Investment Charts, Helpful or Not?

Warning, nerd alert. I had the chance to meet with two wonderful financial planners recently. While I was waiting for our meeting to start, I was looking at some charts that they had up on their wall. One 

of the charts was of the stock market over the last 100 years, along with different events that happened during that time period. One line of the chart included the different presidents that have been in office over the last 100 years.

As I was looking at the chart and making sense of the information, Jenny one of the planners walked into the meeting room. She and I talked for a minute about the chart and how they use it to help communicate with their clients about investing. Jenny made the observation that despite what her clients believe about the current president, the stock market has performed positively during both democrat and republican presidents. This discussion reminded me of two important investing lessons.

1. The need to look at the big picture

2. Our assumptions about why things happen can be wrong

When it comes to investing we all have to contend with our emotions, perceptions of risk, and why we think things happen the way that they do, but when we can look at data and talk with someone else about our perceptions, we then have a chance to see things in a new light.

Before I loose you, I realize that the very idea of looking at investment charts is intimidating. Yet this may be the very thing that you need to consider for overcoming your fear of investing. Having a professional help answer all your questions, can in turn help you feel confident about making the best decisions for your family. None of us have perfect information, but professionals through their years of education and experience can usually help put things in perspective.

When it comes to investing, the more that you understand, the more likely you will feel confident to use investing to provide for your families future. Too often the investment world is positioned as a risky one, yet with a good advisor on your side, you will grow in your confidence about inventing. The planners that I met with are members of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors. This group has very strict guidelines for membership and client advocacy. I trust that these professional would be well qualified to help make sense of investing for you and your family.

The Danger of Being Smart

What happens when you think you are smart? A long shadow emerges. It is the dark side of being smart without maturity. In my mind maturity allows us to see the benefits of our strengths but also the limitations of our strengths. I have the good fortune of working with many highly talented, bright and yes smart individuals. Yet as I try to work with them, I have noticed three trends.

The Trends
1. The little voice in their head says they know it all.
2. Their intelligence gets applied to areas they know nothing about (part of number 1)
3. Being wrong is a threat to their identity

Sadly these trends are why many smart couples remain overwhelmed and frustrated. Often both people in the marriage are very smart, highly educated and trained to think. Yet their problem solving skills in the areas of marriage and money are not developed. The reality is that many of the problems in our marriage and with our finances will not be resolved by intelligence alone. Rather they will need to be addressed at the emotional level first before logical answers can emerge. This thinking is based on the findings of research based Emotional Focused Therapy.

Rather than our intelligence serving us well, it acts as a protective measure against feelings of insecurity. In the field of psychology intelligence is seen as one of the most complex defense mechanisms. Intelligence allows us to navigate many obstacles in life, but it has its limitations. As we grow in maturity and recognize the limitations of our intelligence then the weight of responsibility can begin to fall of of your shoulders.

In our culture which prides itself on knowledge, the risk of looking like we don't know something is high. However when we recognize the necessity of vulnerability in our marriage and money then we can see that our intelligence is not threatened, but rather encouraged. When we start to acknowledge the limitations of our intelligence, then we can become receptive to getting the feed back that we need to grow and make the necessary changes. Sometimes this feedback needs to come from outside sources including financial planners and marriage counselors before we are ready to hear it from our spouse.

Getting to the place of recognizing the limitations of your knowledge may be difficult in part because you have been prized for your intelligence for so long. Yet in order to get along in your marriage and money it is not about letting go of intelligence, so much as it is about recognizing it's limitations.

Changing Social Class Leads To, Who Am I?

What happens to us when we move up or down in social class? Typically, the values and views that we developed as children are challenged. In our married life this an area ripe for arguments

For most of us, the way that we were raised forms our core financial identity. Our core financial identity informs many unspoken rules about our personal values and the way that money is to be used in our lives. Hence, this is why we feel challenged when we experience a shift up or down in social class. Such feelings also are brought on when we encounter people of other social classes than our own, because most often, these individuals hold different values that sometimes challenge our own values.

As we move across social classes, we enter into new rules, and new ways of relating to people. If a part of our core identity does not have flexibility, then we become overwhelmed by the transition and do everything we can to revert back to a place of comfort and familiarity. Much of this happens at a subconscious level.

