PRIORITIES, SANDCASTLES, SEA TURTLES, AND THE LIE OF FINANCIAL “PLANNING”

I’ve said this before on the program, but it’s worth repeating: there is no such thing as “priorities.” There can only be one priority. The word itself is misleading. Once you have more than one, you’ve already lost focus. 

For me, that priority is simple: God and my family. They’re not separate categories. They’re the same thing. That single priority guides everything I do—how I work, how I spend my time, how I make decisions. When people start juggling multiple “priorities,” that’s when they get distracted, pulled off course, and eventually lose their way. 

I heard a great analogy from Chris Stefanick a while back that stuck with me. He was talking about sea turtles here in Florida. When sea turtles hatch, they instinctively move toward the moonlight reflecting off the ocean. That light guides them where they’re supposed to go. But the problem is, we humans build beachfront homes and turn on artificial lights. The turtles get confused. They follow the wrong light and end up heading inland instead of toward the water. 

That’s us. We’re surrounded by flashing lights—money, status, stuff, expectations, timelines, comparison. And when we lose sight of our true guiding light, we wander in the wrong direction. 

I was also thinking recently about a column I wrote over twenty years ago, watching my son build sandcastles on the beach. He was maybe four years old. If you’ve ever watched a child completely absorbed in something, you know the look—focused, determined, fully present. Buckets of sand, water, plastic shovel, little action figures, digging moats to keep the bad guys out. It was priceless. 

Here’s the thing: he knew the tide was coming. He knew the sandcastle wouldn’t last. He didn’t care. He wasn’t building it for permanence. He was enjoying the process. Every minute of it. 

That’s where this ties into what I do for a living—and why I’ve never liked the term “financial planning.” 

I use it because it’s industry jargon, but I don’t like it. Planning implies control. It implies certainty. And that’s a lie. 

You do not control the future. You control what you can control: your effort, your integrity, your discipline, your work ethic. You don’t control the opportunities that come your way. You don’t control setbacks, illness, market crashes, or windfalls. Anyone selling certainty is selling nonsense. 

Financial “planning” is easy to sell. Punch in some numbers. Pick a retirement date. Run a Monte Carlo simulation. Tell someone how much they’re “allowed” to spend. Then people start organizing their entire lives around a spreadsheet projection that assumes nothing will go wrong. 

Why would you do that? 

It reminds me of people who go on “vacation” only to follow a tour guide holding a flag, rushing from place to place on a rigid schedule. That’s not a vacation—that’s work in a different location. Real living happens when you leave room for the unexpected. Get lost. Explore. Adjust. 

Life works the same way. 

And this obsession with “retirement”—I don’t like that word either. It sounds like finality. Like you’re done. No purpose left. 

Look at professional athletes. They cling to their careers as long as they can because they love what they do, and they know retirement is the end of something meaningful. 

So let me ask a hard question: what is the point of grinding yourself into dust for thirty or forty years—missing your kids’ games, wrecking your health, postponing joy—just so you can finally “start living” at the finish line? 

That finish line isn’t guaranteed. 

There’s a line I heard that sums this up perfectly: When you postpone joy, purpose, relationships, health, adventure, and meaning until the final chapter of your life, you often don’t get the chapter you were promised. 

Nobody promised you anything. That’s marketing. That’s Madison Avenue. 

I’m all for hard work. I work my tail off. But I also spend as much time as possible with my family. I don’t miss what matters. Because you don’t get those moments back. 

We’re wired for purpose. For contribution. For creativity. Everyone’s path is different. When I was younger, I wanted to play professional baseball. I didn’t have the ability. No amount of effort would change that. And that’s okay—it wasn’t my path. 

But every one of us has something we’re meant to do. Don’t delay living until some imaginary future date. Don’t buy into the fantasy that suffering now guarantees bliss later. 

Prepare. Don’t pretend to control. 

Put money away. Be disciplined. Do the right thing. But don’t sacrifice the present on the altar of a future that may never arrive. 

Enjoy the sandcastle while the tide is out. 

That’s the difference between financial planning and financial preparation—and it’s why I’ve never believed in selling people a fake sense of certainty. 

There are better ways to live.