Running Out of Time

I was watching a documentary the other day that inspired me to write. The documentary is called Civil: Ben Crump. It was a look into the life of Benjamin Crump, attorney, and civil rights champion.

Boat ride in time

In the documentary, Ben Crump explained how the rash of incidents involving police and unexplained, unjustified shootings are now front and center in the lives of Americans. Dating all the way back to his involvement in the representation for the family of Trayvon Martin, through George Floyd and to Breonna Taylor, Ben Crump talked about how the number of occurrences that were happening in public view, that exposed violations of civil rights has allowed a window of time for the public to see and optimistically address these blatant abuses of humankind.

And while his cry seemed to be just par for the turbulent times we live in, his pain was well understood, and it was easily distinguishable in my own line of work.

Running out of time…. As a financial advisor that takes on the responsibility to manage wealth and the financial decisions of my clients, I often review how my clients got here, what their situations were prior to our relationship and where they stand now with respect to their life goals and objectives. What I consistently find is that those who stick with the program are the ones that have the highest likelihood to meet and exceed their own personal expectations. When these expectations are met, one of the most important variables in the success equation is the amount of time they have committed to the process of financial success and the financial decisions they have made along the way.

While making money, saving money, and investing wisely are just as important in the goal of accumulating assets, time and compound earnings is literally the most amazing example of how to build wealth. I often explain it this way, say you start with the same size snowball, maybe 3 inches around, and two people decide to roll their respective snowballs down a hill, one starting at the top of the hill, represented in age as 25 and the other person starting in the middle of the hill at age 50 with each revolution representing one year. By the time that snowball reaches the bottom of the hill adding a new layer of snow at each revolution, can you imagine how much bigger the snowball is that had the 25 additional revolutions down the hill. This is the importance of starting early.

Now I’m sure that some would suggest that the correlation between running out of time to expose the social ills of violating the civil rights of others, and the time needed to succeed at investing is a stretch in terms of importance, I beg to differ. Not because one is more important than the other, it is just that in my experience, when people engage early in the process of preparing for financial success, they can make a dramatic impact in enjoying their life and creating a legacy of multi-generational wealth. This is the fruit of my labor. Similar to the passion exhibited by Mr. Crump in his documentary, I too am holding firm to the idea that I will get to see so much be accomplished, before we run out of time.

Quality of Life Matters

Earl J. Johnson is the Founder, CEO and Wealth Advisor for Lexus Wealth Management.

For more information, visit www.lexuswealth.com

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