06/18/2026
My last meeting of the day yesterday wasn’t about money.
A few months ago, I met a husband and wife for the first time. They were part of a practice transition we had taken on. They didn’t need much. In fact, there was no business to be done.
No assets to improve.
No planning process necessary.
No reason to implement anything.
I simply gave them an opinion and let them know that if they ever needed something, my team and I would be there as a resource.
A couple months later, his wife was gone.
It happened fast.
What started as a sharp pain in her neck turned out to be a brain bleed. The family was forced to make the unimaginable decision to remove life support.
Last night, I stood on his front doorstep.
Sandals. Shorts. A man trying to figure out what life looks like after spending decades with the person he expected to grow old beside.
It was almost 7pm.
I had been on the road since 8 that morning. I was tired and ready to go home.
But sometimes the most important thing an advisor can do has nothing to do with financial advice.
I looked him in the eye and told him:
“Don’t make any major financial decisions right now.”
“You’re going to be okay.”
“Let the dust settle.”
When grief is fresh, people are vulnerable. That’s when mistakes get made. That’s when well intentioned people and sometimes not so well intentioned people can influence decisions that shouldn’t be rushed.
So we didn’t spend much time talking about money.
We talked about muscle cars.
We talked about trips out West.
We talked about life.
Because what he really needed wasn’t a financial advisor.
He needed someone willing to sit with him in a house that suddenly felt empty.
One lesson this experience reinforced for me:
Always meet both spouses.
When I met them, he had recently gone through a quintuple bypass surgery. Everyone was worried about him.
Instead, life had other plans.
The spouse you think you’re planning for may not be the spouse who ends up needing the plan.
And maybe the biggest lesson of all:
The last time I saw her, she was excitedly telling me about her grandchildren and a trip they had planned together before the end of the year.
She never got that year.
None of us know how much time we have.
That’s why the conversations, the trips, the memories, and the people matter so much.
The money is important.
But the days are priceless.
And once they’re gone, we don’t get them back.
