As children, we always talked about what would happen when we grew up: What would we be? How would we live? One thing we didn’t know was that, as we experienced real life, there were going to be countless missteps, and even the occasional pain of stumbling and falling, as we made our way forward. Sometimes we’d bring these problems on ourselves through mistakes or misguided choices; other times, life itself would be to blame, the bearer of unknowable forces, random misfortune, and occasional disaster.
Well, we can let these setbacks defeat us, or we can take them on in hopes of doing better next time. Every challenge is different and can make us into different — and better — people.
When we talk to clients, we sometimes discover that a past experience has dealt them so severe a blow that they’ve stopped being able to move forward. The financial crisis of 2008/2009 often turns out to be the culprit. It made strong, intelligent people question every financial decision they'd ever made. Some felt they would never entirely recover.
Understandably, the panic we all felt during that time left them guarded and hesitant whenever they are faced with large financial decisions.
We have had people come to us who’ve been sitting in cash since 2009, wondering whether they should re-enter the stock market. Others refuse to buy real property because they remember with terrible anxiety the upside-down mortgages they had in 2009. However extreme those reactions might seem, they are genuine responses to terrible experiences. These men and women don’t want to face that kind of anxiety again, so they do nothing — which can often result in its own dire consequences, of course.
For example, let’s say you had rental properties in 2008. When your financing went upside-down, you couldn’t hold onto them. At the same time your business suffered from the general financial turmoil. Business loans were not available to you because of your negative assets. All this forced a wholesale raiding of every account and asset you still held, including your retirement plans, triggering severe penalties and extra taxes. In the end you were left with very little, except the lingering taste of some very bitter experiences.
All of this can remain painful for years, as many of you who suffered through 2009 and its aftermath can attest. During that time, the issues seemed to build on each other, with no end in sight, for two, three, maybe even five years. It took that long for you to get your heads back above water, to finally put it all behind you.
But perhaps “all” is not behind you, even yet. The question remains, have you started to rebuild your retirement plans? Have you begun to re-focus on taking care of yourself and, in turn, your loved ones, in the years to come? Many casualties and near-casualties of 2009 still haven’t been able to take this last step. We often hear the excuse that it’s too late to rebuild a retirement plan now. The vague idea is to keep working until the very end. In our opinion, these men and women may have rebuilt their businesses and personal lives, but they haven’t entirely recovered from the fall they took in 2009.
Our feeling is that It’s time to put all that behind you and start thinking again about what you really want for your retirement. We are available to guide you through the steps of rebuilding the financial foundation, and the future, you once envisioned for yourself. With our help, you can put it together again. Schedule a no-obligation meeting to hear how we can help you rebuild the future you want.
Comments