2021 Fall Newsletter: Kansas City

Have you ever wondered how the world would be different if there were no mirrors?

If we couldn’t see ourselves, how would our self-esteem and interactions with others change? Taken even further, it seems that we view the larger world through a reflective lens too. “I see what’s happening out there but how does that make me look or make me feel?” 

With everything going on in the news, it’s very difficult to simply see things as they are without immediately asking ourselves how it affects us. This isn’t a criticism as much as it is a reminder of how we’re all wired for self-protection and survival; we need to know how to keep ourselves safe when there’s so much apparent danger out there. That said, if we were able to not place ourselves at the center of most things, I have a hunch that we’d all have less anxiety about it all. And I think much of the world could benefit from less anxiety right now. 

When we consider how best to serve families and businesses with their financial and retirement planning needs, we’ve learned that a steady hand is a very valuable resource, so we work very hard to exercise strong critical thinking skills while also allowing ourselves to be as empathetic as possible to the struggles we all face. This is why it’s so valuable to have secure or even guaranteed income sources during an otherwise tumultuous retirement...sleeping well is great. It’s why tax management can be so helpful to a retiree; we all know there’s a never-ending desire to collect more of our tax dollars, so we’d better pay attention. And we need to balance this with the right degree of well-managed risk so that we can enjoy a growing retirement as opposed to a shrinking retirement. These are the legs that keep the stool from toppling over when everything seems so chaotic. 

I suppose we’re all a bit crazy in our own ways. So how can we expect the world around us to not reflect a little of that craziness from time to time? I can see you and you can see me, so why is it so challenging to keep our blood pressures from skyrocketing? I suppose the best we can do is to keep trying, to keep asking what actions we’d like to take that would reflect what we’d like others to take toward us. 

I hope you’ll enjoy the beautiful fall weather. Please let us know if we can serve you in some way.