One of the most common problems that we see among all our clients, from corporate executives to wealthy entrepreneurs and everyone in between, is some embarrassment about their finances when their money is a mess.
It’s only recently that schools in the United States have begun to include financial literacy in their curriculum. When most Millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers were in school, learning how to manage their personal finances simply wasn’t taught.
It also wasn’t commonly taught in the home, either, though the wealthier your parents were, the more likely they were to teach you about finances.
Many of our clients lacked this critical education, and despite being extremely intelligent, highly effective individuals in the workplace, their personal finances seemed to get out of hand.
At Sandene Strategies, one of our most important principles is to never judge an individual for their situation. Experience shows that this can happen to anyone, no matter how intelligent or capable they are. A few mistakes can be all it takes to generate a large financial mess.
However, the worst thing that you can do if you have messy finances is to hide them out of shame or embarrassment about money. Here’s why.
Hiding Financial Problems Never Fixes Them: It Often Makes Them Worse
As a high-functioning, highly successful and smart individual, you might have found yourself hiding financial problems out of embarrassment about debt or guilt over your financial situation.
Ironically, this is often compounded by your success in your career. When you make more money than 95% or 99% of Americans but still have somehow ended up with a money problem, you might be much harder on yourself than someone who makes less.
You may find yourself saying things to yourself like, “I make so much! How could I have been this foolish?” This could be the result of a number of potential financial issues, like:
- Getting into serious debt that you feel stuck in
- Regularly outspending your income despite your best efforts
- Investing a great deal of money in an investment that ultimately went bad
- Pulling out of a major investment at the wrong time (or investing in something when it was at its peak, only to watch its value drop and stay low)
- Overinvesting and tying up all your money, only to then need it for an emergency, and subsequently taking a major loss by selling
- Spending retirement funds for any reason, only to realize you’ve fallen far behind on your retirement goals
These are just a few examples, but there are many more. We’ve seen it all, and they all lead to the same feelings: Money guilt, shame, and embarrassment.
The wrinkle here that people who make much less don’t run into is this idea that you might have (and all those around you might also have): You’re a high earner. You make so much money that this shouldn’t be possible.
Of course, this is nonsense. Even the richest people in the world can get into money trouble (and often do). The amount of money you earn isn’t what’s important—it’s the size of the financial problem you’re hiding in addition to the fact that you’re hiding it (maybe even from yourself).
Problems can only be solved when they’re brought into the light and looked at honestly. We’ve helped countless clients to dig out of the financial hole they’ve found themselves in, but we’re only able to do so when they tell us what’s going on.
A Financial Advisor Can Be Both a Problem Solver and Someone to Confide In
Hiding financial problems only makes them worse, but when you work with a financial advisor, they can be the only person who has to know.
They can become a partner to lean on for this problem, someone who not only helps you find a way out but who also understands your situation and never judges.
Often, the simple act of finally telling someone how bad things have become and asking for help is enough to get rid of financial embarrassment and start you on the road to a healthy financial situation.
Just like your career, your personal finances need at least some attention and work to get back on track. Thankfully, because you’re a high earner, it might be easier for us to help you get out of your financial problems than it would be for someone with very little income (and thus, few resources to work with).
Financial Planning for High Earners with Financial Problems: Your 360º Future™ Is Now. Let’s Get to Work!
Financial planning for high earners with financial problems is as unique as you are. To fully understand the scope of the problem and find the best solution, we’ll need to look at the big picture together.
That’s what we specialize in: Using a unique framework to examine every aspect of your life, including your financial problems, to then find a way out and build a roadmap to the life you want to live.
It’s called Your 360º Future™, a blueprint that looks at these major areas of your financial future:
- Current Financial Difficulties
- Estate & Legacy Planning
- Tax Integration
- Risk Management & Insurance
- 360º Asset Strategy™
Looking at all these areas of your financial life and integrating your goals for the future allows us to craft a unique plan that is best positioned to get you where you want to be while cleaning up financial messes along the way.
Schedule a free consultation now to get started. We’ll dive into your assets, your income sources, your goals, your money problems and how we can work with what you have to solve your financial problems and get you back on track toward your financial goals.