Let's look at two examples of dealing with change in social class, one which is commonly known, and one which is much less known. First, let’s think about young new professional athletes, entering into a pro sport, who perhaps may have come from humble beginnings and little money. These athletes enter into their new world flooded with an abundance of cash and opportunity unlike they have ever imagined. Sure, they may have dreamed of having loads of money and success—which is likely a contributing factor to how they reached the amazing level of success that they have achieved—however, too often, athletes in these types of situations forget one important thing: They forget to consider the necessary work needed to realign their core identity with their change in social class. As a result, inside, deep down, they likely still see themselves as someone from humble beginnings, and so they live out the deeply ingrained cultural values of a lower social class. This works fine, until their careers come to an end and their cash flow is cut off. For many of these professional athletes, they end up right back where they started from, and sometimes find themselves in worse shape than before. That is, they now have to figure out how to deal with the financial trauma of moving up in social class, and then slamming back down in social class, all without the necessary core identity changes along the way.

The second example probably happens more often than the first, yet it tends to get much less press. For the second example, let’s think about a young couple who have decided to start a young family. For comparisons sake, let’s say that they too have come from humble beginnings, like the professional athlete. This couple has taken the time to educate themselves and have now gotten to a place where they are successful professionals.

However, with the demands of two full-time professional careers, and their growing family, they need some additional help around the house. Though they both have full-time jobs, the wife is primarily responsible for managing their home. As a result, she proposes to her husband that they hire a housekeeper. Her husband’s reaction is not what she expects, as he grew up in a family where his family and their friends where “the cleaning people.” Feeling somewhat disgraced by her request, he says to her "we can't hire my people" to do this kind of work for us.

In sum, though the husband is a successful and well-educated professional, for him, the idea of hiring someone to clean his home does not mesh well with the core financial identity he grew up with. For the husband, there is an implication and remembered resentment of the families that used to hire his family to clean their homes, and he thinks to himself, “I don't not want to be one of those people.” The husband’s core financial identity is rigid on the topic of “hiring household help” because he has continued to identify with his lower social class, though he and his wife together earn a much higher level of income than his own parents did. He has not adequately adjusted his core financial identity since moving up in social class. Obvious differences of core financial identity between he and his wife lead to loads of frustration. They do not know how to move forward on this subject, and so they continue to fight. Ultimately, the stress of their financial identity differences takes its toll, and the couple grows apart from each other.

It can be more difficult than imagined, to cross social classes.  Many people imagine that having more money would provide them with greater opportunity. It can; however, such change requires a person to reestablish his/her core financial identity. You have to develop a new set of skills and abilities to be able to manage your money well. You must become aware of your own internal rules about money, the purposes they served at your previous economic level, and how some of those rules may no longer be relevant.

For me, one social class rule in particular that has evolved as my work has changed, relates to “packing my lunch” as a money saving strategy. Growing up in the blue collar middle class, I have always practiced this money saving rule. Yet, the more I grow my business and find myself working with white collar professionals, “having lunch out” is not only a normal practice, it is expected. I have realized that eating out for lunch within this different social class is not so much about the food as it is a way to share ideas, to network, and to build working relationships over a meal. Because these opportunities are important in helping me to continue to grow my business, it has become vital for me to readjust my thinking regarding this financial rule, and I have had to reestablish a part of my own, previous core financial identity.

To start the shift in your core financial identity it will take time in reflection. You will want to consider the rules about money and its use you learned during your upbringing. Then compare them to the rules that you observe for where you live now. Don’t rush this process, often the social class rules we live by are subtle and not always so obvious. With time and observation you can start to determine which social class rules you want to participate in and which ones you prefer to avoid.

Developing Your Philosophy Of Wealth

We live in a culture influenced by main stream media hype. Unfortunately, often times this media hype is centered on wealth creation, feeding us with a false sense of what wealth should be like in today’s society and providing us with a false hope of how we supposedly can obtain unrealistic amounts of overnight wealth.

Within a society that worships at the altar of wealth creation, many of us are left with an unclear definition of what wealth truly is (or should be). In this same sense, many of us have not taken the time to consider what wealth means to us (or to our families), nor have we developed a “system of thought” for our own personal wealth. 

As such, two important questions to consider are: How do you define wealth? And do you have, or do you follow a particular philosophy of wealth?

