April 2013
Helpful Hints from Harmony
“Life is Good When You Live in Harmony”
(A word of explanation: I live in a little place called Harmony, Florida, where life is a bit slower and nature is right outside our door. I’m also familiar with another Harmony, which isn’t a place at all but a way of being. This year I’d like to share 12 simple lessons I’ve learned from my time in Harmony.)
Helpful Hint #3: Focus on Giving, Part 2—The
Harmony/Main Street Experiment
Last month I wrote that the happiest people on earth consistently give of themselves to serve the needs of others. I noted the sweet and ironic arithmetic of mindful giving: that both the giver and the receiver are added to and edified by the process.
I’d like to continue that theme in this month’s article by telling you about an experiment I have been conducting with Ryan Ponsford.
Ryan is a financial advisor from Carlsbad, California. He’s a creative genius as well as a generous giver, and I’ve learned much from him.
Ryan and I both work with high net worth families. We’ve each observed that one of the most effective ways to impact the often-jaded lives of affluent teenagers and young adults is through hands-on involvement in philanthropic giving and community service.
That observation led us to a question: Could the lives of teenagers and young adults from "Main Street" be similarly changed by experiencing the giving side of philanthropy, by becoming "philanthropists in training?"
To answer that question, Ryan and I designed a rather sophisticated experiment. We envisioned a process that would bring together small teams of students, their classroom teacher, a financial/philanthropic mentor, generous donors, and front-line charities, all of whom would benefit from this collaboration.
We created a lively ten-week curriculum designed to give young people a real-world immersion in smart charitable giving. The course of study allows students to identify their philanthropic passions; learn group dynamics by working in teams; research and evaluate local charities; raise some of their own money so they have some “skin in the game;” interview donors, volunteers, board members, and employees of charitable organizations; and make a meaningful donation to the non-profits they selected.
Next we formed a 501(c)(3) organization called Main Street Philanthropy. Its purpose is to develop and inspire the next generation of philanthropists by helping teenagers and young adults experience the joy of giving and serving. See
www.MainStreetPhil.org.
We contacted generous clients and asked them if they would provide money so each student in our programs could give away a few hundred dollars of real money as a “grant” to a qualified charity of his or her choice in their community. They agreed to fund the experiment.
We also approached forward-thinking teachers and school administrators in Central Florida and Southern California, seeking a laboratory for our project. They said yes. They recognized that this approach just might be a catalyst for an enriching educational experience going well beyond prepping for the state exams.
Then it was time to introduce our fledgling program to actual students. We wondered how teenagers in today’s texting-video game culture would react to our model.
I’m excited to report that our ideas really grabbed their attention and captured their imaginations. Here’s how one student at Harmony High described her introduction to Main Street Philanthropy in her blog:
Setting the scene: a wide-eyed teacher walks into the room with an excited air about him. The teacher, Mr. Hansen, exclaims to our class that we are about to take an incomparable charitable journey.
The class as a whole says nothing, but just stares at him, awaiting more information about this “philanthropic masterpiece of a program” that he seems so eager to begin. Expecting to hear the mundane community service ploy, there isn't an awful lot of excitement. However, instead of going on to glorify another dull service project, Mr. Hansen explains a brand-new concept — Main Street Philanthropy.
The basis of Main Street Philanthropy is that generous donors give money to students for charitable donations. The students learn to donate with knowledge and come across more charities in their local area. Our class was to be the pilot in this area. Let the pressure ensue.
The class as a whole was in awe (which doesn't happen often because OBVIOUSLY teenagers know everything about everything); it was such a new, fresh, and modern way to participate in philanthropic activity. Instead of just being bystanders without the means to be active in donation, we, as high-schoolers had the ability to affect the progress of a group of our own choosing.
Launching the program was exciting and teaching was a blast! Ryan and I loved our roles as philanthropic mentors to the imaginative and energetic students in our respective schools. Their passion for discovering and supporting local charities whose missions aligned with theirs was infectious. We relished each of the weekly sessions.
One of the tools we used in the program was a set of 20 cards visually portraying areas of charitable opportunity or concern. We called them “Make A Difference” cards, but the students quickly dubbed them “MAD Cards.” (My talented daughter Elisabeth from Wilson, North Carolina, created the beautiful artwork for them. Thanks, Elisabeth!)
These cards helped them think about what causes they wanted to get involved with and then helped them identify local organizations that work to address those issues. The simple process of selecting their top three choices out of 20 had an amazing impact on the students. One girl wrote:
My experience using the MAD (Make a Difference) cards was great. I noticed something I didn't have clear in my mind, and that was the urge and desire to help others and contribute to making a difference in the world.
Another student had a similar experience:
I learned from the MAD cards that every single human can make a difference in someone’s life in a positive way. I learned that a lot of other people need help in our world. I learned that I have the ability to make a difference in someone’s life.
We discovered within these young people a deep yearning to make a difference in their communities AND to also make a difference within themselves. One of our students, writing about her hopes for the program said:
I hope to gain a sense of selflessness and to learn more of how I could give back to people who need more than I do. As cheesy as this sounds, I hope I become a better person. Sometimes I feel a bit selfish in certain aspects of my life so I hope I can make a change.
As the weeks progressed, we observed an amazing growth of understanding, maturity, and responsibility in our classes. Their blogs contained statements like this:
We have begun to learn what it truly feels like to give, along with the most responsible way of doing so. Through this project I hope to gain a better understanding of the way in which charities function, as well as a taste of what effect I can have on my community. I believe that this program will also give me a better understanding of the value of a dollar and teach me the importance of supporting our community.
And this:
I cannot wait until Mr. Scott returns this week to continue on with the process, to gain experiences that I would not encounter without the help of Main Street Philanthropy. I want to inspire my peers to help others without an expectation of something in return. I want to make a difference in the community, hopefully being a catalyst in the start of something incredible.
The climax of each program was the day our students presented checks to their favorite charitable organizations in our communities. Our donors sometimes joined the group to see first-hand the results of their generosity. There were lots of tears, and a profound sense of satisfaction. As one young participant commented,
"I never knew giving away money could be so hard . . . or so much fun!"
The money given to worthy local charities made a big difference in our communities. But just as big, or maybe even bigger, was the impact in the students’ lives. Consider this observation by a teenager wise beyond her years:
When you change your focus from self to others, you see the positive results of charitable giving. This reminded me of the impact that philanthropy can have on not only the cause being donated to, but also the person donating. Through this program I have been able to see both sides of that impact as we work towards the educated donating of our time and money.
As Ryan and I talked with students and teachers, reviewed student blogs, and evaluated follow-up questionnaires, we could see that
THOUGHTFUL GIVING PRODUCES PROFOUND TRANSFORMATION. Minds are opened, possibilities are explored, imaginations are ignited, help is given, hearts are touched, and lives are focused and energized.
In the midst of the program, one young man described the changes he saw in his classmates and felt within himself.
My heart truly beats to put a smile on a hungry child's face or a blanket over a cold woman's shoulder. I am very thankful to be involved in Main Street Philanthropy, as it will benefit everyone involved. There is a heartbeat drumming up in this team to help those who cannot provide for themselves. It is a very beautiful thing happening at Harmony High School, courtesy of Main Street Philanthropy.
Ryan and I learned that “becoming a philanthropist” created a spark of hope, engagement, and excitement in the members of our classes. Our students developed greater confidence, accountability, and direction. They grew in their understanding of group dynamics, leadership, and important financial concepts. Our experiment showed that
WHEN WE GIVE, IT CHANGES US!
One of the secrets to the success of this approach is that it first allows each student to discover their passion and then empowers them to act on that discovery. The genius of the Main Street Philanthropy program is that it embodies the wisdom expressed by Howard Thurman:
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.”
THUS, OUR REAL WORK AT MAIN STREET PHILANTHROPY IS TO CHANGE TEENAGERS AND YOUNG ADULTS, HELPING THEM COME ALIVE WITH PASSION AND PURPOSE. THEY, IN TURN, WILL THEN CHANGE THE WORLD WITH THEIR GENEROSITY AND SERVICE.
The results of our experiment were everything we could have dreamed they would be. One of our students described his initial skepticism and subsequent excitement with Main Street Philanthropy:
When I first heard of this off-the-wall idea I thought, “This can't be real,” but I am here to tell you that it is! I never thought I would get this much learning experience out of this program, not because I had low expectations but because it has just blown my mind away!
Pretty high praise from a teenager, don’t you think?
* * *
Looking ahead, Ryan and I intend to create a Main Street Philanthropy “movement” that will change students’ and families’ lives coast to coast and will produce a new generation of thoughtful, generous givers. We believe we need more philanthropists on Main Street as well as on Park Avenue, and we’ve found the way to do that.
Within the next year, we plan to recruit 100 “Main Street Philanthropy Ambassadors,” who share our vision of changing the world by changing the hearts of teenagers and young adults. This initial cadre of MSP Ambassadors will be an elite group who are ready to make a mark in their community, are looking for more energy and purpose in their work, and want to help turn today’s students into tomorrow’s philanthropists and community volunteer leaders.
We envision the role of these MSP Ambassadors this way:
-
They are experienced and successful professionals who step away from their own business for an hour or two a week to work with a classroom full of “philanthropists in training.”
• They draw inspiration from the youthful enthusiasm of their students.
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They understand that thoughtful giving produces profound transformation: it changes the lives of individual students and then the culture of an entire school and community.
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They rub shoulders with the “movers and shakers” in their community as they identify teaching opportunities, round up resources, and guide students, teachers, donors, and parents to deliver much-needed funds to local front-line organizations.
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They recognize that being innovative, generous, and well-rounded as they reach out and give back to their community will help their own business to grow organically.
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They benefit from collaborating with like-minded professionals all across the country to achieve one single audacious goal: to develop and inspire the next generation of philanthropists by helping students experience the joy of giving and serving.
In addition to joining with 100 like-minded professionals,
we also intend within the next year to raise enough money to endow this movement with long-term sustainability.
We have been given a generous boost in this quest by a donor family who has pledged that for the next 90 days, they will match every dollar donated to Main Street Philanthropy with $1.50, and for the following 90 days they will match donations dollar for dollar. That should get us off and running.
We know we’ve got a lot of toil ahead of us, but this promises to be the adventure of a lifetime. If you want to join us in our journey and you’re not afraid of hard work, I’d love to hear from you. Start by visiting our website,
www.MainStreetPhil.org and then give me a call at 407-593-2386.
