Conclusion: Time to Take Action!

Many people are driving around with broken portfolios, just as some people drive a car with the clutch slipping. We hire mechanics to fix our cars, and if they don’t, we either have them redo their work or find a new mechanic. In my opinion, you should not accept a financial advisor who has a bury-your-head-in-the-sand approach to investments and your estate. Considering the years ahead and the turmoil we have yet to experience, doing nothing is doing something. You are admitting defeat, or worse, accepting the fact that you have lost a lot of money and there is nothing you can do about it except wait for things to improve.

Do you remember that US Airways plane that managed to land on the Hudson River relatively unscathed? Did the passengers give up and wait it out? Of course not. One would reasonably agree that crash landing a passenger plane is about as bad and unfortunately lethal as it gets. But, when they hit the water and came to rest, instead of thinking that it was hopeless, admitting defeat, and remaining in their seats hoping for rescue, the passengers immediately crawled out the exits and onto the wings and stepped into the waiting boats in an orderly fashion. In spite of what most would expect would be the outcome of being on a plane forced to make a crash landing, they chose to alter their futures and survive. If someone had chosen to wait inside the plane, we all know what happened next. The plane eventually sank.

If you have a broken wealth bucket, just as the passengers had a broken plane, you can choose to alter your financial future. With the understanding of building financial tables and using as many asset classes or legs as are suitable for your situation, no matter what comes our way in the future, you will stand a better chance of protecting your wealth, plugging the holes in your bucket, and potentially growing your financial security.

No one knows the future. Our economy might greatly improve from this point forward, go sideways, or fall even further into despair.

Three Possible Economic Futures

Try to Protect Against a Bad Economic Future

The main reasons to reassess your financial table is to lower your exposure to categories that don’t match your financial goals and to strengthen your table by diversifying into other asset classes. Of the three possible scenarios for the future—up, sideways, or down—an asset class diversified table can reasonably help buffer the worst of the three economic outcomes.

According to Merriam-Webster, “common sense” is defined in the following way:

Sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or factss.

I believe the most important guiding principle when building your financial table is to use common sense, along with your newfound “Uncommon Knowledge.” The investments I have discussed in this book each have strengths and weaknesses, and many of them will work for some people but not for others. The key is to determine which one works for you. The goal of this book is to provide a more complete framework for you to take control of your financial destiny.

The key to everything is education. You are never too old to learn. And, as many other wealthy individuals and families have learned, successful wealth building can be accomplished by gaining enough of an understanding of finance to navigate and overcome the challenges along the way. If life were a placid lake where you could get from Point A to Point B without a single ripple affecting your crossing, there would be no need for guides, mentors, or this book. We all know this is not the case. Life is more like a turbulent Class 5 rapid through the Grand Canyon, with rocks and trees in our pathway. Hopefully, this book will provide a new guide for the back of your raft, a guide to help you potentially steer around unforeseen obstacles, and provide a new foundation or perspective on which to build your own strong financial table.