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Fasten Your Financial Seatbelt: What Surviving an Airline Crash Taught Me About Retirement Planning

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In the Forward to Fasten Your Financial Seatbelt, author Tom Scott writes "...I'm urging a return to some basic principle such as living within your means, making sure you understand how money works and, most importantly, managing your financial expectations and emotions."

If some or all of this sounds familiar, it's probably because this is the same kind of plainspoken wisdom about money that your grandma was always so eager to share with you, but which you were probably just as eager to tune out. Coming from a certified financial professional, like Tom Scott, who has spent over 25 years in the trenches building and preserving his clients' fortunes, this kind of shopworn advice about how to get the most out of each dollar and cent you make takes on whole new dimensions of urgency.

Fasten Your Financial Seatbelt offers foolproof strategies for maximizing returns and minimizing losses and brooks none of the get-rich-quick gimmicks or slickster sales pitches that so many readers have come to expect from the likes of Jim Cramer, Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, Robert Kiyosaki and a host of other, industry approved, financial gurus.

Tom Scott breaks ranks with the Wall Street crowd to unmask some of the most common ways that the so-called financial pros abuse investor confidence every day, whether through incompetence, neglect or out-and-out malfeasance. Time and again Tom Scott has proven himself to be a trustworthy investment "sherpa," or financial insider who actually has the clients' best interest at heart and is willing to go the distance to maintain and create wealth on their behalf.

Tom Scott is a different kind of broker; his message has a friendly, personal touch that is rarely seen in this kind of media. As a certified financial planner and well-known [...] contributor, Tom Scott has helped hundreds of investors plan for a secure and comfortable retirement. Now, with Fasten Your Financial Seatbelt, he is at it again, this time taking his message of prosperity through prudence and practical planning to a broader audience.

Fasten Your Financial Seatbelt is an inexpensive, informative, timely and delightfully readable little guidebook sure to impress and amuse the armchair brokers of the world or anyone else interested in knowing how to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to investing and planning for retirement!

I have read many of Tom's columns on Forbes online, and was delighted to see that book, which is a personal guide to knowing how to prepare for my retirement, has been released. (BTW Forbes online has a video interview with Tom that is terrific.)

Tom Scott's new book Fasten Your Financial Seatbelt: What A Fatal Plane Crash Taught Me About Retirement Planning is different, focusing on real people like you and me who are short on time, short on money, and short of ideas for building a solid financial track.

Best of all, this book reads like a novel and I finished it before finishing a third cup of Sunday morning coffee.

The author survived the first-ever fatal crash of a 747 in 1974. In the midst of the burning wreckage, he kept his head and helped a dozen people escape with their lives. The crash made headlines around the world. Since then Tom has endeavored to rescue people from economic catastrophe.

In "Fasten Your Financial Seatbelt", Tom has identified the Ten Common Mistakes people make when dealing with their money: people make decisions based on the past (much like driving forward while only looking in the rearview mirror); they think short term; often stampeded by herd mentality; some speculate instead of invest and don't know the difference; they're inconsistent (bouncing between complacency and panic); they stick their heads in the sand and refuse to learn about investment options; most add to winners when it's time to sell, and selling losers when it's time to buy; many hug to only one kind of investment such as CDs, municipal bonds, technology stocks or real estate; being overconfident; and lastly many use borrowed funds to get more bang for the buck.

Tom grew up during the 1950s in southern California. Even then, he was fascinated with the way money in his savings account could make money. Tom worked in his father's elevator maintenance business and by the age of twelve Tom had already saved enough money to pay for his own flying lessons.

Foregoing college, Tom became a commercial pilot where he signed on with Lufthansa. On November 20, 1974, he learned another very important lesson. The Boeing 747 on which he was a crewmember crashed on takeoff at the Nairobi, Kenya airport. Miraculously unhurt in the impact, in the next 60 or so seconds, Tom dragged, pushed or carried a dozen passengers out the fuel-soaked wreckage before it exploded into a deadly fireball. All of the surviving passengers had been securely strapped into their seats for takeoff.

Tom learned another lesson: something which appears substantial and safe may not be. "There are always hidden dangers, always unexpected difficulties for which we must plan." This is the same, he understood, with our investments and our financial plans.

Tom returned to Orange County, where his experiences with money and survival began to coalesce. For 25 years, Tom's Scott Wealth Management Company has offered his wise and protective advice to investors; and when necessary, he is still determined to drag or push people out of the wreckage of their financial lives towards safety.

Tom's mission is to make sure people pay attention to his "pre-flight" safety instructions and fasten their financial seatbelts in case of disaster.

As for me, I'm going to keep this bookFasten Your Financial Seatbelt: What A Fatal Plane Crash Taught Me About Retirement Planning close at hand during this turbulent financial crisis. Tom Scott I can trust.