We are starting to enjoy some wonderful publicity. See the article in the Orlando Sentinel by David Breen, “Harmony High Students Learn How Charity Can Make a Difference,”
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/education/os-harmony-high-charity-program-20130403,0,6532950.story.
In addition, Ryan and I have been invited to speak on April 25 at the annual convention of the International Association of Advisors in Philanthropy in Las Vegas.
http://www.advisorsinphilanthropy.org/events/event_details.asp?id=282598. I hope to see you there.
March 2013
Helpful Hints from Harmony
“Life is Good When You Live in Harmony”
(A word of explanation: I live in a little place called Harmony, Florida, where life is a bit slower and nature is right outside our door. I’m also familiar with another Harmony, which isn’t a place at all but a way of being. This year I’d like to share 12 simple lessons I’ve learned from my time in Harmony.)
Helpful Hint #3: Focus on Giving Rather than Receiving
Deep and lasting joy comes from giving and sharing. The sweet and ironic arithmetic of mindful giving is that both the giver and the receiver are added to and edified by the process.
Thus the happiest people I know consistently give of themselves to address the needs of others. As they do, they discover that their own needs are abundantly met.
If we give from the heart — regardless of what we give — the very act of giving blesses us in wonderful ways. The generative, life-enhancing power of giving renews us and invigorates us whether we share our time, talents, compassion, or money.
The words of the poet Helen Steiner Rice remind us that we all have great wealth from which to draw, no matter the size of our bank account. She calls these non-financial endowments “heart gifts,” and she urges us to freely share them.
It's not the things that can be bought
That are life's richest treasure,
It's just the little "heart gifts"
That money cannot measure…
A cheerful smile, a friendly word,
A sympathetic nod
Are priceless little treasures
From the storehouse of our God…
They are the things that can't be bought
With silver or with gold,
For thoughtfulness and kindness
And love are never sold…
They are the priceless things in life
For which no one can pay,
And the giver finds rich recompense
In giving them away.
Winston Churchill was right when he said, “We make a living by what we get; but we make a life by what we give.” Thoughtful giving makes a person come alive and develops more substance in the giver. Thus those who give are more likely to “find themselves” because there is more to be found.
One of the reasons life is good when you live in Harmony is that being there affords the time and environment to recognize the needs of those around you and the opportunity to reach out and address those needs. There is, indeed, rich recompense in giving away life’s greatest treasures
February 2013
Helpful Hints from Harmony
“Life is Good When You Live in Harmony”
(A word of explanation: I live in a little place called Harmony, Florida, where life is a bit slower and nature is right outside our door. I’m also familiar with another Harmony, which isn’t a place at all but a way of being. This year I’d like to share 12 simple lessons I’ve learned from my time in Harmony.)
Helpful Hint #2: Focus on Purpose Rather than Pain or Pleasure.
We have an interesting method in our church for raising funds to care for the poor and needy. On the first Sunday of the month, we observe “Fast Sunday,” during which we abstain from food for 24 hours and donate the value of those meals missed (or more) to the bishop as a “Fast Offering.”
Without the right attitude, fasting can be agonizing. As teenagers, my brothers and I felt that Fast Sunday was the longest, most excruciating day of the month. We’d glare at the clock, willing those hands to move more quickly, growing hungrier by the minute. But no matter how much we glared, the time would just drag on and on.
On one of those dreadful first Sunday afternoons, waiting for the clock to strike four so we could finally eat, a younger brother whined to our mother, “But Mom, it’s called the wrong thing. It’s not Fast Sunday, it’s
Slow Sunday.”
Sensing a teaching moment, she pointed out that the time would pass more quickly and we would grow spiritually from the process if before we started our fast we would identify a desired blessing or a meaningful reason for our fasting and then focus on that. If we did not, she warned, it would always be an ordeal because “fasting without a spiritual purpose is just going hungry.”
It turns out that Mom’s wise instruction about Fast Sunday is one of the keys to an abundant and meaningful life. Doing just about anything without a deeper purpose will leave us empty, hungry for something more.
In his masterful poem “If,” Rudyard Kipling referred to “Triumph and Disaster” as “two imposters.” In a similar way, I believe pain and pleasure are also imposters: they may seem at times to be what life is all about. If we obsess about either one of them, we miss the real meaning and ultimate joy of life. Focusing on purpose pulls the mask off these charlatans.
Everyone experiences their share of pain. The Gospel of St. John promises that “in this life, ye shall have tribulation.” But it need not crush us. When it shows up, we can bear it and even thrive in it by discovering a deeper purpose within it. I have found that asking myself, “What am I to learn from this experience?” transforms trial into tutelage.
“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.” “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” Viktor Frankl. We can endure any sorrow or suffering if we recognize that it carries us to a higher place.
As for the other imposter, I believe pleasure for pleasure’s sake and a single-minded emphasis on pleasure is a sure recipe for shallowness and eventually emptiness and loneliness.
Please understand that I have no quarrel with having a good time and partaking of the richness that life has to offer. Happy, vibrant experiences are the fortunate by-product of a purposeful life. But when they become an end unto themselves, the pursuit of them drains away the possibility of lasting joy.
I love what Helen Keller and John William Gardner said of the subject. “Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” “Storybook happiness involves every form of pleasant thumb-twiddling; true happiness involves full use of one’s powers and talents.”
I have found that the key to a rich, abundant life is to find purpose in each moment — whether pleasant or painful — by seeing each within the context of the bigger picture. Without a larger, longer perspective, the particulars of life can overwhelm us. But when we focus on purpose, all the pieces fall into place and make wonderful sense.
George Bernard Shaw got it right when he said, “This is the true joy in life: being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live.”
January 2013
Helpful Hints from Harmony
“Life is Good When You Live in Harmony”
(A word of explanation: I live in a little place called Harmony, Florida, where life is a bit slower and nature is right outside our door. I’m also familiar with another Harmony, which isn’t a place at all but a way of being. This year I’d like to share 12 simple lessons I’ve learned from my time in Harmony.)
Helpful Hint #1: Focus on People Rather than Things.
When I look for a good place to invest my resources, one of my top criteria is whether it will deliver value over the long haul. By that measure, it makes a lot of sense to invest in human relationships.
I believe that when we leave this life we take only three things with us: our character, our wisdom, and our relationships. It’s pretty certain that we don’t take any of our stuff. I love the way Billy Graham puts it: “I’ve never seen a U-Haul truck in a funeral procession.”
I disagree with the bumper sticker that reads: “Life is a game and he who finishes with the most toys wins.” All too often the holder of the most toys has left a trail of broken promises and shattered relationships. In many cases he spends his later years grumpy and alone.
Unfortunately, toys break, shiny chariots get rusty, and jewels can be stolen. He who spends his strength collecting things may find in the end that he has a large collection of them — but little else that matters.
Don’t get me wrong. I like pretty things and intriguing objects as much as the next guy. Personal objects can often provide the means to engage others and to expand our influence. For example, a good friend of mine uses his beautiful bass boat as a tool to spend quality time with family and friends. There’s nothing wrong with that.
But when we set our hearts on things and let them get in the way of the significant people in our lives, we run the risk of damaging what is most important. Rvel Howell said it well.
“People are made to be loved and things are made to be used. The greatest tragedy in the world is that we use people and love things.”
I have observed that those who love people, who lift them up and give service back, are constantly surrounded by the warmth of family and friends. They live healthier, happier, and longer lives. They have shelter in the storm and light in the gloomy night.
When we focus on people rather than things, we discover that whatever we have is plenty. A shared loaf is twice as tasty and a shared memory lasts ten times as long. That’s what I call an exceptional return on investment.
January 2013
Lessons from a Venerable Old Gentleman
One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2013 is to be more patient and attentive to my dear wife Marcie. Here’s an experience that helped me understand why that is so important.
We were rushing down a narrow road on a sunny Sunday morning. Marcie had taken longer to get ready than usual, and with her arthritis, she requires a little extra time to get to the car. I was intent on making up the time as we left for church.
In Central Florida we often must slow down to accommodate our senior citizens. But when an old timer stepped onto the highway directly ahead of us that morning, it irritated me.
His grey suit was rather worn and tattered and his gait was a bit stiff, but he held his head high. His air of authority left me no choice but to hit the brakes.
“I wish this old fellow realized we’re in a hurry,” I blurted.
“Honey, just be patient,” Marcie counseled.
He walked across the first lane, then halted squarely in the middle of the road, fully erect. A car from the other direction was also forced to stop.
“The nerve of this character!” I said. “He acts like he owns the place. Now he’s got the whole road blocked.”
He looked back over his shoulder. Our gaze followed his to see his partner was a few yards behind him, limping slowly and with great effort.
“Look, he’s stopping traffic so she can cross safely,” my wife observed. “What a sweet, caring gentleman.”
Looking more closely, we discovered why she was hobbling.
I saw she had no foot on her right leg, just a stump. “Oh my gracious, she’s walking on a stump!”
It took several minutes for her to pass in front of us. Only when she was safe did he leave his post in the middle of the road. Then they continued on their way, side by side.
Watching them together, my impatience dissipated and my heart melted at this amazing example of devotion and commitment.
But now let me share with you the rest of the story.
The venerable old gentleman was a sand hill crane. Around here, we see these birds frequently and virtually always in pairs.
That’s because sand hill cranes mate for life. They are fiercely protective of their partners. They care for each other even when their coats are not as shiny and their bodies not as perfect as they once were. They do not abandon companionships that become dated or difficult or inconvenient. They remain loyal to the end.
This gentleman’s example of commitment and compassion and selflessness is one that all of us would do well to emulate. In our culture of throwaway relationships, it’s reassuring to be reminded by a so-called “lesser” specie that, even through thick and thin, marriages can last a lifetime — perhaps an eternity.
December 2012
Farnsworth's First Law of Life, Leadership, and Extraterrestrials
No matter where you are, what you’ve done,
or what kind of mess you’re in,
you can always phone home.
I was enchanted 30 years ago with the Steven Spielberg film, E.T., The Extraterrestrial, and I still am. The tender story of a vulnerable child far from home, yearning to “phone home,” strikes a chord deep inside me.
It resonates with me as I think about my relationship with my children. All six of them are grown now with homes of their own, but I still
cherish each occasion when they call. I’m glad they want to share their joys and their sorrows with us.