I am not here to make a case for any one particular philosophy of wealth, rather, I would merely like to challenge you to think about your own “system of thought” related to wealth, and how these ideas may or may not impact you and your spouse’s or your family’s finances.

Chances are, no matter what type of family you grew up in, you likely were influenced to feel one of three ways about money:

That there was never enough, that where was just enough, or that there was more than enough. Depending on your experience, these influences have likely driven you in a certain direction regarding your creation of personal wealth.

I know that for many entrepreneurs, who may have grown up in an environment where there was never enough money, their experiences influenced them to create a “problem solving” philosophy of wealth.  That is, their system of thought regarding wealth includes ways to make lots of money, not just for themselves, but for others in need as well. They became entrepreneurs because they never had enough growing up. Some of these entrepreneurs are wildly successful and end up having much more money than they ever dreamed of; however, many of them still are likely (and constantly) driven by the need to insulate themselves from that underlying feeling of not having enough.

It is difficult to live life feeling like there will never be enough. The other end of the spectrum of living with a feeling like there will never be enough is the development of a basic assumption that they will never be able to make enough money in order to provide for themselves or their family. For these individuals, this overall philosophy of wealth usually results in them taking on jobs or a certain lifestyle in which they cannot possibly support themselves or their families in even the most basic ways.

For an individual that grew up in a family where they felt like there was enough money, they likely internalized a sense of security with money. Not necessarily reliance or dependence but rather that when needed and important they could go out and get a job that would pay at a level appropriate to their level and type of education. This person is aware of the importance of money, but often does not feel anxious in the absence or abundance of money. Rather they recognize the balanced role that money plays in life.

I could provide more examples to draw distinctions between how individuals might react based on their childhood experiences with money; however, the reality is this: There is great nuance for every person regarding their philosophy of wealth. Everyone defines value and wealth differently. Some define wealth just by the numbers on the balance sheet; while, others are more comprehensive and include time, family, faith, and health as parts of their overall wealth picture.

Regardless of whether or not you have taken on a formal philosophy of wealth, money influences you and those around you. Without realizing it, you currently, probably live-out a system of thought related to money which affects you every day, in every decision you make, based on how you grew up. Just as everyone defines wealth differently, there is no one common definition of “wealth” to go by. This is why I challenge you to evaluate your own, or your family’s philosophy of wealth. Chances are, as you first start out on this journey, you will use other people's (likely your parent’s or caregiver’s) definitions of wealth until you can formulate your own.

To get the most out of this process, it would be best to first spend time working through your understanding of wealth. Then, you can engage in a conversation with your spouse or loved ones about their particular definition(s) of wealth. As you gain clarity, you and your spouse (or those around you) will likely reach a place where you share a somewhat similar philosophy of wealth. From here, you will be able to evaluate where you have room to grow, how you can collaboratively plan your future based on similarities in thought regarding what wealth is to you and your spouse or family, and where you can hold solid within your own system of thought regarding wealth creation. Only then will you be able to start making sound decisions together. Such conversations will be difficult at first, but if you stick with it over time, you will create shared meaning and purpose in your marriage and money.

Living Well With Wealth, Not Just For Millionaires

What happens when you get more money?

Peace, happiness, contentment...

Not always. Can you say decision overload syndrome. While we would all love to believe that having more money solves all problems, more often than not it does not. Believe it or not, having more money can mean more work.

As we have access to more money we have more decisions to make. Remember the good old days in college when you only had $100 in your bank account. What did you do for dinner? Probably the cheapest pizza you could find.

There are different ways in which people's wealth increases and depending on the path it can have a big impact on how they relate to wealth.

Here are four broad pathways that people enter into wealth
1. They earn it - in earning it this may happen over a life time of slow and steady saving, professional advancement, or successful business.

2. They marry into it - this does not mean they married for money, but perhaps they married someone one socio economic level up.

3. They inherit it - a family member leaves behind an unexpected lump sum of money.

4. They are born into it- the parents create wealth while raising their family and the children grow accustomed to a certain life style.

Along each pathway there are many different intersections, unique characteristics that come along with the wealth that an individual lives with. Yet each of the these paths is not equal in helping someone live well with wealth.

