A Championship Team

Want to Achieve Financial Freedom Sooner? Who’s On Your Championship Team?

“I can figure it out myself.”

Maybe you can.

Today, you can Google almost any financial question. You can watch investment videos on YouTube. You can ask AI about taxes, insurance, mortgages, estate planning, investing, or starting a business.

You have more financial information available on the phone in your pocket than I had access to during the first years of my career.

That’s a wonderful thing. But there is also a danger in it.

Having access to information can make us believe we have expertise.

We don’t.

After decades in business and wealth management, starting and growing companies, advising thousands of people, succeeding at some things and failing spectacularly at others, I have learned one lesson over and over again:

Successful people rarely succeed alone.

They surround themselves with people who know things they don’t know.

I call those people your Championship Team.

You Wouldn’t Build a Sports Team This Way

Imagine owning an NFL team. You want to win the Super Bowl. You wouldn’t find one really smart person and say:

“Congratulations. You’re my quarterback, linebacker, offensive coordinator, trainer, team physician, general manager and attorney.”

That would be ridiculous.

Each position requires different skills, experience and judgment.

Your goal is to win the championship, financial freedom. You don’t simply want somebody who can play the position.

You want the best player you can get.

Why should your financial life be any different?

Your Championship Team might include a financial adviser, CPA, attorney, insurance professional and banker. If you own a business, it may also include business consultants and other specialists.

They play different positions. Your CPA shouldn’t necessarily be selecting your investments. Your investment adviser shouldn’t be writing your will. Your attorney shouldn’t necessarily be designing your insurance program. Your banker shouldn’t be determining whether taking on additional debt is in your best long-term interest.

Each professional brings a different perspective.

But there is one person who has to understand the whole game.

You.

You’re the Owner—and the General Manager

This is where people sometimes misunderstand my Championship Team concept. I’m not suggesting that you hire a bunch of professionals and turn your financial life over to them.

Quite the opposite.

It’s your money. Your life. Your goals.

You are the owner of the team. You’re the general manager.

Your advisers advise.

You decide.

That means you need enough financial knowledge to ask intelligent questions, challenge recommendations and understand why a particular strategy makes sense for you.

You don’t need to know everything your CPA knows about taxes. That’s why you hired a CPA. You don’t need to know everything your attorney knows about estate law. That’s why you hired an attorney.

But you should understand enough to ask:

“Why are you recommending this?”

“What are the alternatives?”

“What does this cost me?”

“What are the risks?”

And one of my favorite questions:

“How does this help me achieve my financial goals and the life I want?”

Because that’s the objective.

Not beating an index. Not paying the least amount of tax possible. Not having the fanciest estate plan. Not buying the largest insurance policy.

The goal is to use your financial resources to live the life you want now and in the future.

Don’t Hire Your Advisers. Draft Them.

If you were building a professional sports team, would you hire the first player who walked into your office? Of course not.

So why do people choose financial professionals that way? “My parents use him.” “She’s a friend.” “We went to college together.” “My brother-in-law recommended him.” “His office is close to my house.”

None of those necessarily makes someone a bad adviser. But none makes that person an A-player, either.

Don’t simply hire your advisers. Draft them.

Interview them. Ask about their experience. Ask what kinds of clients they work with (and references). Ask how they’re compensated. Ask where their expertise ends. This last question is important.

I’ve developed enormous respect over the years for professionals who are comfortable saying:

“I don’t know. That’s not my area. Let me bring in someone who does.”

That isn’t weakness. That’s professionalism.

The adviser who frightens me is the one who seems to have an answer to absolutely everything.

Your Players Have to Play Together

There’s another important element to a Championship Team.

Having six great individual players doesn’t necessarily give you a great team.

They have to play together.

Suppose your investment adviser recommends one strategy, your CPA sees a tax problem with it, your estate attorney sees an estate-planning issue, and your insurance adviser sees a risk nobody else noticed.

Who’s right? Possibly all of them.

They’re simply looking at the same decision from different positions on the field.

The question becomes:

What is the best overall decision for you?

That’s why I want my advisers communicating with one another. I don’t want six separate strategies. I want one coordinated strategy built around my goals.

In business, we call this teamwork. In personal finance, too often we call six different professionals separately and hope their advice somehow fits together.

Hope is not a financial strategy.

I do recommend finding a good financial planner/advisor can also act as the “coach” of the team to ensure everyone is running down the field the same way.

Grade Your Players

Here’s where I sometimes make people uncomfortable.

Your advisers should be evaluated.

You’re paying them. They have a job to do. Are they doing it?