Over the years they’ve called to let us know they just landed their dream job, or found that “special someone,” or given birth to a new grandchild. They’ve called to ask me to help orchestrate a surprise visit on my wife’s birthday, or to make sure someone knew where they were going on their weekend biking/camping trip and where our “grand-dog” would be kenneled, “just in case.”
Sometimes they call simply to say hello and chat a while. We like those calls.
Our most anticipated gift this Christmas will be a phone call. Our youngest child Paul is a missionary in Vina del Mar, Chile, and he’ll be phoning home Christmas day. We are so excited! We email every week but we haven’t spoken with him since he left in July. We can hardly wait to hear his voice and to tell him we love him and miss him and want to hear all about his experiences in Chile.
Like most parents, we’ve had our share of crisis calls too: news that one of them was getting a divorce, checking into a detox facility, or worried about a very sick baby.
Whether it’s good news or bad, I treasure their calls. Whether it’s a crisis or a celebration, I am grateful every time they phone home.
I also resonate with the story of E.T. because I see it as a metaphor for some of my personal spiritual beliefs.
Like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, I believe that “[w]e are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
I also concur with William Wordsworth’s Ode: Intimations of Immortality. “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, hath had elsewhere its setting and cometh from afar; not in entire forgetfulness and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home.”
Hence I believe that we earthlings are a lot like E.T. We sense that we’re not “from here;” that we are in fact “extraterrestrials;” and that if we “phone home,” things will get better.
Yet unlike E.T., we are not on earth by accident. I believe our presence here is part of a grand design. We are pilgrims on a journey, students away at college. We’ve left our heavenly abode for a season of discovery, learning, growth and testing. In the end, it is our destiny to return home.
While here, we have not been left to our own devices. God our kind and loving Father has extended a standing invitation to phone home. I suspect He likes it when we just want to say hello, express thanks, and chat a while. If an earthly father like me can find so much joy in hearing from his children, then our Heavenly Father must find even greater joy when one of His children chooses to call, for whatever reason.
He wants to hear from His children in good times or in bad. I believe that no matter where we are, what we’ve done, how alone we feel, or what kind of mess we’re in, we can always phone home.
Thankfully, when we call our heavenly home, we never get a busy signal or an answering machine. He always answers. With an understanding ear and love in his heart.
November 2012
Farnsworth's First Law of Life, Leadership, and Cranberry Sauce
Add Zest to Life, Whatever Your Role
As we sit down to a bounteous Thanksgiving dinner this week, we’ll be ooh-ing and aah-ing over a beautifully roasted turkey or tasty ham. There will be a special dressing on the table and perhaps a casserole or two. We’ll be saving room for some spicy pumpkin pie or other traditional dessert.
But as we feast, we mustn’t overlook the lesson of the cranberry sauce.
On most Thanksgiving menus, cranberry sauce is not the star of the show. It’s not the highlight of the dessert course. It’s a humble bit player, barely more than an extra. But that doesn’t stop it from being zesty and colorful. What would Thanksgiving dinner be without the tangy, vibrant cranberry?
Life is like that. We don’t always get to be the belle of the ball. Our name isn’t always up in lights. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make a difference and find fulfillment in a “lesser” role.
The trajectory of history is more often cyclical than linear. As the wheel of life turns, sometimes we’re up and sometimes we’re down. So what? We can choose to give our all regardless of the situation.
When geese migrate in formation, they rotate positions frequently. They seem to understand that the flock can travel farther and faster when different birds take turns flying at the point of the V and the one in front falls back into the group.
“Whate’er thou art, act well thy part” was the personal creed of David O. McKay, a noted American church leader in the mid-20th century. He understood that how we serve is more important than where we serve, and that, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, the body hath need of every member.
Small and simple acts of kindness add zest and color and make our lives sweeter. We need each one to make the feast of life complete.
This Thanksgiving, let’s relish the “cranberry sauce moments” of our own lives. We can’t always be the main dish, but we can make the most of even the smallest role.
And let’s appreciate those whose tiny but thoughtful service spice up our world and make it colorful and vibrant.
October 2012
Farnsworth's First Law of Life, Leadership, and Fishing
To catch a fish, you must see the world through a fish’s eyes.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in nine Americans works in sales. More than fifteen million people “officially” make a living by convincing someone else to make a purchase.
But dig deeper and a startling truth emerges: Yes, one in nine Americans works in sales — but so do the other eight out of nine. Whether we’re employees trying to get a raise, entrepreneurs persuading funders, neighbors encouraging recycling, parents and teachers cajoling kids, or lovers wooing their partners, we spend our days trying to move others.
The reality is that selling is something each of us does all the time — whether we know it or not. We are all trying to influence others to see things our way. We are all, as Daniel Pink puts it, in the “moving business.”
So, given that we’re all in sales, how can we get better at it? Here’s my three-word formula for success:
Attitude. Empathy. Story.
1. Attitude
First of all, we’ve got to stop feeling embarrassed about being salesmen.
In my book Double Your Sales — An Honest and Authentic Approach to Professional Selling, I challenge professional advisors to put aside archaic notions of salesman as glad-hander or back-slapper or truth-stretcher, and to disabuse themselves of the notions that selling is an unsavory business, that “sell” is a four-letter word.
The truth is that no business, no relationship, no organization of any kind, can survive without mastering the art of persuasion. We need to get over our hang-ups.
The capacity to move people, to influence others to take action, is a tool. Like all tools, it is not inherently good or bad. It all depends on how it is used.
Salesmanship is a force for good if used with integrity and with respect for others. If we succeed in creating win/win outcomes that give everyone what they need and want, we should be proud of ourselves, not embarrassed.
2. Empathy
Before we can persuade others to see things our way, we must be able to see things their way. We must put ourselves into their world. We must, as a former U.S. president famously said, “feel their pain.”
To catch a fish, we must learn to think like a fish. Years ago I heard and memorized a clever little couplet that makes this point.
If you would sell
What John Smith buys,
Then see the world
Through John Smith’s eyes.
To move John Smith to action, we must see things from his perspective.
In the early 1980s, the Fisher Nut Company used a catchy tune and a clever jingle in their commercials: “We take the nut very seriously . . . At the Fisher Nut Company.”
John Smith may be a nut, but if we wish to sell what he buys, we’ve got to take him seriously.
He may be right or wrong; his views may make sense or not; his expectations may be reasonable or irrational; but it is
his world, and in his world, he is king.
3. Story
So, how do we feel his pain and see the world through his eyes?
The most authentic and reliable information available to us about John Smith’s world is in his stories. As Sartre wrote: “A man lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others; he sees everything that happens to him through them.”
Like all of us, John Smith has assimilated life’s happenings and made sense of them by translating the events of his lives into stories. Over time, those stories became the reality he lives in, much like the water fish swim in.
Paying close attention to his stories — listening with the ears of the heart as well as those of the head — allows us to see how he sees the world. It permits us to understand his worries and concerns. With this insight we can propose solutions that are meaningful and valuable to him.
* * *
Successful win/win selling is ultimately about accurately identifying the other person’s problems and then matching them up with our solutions. As we do so, we create value all around. With a new mind-set, a healthy dose of empathy, and the age-old technology of story, we will succeed in the moving business.
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September 2012
Farnsworth's First Law of Life, Leadership, and Binoculars
The Farther Down the Trail You Can See,
The Easier It Is to Choose the Right Fork.
One of my favorite poems is Robert Frost’s "The Road Less Traveled." I can easily relate to his dilemma.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
I am thankful to live at a time and place in which we have such a wide range of options in the paths of our lives. But sometimes having choices can be a little scary.
Who has not felt the heart-pangs expressed in these lyrics from "Far From the
Home I Love" in the musical "Fiddler on the Roof"?
Oh, what a melancholy choice this is,
Wanting home, wanting him,
Closing my heart to every hope but his,
Leaving the home I love,
While Yogi Berra's famous counsel -- "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." --is good for a laugh, it’s not at all helpful with real-world decision-making.
When two roads diverge in the woods of our lives, how do we decide which to take?
I have found two questions that, when used in tandem, give me greater vision and depth perception when I am faced with serious decisions about the direction of my life. Like a pair of binoculars, they help me see further down the forks in the road ahead.
They help me study out the question in my mind and get clarity for myself as I prepare to ask for divine guidance
The first question is “What is my purpose?” At my very core, what am I really all about? What was I put on this earth to accomplish?
I am deeply grateful to Mary Tomlinson, my friend and my partner in Legacy Planning Associates, LLC (visit
www.LegacyPlans.com), for helping
me distill my internal sense of purpose into a clear and succinct personal
purpose statement. Her On-Purpose process allowed me to cut through a lot of
verbiage and put my finger on the real me in just two words.
Being clear about my purpose has given me greater confidence in my decision-making.
When facing a fork in the road I ask myself “Which option is more likely to allow me to stay on-purpose, and which is more likely to pull me off-purpose?
The second question is “How can I serve?” Which option will provide the greatest opportunity to assist others and give back to the world?
This second question keeps my life in balance. It helps me remember that it’s never just about me; it’s always about making a difference with the people I love and the causes I support.
This question helps me maintain perspective, a sense of the depth and richness of a life spent helping others. I see the world more clearly because I am not merely looking in a mirror.
Without the second question, I risk becoming a self-absorbed navel-gazer, vainly thinking that the world revolves around me and that this choice is only about my own self-centered happiness. Since a man all wrapped up in himself makes a pretty small bundle, without the second question I’m in danger of becoming microscopic and irrelevant in the larger scheme of things.
I have found that these two questions, “What is my purpose?’ and “How can I serve?” help focus, magnify, simplify, and give depth to my options. They are like a set of binoculars, allowing me to see more clearly the way forward. With them, the right choice is usually pretty obvious.
I believe the essence of an abundant, joyful life is learning to make good choices. This two-question approach has served me well through the years. Perhaps it may be useful to you too.
August 2012
Farnsworth's First Law of Life, Leadership, and Pyramids
Nomads don’t build pyramids; farmers do.
I am fascinated by pyramids and always have been. Going to Egypt is still on my bucket list, but I have made several trips to Central America to explore Mayan pyramids.
Pyramids are the ultimate expression of a legacy in stone. Centuries later, as we gaze in wonder upon their slopes or scale their heights, we want to know their builders’ stories.
