“It was the most stressful time of my career, but also the most rewarding!” I’ve heard this comment, or some version of it, from many bankers over the past few months talking about the loan program called Payment Protection Program (PPP) which literally saved millions of small businesses from going under. (For this article I am focusing on the positive results of this program although I am aware that in some markets there were problems with the rollout to businesses that didn’t need the assistance.)
This program has caught my attention because my writing usually focuses on themes that includes the power of money to do good and the importance of using our money to live a purposeful life. The PPP program captured these two themes in a powerful way and it has application for everyone wanting to think about money in this enlightened manner.
The young lender that said those words went on to explain that the experience was stressful because she was working past midnight for weeks, having to juggle childcare creatively, trying to understand the new program without clear guidance all while trying to assure desperate small business owners that she would secure the funding to save their livelihood. And, in spite of the pressure, she would not change this experience for anything. She knows that her community would have been impoverished without her making a difference in the lives of many small businesses. A 21st century George Bailey!
What appeals to me about this story is that bankers are like many professionals who can grow disillusioned. We enter a profession with noble goals to provide affordable housing, or bring in new jobs to our community, but then our idealistic thinking gets muddied by the paperwork, the sales goals, the office politics and eventually burn out.
The FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement, which encourages retirement as early as possible, is at least partly a result of the loss of a sense of purpose in a calling because of these legitimate frustrations. I know a doctor who actively encourages aspiring medical students to flee the profession because he hates the red tape and constant fighting with insurance companies over payments. Let’s hope he is not successful in his campaign!
At least in the banking world, the COVID-19 pandemic and the PPP rollout has cut through the frustration to remind even old veterans like me of how important our service is to our community.
I think there are lessons for all of us that have come this far through the pandemic as we think about our money and life purpose. Here are five suggestions to leverage your experience of this pandemic into something good:
- What do you want? My daughter put my wife and I through an exercise recently where she asked us, “What do you want?” And after I answered, she said, “What do you want, Dad?” And after I answered, she asked me the same question eight more times. Eventually I began to catch on that this was a great exercise to peel back the onion layers to really think deeply about what was buried in my psyche. It was a great exercise and as I think about making some new purposeful goals for 2021, I’m going to be asking myself and my wife that simple question several times before we settle on our plans.
- Talk to your financial advisor about “what you want” and evaluate whether your finances are aligned with getting you there. While travel may not be the most noble pursuit or a life purpose, it is something that is high on my goals for 2021 as we’ve been locked down. And I would argue travel to see grandchildren we’ve missed is a very noble pursuit. I suspect it is the same with many readers of this newsletter. Now is a great time to examine your investment buckets to make sure you have sufficient funds or are planning appropriately for achieving the “what you want” purposes.
- Get your affairs in order. There is nothing like a pandemic to remind us of our mortality. Hot on my “to do” list in 2021 is to contact my lawyer to make a few changes in our estate plan which we haven’t looked at for seven years. I also want to make a list of where we keep important documents to give to one of my children so as to make it easy on them if the unexpected happens. We can’t control our money for long from the grave, but we can make intelligent choices while we’re alive for where it goes making sure it is aligned with our purposes and values.
- Reevaluate charitable giving. COVID-19 has clearly had an uneven impact around the world. Other than staying at home, many of us have not suffered. On the other hand, lower income service workers in the US, or even more devastated workers in developing countries around the world, have all suffered greatly. I’m reevaluating our charitable giving to see if there is a more impactful way to give our dollars away in 2021.
- Find ways to thank the essential workers in your life for what they have done. Gratitude is a great exercise. I sat down at Thanksgiving and sent out numerous notes of appreciation to everyone I could think of that has shown great leadership or served others through this tough year. It’s a great exercise for all of us in this time when its important to encourage those who may be getting close to burnout. This exercise has the potential to help you make decisions in step four above as to how to change your charitable donations in 2021.
If you have a story of how you’ve realigned your finances to better reflect your life purpose or values, I’d love to hear it!
Joe Kesler, Founder Smart Money with Purpose