One of the most important lessons I've ever learned about financial planning actually came from a children's story.

We all know Shell Silverstein. He wrote the book The Giving Tree, a book beloved by Minnie. He also wrote a poem called Smart.

I'm going to read this poem to you, and I'm going to show you how one of the most important lessons you can learn or you can realize about financial planning comes straight from this poem.

It goes like this. My dad gave me one dollar

bill because I'm his smartest son, and I swapped it for two shiny quarters because two is more

than one. And then I took the quarters and traded them to Lou. For three dimes, I guess he didn't know

that three is more than two. Just then along him old blind bs and just because he can't see, he gave me four

nickels for my three dimes and four is more than three. And then I took the nickels to Hiram Kuhns down at

the seed feed store. And the fool gave me five pennies for them and five is more than four. And then

I went and showed my dad and he got red in the cheeks and closed his eyes and shook

his head too proud of me to speak.

Now it's a cute poem.

It's a fun poem.

We read this and this little boy, of course, doesn't understand that value doesn't come from

the amount of something.

It comes from the intrinsic worth of something.

Now, we read that and think how cute, but that boy is all

of us. That boy, in his mind, is trading for more of something, for more of something that he

perceives to be valuable. And what he perceives to be valuable is simply that. It's more. What he

doesn't realize is the intrinsic value of what he's trading is worth less and less

every single time that he does it. So here's the planning application for all of us. As we approach

our retirement years, we're typically in our higher income earning years. We're typically at that

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