It’s the family event of the year! We all look forward to it so very much. If there’s one activity we can agree is the very best thing we do together, it’s this. Family. Picture. Day.
Truth be known, family picture day is a beast of a day, especially for Carie. She spends months shopping for and ensuring color coordination and fitment of outfits, arranges hair appointments, contacts and schedules the photographer and makes sure we all have a clear calendar, all pointed toward a spot in a park in sunny weather where we can try to look in the same direction at the same time with real smiles on our faces. Carie deserves an award. For if it was up to me, we’d go many years without any pictures at all and that would be a shame.
What struck me this year was the thought that we could have gone through all of that effort, but without a person there to coordinate us, ask great questions, help us make decisions, and bring her expertise to bear on the event, we would have been a bunch of dressed-up blonde people wandering around aimlessly in a field. The photographer captured the ingredients in a way that gave us peace about the process and assured us that it will all be okay.
I sincerely hope that we provide that for you as you plan for and enjoy your retirement. We strive to help people who wish to avoid wandering aimlessly in a field to focus on objectives, coordinate resources, and benefit immensely from the efforts that brought them to this point. It’s no simple task to save enough money to be able to retire from paid work. Given this, I hope you can feel rewarded by having a successful retirement. I hope you can have the look on your face when you retire that my wife, Carie, did when the girls were all lined-up smiling in front of the camera, at the same time, adorned in beautiful outfits and with gorgeous hair. It was truly an awesome moment for her and for me as well. I love to think that we can in some way help retirees have that same look.
So here’s a rare ask from me. We met our photographer by referral from a friend; without her, we may have wandered aimlessly through a field. If you have friends, coworkers, or family members who are approaching retirement age, will you consider introducing them to us? We now have more capacity to help families plan for their own successful retirement. This means you’re not diluting our ability to serve by growing the number of people we serve. Instead, you’re extending a helping hand to others who may be looking for advisors who care deeply about providing comprehensive planning, high-level retirement income and investment management services, all with a true fiduciary approach. In other words, if you appreciate what we do for you, do you think others may as well?
Your willingness to consider others who may wish to learn more about retirement planning is much appreciated. Encourage them to attend one of our classes, send us an email to add them to this Weekly Newsletter, or invite them to our upcoming fall client social event.
And in case you’re wondering, we don’t have the pictures back yet. And part of me doesn’t want to see them yet because I want the experience of being a part of our family who found ourselves dressed up in a field to soak in before pictures seal the memories into a static snapshot. We may dread family picture day, but it’s a really great feeling to have made it through with smiles on our faces.
All the best,
Adam Cufr, RICP®