ReJEWvination© VI ‘The INventory’ #4
“Aligning Means With Meaning”
(Jewish Personal Financial Life Planning)
(disclaimer: I was a fee only personal financial planner & author retired from practice since the late ‘90’s)
Objectives of this optional 6 week workshop course:
Aligning means with meaning.
Healing personal financial anxiety
Putting money in its place to align, transcend and connect to one’s assignment/significance.
Having enough for what one was meant to do, meant tobe: enough to live on and enough to live for.
Prerequisites at instructor’s discretion
Completion of Soul Resume©, Ethical Will & Why I Am A Jew
Completion of pre-work as assigned prior to workshop.
What The Course IS NOT
Stock jockeying: which one, what kind of stock, bond etc.
No products or services may be sold or offered by the instructor.
What The Course IS
Triangulation: aligning of Judaic values, individual meaning, and personal financial resources (aligning means with meaning)
Retrofitting assets (personal financial and otherwise) to personal objectives and underlying “payoffs” (financial and otherwise).
Aligning means with meaning in one’s life.
Week 1 Shaddai: More vs Enough and Abundance
Trowel and Error
Dry land absorbs water. If the earth is already saturated,
additional water turns it into mud.
’ Moshe of Mekarov
At the very beginning of my workshops when I was a fee-only personal financial life planner, I conducted a very simple demonstration. These are the necessary props include:
A willing volunteer
Two fistfuls of dirt
Sprinkling can
Towel
Trowel
The demonstration proceeded as follows:
- I’d ask the volunteer to put out both hands. Into each I put a good-sized dry lump of dirt with the trowel.
- Into the lump in one hand, I sprinkle water until it is absorbed.
- I continue to sprinkle water until it became mud.
- Not satisfied, I continued sprinkling water until the mud itself is liquid, running through the volunteer’s fingers.
- Being a kind and gentle person, I’d offer a towel to clean off the first hand.
- Next, I would sprinkle water onto the lump of dirt in the second volunteer’s hand, stopping as soon as the water’s absorbed without the dirt becoming mud or dripping.
I’d then turn to the stunned and largely mute audience and ask, “What is the moral of this demonstration?” That moral, I finally would tell them, is about more vs enough: more, better, now has a way of becoming less, worse, and later, slipping through one’s fingers.
The less-on via trowel and error is that of MORE vs ENOUGH.
Week 2 Determining Prioritized Financial Goals and Data
Week 3 Goals vs Underlying Payoffs
Week 4 Managing Enough–Managing Goals not Managing Assets
One who grabs too much, grabs nothing
Sukkah 5a
Week 5 Goal Planning
Week 6 Puttin’ in and Takin’ Out
Leave a Reply