My youngest daughter Emmy got her driver’s license recently, having passed her road test on the first attempt. All three of our daughters were able to accomplish the feat in one try, but the path to get there was unique for each one.
Our daughters each have unique personalities and different ways of learning, which Keri and I learned as we taught them how to drive. What worked with Ella didn’t necessarily work with Abby, and we had to adjust again when it was Emmy’s turn. We also had to pay attention to our own driving habits to make sure we practised what we preached!
Many people assume that what worked yesterday still works today. Or that you can solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions.
Have you heard the “Pot Roast Syndrome” story?
A newly married young woman makes her husband a pot roast. She cuts off the ends the way her mother always did. Her husband is curious and asks why she cuts off the ends.
She replies, “I don’t know. That’s the way my mom always did it.”
So, the new husband asks his mother-in-law why she cut off the ends of her roast.
The mother-in-law shrugs and says, “I don’t know. That’s the way my mom always did it. She always cut off the ends.”
He finally gets a chance to talk to his grandmother-in-law and asks her why she cut off the ends of the roast.
The grandma just smiles and says, “It was the only way the roast would fit. We had smaller ovens then.”
This is exactly what is happening in the tax, financial and retirement income planning industry.
Most advisors are just as guilty of, “That’s the way I was taught and the way it’s always been done.”
Many work for “big box” financial companies that push their products first. So the planning industry became a “product-first” industry.
Planning using yesterday’s packaged, one-size-fits-all solutions.
Not a good way to plan a custom retirement.
The right way to design your retirement is to begin with your picture of your ideal lifestyle and financial future.
Then design a custom plan with custom solutions.
Just like we all have a unique learning style, we each need a customized plan to help us reach our goals. No more “pot roast syndrome planning.”
The most dangerous phrase in the English language is: We’ve always done it this way. It raises the question, ‘Are we doing this because we always have, or because it’s the right thing to do?'”
— Grace Hopper
