On any journey, even a WealthJourney, you need a road map

Earlier today, I talked about the challenges folks have on their WealthJourney.  Despite having unique goals and personalities and circumstances.  We all face the same challenges.  I placed them into four themes which we will begin discussing soon.

As opposed to just presenting problems in the challenges, I want to also discuss solutions.  The four challenges are not mutually exclusive, they are variables that impact the biggest variable of all - how you enjoy the currency of experiences and relationships.  Experience Equity and Return on Relationships is how you should measure your wealth.

The solution isn't parallel with the challenges, but we will also discuss how we chart our way on the journey.  This is your personal map and GPS that we will use.

(1) Write Your Wealth Story - In the world of Lean Six Sigma, user stories are designed to explicitly define conditions of satisfaction to the user.  Your wealth story is no different.  Also no different is that in Corporate America, they are dealing with constraints - time, budget, scope.  Your life has those same limits so we need to identify where those limits exist.

(2) Place Desired Behaviors on Auto Pilot - Auto Pilot can prevent us from getting off track.  It can keep us on course.  You may need to account for previous bad behaviors, changing headwinds, or many other activities, but as long as you account for these, you will know where you stand and when action is required.

(3) Create Action Limits - Any time you get too far off path (or glideslope from my Naval Aviator days), you need to know how far is too far.  You don't want to over correct, especially in the financial services world because those course corrections (ie, trades) create friction that eat away at your wealth.  We will carefully craft action limits so we take the right action at the right time.  Less is more, and if pragmatic and calculated, it can be A LOT more.

(4) List your action plan for those respective limits - How did you reach the limits - was it changes in your behavior or needs?  Was it caused by market misbehavior.  Knowing what to do ahead of time and how you feel before the emotional triggers kick in is a good exercise.

(5) Chart our Path - There are two timeframes to be concerned about - the next six years and then the values we expect to see at peak (often retirement).  Lots can happen over the course of a lifetime, but we often have a lot more clarity over the next six years.  30 year plans introduce bad timing situations and lots of changes in policy that we can't even think about, let alone model.  Ambiguous uncertainty runs amuck.  Combine this with choice and you often just get decision paralysis.  It is better to hit the themes that we need to think about, but let's focus on what we have clarity and control on....the next 6 years.