Allegedly, if you played the Beatles White album backwards, you could hear John telling the world that "Paul is dead." Paul McCartney was not only alive, but he recorded tens of albums and sold millions of copies post his purported demise. Well, I keep reading in the investment world about what is supposed to be dead. Let me dispel these nasty rumors as well.

Even trick-or-treaters have a strategy. Be they Barbies or zombies, these erstwhile CEOs of their candy bags are either running toward something (houses that are lit up and welcoming or those with the best candy), or away from something (houses that went overboard on spookiness or the annoying dentist handing out tax-deductible toothbrushes).

When they declare victory at night's end and tear into their spoils, they are much like you and me.

We, too, make financial decisions that involve running toward or away from something.

Often, people initially come to our firm because they want more money to have or to keep. They may want more investment returns, more ideas for passing on their estates, more methods to pay less taxes. Even if they are doing fine, they may want more.

While all of these issues are part of financial planning, more should not necessarily be the only goal. All of these things need to be integrated with the why to understand the purpose of the money and the what to understand the trade-offs.

It is still too early to digest the impact of new drugs from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lily, but not too early to understand the side effects from other choices we make. We may focus on one thing we want while ignoring other things that this decision affects.

We were on a winter trip a few years ago and I was talking to the thirtysomething driver of the shuttle taking us to the ski slopes. He was a college graduate who spent his winters driving a van and skiing and his summers working at the national parks. He said his parents were putting pressure on him to do something with his life. I told him that my clients work their whole lives to do what he was doing now.

In financial planning, there are many things that would be nice to do, but there are only a few things that you absolutely have to do.

One good way to understand what is important to you is by looking backward rather than forward.

One of the challenges with managing your investments is not dissimilar from managing a hitting streak: How do you determine whether your process led to good results or the results came in spite of a questionable process? Or worse, did you have a good process with bad results or a bad process with good results?

Developing a charitable mission statement helps you define where charity fits into your life by understanding and defining your motivations, values, interests and desired impact.