Psychology of Financial Planning

CHAPTER 4Financial Flashpoints: Exploring a Client's Financial Background

At 11:30 p.m. on a Tuesday night, Ted collapsed into bed and uttered to himself, “At least they can't call me lazy.” He was exhausted from a day that had started at 3:30 a.m. tending horses. After that, he was off by 5:00 a.m. to the gym he owned, where he began preparations to open the doors by 6:00. He left the gym by 7:00 to get to his full‐time job, teaching high school and coaching basketball and baseball. After a full day of teaching and coaching, he was back to the gym to close up at 10 p.m. and then return to the horses to feed them once again. His average workday spanned nearly 20 hours. At the end of each day, when he finally made it to bed, he would utter the same phrase to himself, “At least they can't call me lazy.”

Years later, Ted examined this voice in his head. He learned that this belief had been passed down from his great‐grandparents to their children and through the generations to Ted. After doing some digging into his family history, he learned that his paternal grandfather hadn't worked much, possibly due to an injury. Whatever the reason, Ted's grandmother would complain about his grandfather to Ted's father when he was a young boy. She admonished him for how little he worked to support his family. Ted's father internalized this experience and decided to help neighboring farmers when he was six years old, gaining the praise and approval of his mother and everyone in town. Ted remembers ...