There is a real challenge to living well with wealth. The more money that you have, the more decisions that you are responsible for either directly or indirectly. By indirect decisions I mean that you hire other people to help you make financial decisions. Which is a big challenge. If you have ever had to hire someone for anything, then you can appreciate the difficulty in trying to hire the right person to help you with your wealth.

For those people who create wealth for themselves over a longer period of time they have a chance to learn many important lessons about managing and maintain financial resources. Compared to the person that comes into wealth, where they have had no chance to develop the necessary skills to manage wealth well.

Living well with wealth is a skill and one that is refined over time. Imagine being dropped in a new country that you have no knowledge of and you are told to live well there. What would you do? Which rules would you play by, chances are you do not know the rules. Is it going to take you some time to learn the rules of the land? Absolutely. This too is true of living with wealth.

As we think about the path to living well with wealth, it is one that takes time, maturity and relationships to master. Living well in life can not be done alone. Remaining open and willing to learn about what it means to live well with your level of wealth will depend on your perspective. Take time to slow down and think about where you need to grow in order to live well with your wealth.

Saving Financial Face

We implicitly know and experience pressure to use our money in certain ways. If we don't behave in expected ways we anticipate experiencing a wide range of "negative" emotions. Instead of facing the emotions head on, we save financial face.

The reality is that we all have unspoken rules about how we are supposed to use money. Have you ever been sitting in church and felt obligated to put money in the offering plate, because the person next to you did? You think to yourself, what would they think if I don't drop something in the plate.

Or what about being out to eat with a group of friends. Everybody is ordering drinks, appetizers, entree's and deserts, but you don't want all that. At the end of the meal you feel the pressure to split the check evenly, when all you wanted was an entree. Our families are often another area where we feel it is necessary to save financial face. Can you say Christmas. Perhaps you are expected to pay for meals, vacations, clothing, health care, etc. because you have the good job, you are the father, you are the fill in the blank.

Depending on our role in family, marriage, and friendship, defines many of the decisions we ultimately make the the money that is within our control.

Other common places that we feel the pressure to save financial face include the membership at the country club, health club, swim club, children's sports, gymnastics, kids birthday parties oh and the list can go on for ever. The reality is that we get sucked into social relationships only to learn later that there are many more expectations on how we act and spend money than we had originally expected.

One of the classic examples is moving into a nicer neighborhood. The young couple is so proud that they got to buy their forever home. They tell themselves that they will keep it simple, they won't try to keep up with the Joneses, but those empty rooms yearn for filling and so before long the young couple is of to the furniture store, and not just any furniture store. One of those nice furniture stores. You know where the "good" stuff is.

So where, when, and what makes you feel like you have to save face financially? Have you taken the time to think about this. Have you taken the time to talk with your spouse about what situations make you feel uncomfortable and yet you still go with the flow.

We may never fully free ourselves from the situations that are going to evoke a desire to save financial face, that is without holing up in our house, not interacting with anyone, or ever going to the store. So what are we to do? First we need to increase our awareness around what makes us feel financial pressure.

The long term strategy is to work on our sense of maturity. This is really easy to say and often hard to do. Those people that I have met that are mature and have a healthy sense of themselves, also express low levels of pressure to save financial face.

 If you are ready to say no to saving financial face, and yes to keeping your financial priorities then try saying no to a request of you to spend money. The response might just surprise you.

The Damage of Shock and Awe

Last night I watched a few minutes of The Biggest Loser and while admittedly I used to enjoy the show and think that what they where doing for people was really tremendous, I now have my doubts. In the last three years I have learned a tremendous amount about how people change and make change last over time.

In our culture we celebrate shock and awe, pull your selves up by your boot straps, and 5 steps to change your life. While these tactics work in the short run, they seldom leave the person in a better place in the long run. At the core, these methods use guilt, shame, and coercion to get people to do what they "should" do. Why are they so popular, because they get results quickly. Which is what so many of us are hungry for, yet what we don't see after the entertainment of watching someone being radically changed, is them slipping back to their old ways often coming in the forms of rebellion.

The real process of change for the positive is a long and slow one, seldom with quick and obvious signs of change. Yet over time, real transformation begins to emerge. This type of transformation comes from internal motivation for change, change that can not be imposed from the outside, but rather can be facilitated by a trained professional who is truly vested in the best interest of the person desiring help. Being able to help people change is hard nuanced work. It can be painful and slow for the facilitator of change, but when they are able to stay in the process and walk alongside, not in front of or behind the person desiring change, then lasting change can begin.

