If I asked Santa, Chanukah Harry, or the Quanza fairy (I made that one up), were you naughty or nice? I’m pretty sure we would fall solidly on the NICE side of the line, based on the thousands of five-star reviews our wonderful clients have bestowed upon our advisors.
Looking back on 2018, it was a great year. We helped thousands of clients solve life’s challenges. Personally, I watched my son grow into a solid executive. My daughter graduated from college and entered the workforce. My wife didn’t shoot me. LOL. Our little business grew faster than the weeds in my backyard. Life is good!
Our country’s administration didn’t do anything too crazy (at least by the time of writing this article). Medicare prices moved in lockstep with inflation. The cost of prescription drugs, overall, dropped again as they have for the past 4 years. We saw clients in better financial shape than in years past. Our workshop attendance across all subjects broke records again. We served nearly 40% more clients during the Annual Election Period than last year. We help friends of
The markets were not as kind to non-client folks (our clients are fully protected). It is so painful for me to watch and listen to hard-working Americans losing a year or more of growth in the markets. I had a client in my office give me a line of … “I’m in it for the long haul”. That is a fine excuse for someone in their 30s and 40s to be irresponsible, but not someone who relies on their nest egg for lifelong income. I felt bad because he really believed it. Someone once said you can’t fix……
I sleep well at night knowing that the retirement income planning process I developed before the crash of 2000 has worked perfectly to protect thousands of nice people’s lifelong savings from the pitfalls of the financial markets. Today, our planning TEAM has fostered and grown. While the retirement income planning process has not changed, our TEAM has embellished and enhanced every aspect of how we create our plans and serve our clients. Each financial team member has added amazing insights and improvements to our clients’ experience. Each year I am awestruck by the wonderful job our professionals do to improve the lives of everyone we are fortunate enough to serve. If you didn’t already know, I truly see our profession as an opportunity to serve.
As we move into 2019, I see opportunities of abundance. We will continue to fight for our clients against apathy, wives’ tales, and the opinions of friends who have no idea what they are talking about. We will fight against large corporations taking advantage of the people they appear to help in their TV commercials. We will fight to provide our clients with solid research, so they can make their own educated decisions based on facts, numbers, and credible, third-party verifiable information.
One of my favorite movies had a saying, “see a need, fill a need.”
I think that’s what we do. With that, I wish you and your family a wonderful, memory-filled 2019