Not getting out of your own way

98% of the people I meet doing this job at Secfi are awesome people. They’re smart and generally always willing to learn. Most of my job is working with these awesome people and helping them with a complicated financial situation in which they are not familiar with. And they’re incredibly grateful for it.

Today was one of those days where I worked with someone in that 2% and it was brutal. This particular prospective client had been working with myself or someone on my team for the last 3 months…. largely looking for free advice. I typically don’t mind giving it.

I like to think that I understand my value prop. I generally always aim to give unbiased advice and like to put myself in their shoes. I would never recommend something that I wouldn’t do myself if I was in that situation. But I also get that many people won’t take the advice for one reason or another. Sometimes it goes over their head and sometimes they just view things differently than I do. That’s okay with me.

This particular individual was possibly the most bizzarre situation I’ve dealt with in my 5 years at Secfi. He keeps asking for advice, and then pretty much tosses it aside completely in the middle of our call. It felt like he was trying to get us to affirm his really shitty financial plan which we of course wouldn’t do.

On that shitty plan - it quite honestly felt like this guy has created a plan based on doing the complete opposite of what someone should be doing in this situation. Without diving into specifics, his plan entails doing nothing now, but then double down in months when the risk is much higher, and the benefits are much lower.

It wasn’t a decision based on risk, but solely just a misunderstanding and focusing on the wrong things. I couldn’t believe the situation and how hard headed this guy was. Unfortunately for this guy, he can’t get out of his own way.