Many people assume that what worked yesterday should work today.
Or that you can solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions.
That brings us to the story of the pot roast syndrome:
A new bride makes her husband a pot roast. She cuts off the ends the way her mother always did. Her husband is curious and asks why she cuts off the ends.
She replies, “That’s the way my mom always did it.”
So the new husband asks his mother-in-law why she cut off the ends of her roast.
The mother-in-law shrugs and says, “I don’t know. I just make my pot roast the way my mom did, and she always cut off the ends.”
He finally gets a chance to talk to his grandmother-in-law and asks her why she cut off the ends of the roast. The grandma just smiles and says, “We had smaller ovens then and it was the only way the roast would fit.”
“That’s the way it’s always been done,” is a poor answer to why something is being done a certain way. You agree?
This is what happens when it comes to many things, including retirement planning. Many advisors are just as guilty of “that’s the way it’s always been done.”
In the old days, almost every advisor worked for a big financial company, so they only offered that company’s financial solutions. The planning industry became a “product-first” industry. Not a good way to plan a custom retirement.
The RIGHT way to design your retirement is to begin with a picture of your IDEAL retirement. Then create a plan that gets you there before you pick the financial tools.
Are you cutting off the ends in your retirement plan?
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