If your financial adviser hasn’t asked how your life goals have changed in five years, why not? If your CPA only talks to you when your tax return is due, is that enough? If your attorney prepared an estate plan 12 years ago and nobody has called you to have it reviewed since, does it still reflect your life?

If your insurance adviser keeps selling you products but never reviews whether you still need them, whose interests are being served?

Relationships matter. Loyalty matters.

But performance matters too.

I’ve made this mistake myself in business. I’ve kept people too long because I liked them, because they had been with me for years, or because replacing them would be uncomfortable.

I learned an expensive lesson:

Keeping the wrong player doesn’t help the player, and it certainly doesn’t help the team.

Sometimes you have to make a change. That’s part of being the owner and general manager.

“But I Don’t Have Enough Money for a Team”

I can hear some younger readers saying:

“Al, this sounds great when you’re wealthy. I’m 28. I’m trying to pay rent and put money into my 401(k). Why do I need a Championship Team?”

Because you should be looking to build one. You probably don’t need every expert I listed by tomorrow.

You certainly don’t need to pay six professionals to sit around a conference table discussing your $5,000 Roth IRA. Start where you are.

Maybe right now your “team” consists of a good tax professional and access to an attorney when you need one.

As your investments grow, perhaps you add an investment adviser.

You buy a home. You get married. You start a company. You have children. Your income increases. Your tax situation becomes more complicated. Your estate grows. Now you may need other experts.

Your Championship Team grows with you.

The point isn’t to surround yourself with advisers. But get the best advisers when you need them. Also, the best advisers don’t necessarily mean the most expensive.

The point is to develop the habit early of knowing when you need expertise and where to find it.

A.I. Doesn’t Eliminate the Need for Experts

This is especially important for Gen Z and maybe Millennials. You are entering your wealth-building years at an extraordinary moment.

Artificial intelligence can explain financial concepts in seconds that once required hours of research.

I think that’s terrific. Use it. Use technology to educate yourself. Use it to prepare questions. Use it to compare alternatives. Use it to understand terminology before you walk into a meeting with your expert.

But don’t confuse a powerful source of information with someone who knows your entire financial life, accepts professional responsibility for advice, understands the nuances of your circumstances, and can coordinate with the other professionals advising you.

Technology should make you a better-informed owner of your Championship Team—not convince you that you no longer need one.

One Bad Player Can Cost You a Fortune

I’ve spent decades watching people make financial decisions. Some mistakes are small. Others can follow you for years.

A poorly structured business transaction. A tax strategy nobody thought through. The wrong insurance coverage. An investment inappropriate for your goals. A badly drafted agreement between business partners. An estate plan that was never updated. Debt structured incorrectly.

Sometimes the problem isn’t that nobody gave advice.

The problem is that the wrong person gave the advice—or nobody looked at the whole picture.

That’s why the quality of the people around you matter. Also having an overall coach like a great financial planner who knows the whole picture can avoid this.

I have experienced periods in my own business life when things went terribly wrong. During those times, I learned very quickly who I could count on, who possessed the expertise I needed, and who disappeared when things became difficult.

Championship players aren’t only valuable when you’re winning.

You discover their real value when the game is on the line.

You Don’t Have to Be the Smartest Person in the Room

One of the advantages of getting older is becoming more comfortable saying:

“I don’t know.”

I wish I had learned that earlier. There is no prize for knowing everything. The prize is getting the decision right.

I’ve always believed that the objective should be to make the consistently best financial decision for you, based on the information available and what you’re trying to accomplish.

Sometimes the smartest financial decision you can make is recognizing that somebody else knows more about the subject than you do.

Find those people. Ask questions. Listen.

Challenge them, when necessary, especially when you don’t understand what they are saying. Then make the decision.

Who’s On Your Team?

So, here’s my challenge:

1. Take out a piece of paper—or open your phone.
2. Write down the names of the professionals you rely upon for important financial decisions.
3. Your financial adviser.
4. CPA.
5. Attorney.
6. Insurance agent.
7. Banker.
8. Business consultant, if appropriate.

Now put a grade next to each one. A, B, C, D, or F (A being the best, F the worst).

Be honest. Then ask another question:

Do they act like a team—or are they simply names in my contacts?

If you’re missing a position, start looking.

If you have a C-player occupying an important position, start interviewing potential replacements immediately. Don’t even keep D or F players. They cost you money. If you have an A-player, keep them. Bs are ok, but keep on the lookout for someone better.

If you’re just beginning or your Team currently has only one or two players? That’s fine. You have time to draft the others when you need them.

One lesson has remained for me that has been remarkably consistent:

The quality of the people you surround yourself with will have an enormous impact on the quality of the decisions you make and the life you live now and in the future.

If you want championship results, build a Championship Team.

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