Pyramids teach a number of lessons about how to leave a legacy, some positive and some negative, some obvious and others more subtle. I’d like to mention one that is important but perhaps less obvious:
Pyramid builders were not nomads or hunter-gatherers who roamed from place to place. Such transients could never have accumulated the resources required to construct a pyramid.
Before they erected awe-inspiring pyramids, those ancient builders mastered the decidedly un-glamorous work of plowing, planting, irrigating, weeding, cultivating, protecting, and harvesting their fields, season after season. They patiently tended their flocks, year after year. They successfully nourished their families and communities. A long-term commitment to agriculture was a prerequisite to successful pyramid building.
Without crops, there were no pyramids. Pyramid builders were farmers.
They understood and practiced what Stephen R. Covey called “the law of the harvest.” “All lasting results are produced in a sequence, are governed by principles, and are grown from the inside out.” Before you reap, you must sow, you must water, you must weed, and you must cultivate. There are no shortcuts.
This spring I returned to my agrarian roots.
I grew up on a small family farm in Fruitland, New Mexico. When I say “small,” I’m referring to the farm, not the family. The family was large, with 13 children.
We raised much of the food needed to feed so many mouths. Besides milk from our dairy herd, we grew fruit trees and raised chickens, pigs, and a few beef cattle. But the garden was the heart of our self-sufficiency.
For us children, the garden represented endless work: plowing, fertilizing, planting, hoeing, irrigating, thinning, picking, washing, canning. But our parents understood that we needed the food and, more importantly, we needed to learn how to work until the job was done, every day, all summer long.
Since those youthful days, I’ve dabbled in gardening with varying degrees of success, but those early lessons mostly lay dormant. But this year, I was able to secure 2½ rent-a-rows in a local organic community garden and put those long-fallow farming skills to work.
The results were pretty impressive, if I do say so myself.
It required hard work, patience, tenacity, and timely counsel from an experienced local. It required steady, persistent attention, week after week, throughout the long growing season. There were no shortcuts. My fellow gardeners who neglected their rows lost much of their crop to weeds, bugs, and poor yields.
These lessons apply to legacy building as well as gardening.
I think the era of constructing stone pyramids is over. Our most important legacies, I believe, will be the impact we have on the people we care about. I agree with Pericles, who said that what truly matters “is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
Creating a significant and enduring legacy requires a long-term commitment to our most important associations. It requires that we master the decidedly un-glamorous work of planting, weeding, irrigating, and cultivating the relationships that matter to us most. It requires shepherding our flock with love and patience and kindness.
When it comes to farming and legacy building, the law of the harvest still applies. There are no shortcuts, no quick fixes, no overnight successes.
Nomads don’t build pyramids or lasting legacies. The wanderer who believes that fulfillment is waiting just over the next hill or the drifter who thinks the grass will be greener if he moves on to the next hook-up will not, in the end, have the resources required to produce a meaningful legacy.
At the end of his life, the relational gadfly will find himself alone and forgotten. He will discover to his chagrin that a man all wrapped up in himself makes a pretty small bundle, and that small bundles are seldom noticed or remembered.
The quality of our legacies will be a reflection of the quality of our lives and our relationships. Monumental legacies are left only by those who make monumental commitments to the people they love and then keep those commitments.
July 2012
Farnsworth's First Law of Life, Leadership, and Road Maps
If you don’t know where you’re going, any map will do.
One of my heroes died this week.
I was a fan of Stephen R. Covey long before his Seven Habits books made him a household name. When I was a freshman at Brigham Young University his organizational behavior classes were so popular it was nearly impossible to get in. Everyone was talking about how eloquently he taught obvious but previously unstated truths.
I carried one of his earliest books, Spiritual Roots of Human Relations, with me to Brazil. It strongly influenced my determination as a young man to lead a purposeful and spiritual life.
When his Seven Habits of Highly Successful People went multi-platinum in 1989, I felt he finally achieved the world-wide impact he deserved. I thought his ideas were powerful enough to change the world.
Habits One and Two of his Seven Habits were “Be proactive” and “Begin with the end in mind.” In other words, the first step is to recognize that you are not powerless; you
can decide your course in life. Choose your own destination.
Second, as you move ahead, the direction of your journey and your attitude and comportment along the way should be consistent with the final outcome you desire. Build your life-map based on your chosen destination.
Covey’s principles call to mind Lewis Carroll’s famous conversation between Alice and the Cheshire Cat:
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don't much care where — ” said Alice.
“Then it doesn't matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“ — so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you're sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
For Alice, whose only purpose was to get SOMEWHERE, it didn’t matter what turn she took nor what map she used. If you don’t know where you’re going, any map will do.
While it is good to be moving, it is better to be moving with energy and purpose toward a clearly defined destination. This principle applies to
matters as small as making a salad for today’s lunch or as large as defining a legacy.
If the end you have in mind is to leave a certain quality of legacy, you must
begin by taking steps to tell and preserve your story and by living your life in
harmony with that desired legacy. Covey taught that it is not possible to “talk
your way out of a problem you have behaved yourself into.”
Living a life consistent with the way you wish to be remembered is the ultimate definition of integrity and the perfect recipe for a meaningful and remarkable legacy. To leave a large legacy, you must live large. To leave a smart legacy, you must live intelligently. To leave a loving legacy, you must live a life of caring and compassion.
Wealth counselor Valery Satterwhite says, “The life you lead is the legacy you leave.”
This clever little poem by Benjamin Franklin seems to sum it all up.
If you would not be forgotten,
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worth reading,
Or do things worth the writing.
My hero Stephen R. Covey did both. He wrote things worth reading and he did things worth writing about. He will not soon be forgotten.
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June 2012
Farnsworth's First Law of Life, Leadership, and Bicycles
It’s a lot easier to keep your balance when you’re moving forward.
I once worked with the head of a large organization with 10 division and 3,000 members. He saw his principal role as chief trouble-shooter and putting out fires. As it happened, there always seemed to be plenty of trouble and fires for him to handle.
He had no clear vision of where the organization was going and was not enthusiastic about defining one or communicating it to the organization. How could he stop and do that, he asked, when he was overwhelmed dealing with problems and putting out fires?
In the meantime, without direction, the organization languished and the people in it were constantly squabbling, getting into mischief, and spawning emergencies. Dealing with these issues took even more of his time and made it even less likely that he would establish a clear vision of where they were going.
It seemed to me that his focusing on problems attracted more of them. At the same time, the lack of forward momentum caused the energy of the organization to be dissipated on petty internal concerns.
I have observed that heads of organizations who lack “that vision thing,” as George H. W. Bush described it, have a difficult time rallying their troops or keeping them out of trouble.
King Solomon wrote that “where there is no vision, the people perish.” Usually they die from marching in endless circles, from starvation, or from constant infighting.
These officers may be in charge of organizations, but they are not leaders. Being a leader requires purpose, vision, direction, and movement.
My brother Lane is a leader who understands and applies Farnsworth’s First Law of Life, Leadership, and Bicycles. He has led hundreds of horseback trips into the San Juan Mountains in southwest Colorado in the past 30 years. He knows the mountains and he knows how to handle horses.
Lane has found that horses generally work hard and are well behaved as long as you keep them moving along the trail. However, if you loiter too long at the trailhead or if you stop too long or too frequently along the way, they will start biting, kicking, and shoving each other. (There’s a reason it’s called “horseplay.”) If that starts to happen, Lane says, you must get back on the trail as soon as possible.
In his view, the keys to a successful pack trip are to (1) know where you’re headed, (2) get moving, and (3) keep moving steadily toward your destination.
Farnsworth’s First Law of Life, Leadership, and Bicycles applies as much to humans as it does to bicycles and horses. Successful work groups, families, and individuals know and apply Lane’s three keys.
The concept that it is impossible to keep a bicycle at rest in balance is not very complicated. As a former student once derisively described it, this principle is “stupidly simple and ‘duh’ obvious.” “Everybody knows
that!” he said.
I fully agree.
And yet, knowing that, how often do we find ourselves in a swirl of crises because we don’t have a clear vision and purpose?
How often do we get bogged down in a swamp of minutiae and trouble because we forget to focus on our primary objective?
How often do we allow interruptions and distractions to divert our attention and throw us off balance, draining precious energy and resources away from our main mission?
Sometimes, even if we don’t yet know all the answers to how we’re going to get to where we want to go, we just have to put one foot in front of the other and start moving.
Often the answer is to just “do it.”
When we do that, we frequently find that forward momentum itself resolves or makes irrelevant the nagging issues that kept us paralyzed.
Forward momentum itself gives us the energy to break through barriers that once seemed insurmountable.
Forward momentum itself takes us to a place where we can see how to reach our ultimate objective.
Sometimes the solution to our quandary is to simply jump on the bike and keep the pedals moving.
The Book of Proverbs counsels us: “With all thy getting, get understanding.” I would like to add the following to that sage advice:
With all thy getting, get going!
P.S. I recently had a conversation with Scott Rassler, a seasoned financial advisor in South Florida,
about the importance of this principle.
May 2012
Farnsworth's First Law of Life, Leadership, and Vacuums
Unless you fill your time with passion and purpose, worthless clutter will get sucked into your life.
24/7.
No matter how you do the math, it always adds up to 168 hours per week. Whether you’re male or female; old or young; beautiful or plain; married, single, or somewhere in between, everyone gets the same number: 168.
The issue is never the number of hours; it is always what we choose to do with those hours.
Nature abhors a vacuum. If we don’t fill our time with worthwhile activity, all kinds of clutter will rush in to fill the void. Before long, all that stuff smothers the life out of us.
During my 60 years on this planet, I have witnessed a quantum leap in the number of ways we can spend our time. While the amount of currency we have in our pockets has stayed the same — 168 per week — the size of the bazaar has mushroomed and the glimmer of the merchandise has gotten much shinier.
Sometimes shinier is not better. Lately it seems that much of what is for sale in the marketplace of life serves only to distract and amuse us, rather than nourish, inspire, strengthen, and connect us.
If we’re not careful, we can end up spending a large chunk of those 168 hours surfing, tweeting, watching sports, working puzzles, playing video games, and mastering virtual worlds. While such distractions may not be harmful
per se, they can cut into our capacity to make a difference in the real world and can prevent us from experiencing a more abundant life.