How do I know all of this is true, well sure I have read loads of books about it and earned two masters degrees, but this is not what helps me know about the change process most, rather it is my personal experience of growth. I have experienced both the shock and awe methods of change, as well as facilitated change. The lasting change in me, that leaves me feeling deeply stable and secure has come out of facilitation, not a process of I know what is best for you.

I have only begun to realize my own internal motivation for change, and while sometimes it has not always come out of proper motivation, it has been the strongest propeller of change. Fourteen years ago, I could not have ever imagined having two graduate degrees and one advanced professional certification. The change has been long, slow and difficult, it has had moments of triumph and utter despair, but I am a different person.  A person who is well equipped to help others make lasting change. Am I am done in the growth process? Not a chance. There is still much to learn, and I know that it will be a life long journey that no six week program is going to satiate.

When we only look at growth or change as a six week program, or five step plan we are destined to frustration and despair. While those programs can serve as catalysts for moving forward, they alone will not sustain your growth. Your desire for growth and change must come from within.

FOMO with Marriage and Money

A new wonderful term has entered my language that I learned while talking with another friend of mine. The term is FOMO. Have you heard of it? I hadn't either. So what in the world is FOMO? It simply stands for Fear Of Missing Out. As soon as FOMO was stated word for word, I instantly new what my friend was talking about. What a simple way to describe the way that we often feel about many different subjects in our life.

Sadly we all get sucked into the pressure cooker of life and become convinced that if we don't participate in certain things, that we will certainly be missing out. To not have, or not be something in our culture generates loads of fear. When we stop and think about it, our FOMO is often not based in reality, but rather perception.

What do you fear missing out on in your marriage?

What do you fear missing out on with your money?

These two simple questions likely have very deep and personal responses behind them. Don't miss out on the opportunity to reflect on these questions. What do you really fear missing out on? Where have these ideas come from? Don't miss that it could be multiple sources of influence, so don't just stop at one. Rather keep digging to determine why you fear missing out. The next step is to evaluate what causes you to maintain this fear of missing out. Perhaps it is your family, friends, faith, or the media you consume.

The reality is that fear is a powerful motivator, it is said to be the most powerful motivator. Robert Wilson on his Psychology Today article talks about why fear is so powerful. What can we do to combat FOMO's suffocating effects on our life? First let's start out with how it develops. Early in life we learn through experience about fear as a motivator. Have you ever had your parents threaten to take away your desert privileges if you don't eat your vegetables?  For many children these early fear based tactics teach the powerful motivation of FOMO. When used over and over again we become desensitized to the use of fear for motivation.

From parents, to adolescent friends, and all too powerful marketers we learn to fear missing out, not being a part of the "in" crowd. Whoever is in a position of power communicates in subtle and not so subtle ways that others may be missing out. Can you say HGTV. Sure is it entertaining to watch some couple go from renovation disaster, to total makeover. But it gets the gears turning that we might be missing out on renovating our own home.

What about your marriage? Have you ever seen the sandals resort commercial, man after I see one of those, I totally feel like I am missing out on the time of my life with my wife.

Don't take me the wrong way, there is a time and place for both home renovations and vacations with your spouse.  FOMO becomes a problem when we are consumed by it, which then impacts our ability to save for other priorities, or to simply enjoy the company of our spouses.

Overcoming FOMO starts with one question. What is important to me? Then allowing the answer to the question develop over a period of time and reflection. While books, magazines, shows and blogs, may give you loads of ideas, the reality is that your authenticity will show best when it comes from personal reflection. First looking within and to God will help you determine what is most important.

What Do You Say About Money?

I know that I am not the only one walking around with voices in my head. No, I am not crazy, and neither are you. We all have these different voices playing back messages to us about who we are and how we should live our life. Many sound like the messages our parents told us. In psychological terms, these voices are called scripts. They are messages that replay over and over again in our head and guide the way that we make decisions and live our life. 

In Mind Over Money: Overcoming The Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health by Dr. Brad Klontz and Dr. Ted Klontz, the authors talk extensively about scripts and how they are formed and influence our financial decision-making. The book highlights nine common relational money scripts, several of which I recognized as my own, and others as ones I have heard from people with whom I work. 

