Does Everyone Know Their Role?
Hi,
Welcome to this week’s Get Ready Newsletter—ideas, conversations, questions, and resources to help you prepare before life happens.
On a whitewater rafting or other outdoor trip, we assign leadership roles before setting out. Experience, training, and willingness helped determine who would serve as trip leader, rescue leader, or first aid leader.
If something happened, everyone already knew who was responsible for what. The leaders would also have a quick meeting to all get on the same page about the trip.
Experience, education and training give people confidence to step into leadership roles.
The Big Idea: Financial readiness requires the same kind of infrastructure. The right people need to know their roles, understand the goal, and feel prepared to step in. Conversations need to occur to get everyone on the same page.
For example: if your spouse became unable to manage the household finances tomorrow, would they know where the accounts are, who to contact, and what decisions could wait?
Question To Ask Before Life Happens: Do the people who are part of a plan know what their roles are and are prepared to step in?
Featured Conversation: How Financial Infrastructure Turns Income Into Empowerment
Kahlilah Dowe, CFP®, founder of TrueWealth Solutions joined me on the Get Ready Before Life Happens to explore why income alone does not create financial peace.
- Education builds confidence and expands opportunity
- A financial do-over can begin with one courageous step
- Your money should support what brings peace and purpose
Tony’s Take: More money can help, however infrastructure determines whether that money creates freedom or pressure. When you know what matters most, you can use your income to build confidence, create impact, and support a life that feels aligned.
🎙️Watch or listen to the podcast (here)
Also this week: Why Talking About Money Secrets Builds Financial Confidence
Wally Luckeydoo, educator and founder of Money Secret joined me on Get Ready Before Life Happens to explore why money conversations matter, how anonymous money secrets help people feel less alone, and why financial literacy works best when it includes emotions, behavior, and real life.
Tony’s Take: Money secrets are money stories. Financial literacy includes emotions, behavior, trust, and communication. Open conversations about money help people learn, connect, and make better decisions before life happens.
🎙️Watch or listen to the podcast (here)
In collaboration with The Money Awareness and Inclusion Awards (the MAIAs) which celebrate the increasingly important work being done to help people understand money better. Learn more: https://www.maiawards.org.
Exploring Building Financial Infrastructure:
How Our Financial Beliefs Evolved and What They Mean for You. In this episode of Planning & Beyond®, Ashley Quamme talks with Dr. Joseph S. Moore about when he realized he had followed common advice without fully understanding the risk behind it. That experience led him to study what Americans have been told to do with money over time, what actually worked, what did not, and why financial advice keeps changing as the economy changes (listen).
Your Partner Is Not the Problem: 5 Things I’ve Learned About Couples and Money. Money tends to carry far more meaning than the numbers alone suggest. The healthiest couples are not necessarily the ones who agree about everything. They're the ones who remain curious about one another, especially when they disagree. By Leah Hadley (LinkedIn).
How to Talk to Your Adult Kids About Their Inheritance. The Great Wealth Transfer starts with a conversation. Here's how to prepare heirs, reduce future conflict and create a lasting legacy. By Cameron Huddleston for Kiplinger (read)
Tony’s Take: Traditional financial advice is often rooted in having people become experts on financial services. We should start with understanding goals so they can find the right products, asking better questions and having open and honest conversations about money.
One Step Before Life Happens: Have one conversation with a loved one about your goals and wishes. Be fully present, listen and understand what everyone is saying. Ask questions to clarify. Avoid judgement.
Why it matters: People are better prepared to step in when they understand both the plan and the thinking behind it.
In the Conversation: Curious about creating your own in case of emergency plan?
Recently, I joined Barry Fisher on his radio show “Protecting What Matters” to talk about why it’s never too late to start a financial readiness plan and we took a deep dive into my free financial readiness plan. We also explored declining financial literacy in the United States and why it’s a multi-generational problem. Check out the conversation (here).
👉 Start Your Free Financial Readiness Plan. A free, practical plan that helps you create your in-case-of-emergency Financial First Aid Kit, organize what matters, and prepare before life happens.
Stat of The Week: What percentage of women 50+ feel confident they will have enough money to live comfortably throughout retirement?
A. 62%
B. 51%
C. 44%
D. 28%
Answer: 44% feel confident (11% feel very confident, 33% somewhat confident) they will have enough money to live comfortably throughout retirement. Their concerns are largely due to rising cost of living, worries that Social Security will not be enough to make ends meet and unease about the broader economy.
Why it matters: Confidence is shaped by knowledge, planning, trusted support, and having a clear financial infrastructure. This all influences how prepared someone feels.
Source: Kate Bridges for AARP research (read)
Also this week: Life Settlements and What to Do When a Policy No Longer Fits
Lisa Rehburg, life settlement broker joined me on Get Ready Before Life Happens to talk about what people should know when a life insurance policy no longer fits. Lisa explains how life settlements work, why reviewing your options matters, and how to make more informed decisions before letting a policy lapse or surrendering it.
Tony’s Take: Life insurance is risk protection first. If a policy protected your family, business, or estate for years, the premiums were not wasted. Review all of your options before making a decision.
🎙️Watch or listen to the podcast (here)
ScamFighter Tip of the Week
The psychology of scams. We often assume that if people know what scams look like, they’ll be better equipped to avoid them. But awareness alone isn’t enough. Scammers exploit predictable behavioural biases, using urgency, trust, emotion and convincing stories to prompt people to act before they stop to think. And AI is making this problem harder. Alex Gyani and Sasha Tregebov for BIT (YouTube)
Try this: Before responding to an unexpected financial request, pause and verify it independently with someone you trust.
Five Worth Your Time:
What Widowhood Taught Me About Money, Loss, and Starting Over. Includes the financial realities of widowhood and how to show up for a grieving person. Kathi Balasek, Maggie Nielsen and Barbara Provost on Women & Money: The Sh*t We Don’t About Podcast (YouTube).
The Value of Time: The Time Value of Money, Revisited. The efficient frontier should be the mix of assets that maximizes return while minimizing risk and time spent. By Ian Gutterman for Ian’s Blog: Nominal Returns (here).
Related: Money Equals Time with Ben Miller on the Get Ready Before Life Happens Podcast (here).
Most Searched Question around Money: “Why Am I Still Broke When I’m Doing Everything Right? A look at this topic through the lens of exposure → truth → self-awareness → healing → practical shift, helping listeners look honestly at what may not be clicking financially and what can begin to change today. Prisca Benson and Gina Margaret Tiger on the Self Help Show Podcast (Spotify)
The 11 Boglehead Principles by Jim Dahle for the White Coat Investor (read)
When the People Building AI Are Afraid by Nikki Barua (read)
Book of the week: From Echo to Athena: The Evolution of Women in the Great Wealth Transfer by Ruschelle Khanna and Ann Priftis (Amazon). This anthology traces women's journey from silence to sovereignty and offers a new framework for legacy built on relational intelligence, ethical care, compassion, discernment, and courage.
Related: Women & Wealth Masterclass. Taught by Cary Carbonaro, CFP®, MBA. Women are the fastest-growing client demographic in financial planning... but they are also one of the most underserved. In this course, you'll learn how to change that, starting with your very next meeting. Learn more (here).
Final Thought: On an outdoor trip, assigning roles before setting out means people know who will step forward when something happens. Financial readiness works the same way. A plan becomes stronger when the people around you understand what matters, know their role, and feel prepared to help.
Because when life happens, the way you think about money matters.
Tony
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