Happy Sunday Everyone:
Kim and I met with our financial advisor yesterday. We have a recurring in-person meeting with him each quarter, always on Saturdays, which is his choice, not ours. I believe at one point he told me meeting with me during the week served no purpose what so ever. We are all different, we all have different wants and needs. Probably no surprise to anyone here, I want/need to be in a relationship with my financial advisor which is what I have in Ryan. He understands our family inside and out, he understands me, both professionally, and personally, and guides accordingly, even at times when I’m not looking for the feedback. He understands all of these things that are important to me because of his ability to ask questions that require answers below the surface. Every time I leave him I think to myself, “that’s a relationship I’m grateful to have”. His care for our family starts with making sure the finances are in order but the true value he provides comes from the trust of knowing he cares overall. My point here is not to blow up my financial advisor vs. reminding myself of the correlations between caring and understanding. To care you have to understand, and to understand you have to ask great questions. I find myself at times thinking, “I’m responding to a lot more questions than asking them”….that’s not good, ask more questions.
On a very different topic, but also involving my meeting yesterday, I had decided before going that I’d walk home from the meeting to get some exercise, 9 miles. Finishing up the meeting Ryan and I discussed the amount of incoming feeds into our minds on a daily basis, podcast, books on tapes, music, etc….He’s been on a mission to write more, read more paperback books, and turn off the noise, even the positive stuff. He challenged me to walk home without listening to anything, without talking on the phone, just me and me. HOLY CRAP, when is the last time you spend 2.5 hours by yourself with no incoming feed of information? I’m not sure how much I liked it, but I’m certain it was good for me. I’m partially joking when I say this, and partially not, being by myself for 2.5 hours with just me and my thoughts is freaking scary. It’s amazing what pops up in your brain when you have no other feeds available to distract you. I’m not going to try to make it bigger than it was but anyone that finds themselves always thinking about what’s next on the most tactical level, I found this exercise be extremely calming, almost like changing an air filter to my brain. One of my favorite lines in a movie was Kevin Costner, for the love of the game, standing on the mound w/ 50,000 screaming opposing fans and he would say to himself “control the mechanism” and the noise was silenced…it kind of felt like that by the time I got home.
Have a great rest of your Sunday.