediate income needs, high tax bracket, and concerns over inflation?”

You see, advisors have a tough job, but it’s one with incredible opportunity baked-in. We ask thoughtful, probing questions until we arrive at the client’s clearest intentions. We help the client anticipate the consequences of their decisions as they relate to future tax consequences, income and liquidity needs, risk exposure, and asset transition to heirs. Without a definable and consistent process to inspire and capture the client’s intentions, choices are simply too vast and too difficult to align with the client’s desired outcomes. In other words, we help people say “No” to options that don’t fit their needs and “Yes” to those that do.

Clarity is the true currency of a financial plan.

Without clarity, you might as well just buy any old financial product. After all, maybe it will grow in value or maybe it won’t, but who can control these things? With clear intentions, you can.

Ask us about our proprietary Four Dimension Review Process and discover how you can take back control and find money falling through the cracks in your life. Check us out at www.FourthDimensionFinancial.com

One of Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling books, Blink, attempted to change how we trust the way we process information. He asserted that people with many years and countless hours spent studying and working in a discipline could take in massive amounts of data and make surprisingly accurate assessments of the situation in the blink of an eye. He called this ability “rapid cognition” and it has myriad implications.

We all use rapid cognition in any number of ways. Everything from dating (love at first sight) to hitting a curve ball in baseball allow us to use this hard-wired or hard-won superpower to become expert.

In the context of financial planning, I ask you this: can the tools required for rapid cognition be shared with others? More specifically, can the benefits of an advisor’s rapid cognition be put to use for your benefit? After all, thousands of hours invested in studying, analyzing, synthesizing, and applying financial principles and strategies give us advisors more blink-ability than someone who doesn’t have the same experience. But can I translate that into value for you, my client?

Here’s how we do it: we have learned that most people make financial decisions using myths, misconceptions, and misinformation and don’t see the consequences of those decisions until years later. To help people anticipate this unfortunate experience, we choose to teach clients the questions to ask themselves and their other advisors before making financial decisions. Questions like “How will this plan affect my future tax liability?” can allow the client the benefit of seeing into the future to avoid missteps.

The best we can do for our clients is to help you see the choices available to you through our eyes – the very eyes that have amassed years of experience studying the outcomes of others’ financial decisions. In other words, our ability to “Blink” can be transferred to your decision-making if we choose to engage you in the process. If you feel like you’re being sold a questionable outcome, ask yourself if you’re being taught the right questions to ask before risking your hard-earned wealth.

If you are nearing or at-retirement, contact us today at (419) 931-0704 to go through our no-obligation Four Dimension Review Process.  Learn the right questions to ask before making financial decisions.

When known problems become “news” and we finally respond to it once it’s “official,” what does that say about our collective wisdom? The S&P downgrade of the US debt cannot possibly be a surprise to anyone who has paid attention. Since late 2007, the alarm has been sounding and each successive legislative move has only exacerbated the problems of our fiscal policy. Yet…this news is somehow news.

As I write this, the Dow is down over 600 points and gold is at $1,720.

A rating of AAA should mean something. For years, it hasn’t meant what it should have. When a country comes within hours of defaulting on its debt payments, it’s hard to argue that it should maintain it’s pristine rating. Do I wish the downgrade hadn’t happened? Yep. Do I think it’s unjustified? Look at the numbers.

Even the best teams have to lose from time-to-time to find their identity. Too much swagger generally precedes the fall. Winners get up and fight like an underdog. Let’s hope we still have it in us.