The hours and the energy we spend killing angry birds (or whatever is your
addiction of choice) are lost forever to doing things of more lasting value, like reading to our children, learning to paint, teaching a grandchild to fish, planting green beans, taking a walk with our spouse, strengthening our faith, or sharing stories with a shut-in.
Unfortunately, an inclination to do good is no longer sufficient to withstand the allure of mindless amusement. The siren call of distractions is so powerful today that only those who have found a deeper, more passionate purpose in their being and who use their time to bring that purpose to life are able to resist it.
Discovering why we are here, our purpose for being, is the only sure way to protect ourselves from the curse of shallow amusement. Knowing our purpose fills our life with direction and meaning, and crowds out clutter and drivel.
It also helps us find our passion and learn what makes us come alive. When we are doing what we truly love, we have no need for vacuous distractions.
It is not crucial whether following our purpose and passion is our vocation or an avocation. What is important is that it engages us, inspires us, and drives us to excellence.
When we fill that space at our core with purpose and passion, we eliminate the vacuum that sucks in less meaningful ways of using our time. We are energized and empowered to transform the real world, and we find lasting joy in doing so. The result is a life of greater abundance.
April 2012
Farnsworth's First Law of Life, Leadership, and Peanut Butter & Jelly
Be careful what you spread around, because some of it will end up on you...
When our six children were small, we made a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And as both peanut butter and jelly are wont to do, a lot of it wound up on us and them instead of on the bread. Our dry cleaning bills were astronomical in those days. I guess that's an occupational hazard of raising six children.
I have found that it's not just peanut butter and jelly that end up back on us when we spread them around. The same thing happens with our outlook on life.
Two good friends of mine illustrate this principle.
One - I'll call him "Edward" - has had troubles, but also more than his share of blessings. He has a beautiful and loving family, an engaging career, and plenty of expensive toys. Yet he always seems to see the grey cloud behind every silver lining.
When something goes well, he claims the credit and takes his success for granted. When things don't go so well - which seems to be quite often - he's quick to find fault and play the blame game.
He's also the first to invite you to his own private pity party. There, his tales of woe and his lamentations of life's unfairness are multiplied.
Many of his former friends have learned to avoid him. They don't need the weight of his pessimism to drag them down. As Edward senses their withdrawal, he gets defensive and moody and pulls away from them. His circle of friends shrinks and the downward cycle continues.
He wonders why there is so much negativity around him.
The other - I'll call him "John" - has had more than his lifetime share of deep water, but he always seems to bob to the surface, smiling and grateful. He goes out of his way to connect people in his wide circle of friends, and he's constantly looking for ways to help others get ahead.
The concept that it is impossible to keep a non-moving bicycle upright is not very complicated. he is quick to express. People seek out opportunities to be with him. Not surprisingly, success seems to find him wherever he goes.
He's the first to attribute that success to others and to share the benefits with his team. He seems to have little ego or need to be in the limelight.
For him, life is good.
As I think about Edward and John, I'm reminded of an 1850s trading post in a small settlement in a pleasant valley along the Oregon Trail.
Wagon trains passing through would spend the night and stock up on supplies before heading further west. On occasion, some travelers weary of the long journey would pause to consider whether they should stop and homestead in the valley.
One such traveler approached the shopkeeper and asked, "What kind of people live here?"
The merchant replied, "Well, before I answer that, tell me what kind of people live in the place you just left."
"Oh, they weren't very neighborly. They seemed to only care for themselves, and there was a lot of fussing. We couldn't wait to leave," answered the traveler.
"I think you'll find the people here are a lot like that," said the shopkeeper.
The traveler decided to keep on moving.
The next day, another traveler, also weary of the long trail, asked the merchant about the people living in the valley.
Once again, the merchant gave the same reply: "Well, before I answer that, tell me what kind of people live in the place you came from."
"Oh," said the traveler, "they were kind and generous. They worked hard and took care of each other. We loved our little community and really hated to leave, but there was just no more land available."
"I think you'll find the people here are a lot like that," said the shopkeeper.
The traveler and his family decided to stay and homestead in the pleasant valley. They soon discovered the people there to be kind, generous, hard-working, caring, and loving, just as the merchant
had described them.
So often, what we encounter in life is but an extended reflection of ourselves. Are we happy with what we're spreading around?
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
March 2012
Farnsworth's First Law of Life, Leadership and Roughnecks
Everyone you meet on the road of life has something to teach you; slow down and listen.
The most useful lesson those roughnecks taught me — a once-in-a-lifetime nugget from the most unlikely of sources — came on a blistering August day when I first experienced “pulling a wet string.”
* * *
I’m still not sure how I survived the summer of ‘74 on an oil rig in western Colorado. The work was back-breaking and conditions were dirty and dangerous. But it paid well and I needed the money for college, so I stuck it out.
I was the odd man out in our four-man crew. I was an honors student headed to law school who went to church every week and didn’t smoke, drink, or chew. The others
in that crew, let’s just say, were none of the above.
On the rig, no one had a name, only a nickname,
a nom de guerre. At 22, I was the “Kid.” If I had stuck around a little longer I might have earned a more substantial moniker, but everyone knew I was just summer help.
“The Driller” or “Drill” was in charge of the crew. He wasn’t much older than I but had been working on rigs since he was 14, and he was a crackerjack rig operator. He worked hard and drank hard. On Monday mornings he liked to sing a ragged rendition of James Brown’s “I Feel Good, Like I Knew That I Would.” It was his way of convincing himself that his blood-shot eyes and hangover weren’t all that bad. His goal was to become a “tool pusher,” the guy who got to drive a company truck from rig to rig and bark orders to rig crews like ours.
“Grody” (named for his thick, dirty mustache that seemed to catch a piece of everything he ate or drank) was the other deck hand besides me. He was the old man of the crew, having been around the “oil patch” for nearly 20 years. He was quietly comfortable on the deck operating the tongs and the slips, but had no ambition to be in charge of the crew. He spent most of his weekly paychecks on weekend binges with his girlfriend Teresa.
“Red” (named for his bright orange hair and ruddy complexion) was the one-eyed derrick hand who danced along a narrow perch 50 feet in the air, catching the tongs and the 50-foot stands of tubing as they came up from the well and leaning them back in the derrick. He was a practical joker. He loved spitting Red Man chewing tobacco on Grody and me from above. Grody would swear at him and threaten all forms of obscene bodily harm, but Red would just laugh because he knew Grody was afraid of heights and couldn’t come after him.
I learned some interesting lessons from that colorful crew that summer. One of the most lasting was on the day we “pulled a wet string.”
Normally when you pull the string of pipe from a well (in this case about
12,000 feet of 2 5/8 inch tubing), the pump at the bottom has been unseated and all the oil inside the tubing has run back into the bottom of the well. Sometimes, however, the pump gets stuck and the oil can’t run out, so the tubing is completely full of oil.
That’s what they call “a wet string.”
Pulling a wet string is one of the worst things that can happen on a production rig like ours. As the tubing full of oil is pulled from the well and the first 50-foot section is unscrewed at the derrick floor, several gallons of oil from that part of the pipe spray out on the deck hands and the driller. Then another 50-foot section is pulled up and unscrewed and you’re showered again.
By the third or fourth time, your clothes are saturated and oil is dripping from your hair and off your hardhat and into your eyes. Your eyes are stinging and you’d like to wipe them but your gloves are full of oil too. It’s inside your steel-toed boots and your underwear. Everything you have on is ruined and will need to be burned at the end of the day.
The deck and all the tools are slick and oily. Your brain is screaming to hurry up and get this over with, but you have to take it easy so no one gets hurt. It’s like a slow motion dream — the kind in which you’re trying to flee but you’re running through Jell-O.
And then you realize there are still 11,800 feet of wet string to go. That means 236 more oil showers, and it’s not even 9 o’clock yet. Without a doubt today will be one of the nastiest, most wretched days of your life.
* * *
Around noon we stopped for lunch and were squatting in the shade eating our sandwiches with oily fingers. No one felt much like talking. Finally Driller broke the miserable silence.
“Pretty tough day, huh Kid?” he asked.
“The worst,” I snorted. “If I had known this was going to happen, I would have quit yesterday.”
Red chimed in sarcastically. “Hey, don’t forget the extra fifty bucks wet string pay.”
“We get an extra fifty bucks?” I queried.
“Yeah," Red explained. “They say it’s to buy new clothes, but it’s really just to keep the whole crew from twisting off.” (That’s oil patch lingo for walking off the job
en masse.)
“Aw, this ain’t nothin’,” added Grody. “You should try doin’ this in the middle of the winter. Happened to me about three Januarys ago over near Steamboat.”
“This is so disgusting. How do you stand doing this year after year? Why don’t you get another job, do something different?” I asked.
Driller scrunched up his face and almost rolled his eyes. “That’s what you ain’t learned yet, Kid. It don’t matter what you do, every job’s gonna have its share of wet string days.
“Every now and again, even if you’re some hot-shot attorney in a three-piece suite at a fancy law firm in downtown Denver, even then,
_____ happens. It don’t do no good to try and run from it. You just gotta learn to make the
best of it.”
“He’s right,” Grody nodded. “Every job’s gonna have its share of wet string days. Take the good with the bad and deal with it.”
* * *
“Wet String Days.”
Their words still ring in my ears. I can’t say that I appreciated their wisdom that day, but it did stick with me.
Over the years I’ve found it to be true. Even the best of jobs, even the best of lives, have their share of wet string days, days when the wheels come off and everything falls apart.
“Wet String Days.”
I’ve discovered that it helps to have
a name for those kinds of situations. When something’s labeled, it’s easier to
recognize it, talk about it, and find a place for it.
I’ve learned that life is not about avoiding wet string days, because you can’t. Life is about learning to handle them when they happen and not letting them sour you for the majority of days when the pump
doesn’t get stuck in the tubing and the pipes
aren’t full of oil and you don’t have to burn all your clothes at the end of the shift.
It’s about finding joy in the journey. It’s about learning life’s amazing lessons from the interesting people you meet along the way.
Bless those roughnecks and the lessons they taught me. I wonder where they are today?
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
February 2012
Farnsworth's First Law of Life, Leadership and Fishermen
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.
Find a man who loves to fish and he will feed the whole village for a lifetime.
I learned this principle from watching my good friend Gary Norton back in Brookhaven, Mississippi. Among his numerous talents, Gary loves to fish. It really doesn’t matter when, where, or what kind of fish or fishing – Gary is there with passion.
