A Decade.

It’s been 10 years since I launched this firm.

Here’s what’s happened:

- 0 to 180 clients.
- $0 to $275,000,000 under our advisement.
- 1 to 5 employees.
- Dozens of retirement celebrations.
- Welcomed a bunch of kids and grandkids (including 3 kids of our own. Here’s the story of one of them.).
- Said goodbye, mourned, and celebrated the lives of 12 clients as they passed.
- Endured a pandemic, lost a best friend, and managed the ups and downs of our messy financial lives.

It’s been really fun…It’s been rewarding.

But rewards come from adopting risk — and time does a weird thing to our memory of risk. Once risk turns into reward, we tend to downplay how easily it could have gone the other way.

You say things like “Of course that was going to happen, it always does.”

This is what we say when markets retreat and then come roaring back. Or when you’re nervous about a theme park ride and it ends up being fun. Or when you’re anxious boarding a flight and the wheels safely touch down.

But when risk doesn’t work out — like a poorly structured investment — there’s a tendency to look at that adopted risk as being reckless. That’s what happened when you bought that small biotech stock or crypto position or invested in a small business or whatever.

As I think about the last 10 years, there are some things I did which helped tilt the odds in a positive direction.

Here are some of those things:

1) When it comes to factors out of your control, keep your expectations low. For you investors, plan your glidepath around low expected returns.

2) When it comes to factors in your control, keep the expectations high. Again, for you investors, be sure your taxes, estate plan, expenses, and portfolio design is dialed in.

3) Be careful adopting permanent increases to your cost of living. I didn’t hire anyone until I knew I had the cash flow to keep them on board indefinitely. Keeping your fixed payments low allows you to respond appropriately in different financial climates.

4) Know your belief system thoroughly. Perhaps the biggest bump we saw in the clients and new assets added was in 2020 when we were dealing with something truly unprecedented. I was blogging like crazy during that period — looking to add a voice of reason and stability to an otherwise chaotic situation. I didn’t need to have a pandemic-specific-playbook, I just had my system of beliefs which keeps me out of trouble and on track.

…One more thing on this. A while back I saw this clip of Dave Ramsey suggesting he wouldn’t borrow $1 Billion at 0% interest if it was offered to him.

Obviously the math supports taking a 0% interest loan, buying treasuries, and keeping the difference. But sometimes it’s not about math. Sometimes it’s about principle. Specifically, understanding that adoption of some principles may cause you to miss out on some things, but it will help keep you out of big trouble. That’s the game we play.

Speaking of games we play, let’s talk about the game we’re playing for the next decade or two.

I get three calls a day from big private equity backed firms who want to buy Harding Wealth. This is common right now in our industry — there’s a lot of consolidation and pressure to grow grow grow.

I’m not doing that.

We’re not growing through acquiring firms and we won’t be acquired.

Our plan is to continue heading down the path we’re already on: which is to bring on about 10-15 new client relationships each year while continuing to reinvest into the firm’s technology, infrastructure, and client experience.

We don’t want to be Olive Garden — We want to be the single-location restaurant that knows your favorite table when you walk in the door.. This modest growth target keeps us intentionally small and helps us deliver that.

Okay, that’s all for now. Thanks for being on the ride with us as either a friend, reader, or client.

Onward.

Adam