Discovering Alpha

Part 3 out of 5: what happened next? 

What is the hardest part about a transition? 

You don’t know what to do…

I knew I needed to start something but didn’t know what. 

I was throwing out 100s of ideas, 

I could write a children’s book on finance, start an ETF, etc

My dad told me to stop….  I listened to him.  

He was right. 

I was all over the map. 

But I still didn’t know what to do… I wanted to do something else, not retire,

but I couldn’t figure out what.

At the peak of my despair …. (my path is following the hero’s journey)

This narrative arc, where a character embarks on a quest, faces obstacles, meets a guide, and emerges transformed, also mirrors the path of personal transitions or pivots.

I took the advice of a friend, Morgan, who encouraged me to free-write…

What is free writing?  You write, and you don’t stop to edit or go back to review what you wrote until you stop.

You discover memories you buried, you draw connections to events you didn’t know were there, but most importantly, you discover your truth. 

I discovered I had forgotten one day in my early teens; my mom forgot to pay the bills, and our landline was cut off. 

And so I started to manage my single mom’s checkbook.

Balancing her checkbook led me to take on more and more responsibilities as a kid—like scheduling my own doctor’s appointments,

running errands for my mom and even doing her laundry!  

I had forgotten that I did all of this as a teen. 

Why does this matter? 

Instead of being like everyone else, this truth helped me discover my alpha.

Alpha is an investing term.  It is the excess return of an investment relative to the return of a benchmark index.

If I was my mom’s financial planner, maybe I could go back to school and become a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER and financial advisor.

This would help me figure out a new path in my career. 

“Making a true decision means committing to achieving a result, and then cutting yourself off from any other possibility.”

- Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins

Finding my truth helps me focus on a path and cut off everything else. 

This photos was taken back in 2016 when I was studying non-stop trust and estates, financial planning, insurance, taxes and, of course, retirement planning

(this book here in photo is one of several books helped me forge a new path.)

If you are unsure if you can retire, please reach out!

Thank you for reading!

Tiffany Kent

Your Friendly Wealth Engagement Guide,

Tiffany@wealthengagement.com

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