This week’s blog is a little different. Today we celebrate a significant milestone for the blog. It is the 26th blog since the launch of QED Wealth Solutions back in January. In other words, I have written a weekly blog each week for the last six months (with two notable exceptions: one break for the Fourth of July holiday, and one blog written by my wife). What really gives this meaning is that my goal when launching the blog was to do it every week for six months.
While I was always a decent student, I expect that it would surprise many of my teachers to know that I now essentially write a paper every week. My degree is in math, not exactly a field known for creative writing talent! While I readily admit that some weeks getting another blog turned out can be a challenge, it has also slowly turned into a creative outlet that allows me to clarify my thinking on certain topics. After all, I’m not going to write it and publish it for the world to see unless I have the idea fleshed out. I can speak with certainty that without making the original six-month commitment, I would have quit long ago.
What Financial Planning Lessons Can be Taken from This?
Well first off, the aim of our blog is to help educate and entertain an audience that has little to no financial training. I do not take it for granted that each week we have readers that invest their most precious asset, their time, into reading my blog and it is my sincere hope that you, the reader, have received value in return.
In addition to the obvious lessons from the blog, I believe there is a deeper lesson about investment over time. Stated succinctly, embrace the suck. Now I’m not saying that writing this blog has always sucked, as a matter of fact many times it has been very enjoyable, but it hasn’t been all rainbows and butterflies either. I have spent many late nights and weekends taking time to write the following week’s blog just to get it out before our Tuesday deadline. But this hard work has led to many wonderful conversations and several client relationships that simply would not have been possible otherwise.
This mantra has many connections to life, both financial and otherwise. Saving consistently is embracing the suck, getting proper insurance put into place is embracing the suck, having those hard estate planning conversations is embracing the suck. So many times, with financial planning, we would rather play ostrich and stick our head in the sand, but when we do this, it only exacerbates the problem. Doing hard things consistently over time is where all the sweetest parts of life can be discovered. While it’s not fun in the moment, you can look back and be proud of what you have accomplished. This week’s blog is taking that brief look back.
I also want to take a moment to brag on my wife Liz, as each week she helps to edit the blog as well as getting it posted on the website. If writing the blog is embracing the suck, editing my poorly constructed musings brings it to a whole new level. Much like our household, she does so quietly behind the scenes, and much like our household we could not function without her.
However, don’t get too caught up in looking back at past successes, as there is still so much to accomplish. I am proud of myself for having the perseverance of writing so consistently, however I must continue to carry forward. After saying all of that, ironically, I am changing up the blog a bit. It has always been planned to write a weekly blog for six months, and then taper the frequency down to a blog every two weeks. This allows me to have more time to explore other marketing avenues while still maintaining a regular, albeit less frequent blog. It is also my hope that this will allow me to do deeper dives from a content standpoint for my blogs. There are still so many things we haven’t covered yet!
If you are looking for an accountability partner to help you embrace the suck in your financial life, reach out to us here at QED Wealth Solutions.
This post is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing should be construed as investment, tax, or legal advice.
