That Smith

If you have been reading my site for a while then you have probably seen the topics I write about change several times since that smith’s inception. This is not because I am an indecisive idiot, but rather because the website serves as an extension of my thoughts, and is a snapshot of my mindset at any point in time.

While I may go from writing about weddings and finances to current events and technology and back to finances, the reason I made this site remains to be because I am trying to figure out what I want to do with, and gain from my life. (Read: About |thatsmith) If all goes well, this website will document my journey along the way, and it might even help you if you are facing the same issue I do.

Sounds good? Yes, but where do we start?

You have probably heard of the exercise that asks, “If you had a million dollars and didn’t have to work, what would you do with your time?” According to the exercise, and the great wisdom of Office Space, whatever you say would be what you should do with your life.

My problem with this is that I just don’t know. My logic tells me that, while a million dollars would be great to have, it probably wouldn’t last that long. Also, just because I would be able to do something I enjoy, how would I make a living off it? The fact of the matter is I don’t have a cool million sitting around that would allow me to do whatever I want, and I do not yet know how to make a living off of doing something I enjoy.

Instead, the first thing that comes to my mind when thinking about what to do with my life is that maybe things will be a little more clear if I first figure out what I hope to accomplish. That makes sense I suppose, since you can’t discover what to do to get you there if you don’t even know where you want to go.

I have tried setting goals before, and currently have an idea of what I want to accomplish this year, but without something to get me there and something to keep things going beyond that, it gets me no where. If you are reading this then most likely you are trying to figure out the same thing for yourself. If you have not already, make a list of what you want to accomplish within the next year or two. Here are my items.

A trick I learned when working at Waddell and Reed consisted of beginning a meeting with a prospect by asking what they wanted to gain from investing, or basically what their overall goal was. (Note: This tactic is not just used by Waddell and Reed, but pretty much every financial advising company. I had to sit down and fill out a “pyramid” of my goals for several financial service companies when I interviewed with them.) For the sake of this exercise we will say my number one goal for now is to make more money. We will pretend this is your goal as well, and will continue by asking, “What’s so important about making more money? Why do you want that?” My answer here would be so I can afford to buy a house.

Continuing on in the same fashion would ask why being able to afford a house is important to me. I would say so I can buy one for my family. The exercise would continue digging into my motives and would eventually get me to say I want a house for my family and want to make more money because it’s important to me to be able to support them, and for us to have financial security. The financial advising aspect of this process would usually end with the word “security” appearing at the top of the prospect’s goal pyramid and both of us would get a warm fuzzy feeling which would allow us to be able to start doing business as warm fuzzy friends. Deciding what we want out of life is kind of like this, except instead of using this tool to convince ourselves to invest to achieve the goals, we can use it to understand what is important to us and why.

I suggest drawing a pyramid with multiple levels and sitting down with your spouse or a close friend and doing this exercise to see what you end up with. Begin as specific as you wish, because with a little digging you will always discover more. Do you want to be a famous writer? Do you want to own a big house near the ocean? Do you want to be able to travel as you please? Ok, now ask yourself why. In no apparent order, what I discovered from the process is as follows:

• I don’t really care where I live as long as I am with my wife and family.
• Being able to spend time with my family is more important to me than being able to buy what ever I want.
• While I don’t mind working for other people, I would like to eventually work for myself so I can control when and how much I work.
• I want to be able to make my wife happy.
• I want to be able to (help) make other people happy.

In financial advising you would usually give a copy of the goals pyramid to the prospect so they will remember that making the right investments (through you) will help them in achieving their financial security, and thus their happiness. When applying it to our lives, taking a deeper second look as I did, will help you discover why each particular item is important to you. If done successfully it should allow us to answer the question of what we want to accomplish with our lives. Now the hard part becomes getting there.

Obviously I don’t know how to get there in my case, so figuring that out will be the next step. In the mean time, feel free to e-mail me or comment with your ultimate goal and deductive reasoning. I mentioned yesterday that I am going to shy away from posting about personal finance (because I am no expert there either) and will begin talking about small businesses.

Starting Tuesday I will be interviewing some of the entrepreneurs and business owners I work with at Office This (a great place for office space in Wichita, KS by the way) and will share their goals. This will give me (and us) someone to compare ourselves to and ideas of how to get started.

Photo: idealterna