The Attic

A Few Words about the Attic

You’ll notice that in the attic or roof of Your Financial House, there’s a pyramid of needs that’s common to every human being. This is based on a hierarchy created by the psychologist Abraham Maslow in the 1960s.

The pyramid shows the priority of needs. For example, if your physiological needs, such as hunger and thirst, are not satisfied, then they will be your primary motivators—you won’t spend much time thinking about getting a date or joining a club (social needs, which are higher up the pyramid). Once physiological needs are satisfied, you’ll focus on the next level, the next priority. The point is that if you want to reach the top of the pyramid, self-actualization—which means the ultimate fulfillment—then you must attend to each of the other levels of need first: esteem, social/belonging, security/safety, and physiological needs.

Each of these is good to keep in mind as you plan Your Financial House, describe your goals and objectives, assess risk, and choose your building materials. As you consider your options and make decisions, you’re wise always to take a look at how each choice addresses your essential human needs.

Then What?

After discussing each room with you, the builder will be ready to draft a financial blueprint, a detailed plan for building Your Financial House. The blueprint is presented to you in a binder. You’ll find a summary of the conversations you’ve already had, references for the building materials, and information on each of the rooms organized behind colorful tabs. Now you’re ready for construction to begin: Once you’ve signed off on the blueprint, you and the builder can choose specialists to get to work making Your Financial House a reality. Periodic meetings with your builder help you check in on the work that’s been done and how things are going. You might decide to change things as you go along, and that’s okay. Renovations are definitely in order when life takes a different direction than you’d anticipated or you simply decide you want something else.

Even before you receive the financial blueprint, you’ll probably find yourself saying something like, “I just never thought of it this way before, and now the whole thing makes sense. I can see how my personal taste influences the entire plan, how the rooms fit together, even how the whole house will look once it’s built.”