Actual Intelligence: The Missing Ingredient in Most Retirement Plans
Retirement planning isn’t just numbers—it’s lived experience. Wisdom, not algorithms, carries you through your most vulnerable years. What would your support community look like when you need it most... ...more
Actual Intelligence: The Missing Ingredient in Most Retirement Plans
June 02, 2025•2 min read
Balanced Rock: What This Giant Teaches Us About Real-Life Balance
Balance isn’t found. It’s built. What does a 40-ton rock in Idaho have to do with your caregiving, career, or retirement plans? Everything—if you're the one holding it all together. Discover how real ... ...more
Balanced Rock: What This Giant Teaches Us About Real-Life Balance
May 26, 2025•2 min read
Real Men, Real Plans, Real Life
Real leadership starts with real questions—not Reddit advice. This post challenges young men to slow down, think ahead, and lead with clarity in money, marriage, and family. ...more
Real Men, Real Plans, Real Life
May 18, 2025•1 min read
Planning Isn’t a Download
Planning isn’t downloading. It’s deciding." You don’t need more articles—you need answers. Let’s turn bookmarked chaos into a real-life plan that protects your Loved Ones. ...more
Planning Isn’t a Download
May 12, 2025•1 min read
You Can’t Google How to Be a Man
There’s no download for dignity. You can’t Google how to be a man—or how to raise one. Because real manhood is taught, not searched. ...more
You Can’t Google How to Be a Man
May 05, 2025•1 min read
Actual Intelligence and the Return to Real
Real wisdom isn’t found in a search bar. It’s earned at kitchen tables, over coffee, and through a lifetime of loving, leading, and learning. Ready to Return to Real? Let’s talk. ...more
Actual Intelligence and the Return to Real
April 28, 2025•2 min read
Manhood 101: The Lessons I Wish I Had Learned Sooner
Being a man isn’t about muscles or money. It’s about choosing the hard things now—so you’re not stuck with regret later. - Career. - Marriage. - Money. This isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being... ...more
Manhood 101: The Lessons I Wish I Had Learned Sooner
April 21, 2025•3 min read
HOMESCHOOLING: Haven or Havoc?
Your child's school years are precious and fleeting.
Now could be your best time to step up where your school is letting your child down. Let this series of myth-busting short chapters encourage you.
2 Major Mistakes
Which one will you make?
Which of these 2 retirement mistakes are you making right now? It's impossible to entirely avoid both mistakes.
You won't know for sure which mistake will work out better for you until it's too late.
How to choose?
Finding the Will
(Part 1)
Part 1: Have the will to arrange for a smooth transition when you’re no longer around to answer questions
Have the will to arrange for a smooth transition when you’re no longer around to answer questions (Part 1)
Ensuring your children or other Loved Ones can readily access your important papers when you die entails a sound process versus one or two conversations. You must overcome aversion to the subject of death, procrastination of anything that is long-term, and the tendency to assume things will be fine. Family dynamics can be sweet, spicy, or dicey.
Finding the Will
(Part 2)
Part 2: Getting Organized
While the internet permits convenient access to accounts, policies, and stored documents, it presents a plethora of password management problems. which too many people avoid by succumbing to password laziness, such as:
- re-using passwords for multiple logins, or
- use simple, easy to remember passwords, or
- writing them on sticky notes placed on their monitor or under their keyboard, or
- keeping them in a spreadsheet on their computer, or
- letting their browser remember passwords for them
Embrace Your Clarence
Is Clarence your future?
Golden insight from a golden retriever.
Post-Pandemic W.E.L.L.ness
Working, Earning, Learning, and Launching to Thrive
Where life drastically changed forever two years ago, everyone adjusted to the best of their abilities.
Here are a few of the key adjustments--"pandemic pivots"--that sustained some and prospered others.
Prenuptial Adulting
Equip Them for Happily Ever After
“Mom, Dad, we’re getting married!"
“Wonderful, congratulations! Here’s what you both need to do first.”
Equipping newlyweds with essentials of responsibility leaves plenty of life yet to be discovered on their own. Adults understand that love isn’t oogly feelings; it’s a hard choice. It’s putting your commitments and your money where your mouth is.
Many of the following steps also apply to one’s turning 18 years old. Becoming engaged adds urgency and a deadline.
Rethinking Competing Funds for College and Retirement
We live in a time of skyrocketing inflation topping decades of unbridled higher education costs.
Is the tension between funding your retirement and funding (at least partially) your children’s college education keeping you up at night?
You’re not alone.
Married? Is Your Endgame 100% or Just 50%?
Are you single? That other 50% could be whoever is most important to you.
Multiple unforgiving players factor into your retirement and estate plans (collectively your “endgame”). Household names include the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Key decisions with these players are nearly impossible to reverse. Plus, if you qualify for a pension, how you activate it is another irreversible decision.
Are you more of a planner than your spouse? It’s all too common for one spouse to blindly trust the planning spouse. Countless endgame “plans” were created by 50% of a couple:
