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They're efforting toward something they never genuinely chose. From their parents, their peer group, their culture, and yes, their financial advisor.

Have you ever actually asked yourself whether you consented to the goals you're working toward? Are your aims rooted in your intentions, or someone else's?

"The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little." — Thomas Merton It's just that we often settle for too little by doing too much. And we often mistake activity for progress.

"The chief act of the will is not effort but consent." — Thomas Keating Too often our financial plans don't stick — not because people aren't trying hard enough. Because they've never actually consented to the goal. open.substack.com/pub/timmau…

"When you ask before you tell, and you're genuinely curious, you're communicating: I care, and I'm not afraid of what you might actually mean." — Edgar Schein on humble inquiry. Some of the best listening advice I've heard. open.substack.com/pub/timmau…

Alfred Adler had a name for using work to avoid everything else: the life-lie. And his instruction to workaholics is very pointed, and seems to demand our consideration: "Workaholics are simply trying to avoid their personal and social responsibilities by using work as an excuse." open.substack.com/pub/timmau…

John Glenn became an astronaut--for a second time--in his 70s. Jim Collins calls it feeding your inner fire, in his new book, "What To Make Of A Life." That doesn't look like escaping work. It's personal evolution with and through it.

FIRE frames work as something to outgrow. Jim Collins' research suggests the most fulfilling lives never tried to — they just kept orienting work toward what they were encoded for. open.substack.com/pub/timmau…

Is money fuel for your work, or is your work fuel for money? Jim Collins calls this "flipping the arrow." Most financial plans never ask.

Jim Collins studied what distinguishes deeply fulfilling lives. His findings caused me to question the FIRE approach to financial planning even further. The most meaningful lives weren't oriented toward escaping work. They were oriented toward doing the work they were built for. open.substack.com/pub/timmau…

The ordinary distractions of life, when compounded by an attempt to navigate them simultaneously, often lead to a diminishment of moments that could otherwise be enjoyed, if not remarkable. The end result can be a squandering of the scarcest of all the resources we’re capable of possessing—our time. Let’s call it what it is: a near-life experience. Present in body, elsewhere in mind. open.substack.com/pub/timmau…

We're always talking about rebalancing portfolios. But what about rebalancing our spending? Couldn't it make sense to recalibrate periodically, too?

"The goal here isn't to spend less. It's to spend lavishly on the things you value and cut ruthlessly on the things you don't." — Carl Richards @behaviorgap

"You spend… you notice. Spend… notice. Repeat." That's the whole framework, honestly. (h/t @BehaviorGap)

"Live below your means," the all-time GOAT of financial maxims, addresses a symptom. Michael Stipe of REM addressed the root in 1987's "The Finest Worksong": "What we want and what we need has been confused." open.substack.com/pub/timmau…

Eliminating the confusion between what we want and what we need is upstream of virtually every financial dysfunction: lifestyle inflation, status spending, over-saving at the expense of meaning, working too long, retiring too early. open.substack.com/pub/timmau…

Some of the most precious moments can't be engineered, only received. Good financial planning just reduces the weight enough to keep the door open. open.substack.com/pub/timmau…

Financial planning is built around a handful of momentous events. But most of life is lived in between them.

Financial planning isn’t a one-time event. It’s a lifelong process.   And it keeps coming back to three questions: …Where are you today? …Where do you want to go? …How will you get there?   My new book, Your Money, is just a collection of ways to sit with these three questions a little longer.   If my work has been useful to you, tell three people about it.   You don’t need to explain it.   “This made me think of you,” and the link to the book is enough → buff.ly/AQTgu6L   Over the last couple of decades, that’s how my work has spread. One person helping another person take the next step.   Thank you for being part of it.