Take a few minutes to review this list of common relational money scripts and see which ones resonate with you. Think about why that may be the case and where you learned them. 

- Take care of your children now and they’ll take care of you later.

- You can tell how much someone loves you by how much they spend on you.

- If you hold others financially responsible, they will reject you.

- Spending money on others gives my life meaning.

- One of the ways to keep friends and family close it to give them gifts and loan them money.

- There will always be someone I can turn to for money.

- I’m not competent enough to take care of myself financially.

- I don’t need to learn how to manage money.

- It’s my duty to take care of less fortunate family members.

Each of these scripts has elements of truth but often gets distorted and misguides the way that we make financial decisions. The challenge is that, when we live out these scripts, they usually end up having both practical and emotional consequences on the way that we view and use money. 

Let’s take one script for example: "Spending money on others gives my life meaning." While this is one of the greatest truths of our culture and spiritual lives and grows out of a teaching that is it is better to give than receive, when taken too far, we rob ourselves of financial security and deny the receiving party the opportunity to learn how to support themselves. When we give too much to one person or group of people, they become dependent upon us, and they lose the opportunity to learn how to support themselves. 

Continually taking time to evaluate your scripts for their truths and distortions can start to set you free in the way that you handle your finances. To start identifying other scripts you may replay in your head, ask this simple question: “What do I believe to be true about money and relationships?”

Feel free to give me a call to talk more at 980-275-1627.

Ed Coambs

Edited by Reena Arora of Arora Media, connect on Facebook

For all your communication needs, she is all you need.

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Building Your City Sky Scrapers

How is a sky scraper built? If you have been in a major city during a project of this nature, you have probably walked by a huge hole in the ground. In order for a sky scraper to rise up, the builders must first start by going deep into the ground. Why is that? The depth they dig allows the builders to lay the strongest of foundations. Does it take time to dig deep? Yes. Does it cost lots of money? Yes. Would the builder rather see the finished product sooner than later? Yes. But the smart builder knows that they must take the discipline of digging deep with no noticeable gain before having a marvelous sky scraper.

The same is true of our lives; the deeper we dig in, the higher we can go. We do not have the luxury of starting with a fresh piece of ground to build from, but neither does the sky scraper developer. In a crowded major city, the builder often has to dismantle what was previously there before they can even start to dig. This, too, is true of ourselves. Often we have to clear some things out of the way before we are ready to dig deeper into our lives.

After the ground has been dug out and the foundation laid, the first elements of structural support are put into place. Slowly but surely, with a plan and constant attention, a structure begins to emerge from below the surface and rise high into the sky. Anyone who lives in a city and has watched sky scrapers be built knows that, once the ground has been dug out and the foundation has been set, the structure begins to rise quickly. In those beginning phases, has it reached it beauty yet? No. Is it building toward something to behold? Absolutely.

The beauty of the sky scraper begins to emerge a year, two years, and sometimes longer after the initial work is started. In the final phase, the sky scraper starts to receive its exterior, or what the world will see of it. That exterior cannot come before the interior of the building is developed and completed. It is after years of hard work, thought, planning, revision  and effort have been put into place that the passerby begins to take notice of the beautiful building. When it’s done, there is something to marvel at and acknowledge. Did we see beauty in the hole? Likely not. Did we see beauty in the foundation? Doubtful. Did we see beauty in the structure? Probably not. Did we finally recognize the beauty with the skin of the building placed upon it? Definitely.

Our life, marriage and finances are not just like the process of one sky scraper being built, but rather an entire metropolitan city that is under constant construction. Living and visiting big cities, we all know that development is never done. The timeline of projects ebbs and flows, but there is always at least one (if not many) projects in different phases of completion. This, too, is how our life operates. We have our own sky scrapers that are in different phases of development.

Take some time now to name the buildings that you are working on. What phase are they in? Clearing, digging, foundation, structure, finishing… What purpose will each building serve in your city of life? Recognize that many of your sky scrapers will come down one day, only to make space for a new one. 

Feel free to give me a call to talk more at 980-275-1627.
Ed Coambs

Edited by Reena Arora of Arora Media, connect on FacebookFor all your communication needs, she is all you need.