Elegant Simplicity

What makes you nostalgic? Maybe it’s the distant sound of an old song, the smell of apple pie, or a moment while traveling somewhere you visited long ago. Nostalgia seems to stop me in my tracks in the simplest of moments.

A reversion to simplicity is something I am noticing an increasing amount of in our current age of technology. Surround sound systems are being replaced with record players, and celebrations seem to include more family recipes and candles, and less fast food and TVs. Personally, I have a growing appreciation for film photography rather than the latest and greatest digital technology.

I have always enjoyed taking pictures. A small digital camera was at the top of my Christmas list when I was young, and I used to fill memory card after memory card with images from my 13-year-old perspective. Fast forward to today, and I will not disclose the number of pictures I have on my iPhone (hint: it’s in the tens of thousands). And while I know that the newest digital camera, or even the newest iPhone camera, contains remarkable technology, my favorite way to capture a memory is through a small fifty-dollar 35mm film camera.

For me, the epitome of nostalgia is an image from a film camera because of the way the light and the moment in time is captured. There is something about knowing that it isn’t technology that creates an image; it is whatever caught your eye in a moment. It is elegant simplicity.

The older I get, the more I value simplicity. And in conversations with our clients, I see the importance of fighting for elegant simplicity in your financial life.

Constantin Brancusi, a groundbreaking sculptor, is known for defining simplicity as complexity resolved. This is directly applicable to the type of simplicity we strive for our clients to attain because financial lives are complicated. The way we see money does not fit into tidy boxes, and the language of personal finance is full of jargon. But this does not mean that you have to live a financially complicated life.

Imagine a life of financial simplicity. Maybe it means having 6 accounts instead of 20 accounts. Maybe it means a clear decision-making process rather than mental strain around each and every financial decision – from your restaurant order to vacations to investments to careers to retirement. Or maybe it means clarity on what is most important to you, and finances that are aligned with that.

I am in a unique position of talking about money every day. After tens of thousands of conversations about money, I have noticed that the financial lives I want to emulate most are those that have elegant simplicity. This is the type of simplicity that Constantin Brancusi spoke of, and the type of simplicity that brings peace and clarity. To outside observers, it can appear to be luck or happenstance. But I have learned that this level of simplicity comes from a deliberate fight for clarity and a rejection of unnecessary complexity.

If I had to summarize the goal of my career, it is to help others achieve this elegant simplicity in their financial lives. Where have you allowed complexity to become the default? How could elegant simplicity impact your life? How could elegant simplicity impact the legacy you leave?

Whether it’s financially or in any area of our lives, I hope we can all move towards elegant simplicity. To create the space to appreciate the meal, the song, the drive, or the moment that we may one day be nostalgic over.