9/16/08

Most financial advisors will tell you that finding new clients is the most frustrating part of the job. For me it was a little different. While I don't really like people much, I've always been able to understand them and communicate fairly well. Therefore I didn't have much trouble with the prospecting. I had plenty of clients. The frustrating part for me tended to come later in the process. I was paid for analysis, education, and advice. My analysis was always thorough and my clients were always given a detailed education on the things that they needed to understand. Then, half of them would fail to act on the advice that I provided for them. That was frustrating to me.

Given the financial news of late, I am thankful that I believe I made a difference for quite a few of those who did choose to follow up on what I taught them. I would expect that the worldwide capital situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. The "solutions" being tossed around are exactly the kinds of things that led us where we are. Thus, I'm thinking it might be a while before heads are removed from asses and money is allowed to work the way it should.

Times like these are exactly the reason for a sound and coherent personal strategy. For some of us, the downside has been pretty tame so far and the opportunities going forward are quite promising. From what I hear on the news though, many people cannot say the same. I would encourage everyone to do as much reading as possible regarding the relationship between financial risk and financial reward. I would venture to guess that the historical correlation isn't quite what you've been led to believe over the years. Only take on risk where appropriate, actively manage your allocations to maintain balance, and you can profit nicely while the lemmings cry for help.

Okay, enough of my public service announcement for the year.

I got on the board this morning and received an assignment shortly thereafter. I had to shoot over to Niles and make a drop/hook for a load headed to Laredo. Gotta love that NAFTA. When I started to roll westward with my loaded trailer, I saw that Chicago rush hour was waiting for me. Instead of dealing with that, I shot down through a good chunk of Indiana on US-421 and then over into Illinois. I think I made the right call on that one. It's hard to say exactly how the mileage and time would stack up, but my route brought light traffic and no delays. Good enough for me.

I made it down into Southern Illinois tonight and I should be able to reach Laredo in two shots from here. This will give me a decent chance of some more miles for the weekend. If things work out that way, all will be right with my little world. I'm tired and not quite adapted to the road tonight, so the weight training will resume tomorrow. I think it has been around a week, so I'm hoping to put up some nice gains. The extra rest should be helpful in that cause. Time will tell.