Roast Dinners

Once upon a time, my dad was being lectured about money by his know it all son.

Fresh off completing a Diploma of Financial Planning and having spent two minutes in the back office at a Financial Planning Practice, I thought I was well within my rights to be telling him exactly everything he needed to do.

We were talking about mortgages and I quizzed my dado why the bloody hell he would still be with the bank he was with the interest rate he had..

“That’s where I’ve always banked”.

I didn’t get it.

Dad had a story to help me understand.

Once upon a time, a guy went to the future in-laws house for the first time for a roast dinner.

And it was the best roast he had ever had in his life.

So he had to ask, “why is this roast so good?”

The mum replied, “I don’t know, I did what I always do. I cut the ends off the roast, put it in the tray and then in the oven.”

“Why do you cut the ends off?”

“That’s what my mum did.

”He calls the grandmother. “Why do you cut the ends off the roast?

”“That’s what my mum did.”

He calls the great-grandmother.

“Why do you cut the ends off the roast?”

“Well, back in the 1940s, the oven were so 10 inches wide.

So you had to cut the ends off to fit the roast in the oven.”

In Adam Grant’s Think Again, he encourages people to think like scientists.

Scientists are always curious about what they don't know.

Scientists don’t begin with answers but with questions.

This is important because the world around us changes exponentially.

And it’s changing faster and faster.

Actions, beliefs, ideas that may have served us 2 months, 2 years or 2 decades ago may no longer serve us anymore.

The risk with not questioning why we do what we do is that you can fall victim to living a life designed for you by someone else.

If we marry, who we marry, if we have kids, where we live, how and where we work, the type of work we do, do we buy a home, the home we buy, how we spend our money.

If you don’t spend the time designing you’re own life for you, you end up with defaults.

You might work 9-5 and Monday to Friday, even though you work better from 7-3.

You might borrow the maximum that the bank says you can afford to borrow, even though that might trap you in the job you don't really like.

You might stay living where you grew up, even though you hate the cold and miserable winters.

You might spend money on things you’re told you need, but you don’t really.

Is that what you want?