My "Know" Process
Know where.
Or nowhere.
Most financial advice starts with products.
I begin with a question: What is your ideal life?
Financial planning needs to have the end in mind. What is the life we are building? We answer that first — before we work out how to get there.
Because in the imperfect world that we live in, one full of trade-offs, uncertainty, and random shocks, you need a plan that's robust. A plan that moves you toward the life you want, and holds when life doesn't go to plan.
That principle shapes everything I do. Understanding what you want comes first. Otherwise, we will go nowhere.
Know you.
Financial advice is an art and a science.
The science we can model: how much retirement will cost, how much insurance you need, how much you'll leave behind. We can calculate the shortfall and design a solution.
The art we cannot: the most essential part cannot be captured in numbers. Why are we doing what we are doing.
You
You are a person, with feelings, thoughts, ideas, a way of seeing the world. You are the one who acts, and your behaviour shapes the plan as much as the numbers do.
So understanding who you are comes next. Without it, even the best-calculated plan won't hold.
Know how.
This is where most people think an advisor adds value.
Yes. We have access to the solutions, and the knowledge to use them well. But this is the floor, not the ceiling. It's the basic competence you should expect from any advisor.
In truth, the "how" takes care of itself. Do the first two steps well — Know where and Know you — and the right solutions become almost obvious.
An advisor must be technically skilled, of course. But technical skill alone builds nothing. Based on technical skills alone, there is no plan to execute — only products to sell.
How does the advisor actually live?
That's a good question to ask. If I, as a licensed financial advisor representative, don't manage my own life, why should you trust me with yours?
The fact is, I do, and possibly even more extreme. The framework I'd build for you is the one I run my own money on — future first, the base kept somewhere my panicking self can't reach it, and a plan built to hold if I'm not around to manage it. I hold myself to more than I'd ever ask of a client.
I've written openly about the specifics. You can read more at: How I track my expenses, and Three things I do that might sound wrong but aren't.
But I would like to caution you. The test is not whether the advisor plans the same way for you or not. The test is whether the advisor plans at all, and whether the advice he gives you is sound.
Financial planning is rarely exotic, never excessively complicated. It is about doing the right, simple things, over and over again. It's the same discipline, applied to my own life, that I'd want applied to yours.