Our Favorite Books of 2018

Life gets busy, and reading always seems to be one of those things we push to the side. But we (the Millennial Planners) have always connected on the books we read and the takeaways we get from them.  I went an entire year thinking I didn’t read much, but after Regan asked us to share our favorite books, I was pleasantly surprised how much we all read collectively.

Keeping up with an old tradition, we decided to pass along our favorite books that we read in 2018.  

[Taken from our email exchanges a few weeks back. No filter.]

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Regan

Fiction:

• The Stormlight Archive (Books 1-3 of a fantasy series)

  • Game of Thrones level hype

• Pet Sematary - Stephen King

  • Truly skin-crawling first person. My favorite King ending so far.

• Misery - Stephen King

• The Outsider - Stephen King

• Slaugterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut

• Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Non-fiction:

• Gunslinger: The Remarkable, Improbable, Iconic Life of Brett Favre - Jeff Pearlman

  • Nothing I knew as a child was true! A very adult perspective on one of my childhood heroes.

• Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

• Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand

Joe

• The Compound Effect - Darren Hardy (reread)

• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success - Carol S. Dweck

• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams - Matthew Walker

• Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - Richard P. Feynman

Luke

• Running Man: A Memoir, by Charlie Engle - A story of a crack-addict turned ultra marathon runner. Very inspiring, but it is one of those stories where nothing ever seems to go right for someone. 

• Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami - This was my fifth or sixth time reading this book. It was originally my first Murakami novel. It never fails to bring me back to that magical place I entered the first time I read it. 

• Foundation, by Issac Asimov - This was my favorite of the several Sci-Fi novels I read this year. It was also on Elon Musk's list...but I am not going to let him take credit for popularizing an author who has written 500 books and is published in 9 out of the 10 Dewey categories. 

• The Martian, by Andy Weir - I know I am late to the game on this one but it was amazing. I was impressed at the author's attention to detail when it comes to scientific principles. This was by far the book I most recommended. 

• The Giver, by Lois Lowry - A childhood favorite. One of my favorite dystopian novels. 

Bryan

• Manhood: How to Be a Better Man-or Just Live with One - Terry Crews (the old spice guy, and actor)

  • easy read, his first book. shared his bio and rough childhood. It opened me up to a powerful concept I've embraced in 2018 - being vulnerable and recognizing who you are, what your issues are, and accepting their impact on your daily behavior.  

• Your Money and Your Brain - Jason Zweig

  • super fascinating stuff and it felt like a way more tangible version of "thinking fast and slow" (which 99% of ppl don't actually finish, bc boring).  Jason did all these studies on himself to see how humans are wired and how much of our programming contradicts being good with money.

• Barking Up The Wrong Tree - Eric Barker

  • Eric writes a blog about a concept I love - what popular culture says it takes to be successful is wrong a lot of the time.  I love counter-culture stuff in general.  I did not finish this book, probably made it halfway through.  I had high hopes, but something about the writing style didn't make me want to continue on.  That said, I could pick up at any random Chapter and it would read well.

• Atomic Habits - James Clear

  • another blogger, which I actually recommend you sign up for if you like the concept (2x week emails).  I appreciate James' concise writing style too.  Perhaps Recency Bias is at play, but I feel this concept has impacted me the most this year.  "we don't rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems." "atomic" meaning small things, over and over, matter.  Goals are useful, but not the measure - habits (daily behavior) are what create progress and nothing happens overnight.  It's a double-edged sword - habits multiply in both directions.  Lifting weights weekly creates positive effects that compound.  Similarly, 1 cigarette per day will compound negatively.  The book also describes how to create positive systems.  One major one?  Tribes (Millennial Planners, anyone? ;) ). Note: I'm only on Ch. 5 of this book, and it's clearly already impacting me greatly.

• Principles - Ray Dalio

  • There are actually 2 books in the edition i have - that's why it's physically huge. I read the first half- Life Principles - and appreciated Dalio’s mindset towards making rules and creating systems that allowed Bridgewater to grow and how he learned from his mistakes. Dalio is a bit dry, but his takeaways are quite interesting. So it's good for those who want no-nonsense and straight to the point advice on life and business.

• Blogs

  • I read blogs more than anything and am on Twitter more often.  I'm an official Ritholz fanboy, and mostly read posts from their newest addition, Nick Magguili (https://ofdollarsanddata.com/).

Happy reading, everyone!

Confessions of a First-Time Manager

I don't remember seeing "Future Manager" in the original job description.  In fact, I didn't plan on being a manager at all. I went to school to be a financial planner, which led to a full-time role as an "Associate Financial Planner," which somehow led to managing the next generation (a generation I'm also apart of).

Businesses grow though, and with growth comes hiring people to help.  And since I'm most familiar with being the newbie myself, it only makes sense I'd be in charge of our newest hires.

Trained in Financial Planning > Manager by Circumstance

The only goal of our profession is to give great financial advice, but if you go to work for an existing firm, it turns out that management plays a key role in our day-to-day lives.  On one hand, your direct manager basically dictates how happy (or dissatisfied) you are with your work. On the other, if your company continues to grow, your next promotion might be to train and develop the next hires; if you are a rapidly growing firm, hiring comes with the territory.

So now we have a bunch of trained financial planning technicians who are now responsible for molding the next set of talent as managers.  And here lies the main problems: First, we are trained in the technical aspects of the job. Second, not everyone wants to be a manager, and they frankly might not be good at it.  

My Early Management Failures

A few years into the job, we decided to test me out as a manager.  The equivalent of training wheels as a manager is to hire a summer intern, so I ran that program for a couple summers.  It's the perfect introduction because you get the illusion of controlling the experience by yourself and your ride is over before you have a chance to get lost.  

