I’m Tired of Seeing 20/20!

I have not blogged much this year, and I am sorry for that. This is one of the strangest years in my lifetime. Every time I open a word document & start writing, I immediately get stuck, for a lot of reasons. There are so many emotions going through my head. I am happy. I am sad. I am angry. I am scared. I am frustrated. I do not know what or who to believe. Almost everything I read or watch has a political bias and is full of hatred, and it is just exhausting!

Having to work from my home office almost all of the time, I quite often feel isolated and just plain lonely. A normal day is filled with 50 to 80 emails and an abundance of phone calls. However, I miss the interaction of meeting with my clients, referral networks, and of course my friends. A big part of who I am is opening up my home to my circle of friends. It is always a joy to see a lot of smiling faces, a ton of food on the dining room table, and an abundance of beverages!

Four years ago, almost to the month, just prior to the Presidential election, I wrote a blog on “Emotion and Logic”. The premise was simple: our country was divided between one candidate or the other. That was it. Regardless of one’s political leanings, there was a lot of emotion surrounding that election, but I could still have a conversation with most of my friends — some who leaned one way, others who leaned the other — and understand why they felt the way they did. And for the most part, we seemed to find a way to set our emotions aside and get along.

After the election, guess what happened? One of the candidates won, and we have all made it through the last four years, even though it has been filled with emotion from both sides of the aisle…and from all sides of the news media. No one has a clue what the next four years are going to look like, but this is not a political diatribe — it is simply to convey where we are as a nation.

The “logical” portion of that blog title was based on the fact that in my day-to-day work as a Financial & Insurance Advisor, I must maintain an attitude of 100% logic. Unlike politics or matters of opinion, I do not have the ability to be emotional as your advisor, regardless of what type work I am doing for you. My role is to allow YOU to be emotional about the work we are doing together and for ME to be the voice of reason so that we can collectively accomplish the goals that you hired me to achieve.

COVID-19 is something that no one short of Hollywood could dream up. What it is has done to our daily routines is life changing, and it’s possible things might never get back to the way they were. I see that the Stein Mart close to my home is going out of business and almost all of those great lunch places at the Nashville Farmer’s Market are GONE! If I do schedule a lunch with someone, I have to make a reservation because of the limited seating due to social distancing. I get halfway to the entrance of what few stores I visit and forget that dang mask! I am sure you have done it too.

The things that used to keep me sane were the 8 to 10 day excursions abroad with my travel group, or going to a movie, or something as simple as sitting at a bar to enjoy an adult beverage with a friend. Literally, golf has been the only thing that has remained somewhat normal. I can still play bogey golf and have a great time with my friends!

One thing that I have noticed and that is that people have become less relational and much more transactional. We fly off the handle at the smallest things. With as much as l try do for others, sometimes it is either not good enough, cheap enough, fast enough, or whatever enough. Trust me, I feel this daily. I am blessed to do what I do for a living and am grateful that insurance and investment planning is like rust — it never stops. It just keeps going regardless of all of the outside influences. And because of that, I remain a very busy person.

All I can say at this point is that regardless of current events, we need to be kinder to each other, and that does not mean a “like” or “thumbs up” on social media. It would be nice to see people return a phone call or voice mail instead of ignoring one another or perhaps book a table for lunch or dinner with friends or significant others.

As always, with regard your insurance and investment planning, I am here to serve you. I can comfortably state that money is probably on your mind more than normal. If that is the case, maybe I can buy you a coffee. Just hit reply and let’s talk. Thanks for reading!

Many thanks,

Brian

**Examples are intended for illustrative purposes only and may be not indicative of your situation. Individual results may vary.