Tom Scott proves again that quality outweighs quantity. The pages of his book, which is small in size but giant in content, present in a nut shell what it takes to prioritize your financial activities, namely, how to Fasten Your Financial Seatbelt to make sure the money you work hard to make will serve your life goals and desires. Making money is the means to an end, and not the other way around. That said, making money and securing it during these tough times is not an easy task, and Tom spells out some of the fundamental golden rules he has been using successfully as a Financial Advisor for many years. By making sure he understands what your goals are, he follows these rules to create and protect the wealth needed to achieve your goals. We can either learn and do it ourselves, or find a good Financial Advisor that will assist us in this process.

Excellent reading. Tom distills his years of observing investors into simple catagories with vivid examples and sage advice. I believe if you put the simple advice contained in this book into practice regarding your own savings, over time you can avoid much headache and stress. This book describes what good looks like, regarding the 'big picture' of savings, retirement and financial security. Tom teaches the approach that leads you to master your money, rather than the other way around. If you are looking for some tips how to make a short term killing trading new types of financial derivatives, this is not the book for you. However, if you want to know the secrets for NOT having to worry about financial security, than you need this book as it is a map in the wilderness. It is chock full of guidance for avoiding the common pitfalls and traps that are bound snare almost every investor.

I learned more about investing from Thomas Scott's book than I did from my father, who was a stockbroker and Financial Advisor for 40 years. The author, full of wisdom, has a gift for clarity in his writing, which makes it a pleasure to read.

Fasten Your Financial Seatbelt: What A Fatal Plane Crash Taught Me About Retirement Planning is the first book on investing and financial planning I've ever bought and read all the way through. It has proven to be an invaluable resource as I go about getting my finances in order so that I can start paying off those burdensome college loans. Tom Scott makes seemingly dry subject matter come alive! In Fasten Your Financial Seatbelt he has distilled some real pearls of wisdom and made them available to the general public in an inexpensive and handsome little hardcover. Tom Scott encourages readers to get serious about their relationship with their money and begin paying conscious attention to where it comes from and where it goes. He warns against frivolous spending, speculating as opposed to investing and blind faith in omnipotence of career investment advisors. He also uses a lot of relevant, no-nonsense examples to get his point across. Fasten Your Financial Seatbelt can be an indispensable tool for personal financial growth no matter where you're at along the road to retirement.

Congratulations to Tom Scott for writing a book that the new investor and the "informed" investor will appreciate. Tom writes in a no-nonsense fashion leading the potential investor toward making the right decisions about picking a financial adviser, as well as, designing specific portfolios for his clients.

I've invested with Tom for well over ten years, the book explains strategies he uses that guided me through 9-11, as well as, the current financial roller coaster.

The book is a fast read, very easy to understand,and a must have for your investment library. I've put my financial future in his hands because he is a man of tremendous integrity and honesty. He throws an annual Client Appreciation Brunch and it is very comforting to see people in their 90's in the audience who have been with Tom for many more years than me. Jim Campbell

Having worked in the financial services industry for 12 years, I have had the opportunity to meet and work with over 1000 financial advisors. Tom's book is the first book that addresses the main problem that I see often of how do you choose a financial advisor who has your best interests at heart, and how do you achieve your ultimate goals. Tom's story's and examples of clients who have come from all walks of life will resonate with many people and he shows that the path to financial security is not through the latest investing fad or get rich quick idea, but through creating a plan and sticking to it while living within your means. Tom has the ability in his writting to take more complex concepts and make it easy to understand for the everyday person.

I'm a business manager and always on the lookout for fresh, innovative ways to deal with the financial world. I not only found this book helpful within my professional practice but I recommend it to my clients as well. Great stuff which gives unique perspective to the importance of taking charge of our lives in the midst of unpredictable situations. I highly recommend this for you whether you be a novice or a financial pro.

I must congratulate Mr. Scott on producing one of the most reader friendly guides I've come across on the subject of achieving long term financial independence and success. Fasten Your Financial Seatbelt: What A Fatal Plane Crash Taught Me About Retirement Planning is full of down-to-earth investment tips and invaluable wisdom about the intersection of financial markets and human nature. To illustrate his points, Mr. Scott uses clear language, rich metaphors and colorful anecdotes culled from his 25+ years of experience helping clients strengthen their portfolios and plan for the future. Fasten Your Financial Seatbelt is a perfect investment guide for both longtime followers of the market and those just starting out in the high stakes world of personal finance.

I looked up some of Tom Scott's articles on Forbes.com; there's also video interview with him at http://video.forbes.com/fvn/personalfinance/fasten-your-financia-seatbelt. I have to admit that I prefer Tom Scott to Jim Cramer and most of the others. Check him out. You won't regret it.