Shannon Lee Simmons

I'm sure your clients with older kids talk about this.

Again, it really comes back to that.

What's the point?

And I think we're seeing a lot of that with that sort of financial nihilism that started, which is, well, the long run doesn't apply to me.

So I'm going to spend all my money right now or the traditional financial playbook doesn't apply to me.

So I'm going to do whatever I want right now, whether it's super high risk investing, whether it's gambling, whether it's not participating.

The danger of us all as financial experts promoting this life milestones or life checklist as the only way or like the best way and then having people who can't participate in that is dangerous because I think it can lead to financial nihilism.

And at that point, you don't have a lot of hope.

And when the hope goes, well, then you end up in a situation where people don't want to necessarily participate.

And I think that there could be long-term ramifications of that.

We are always going to feel stress about it.

I think it's impossible not to.

I think it's what you do with that stress and the action you take regardless of the stress that's important.

We are living in weird times.

We're in a weird timeline and there's no denying it.

So pretending like we're not is silly.

It's almost feels naive.

And I think things are harder.

I think the middle class is getting really squeezed.

Acknowledging that I think is really fundamentally important.