There are times and events in one's life that call forth the need for courage. Often, something has changed, is about to change, and a response is required that takes courage. For me, things changed when burnout/depression destroyed my career. In retrospect, things needed to change, I reacted poorly to the need to adjust to change and I was the architect of my own demise. So, the circumstances changed dramatically, and not in a way that I would have planned, had I been on my toes rather than on my heels.
I didn't lack courage in the resistance to change. I put up a spirited, prolonged resistance. It wore me down, in addition to the usual daily burdens of a busy surgical practice. And, I lost the trench war. Then I lost even more. My alternative solutions also failed, for the most part. So, I went into hibernation. Now I'm out of hibernation, re-assessing every aspect of my life, my values, opportunities, ways to step forward into the future. Turns out, this takes courage as well.
Courage and motivation go hand in hand. It's hard to show courage when one lacks motivation to take action. Sometimes it takes courage to sit on one's hands, let other parties show their hand, let transient things pass, not react to every stimulus. Courage may partner with patience too. What are the values that drive deliberate and successful response to change? Let's give it a try...
1) Courage
2) Motivation
3) Patience
4) Persistence
5) Optimism
6) Humor
7) Self-respect, respect for others
8) Forgiveness
Maybe there are more; I'll keep an open mind about this list.
With respect to preparedness for retirement, its useful to think about what has changed, what remains the same over time.
What is the same?
a) need/desire for security
b) need for confidence in the plan
What has changed?
a) expected "retirement" date
b) lifetime earnings expectation
c) personal/professional identity
d) potential for further moving/downsizing
e) goals/aspirations in career/public life
One aspect of my current status of "in-between" is re-evaluation of my relationship to money, our accumulated assets, our advisors.
I have allowed our insurance advisor to morph into wealth manager for roughly half of our retirement assets. I have split our corpus of retirement assets and placed the other half with another advisor. These advisors both follow a similar model; they are brokers for other entities that actually do the investment management. So, what are the broker's responsibilities? There is certainly a component of attention to "comprehensive". How well that is done, how that fits the view of the customer (me) is part of the question. Have they heard me? Have they addressed/answered the persistent questions I have about the philosophy of managing our assets? Perhaps it would have made sense to split the assets a different way; i.e. use an advisor for Kathleen's accounts and keep my accounts "self-managed". Or, search harder for an advisor with a style that synches with my interest/need for a hand in the architecture of the financial plan.
What would I like to see in our investment portfolio?
1) would like to see, clearly, the assets produce cash-flow into the accounts; that means interest and dividends. Since interest is nearly non-existent, it means dividends/distributions. I want to see 3-4% cash flow in distributions, growing by 7-10% in dollar amount yearly.
2) I would like to see diversification across asset classes, excluding bonds/bond funds/cash equivalents
3) I would like to find a suitable substitute for bonds, for the reasons they are normally included in asset allocation
4) I would like to see certain principles applied in active management; attention to valuation, dividend policy, a low beta, recession/correction resistant industry, etc.
Is there something fundamentally wrong with either the asset allocations or the investment strategies of my current managers. No, not really. So, why am I vaguely dissatisfied with the arrangements I have. Partly, it's the nature of the relationship. I don't hear them thinking, I don't get to think along with them. There is less interaction/engagement than I'd like to have. There is an opacity to the whole thing that I don't like.
From a technical standpoint, I am continually losing access to the websites that record our assets. It's a username/password issue, and it's very frustrating. Also, the reporting on the websites is not all that easy to understand.
So, where should I show courage and effect change? Do I simply demand more service? Should I seek out and hire a new/different advisor? Should I simply call the funds back to Schwab or Fidelity and save the advisor fees?
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