Gary taught me how to fish for bream in small ponds, so I could take my young children fishing and not disappoint them. Gary showed me and a bunch of Boy Scouts how to catch sea trout and red fish off an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. He took me bass fishing where I observed how the competitive “big boy” fishermen do it with fast boats and fancy rigs.
Gary shared with me the finer points of trotline fishing in the Mississippi River for the monster catfish that live in its deep and muddy waters. You haven’t lived until you’ve wrestled a 50-pound catfish into a very small boat on a very large river. Talk about adrenaline rush!
I took him to the mountain streams of Colorado, away from his native fishing habitats, thinking an entirely new kind of fishing might slow him down a bit. Not so. After half a day he was out-fishing those who grew up in the area. He just has a nose for fish.
Long before the days of Facebook, Gary had a large circle of friends. If you were in that fortunate number, you could count on a steady supply of Ziplocs filled with fresh fillets. Like a gardener with a green thumb, he produced
far more than he could eat and needed to share his abundance. He kept our freezer stocked for years.
This principle of finding a man who loves to fish applies to you if you’re trying to build a world-class business, a championship team, or an exceptional volunteer organization. Be on the lookout for people with passion in your field and when you find them, hire them. You can teach skills and processes but you can
not teach passion. Without passion, world class is out of the question.
This principle applies to your existing team. You likely already have passionate people working for you. Make sure they are in the right slot, and search constantly for ways to allow their passion to energize their work and your organization. Eliminate barriers to creativity and honor exceptional contributions.
This principle also applies to you personally if you’re trying to create a world-class life for yourself or a world-class world for all of us. Do what you love and love what you do. Find your passion and nurture it, and the rest will follow. “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.” Howard Thurman
Whether it’s fishing or photography or fighting cancer, find your passion and purpose and let that bring you alive. Breathe in all the possibilities and then find a way to make it happen. You need it, your village needs it, and the world needs it.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
Gary Norton
Scott fishing with his friend Gary and his brother Lane.
January 2012
Farnsworth's First Law of Life, Leadership and Viking Ships
"It's harder to keep the crew rowing if only the captain can see where he's going."
The workers in many organizations are like crewmen on a Viking ship.
They sit with their backs toward their intended destination and have no view of where they're headed. Only quick peeks over their shoulders or orders barked from a superior tell them if they're headed in the right direction. And yet they are expected to keep rowing, hour after hour, day after day.
Not surprisingly, many workers in a Viking-ship business don't really deliver their best. They have to be prodded and cajoled. They come in late, stretch their breaks, surf the web on company time, and slip out as early as they can. They're there for the money and not much else.
Proverbs says "where there is no vision, the people perish." Without a vision of the company's big picture, many workers are dying a slow death of ignorance and apathy. They don't know where the organization is going and they don't care. They can't change jobs due to the recession, so they end up chained to their oars like galley slaves.
They row, but they're gritting their teeth the whole time.
This is a serious matter. Viking-ship conditions can be dangerous not only to crew members but also to the business itself.
The first casualty in a Viking-ship business is customer service. It's hard to smile when your teeth are gritted. It's hard to go the extra mile when your heart is full of apathy. It's hard to appreciate the lifetime value of a customer relationship when you can see only as far as next payday.
The second casualty in a Viking-ship business is creativity.
Why imagine a better way when all you can see is where you've been? Why invent when you have no purpose but to survive? Why innovate when it produces no reward for you?
The third casualty in a Viking-ship business is high-performance employees. Those with quality skills, self-drive, and strong resumes don't have to put up with such an environment, even in a down economy, and they find ways to jump ship. As they exit, the morale and productivity of those left behind nosedives.
With the loss of customer service, creativity, and high-performance employees, the Viking-ship business goes into a death spiral. Like a ghost ship, it may continue to lurch forward for a time, but its long-term fate is sealed.
So if you're a business owner or group leader, how can you avoid this Viking-ship phenomenon? I have three simple suggestions.
Get clear about where you want your organization to go. If you don't know, there's no way the group can know. If you don't know, then finding out should be JOB ONE for you. Nothing else is more important. You need to take a retreat. Hire a coach. Have a heart-to-heart with your spouse. Cloister yourself with trusted lieutenants. Do whatever it takes to get clear on where you're going.
Share your ideas with your team. Tell them your "we've arrived story," the story you want others to be telling about your organization when you get to where you want to go. Tell it from your heart and your gut, rather than your head. Let them feel your passion and sense of purpose. Trust them with your vision.
Involve them in refining and implementing the vision. Most people on a team want it to be successful and they've thought about how to make that happen. In my experience, when I empower my team to co-author the "we've arrived story," they make it their own and assume ongoing responsibility for figuring out the best way to make it come true. If you allow your team to join you in defining success and identifying the pathway to it, they will respond by finding a better way than you had in mind. Then they will man the oars with surprising zeal and commitment.
When I trust my team with my vision, they honor that trust by charting the course, weighing anchor, and hoisting the sails. After that, it's full speed ahead. Our collective "we've arrived story" becomes a true narrative, almost as if by magic.
Aye, aye, captain.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
About the Blog
The Scott Farnsworth
Blog teaches financial advisors and estate planners, and philanthropic
professionals how to touch hearts, change lives, and connect families using
elegant and practical tools and systems for legacy building, story sharing,
and deeper client relationships.
Author
Scott Farnsworth,
J.D., CFP is an attorney and Certified Planner with more than 30 years in
the estate, business, and financial planning fields. He is the CEO of
SunBridge, Inc. and the founder of the SunBridge Legacy Network. He is a
nationally recognized author and expert on practical, holistic,
family-friendly planning. Scott was recently named one of Financial Advisor
Magazine’s ‘Innovators of the Year'
Recent Posts
December 2011
The Question of Enough
Most of us can relate to Mildred Austin’s frustrating experience on Christmas morning: :
“Is that all?”
It was the innocent query of a five-year-old caught up in
the excitement of Christmas, after the large assortment of
gifts stacked under our tree had disintegrated into a heap of ribbons, paper, and empty boxes.
Was that all?
For weeks my husband and I had planned, schemed, and worried about how to satisfy the children as their lists grew longer each day. I had even taken a part-time job as a salesclerk so that the children wouldn’t be disappointed and we wouldn’t have to go into debt. But, in order to accomplish this, we had sacrificed evenings of carol singing, cookie making, and story reading, the real spirit of the occasion, so we could fulfill these materialistic Christmas dreams. How futile our efforts now seemed.
The question of enough is unfortunately not limited to five-year-olds on Christmas morning. It permeates our culture.
My generation came of age with Keith Richards’ guitar riffs and Mick Jagger’s vocals ringing in our ears. Those lyrics warned us (wink, wink) that you can’t get no satisfaction from “how white your shirts can be,” smoking “the same cigarettes as me,” or getting plenty of “girlie action.”
However, that didn’t stop lots of Baby Boomers from seeking fulfillment the Stones’ way. Ultimately, though, after “ridin’ round the world” and “doin’ this” and “signin’ that” and “tryin’ to make some girl,” they found that if you’re following the wrong scent in the pursuit of happiness, you won’t be satisfied even if you catch what you’re chasing. It just won’t be “enough.” They learned too late that there is never “enough” in the accumulation of material things.
A few years ago, Sheryl Crow translated their belated discovery into clever rock and roll lingo.
I don't have digital;
I don't have diddly squat.
It's not having what you want;
It's wanting what you've got.
In a similar way, they found by sad experience that we don’t find “enough” by competing with and comparing ourselves to others. Comparing another’s possessions, another’s relationships, even another’s life with ours invariably gets in the way of enjoying and appreciating our own.
As long as the focus is comparative and the answer is relative, we will never have enough. There will always be someone with more. There will always be someone with a bigger, a faster, a newer, a more expensive, a more glamorous, a more exotic whatever.
Competing and comparing get in the way of feeling grateful. It is impossible to overstate the power of gratitude in answering the question of enough. Melody Beatty said it well:
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.
I believe the key to “enough” is to focus on things of lasting value, to stop comparing, and to genuinely appreciate “what you’ve got,” even if you “don’t have digital” or even “diddly-squat.”
I saw a beautiful example of this last week. I conducted a “My Children” Priceless Conversation with Neil, a courageous father attending one of my Legacy Builder workshops.
Fifteen years ago, he and his young wife were blessed with twin sons.
Both were born severely autistic. Can you picture the challenge of brand-new parents caring for twins? Or can you imagine the even greater challenge of brand-new parents caring for a severely autistic child? Now can you comprehend the difficulty of brand-new parents caring for severely autistic twins? Tears trickled down Neil’s cheeks as he described the love they discovered and the insights they gained during their grueling and ongoing struggle to raise those boys.
But nowhere in our conversation did he express even a whiff of self-pity. To the contrary. He was proud to describe his children’s personalities and accomplishments. This was his family and this was his life and he was grateful for every single minute of it. He treasured the lessons they had learned together and felt no regret for all the things they had “missed out on” or “couldn’t do.” He wanted me to know of the eternal bond he and his wife and his children share. He has plenty and to spare of the things that really matter. He has “enough.”
I felt honored and blessed to share the moment. For me, I received an exquisite Christmas gift three weeks early.
Thank you, Neil. Thank you for focusing on things of lasting value, for not comparing, and for appreciating what you have. You reminded me that, for all I don’t have, what I
do have is truly “enough.”
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
November 2011
A Business Opportunity for Master Planners
“I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes
I lead a double life.
Half my professional life is spent working in a remarkable collaborative team with highly-successful families. This work is richly rewarding and deeply fulfilling because we get to the very core of what matters to our client families and as a team we have the skills and the means to do something about it.
The other half is spent providing training, tools, and support to financial advisors, estate planners, and philanthropic professionals who are experts in the art and science of growing, protecting, and distributing wealth. In this role, I get to rub shoulders with some of the brightest minds and biggest hearts in the business. This work too is hugely satisfying.
From these dual vantage points, I have discovered a significant omission in traditional advisor/client services and a corresponding opportunity for Master Planners and Level-Three Advisors: I think there is tremendous business potential for professional advisors who can masterfully address the growth, protection, and distribution of their clients’ wealth
and then help them discover greater enjoyment of life.
Growing, protecting, and distributing wealth are means to an end, not the end itself. The real purpose of our work is to help our clients live life more abundantly.
