March 2025
We’re just about a quarter of the way into 2025 and one of the best words I can use to describe these first three months is: whelming. These days, everything from the news and social media to small details in our everyday life can just feel whelming, with a decent risk of veering into overwhelm.
But in some ways, that’s a good thing. One of the benefits of doing life, money, family, business, and finances *on purpose* is that purpose keeps us on the right side of overwhelmed. What’s my proof? Glad you asked.
Your portfolio, on purpose
Alright let’s just get this out of the way: The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite Index—two of the most popular indices that track the broader ‘stock market’—are both in correction territory. That means they’re down more than 10% from their recent highs, and that’s jarring.
No one enjoys a market correction. Dips can be unsettling, especially when they happen quickly. But they’re also… totally normal.
Sometimes, they are ‘corrections’ in the truest sense of the term—so many people buy a stock out of excitement that the price goes up and stops reflecting the underlying value of the company; people sell shares and the price “corrects” to more accurately reflect the company’s fundamentals.
Other times, these moves simply reflect shifting investor sentiment. Sometimes, they signal more selling ahead. This is where we rely on two things: Purpose and data.
Why are you investing?
I’ve never met anyone who is investing because they want to beat the S&P 500 or “get rich.” Most of us invest to grow our money strategically, so we can help pay for our kids’ college or retire comfortably. This purpose is particularly important when markets are volatile. You aren’t investing to beat the S&P 500 or even to see annual returns. You’re investing toward your long-term purpose. How are you tracking against *that* goal? Next…
What does the data say?
When we know your purpose, we can run all kinds of projections to see what a downturn means—will it impact your ability to reach your goals? If so, can you make adjustments to improve your chances of success? We can run these for your individual circumstances, but here’s a piece of data that works for everyone:
Corrections are normal. Historically speaking, they happen every 1-2 years and usually self-solve in less than nine months.
Of course, past performance doesn’t predict future performance. But it can offer you perspective… so you can keep making decisions on purpose.
(If you need a reminder, I wrote a recap about all the times we’ve been here before and survived.)
Lord of the Rings vs. Succession: An ode to family meetings
Building a portfolio on purpose is one thing, but portfolios are just a small part of our finances and our lives overall. Families have a much bigger impact on both. For the purpose (no pun intended) of this conversation, I’m focusing on the families we choose for ourselves, whether that’s a spouse, adult siblings, your own children, or even the best-friend-turned-emergency contact.
When we think about our families with intention, grace, and love, we start asking important questions: How can I show up for this person? What are they asking of me? What do I need from them in return (if anything)? Revisiting these basics from time to time can make a world of difference.
Look no further than Christopher Tolkien. Never heard of him? That’s not surprising. But you probably know his father—J.R.R. Tolkien, author of Lord of the Rings (!!!). Christopher, who became a writer, scholar, and linguist like his father, dedicated much of his life to meticulously finishing and publishing his father’s manuscripts. Much of what we know about Middle Earth we owe to the family bond between J.R.R. Tolkien and his youngest son.
On the art side, Johanna Van Gogh—sister-in-law of Vincent Van Gogh—published the artists’ letters to her husband (his brother) after his death. She wanted art dealers to understand the vision Van Gogh laid out in his letters, as a way to capture attention. It is largely thanks to her perseverance that the world learned of Van Gogh as a tortured artist, and grew to appreciate not just his art but the delirium he conquered in their creation.
These days, we talk about family meetings as a way of preventing drama, like what we saw on HBO’s Succession, Paramount’s Yellowstone, or even the current legal battle rocking the Murdoch media empire. But most of the time, my work with families isn’t about averting disaster, it’s about building something good. It’s the literary meetings that the Tolkiens hosted or the Paris dinner where Vincent Van Gogh met his namesake nephew.
Those family meetings paved the way for some of the best art and literature of the 20th century. Imagine what you could build if your family sat down with intention even just once a quarter.
Learning to perform on purpose
It’s the final countdown! Next month, this newsletter will include the FIRST SINGLE off of Stone Arch Rivals’ new album. That’s right. The album that we created after we got together and said: No more making music by accident. We love this. We’re doing it on purpose.
Here’s the really cool thing about purpose, though. Yes, it yields results you’d expect, like the single I’ll share next month. But it can deliver unexpected benefits, too. Case in point: The video deep dive into family meetings shared below.
Why isn’t this in the family meeting section, you might ask? Well. I’ve been having family meetings for a long time. But being comfortable enough to record a 16-minute deep dive video on family meetings? That’s a recent development.
I’ve always been creative, but that usually translated to writing. I could write great articles to help educate and entertain. But I never connected the dots between *performing* music, and how that performance mindset could help me enhance other parts of my life.
So that was the surprise. By creating music on purpose, I was able to lean into performing, and start creating videos that helped me fulfill another part of my life purpose: helping people, particularly business owners, get their finances in order and build with purpose.