After some success there, we were ready to take on a full-time Associate and take my training wheels off.

What followed was months of trial and error, with a few bumps and scrapes along the way.  It turns out managing interns is child's play compared to a full-time hire.

I have a lot of growing left to do, but it's worth sharing some of my early challenges with anyone about to take the management plunge.  Here are a few ways I messed up as a newbie manager:

• Gave too much slack - with fear of becoming the dreaded 'micro-manager,' I passed down projects and assumed it would be fine without much oversight.

• Gave too little slack - after dropping the ball a few times, I quickly adjusted and had a few micro-manager moments. I did some excess hand-holding, which took away from my own work and time.

• Fell behind on my own work - the ultimate way to ensure I worked on nights and weekends. Hooray.

• Had a few identity crises - when something goes wrong, how much discipline do you instill? Is my role to be the parent or the cool big brother? Are big brothers meant to be cool? I'm still learning, and expect more crises.

• Created cool projects and did not execute them - before a new hire starts, everyone has grandiose plans for productivity. Then reality hits and the cool ideas get thrown in the backseat because the fundamentals aren't built yet. Hopefully I didn't lose those opportunities to make our firm better.

• Did not fully define our culture - "people like us do things like this," says Seth Godin on culture. It sounds simple, but there are dozens of cultural norms you could define. What is our dress code? What is our tone in meetings? What if I don't know the answer?? It's the manager’s job to set what is commonly accepted, and more importantly, what is not accepted.

• Broke the culture code after defining it - The easiest way to help define culture is to constantly lead by example. Each time those boundaries are broken, you corrode what you've built. Example: if the boss is regularly late = it's commonly accepted to be late. Guilty as charged.

I could go on and on about what I did wrong.  The question now becomes, what  am I going to do about it?

Being fair, I'm sure I've done a few things right along the way.  No one has quit on me yet. Among my many flaws, I have chosen to care and get better.  I realize I will never get it right the first time, but as long as I have the opportunity to lead, I will care about leading properly.

We Should Probably Care More

What irks me is that very few people discuss Management in the Financial Planning profession (at least no one in my circles), and I don't know why.  If your business is growing, you will likely have to hire someone, and managing your hires will make or break your win streak.

More importantly, I have too many friends who have left the industry because they were mismanaged or misguided in some way.  When your experience is a bad one, it's easy to associate the entire profession to it.

So I think it's very important for us to learn how to do this right.  Our friends in the accounting and legal professions have seemed to figure it out.  Now it's our turn.

The better we are at managing the next generation, the better off this profession will be.

Why Joy is Firing Her Financial Advisor

How to Lose a Client in 1 Easy Step

This week, I had a lovely conversation with a woman (let's call her Joy) who's looking for a new financial advisor.  Over the phone, she explained to me how she's had a great relationship with her current advisor for years, but she felt she wasn't getting the attention she craved.  The feelings lingered for a little while, but were brought to light after a big miscommunication.

You see, last year, her mother passed away and she inherited around $90,000.  After spending a good chunk of it on a European vacation, she decided to save the rest of it by transferring it to her investment account.  Without having a discussion over the new money, her current advisor immediately invested the account into the same mix of stocks and bonds; the same mix that made perfect sense for Joy’s situation two years prior.

The only problem was: things had changed and she had different plans for this money now.  So, to Joy, the 'investment plan' they were using was wrong.  

Also important for context: I'm writing this piece as of January 2019, and the past few months in the stock markets have been really ugly.  The S&P 500 has dropped nearly 20% from its highs just a few months ago. So not only did Joy feel like a potentially wrong decision was made, but her accounts have steadily lost money when she feels like something could have been done about it.

Why did this happen? Because the advisor didn't ask.  

Being fair though, I realize that even if Joy and her advisor had discussed it first, maybe the same conclusions would have been made and implemented.  But the simple fact is, a relatively large decision was made without her and she wanted to be included.

Listening is Everything

I like helping people, so I always figured I would grow up to be some sort of Salesperson.  I've since learned I can't stand traditional sales processes, and I'd rather just help out whoever I can wherever possible.

With Joy, I simply repeated her main goals aloud to make sure I heard them correctly.  I do this because I'm guilty of sometimes missing the forest for the trees.

"If I'm hearing you right, it sounds like you want...

• to know and understand what you're invested in

• to be apart of every decision before they're decided on

• to make sure your overall situation is looked after too, and perhaps learn if you really need to sell your home or not

...does that seem correct to you?  Is there anything we haven't covered yet?

Summarizing a new person's goals and objectives on the fly is one of the greatest parts of this job.  Not only did a stranger just divulge their (very) personal situation to you, but you just showed that you care enough to listen and show that you want to help.  

Different Strokes for Different Folks

Another major point I've learned is that clients will (usually) tell you exactly what they want.  That is, if you know how to ask for it.

Advisors tend to wear their 'counselor hats' most days of the week, which is awesome if you're into that stuff like I am.  This is where you get into the meat and potatoes of who a person really is, what they want to do with their life and how they want you to help them.

On the last point, never forget that different people want and need different types of help.  

Some of our clients want to completely delegate all money-related issues to us.  Seriously, they hate thinking about money; which is perfect, because we love it.

On the other side, many of our clients prefer a Partner with their financial lives.  With these people, much of our time is spent coaching and educating clients about their money decisions, then everyone comes up with the best way to move forward together.  This is equally as satisfying because we still get to talk about money, and everyone leaves the meeting feeling smart.

The point is, everyone is different and has different interests and attitudes towards money.  Our job as advisors and planners is to put on our 'counselor hats,' ask the right questions, and create something that everyone can be proud of.