Unfortunately, the process of growing, protecting, and distributing our clients’ wealth usually breeds substantial complexity in their lives. It spawns clutter, uncertainty, and dissonance, which make it harder for them to enjoy lives of greater abundance.
When professional advisors help their clients grow, protect, and distribute their wealth but don’t press forward to help them enjoy life by reducing the resultant complexity, clutter, uncertainty, and dissonance, both they and their clients are often left with an aching sense of hollowness, as in “Is that all there is?”
I see this empty space as an opportunity rather than an obligation. We planners are not responsible for our clients’ happiness — that would infantilize them and unfairly burden us. But visionary advisors may want to consider the potential of building their practices by helping clients deal with the complexity resulting their own planning and that of other advisors. I think it makes good business sense to do so.
It may be useful to consider a quick example from another field. The gifted carpenter, cabinet maker, or painter who fails to clean up the dust and debris of his work is never likely to earn the full-fledged goodwill of his customers or their enthusiastic endorsements to friends and family. “He does great work, but he leaves a mess,” they are likely to say. On the other hand, the builder who is both a master at his craft
and who leaves the scene neat and tidy and livable earns higher revenue and more referral business from appreciative customers.
So just how do we help our clients enjoy “the simplicity on the other side of complexity” that Oliver Wendell Holmes said he was willing to give his life for? How do we turn this yearning he described into a business opportunity? In my own practice, I have developed a three-step formula that is based on certain real-life experiences:
About a dozen years ago, I met with a very successful surgeon at his opulent lakeside home in one of Orlando’s wealthiest neighborhoods to show him several tax-saving, asset-protection, and wealth-building strategies. Near the end of the meeting, he leaned back, put his hands behind his head, sighed audibly, and in an apologetic and resigned tone said, “What you say makes sense, but I don’t think I will follow your recommendations. My financial and legal affairs already feel so complicated that I can’t keep up with them. I’m no dummy, but I can’t understand half the stuff I have already. Doing what you propose would make it even more difficult to get my arms around it all. What I think I really need is someone who can just help me get all this crap organized. Do you know anyone who can do that?”
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Step 1: From the financial and legal clutter of their lives, I help my clients create order, organization, and simplicity. I help them feel they have a handle on their possessions. I help them find assurance that if something happens to them, their family and associates can find important documents and information (including passwords) quickly and easily. Relieved of the weight of the clutter of all their stuff, they are then free to soar.
Some time ago I conducted a Priceless Conversation with a man whose father and grandfather had both been highly successful, professionally and financially. He shared with me the swirl of growing up with virtually every possible option in the world open to him. He said his whole life felt like drinking from a fire hydrant, and he like the hyperactive cavalryman who “jumped on his horse and rode off in all directions.” He asked me to help him narrow the range of potential choices, so that things that were more important to him weren’t pushed aside by things that were less important. He wanted me to help him find his bearings in a tsunami of possibilities.
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Step 2: From the uncertainty that comes from having too many choices, I help successful clients find clarity about what matters to them most. I help them discover what’s still missing from their personal definition of success, and I help them uncover what makes them come alive. Together we turn overwhelming into manageable, we identify top priorities, and we focus first on what’s most important.
Identifying values and priorities is one thing; living true to them is quite another. I’ve learned that doing so is the only way to live more abundantly. Mahatma Gandhi said it this way: “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” About seven year ago, I began working with a couple in South Florida who wanted to transfer their businesses to their two daughters. They had failed to pull it off a couple of times previously because the husband wouldn’t stick to their agreement, but instead kept giving in to the manipulations of the younger daughter. I intervened by guiding them in creating a step-by-step game plan in which every action item was consciously aligned with their core priorities. I followed this up by reinforcing that game plan with a consistently monitored support structure. With persistence, we were able to achieve a successful result.
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Step 3: I help successful clients develop action plans that are consistent with their values and priorities. Then I help them implement those plans through kind but steady encouragement, reinforcement, accountability, and follow-up. Over time, as they experience the satisfaction of being true to themselves and their bedrock principles, they discover for themselves one of the truths I live by: “Life is good when you live in harmony.”
This business opportunity of taking clients from successful to simple is not for everyone. But for discerning advisors, this could be a path of great potential and professional satisfaction. I know it is for me.
“Simplicity, clarity, harmony: These are the attributes that give our lives power and vividness and joy, as they are also the marks of great art. They seem to be the purpose of God for his whole creation.”
Richard Holloway
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
October 2011
What’s Next? From Airy-Fairy to Nitty-Gritty
Sometimes clients and donors initiate the process. They approach you seeking assistance in accomplishing the next big thing they crave for their life, their marriage, their family, their business, their giving, or their legacy. At other times, the life-review aspects of
The Meaning of Success Priceless Conversation, or some similar process draws a compelling craving to the surface and make it clear to them they must do something about it right away.
I use a simple question in those situations to focus and clarify their urgency and to launch a Level-Three conversation:
“WHAT’S NEXT?” Here are two examples.
Advisor: “It’s nice to hear from you, John. How have you been?”
Client: “Not well. I was in the hospital last week. They thought it may have been a stroke or a series of strokes, but they’re not completely sure. However, it sure scared the willies out of me.”
Advisor: “Oh no. That sounds serious. Tell me more.”
Client: “I just don’t know whether I’m going to be able to keep running our family business, and I realize I need to make sure Mark is firmly in charge. You’ve been telling us for years we need a transition strategy, and now I know we can’t put it off any longer. I realize that if this stroke had been more serious, we’d have a real mess on our hands right now.”
Advisor: “I can tell by the sound of your voice that this is vitally important to you. I want to help you and your family, and I think I can. But tell me as succinctly as you can, what’s next? What’s the next thing we need to do now?”
Client: “I need you to help me pass the reins over to Mark. I know we’ve been talking about this for years and I’ve been putting it off, but now it’s time.”
* * *
Advisor: “Mary, here’s your Meaning of Success Priceless Conversation gift box, ready for you to add to your Legacy Library. That was such a delightful experience for me to share with you.”
Client: “Thanks so much. It really was enjoyable. But it got me thinking.”
Advisor: “About what?”
Client: “About the fact that I never finished college. We got married when Ted graduated and we always said I’d go back after we got settled, but then we started having babies, and things got so busy and it just never happened. Now that Ted is gone . . . . “
Advisor: “It sounds like you’ve got something in mind for your next big step? What is that?”
Client: “I want to go back to college and finish my degree. Imagine that, at my age! But I don’t know where to even start. I guess I need someone to help me figure out how to do that. I trust you. Could you help me with that?”
With the answer to the “What’s next?” question clearly on the table, the advisor needs to follow four more steps:
1) Ask: What makes this so important to you?
2) Ask: What are the consequences if we don’t take care of this?
3) Ask: What are the benefits if we do take care of this?
4) Describe: Here’s my process for helping you addressing this problem.
The three questions help the client or donor and the advisor appreciate more fully why accomplishing the next step truly matters. By answering them candidly and thus developing and clarifying within the client’s or donor’s mind two sharply contrasting stories — the negative story of not reaching the desired objective and the positive story of doing so — the client or donor reinforces their internal drive to get going. It is the clarity and juxtaposition of these two internal narratives that drive the client or donor to action. (Once again, it’s all about the story.)
The description of your process tells the client or donor that you have a system for finding the best answers to their problems and delivering solutions. It also shows that you are experienced, that you understand people in their situation, that you are thoughtful and systematic, and that you can guide them to where they want to go. It gives them the confidence to follow you.
Strategic Vision: From Airy-Fairy to Nitty-Gritty
At this point it’s time to begin plotting a course for improving an aspect of the client’s or donor’s future, such as family relations, health, investments, and so on. We call this process the Strategic Vision. There are a number of SunBridge tools available for accomplishing this; for example, we use a variety of worksheets such as the “Get It Done Action Plan” or the “Strategic Vision” template. With a larger group, we may use a portable storyboard and colored Post-It® Notes. On these we write the client’s or donor’s best thinking on several important questions:
1. What aspect of your life do you want to change?
2. Why is it important for you to do so?
3. Where are you now?
4. What if you stay where you are now?
5. What might be holding you back from moving forward?
6. Where do you want to be a year from now? In the next 90 days?
7. What are the benefits of reaching those objectives?
8. What action steps are necessary for you to get from where you are now to where you want to be?
The result of the thinking process engendered by this series of questions is a set of clear and specific actions steps to be taken, some by the client or donor, some by the advisor, and some by other people.
A client’s or donor’s
Strategic Vision or Get It Done Action Plan may include anything from losing ten pounds and rediscovering romance with a spouse to founding an international philanthropic organization. The only rule is: If it matters to the client or donor, it matters. We have seen that this
Strategic Vision approach allows the client or donor to keep both broad vision and next-steps clear and present.
The advisor can then set up this set of action steps in a simple X-Y grid, with the various action items along one axis and relevant time intervals along the other. This graphing is what translates the vision from theory or ideal into practice, while the simplicity of the structure ensures that it stays flexible and therefore useful.
One of our colleagues who took the SunBridge training said that Strategic Vision takes the “airy-fairy” of a mere vision and turns it into the “nitty-gritty” of tangible steps needed for the realization of that vision. This is the essence of Level Three.
It is not just about getting the big picture of the client’s or donor’s life, beyond the situational stories shared by the client at Level Two. It’s about identifying the life story, the through-lines of concern, the abiding and persistent values and interests, and crafting them into a guidebook, a map, a tangible plan. Some of us may go our entire lives without finding someone willing and able to serve as an ally in this process. At Level Three, this is precisely what your clients or donors find in you.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
September 2011
The Meaning of Success
In the hands of a Master Planner,
The Meaning of Success Priceless Conversation uses clients’ or donors’ own words, thoughts, insights, and stories to discover and clarify how they see life, what they value in life, and what ultimately they want from life.
Just as each one of us has developed our own unique definition of the meaning of money based on a collection of experiences called “meaning of money stories,” we also have developed our own unique definition of what it means to be successful, again based on a set of experiences that we in SunBridge call “meaning of success stories.”
The Meaning of Success Priceless Conversation uses a set of story-leading questions and an interview to help the client or donor recall and share these stories, and then draw his or her own conclusions from them. From that interview, the Master Planner develops a clear understanding of what to offer the client or donor.
