Know Where You’re Going: The Real Purpose of a Financial Plan

As a senior in high school, William Bissett chose a quote for his yearbook page that he has never quite forgotten.

“I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.”

Looking back, he laughs. As a 17 year old, it was the perfect sentiment. And as it turned out, it was also remarkably accurate. But as William shares in a recent Portus Perspectives episode, that quote represents exactly the wrong approach to building a financial plan with a business owner.

Everything Orbits the Destination

The conversation started with a question from a prospective client who wanted to know how much emphasis Portus puts on retirement planning. And the answer gets to the very core of what a financial plan actually is.

Everything in a financial plan, including insurance, tax strategy, savings vehicles, business valuation, estate planning, and charitable giving, orbits around a single central question. What do you want the money to support?

Without a clear answer to that question, none of the other pieces can be put together efficiently. Tax deferral strategies need a destination. Savings targets need a purpose. Business sale proceeds need a plan. And the amount you need to sell your business for, how much goes to the kids, how much goes to charity, all of it flows from knowing where you are headed.

The Tax Planning Example

William uses tax planning to illustrate just how much the destination matters. Most people approach taxes with a simple goal. Minimize what I owe this year. And that’s understandable. But in most cases, reducing your taxes today doesn’t eliminate them. It defers them into a future year.

So the real question isn’t just how do I reduce my taxes. It’s when am I deferring them to, and does that make sense given where my income is headed and what my retirement looks like? Without a clear picture of the destination, that question is impossible to answer well.

Where You Are in the Journey Changes Everything

William is careful to point out that this advice isn’t one size fits all. For younger people just starting out, whether that’s building a business or contributing to a Roth 401k in a corporate job, the goal is simpler. Create income, stack wins, keep moving. The destination can come into focus later.

But as you get further down the road and the stakes get higher, knowing where you want to go becomes the most important input in the entire planning process.

  • What does retirement look like?
  • How much do you need to spend?
  • What role does the business play?
  • What do you want to leave behind for the people and causes you care about?

Those aren’t abstract questions. They are the foundation that every other financial decision gets built on top of.

Getting Clear on the Destination

The financial plan itself is really just a map. And like any map, it only works if you know where you are trying to go. The more clearly you can define that destination, the more efficiently everything else, the tax strategy, the savings plan, the exit timeline, the estate documents, can be designed to support it.

If you have been building wealth without a clear picture of what it is supposed to do for you, this episode is your starting point.

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​[00:00:00] As a senior in high school, I think we all had a, a single page dedicated to us, uh, put pictures and, and other things that, that we selected into it. And on our page was also a quote that we were able to use, and I chose a quote, I don’t remember where I came up with the quote from, if I’d seen it somewhere or read it somewhere, but in essence it was, “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.”

And a couple things came to mind this weekend as I was thinking about it. One is, uh, man, was I ever right. Geez, I had no idea where I was going, uh, but I, I got here. Um, but I started thinking about it ’cause we had a potential business owner come to us last week and was interested in how much emphasis we put on retirement planning.

And so it got me thinking, and it [00:01:00] really took me back to my heyday of, you know, being, you know, a financial planning associate, where I realized that that’s really the whole basis of a, of a financial plan is, is the cash flow and, and, and what you’re trying to support, because everything else goes around that support.

The insurance goes around the support, the tax planning goes around the support, um, the saving strategies, how much you need to sell the business for, the estate plan, how much is gonna be left over for the kids, how much is gonna be left over for charity. Like, all of that stuff we need to know. Um, and so in r- in financial planning, you can’t take my quote and run with it, right?

You, you can’t not know where you’re going and just be on your way. I think you can in the early stages, right? Like you’re 20 years old, um, and you’re working a corporate job or you’re starting a business or whatever. The goal is just to create income and grow the business, or the goal if you’re, you [00:02:00] know, the corporate America person is just to put money into the Roth 401most likely and just stack up wins, right?

But as you get older and you’re trying to determine what’s the purpose of this, then that retirement plan is, is so important, knowing what you want out of the life that you’re creating and, um, and what the money that you’ve created or the money that you’ve saved or the money that you’ve stored up in the business value, what, what’s that purpose?

What’s it gonna support, right? Like, um, what are you gonna do in retirement? How much do you need to spend? Is it, uh, vacation homes or, you know, continuing to have, you know, hobbies and continuing to start a new business or to help a child or a grandchild or, or whatever. Start a new business. Like, what are those, what are those things that you…

What are those resources, those needs that you want the money to support? And so if we can’t start off or if we [00:03:00] can’t get to that place early on in the conversation, then all the other stuff becomes hard to execute on, right? Because, you know, tax planning, I always say so many people just think, oh, I want to reduce my taxes this year.

And that’s great. But, you know, most times when we reduce our taxes this year, we kick taxes into a future year instead. And so it’s not just tax reduction, it’s tax deferral. And so when are we deferring taxes to? How does that make sense? Does it work? How does that support your retirement plan? How does that support your retirement expenses?

How does that support the lifestyle? Giving of assets away to future generations and things of that nature. Everything ties back to where you’re going. And so, again, as a young, reckless 17- or 18-year-old kid, it’s easy to say, I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way. As we run through life and we start to get there, knowing where we’re going [00:04:00] and what we want is the crux of the financial plan to help you determine what needs to be done to support it in the most efficient way possible.

So, you know, for younger folks out there, just keep running. For older folks like myself and more advanced along the way, you’ve got to start to have that idea of where it is that you want to go, what it is that you want to do, and how you want the resources that you’ve created to support you and your family.

So hopefully we’ll see you soon.

ORIGINAL MEDIA SOURCE(S):

William Bissett: The Yearbook Quote That Should Never Apply to Your Financial Plan | Portus Perspectives

Originally Recorded on May 11, 2026

Portus Perspectives: Episode 15

By /Published On: May 25, 2026/