“Whenever I tell people about my job as a financial advisor, the conversation inevitably turns to how hopeless they feel when it comes to dealing with money. More than once, they’ve begged, “Just tell me what to do.” It’s no surprise that even my most successful friends feel confused or paralyzed.They don’t just want good advice, they want the best advice—so rather than do the “wrong thing,” they do nothing.

What they don’t realize is that bad calls about money aren’t failures; they’re just what happens when emotional creatures have to make decisions about the future with limited information. What I tell them is that we need to scrap striving for perfection and instead commit to a process of guessing and making adjustments when things go off track.

The fact is, in a single page you can prioritize what you really want in life and figure out how to get there. The most important thing is getting clarity about the big picture so you can cope with the unexpected. Maybe you’ll lose the job you thought was secure; you’ll take a financial risk that doesn’t pan out; you’ll have twins when you were only budgeting for one. In other words: Life will happen.

But no matter what happens, this book will help you bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to go.”