A Dream Come True: Defining Your Success
Not to brag, but I am living in one of my dreams. After ten+ years of studying, planning, and experiencing everything I could possibly absorb about financial planning, I finally own an independent financial planning firm. Well, co-own, as my amazing/talented/intelligent wife, Kate, has invested just as much - if not more - emotionally, mentally, and monetarily. I truly could not be living this life without her much needed support.
Along this journey, I have crossed paths with some quite impressive people - deeply dedicated, smart, and kind. I was fortunate enough to call many of them colleagues. We worked for some of the best companies in the industry, making a good salary. I was set up for a comfortable life, not just now, but in the future ahead. However, the path I was on never truly felt like success.
So, what happened? Why was I feeling so uncomfortable? Well, it all came to a head about a year ago today when I experienced a terrible day. Nothing out of the ordinary happened at work that day, in fact, I had a good day…. professionally. But I missed my daughter's 1st grade spring music concert. I was devastated.
From a work perspective, all was well – I had a booked calendar. But I was missing something that was even more important – being a good dad. That situation left me feeling unsuccessful despite professional accolades. We are more than just one facet of our lives – to be truly successful, we need to feel that our many different buckets are being filled. For me, that includes working hard to be professionally successful, but also striving to be a worthy dad, husband, son, and brother all while enjoying this one life we have to live. The recognition that my life was off-balance was disarming. I began to feel disengaged and ironically, the areas of my life that I wanted to provide even more suffered as I felt aimless.
UNTIL… Kate pressed me one day, which she tends to do when she senses I'm in a bad place. She spoke of a dream so inspirational that would rival any of the classic sports movies we watched growing up. How did she do that? She helped me refocus on how our family views success. We re-committed to values such as quality time with family, physical health, in addition to financial success.
As a result, we started laying the groundwork for building JBY Financial Planning. As a financial planner, I am committed to a service-oriented mind-set I will provide to clients and our community. I will work to ensure that your capital is aligned for what you determine is your authentic dream life. We all have one life to live on this planet – and you don’t have time to waste on goals that are not your own.
As for me and my family…Is this path going to be perfect? Absolutely not. Are there going to be bumps along the way? Of course. But now we can reframe what success means to us and we can just be us in working on our own definition of success. And you can bet I didn’t miss Anna’s 2nd grade music concert.
READING/LISTENING/WATCHING:
Reading: Clear Thinking, by Shane Parrish
Listening: 50 Fires: Money and Meaning Podcast, presented by Carl Richards
(re)Watching: The Walking Dead - We stopped watching the series years ago. I may be late to know this, but I found out they concluded the series. So now we’re rewatching the whole series and excited to put a bow on this.
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