Introduction
Learn from the mistakes of others; you can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
I believe there are clues in the past that can help us make more sense of our fast-moving, ever-changing, present-day world. Studying the past can also help us more effectively and realistically plan for a better future. Is it possible that some commonly held beliefs from the past that still influence how we plan today are based on paradigms that are no longer valid? Could you in fact be sabotaging your retirement and the financial future of your family by pursuing strategies based on beliefs that may no longer apply? The following anecdote illustrates this principle.
A young bride was preparing a pot roast for dinner. As her husband watched, she carefully cut the ends off the roast before putting it in the roasting pan and placing it in the oven. Her husband asked her, “Why did you cut off the ends of the roast?” She replied, “I don’t know—that is the way my mother taught me.” The young woman then called her mother and asked her why she always cut the ends off the roast before putting it in the roasting pan. Her mother replied, “I don’t know—that is the way your grandmother taught me.” The young woman then called her grandmother and asked her why she always cut the ends off the roast. Was there some special cooking secret that made for a better roast when you cut the ends off? Her grandmother replied, “No, it was because my roasting pan was too small for a ...