There are many facets of success in life; The Meaning of Success Priceless Conversation focuses on five of them:
• Professional success
• Success in learning and education
• Financial success
• Success in relationships
• Personal and spiritual success
Within each of these five areas of focus, clients or donors are invited to recall life experiences that helped to shape the way they define success. From these stories, they are invited to compare their early definitions of success in each area with their current views, and to identify secrets to success they have distilled from those experiences.
When I am working with clients, I sometimes share this example of a learning-and-education “meaning of success story” from my own life.
As an elementary school student, getting good grades was always easy for me, so report card day was always a piece of cake. At least it was until fifth grade in Miss Ratliff’s class.
Miss Ratliff was a tall, awkward woman who wore professorial half-glasses, pulled-back-into-a-bun hair, and most of the time a severe, judgmental expression. She expected a great deal from her students. Fun and horseplay were never permitted in her class.
Miss Ratliff employed, I discovered on the first report card day of the school year, her very own custom-designed report card, one I had never seen before and never since. Besides the usual places for letter grades for academic subjects and for “S’s” and “U’s” for deportment, at the bottom there were two statements and a place for Miss Ratliff to check one or the other. They read:
“Student works to the best of his ability.”
“Student does not work to the best of his ability.”
When report cards were handed out that day, I scanned mine to confirm the usual complement of A’s and S’s, then carried it home to my parents. After supper, I went to my parents’ room for my customary report-card-day meeting with my dad, fully expecting the usual commendation for another job well done. To my surprise, I found my father looking rather stern and displeased.
“Scott, I’m concerned about your report card,” he said.
“But dad,” I protested, “I got straight A’s and straight S’s. You can’t get any better than that.”
“Maybe so,” he replied, “but look down here at the bottom. It says you are not working to the best of your ability.”
“Oh,” I uttered and swallowed hard. My mind was racing. “Who does she think she is?” I thought to myself. “I’m her star pupil. It’s not my fault that her work is too easy for me and that I can just coast to an easy A.” But I didn’t disagree with her assessment. My dad went on, cutting off my thoughts.
“Son, I’m happy that you got good marks, but I’m disappointed that you seem to think that going to school is just about getting a grade. It’s not. It’s about getting an education, and for someone with your capabilities, that means pushing yourself, reading ahead, exploring on your own, asking for extra credit assignments, being curious. For some people, straight A’s are not good enough. Do you understand?”
I nodded my head, a little puzzled but starting to see a bigger perspective. “I think so, dad.” I mumbled.
“Well, I hope that Miss Ratliff never has to check the ‘does not work to the best of his ability’ box again.”
“Me too,” I said, relieved to be getting off with just a warning. “Me too.”
Happily I can report that she never did all the rest of fifth grade.
That experience and many others, I tell my clients, helped to shape my sense of what it means to be successful in learning and education. Those experiences also helped me figure out some of the secrets to success, and gave me a sense of satisfaction for the achievements I've enjoyed and a quest for further things I still had left to accomplish.
“Like you,” I say to my clients, “I have similar experiences, similar definitions, similar secrets, and similar longings in the other areas of my life, financially, professionally, personally, spiritually, and in relationships. As your advisor, I want to understand how you define success. I want to capture your secrets to success in all facets of your life. I want to hear of your accomplishments, your moments of feeling proud of yourself.
“And most important of all, I want to know what’s still missing for you,
what’s still left to do or achieve or become, in order for you to feel completely successful in your life.”
I love the structure and simplicity of The Meaning of Success Priceless Conversation, and the fact that when finished I can deliver a beautiful package for the client’s or donor’s legacy library. It makes it easy because the process, the experience, and the deliverable all come in one elegant kit.
But it is not imperative to employ a formal process to begin to understand what’s still missing for the client or donor, and to learn what the next steps need to be. In certain situations, I can achieve approximately the same result using three questions to lead into a thoughtful and meaningful discussion, especially if my listening skills are up to par. Those three questions are:
1. If you had an abundance of time, energy, and money, how would you live your life?
2. If your doctor told you that you had three years to live, what would you do with that time?
3. If your doctor told you that you had 24 hours to live, what regrets would you have?
Once again, questions of this sort, combined with transformational listening, allow the Master Planner to begin seeing the big picture of the client’s or donor’s past and present—essential information for mapping their ideal future. From there, it’s time for the Master Planner to show the client or donor he or she has a process for accomplishing the three roles of the Level-Three Advisor: architect, drafter of blueprints, and general contractor. The details of how to do that will be the subject of my next article: “What’s Next? From Airy-Fairy to Nitty-Gritty.”
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
August 2011
Rewarded for Your Wisdom:
The Calling of the Master Planner
I’m an aficionado of great planning. I love to observe exceptional planners in action, and I am awed and enchanted by them.
In my work, I meet planners in lots of different specialties — financial planners, estate planners, philanthropic planners, business planners, and others. I’ve learned that certain things are true about planners, regardless of their specialty.
I’ve learned that planners come in three levels: apprentice, journeyman, and master.
Apprentice planners are still learning the ropes. They’re trying to get all the rules, regulations, techniques, and explanations down. They are self-conscious and sometimes insecure. They worry about being “found out” as a neophyte. Generally, with sufficient time and experience, they’ll progress to journeyman status.
Journeyman planners have passed through the learning curve. They know the ropes; they’ve learned the rules, regulations, techniques, and explanations. They keep up to date with current developments and they produce good plans. Their work product and their work style are completely adequate.
Most planners with a few years of experience move from apprentice status into the journeyman category. But most never move beyond being a journeyman. Only a few become what I call “Master Planners.”
What distinguishes Master Planners from experienced, solid journeyman planners who never blossom into Master Planners?
Master Planners have wonderful command of planning tools and techniques, but so do many experienced journeyman planners. They tend to have many years of experience, but the same is true for others who have not achieved Master Planner status, and perhaps never will. They enjoy their work, but so do apprentices and journeymen. These are not what set this elite group apart.
In my view, Master Planners possess three unique abilities and they understand and apply five profound principles. Some journeyman planners have some of these skills but not all of them or not much of them. It is this rare combination of talents and principles, blended in graceful harmony, that produces Master Planners.
First,
Master Planners have the ability to connect quickly and deeply with clients and donors. They can sit down in a business context with someone they’ve never met and within five minutes the client or donor is pouring out their heart to them. The client or donor feels an almost immediate sense of trust and understanding. The client or donor feels that they are truly being heard, perhaps for the first time by a planning professional. Because of this ability, Master Planners learn more about their clients and donors than journeyman planners ever do.
Second, Master Planners have the ability to see the future. I’m not talking about crystal balls and tarot cards. I’m referring to the Master Planner’s gift for taking in a family situation, the current state of planning, a business or set of assets, and combining that information with their understanding of human nature and family dynamics, and knowing, literally knowing, how that scenario will ultimately play out. It’s not that they’ve seen it before — often they have not — but they perceive things their journeyman colleagues do not, and they identify as significant certain human details that lesser planners gloss over. With that clear view of the future, they are ready to move forward.
Third,
Master Planners create structures and processes that change the course of the future for the donor or the client or the client’s family or business. Having seen the future, they are prepared to re-write it. They understand the levers of transformation and how to pull them so that outcomes many months and years down the road are changed for the better. They “get” how legal,
financial, philanthropic and business tools and techniques operate in the real world with real people. As a result, they orchestrate elegant and effective solutions that work today and well into the future. Their plans are indeed masterpieces, works of art.
In addition to these three unique abilities, Master Planners understand five critical and powerful principles and how to apply them in their work.
Master Planners understand that, above all, they deliver wisdom. In a world awash with data and in the era of the “information superhighway” and the “knowledge worker,” Master Planners recognize, in the words of Proverbs, that wisdom is more precious than rubies. They know that wisdom, the ability to apply knowledge and information with discernment and discretion, is that which sets them apart and for which they should be most abundantly compensated. They structure their business so they are in fact rewarded for their wisdom.
Master Planners understand that they operate in the fifth economy, the transformation economy. They know they are in the business of changing lives. They do not deal primarily in commodities, goods, services, or even experiences, although these are necessarily ingredients of what they do. Master Planners understand that, however their task has been described, they have in fact been hired to be a catalyst for changing people and producing lasting human improvements. Their professional offerings are presented so as to reflect this significant insight.
Master Planners understand that their most important professional skill is the ability to listen. They practice — or perhaps better said, they embody — transformational listening. Transformational listening goes beyond listening with the physical ears; it is listening with ears of discernment. Transformational listening is not a set of techniques; it is a way of being with another person. It is not based on some clever approach or device; it is based on the deep-down way Master Planners see themselves and others.
Master Planners understand the art of planning as well as the science. Like Fred Astaire or Michael Jackson, once they learn to count and they learn the steps, Master Planners begin to feel the rhythm of planning in their bones. They know instinctively how to move to the music. They have a sense of how things could be done that goes beyond what others taught them. They take their craft beyond great to amazing.
Master Planners understand that collaboration is essential to their success. Regardless of the skill of the lone violinist, the greatest symphonic composition in the world is incomplete and unfulfilling without the rest of the orchestra. Master Planners are team players, not prima donnas. They are so comfortable in their own roles that they are neither jealous of nor intimidated by the talents of others. They enjoy bringing other world-class talent to the stage for the benefit of their clients and donors.
This rare combination — three unique abilities together with five profound understandings — is the constellation that produces Master Planners. When the stars align in this way, the result for clients and donors is planning that addresses the deepest and most significant issues in their lives and hearts. It addresses their deepest fears and worries and brings into reality their most important hopes and dreams.
For Master Planners, the result is the rare joy and fulfillment from comes from discovering the gifts that make them come alive and then employing those gifts to serve mankind. It is doing what they were put on this earth to do. This is the calling of the Master Planner.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
July 2011
The Expert as Listener
“When people talk, listen completely. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”
Earnest Hemmingway
We all know what an expert is, don’t we? That’s a person who knows a lot and gets paid to deliver brilliant answers. The essence of what he does is talk, right?
Wrong.
The so-called expert who can’t or won’t listen well — regardless of how smart he is — is more often than not useless:
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He gives the wrong answer because he misses important information.
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He gives the right answer to the wrong question.
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He gives the right answer but his answer is incomprehensible to the client or donor.
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He answers the obvious question but completely misses the real question.
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He gives the right answer but completely misses the human implications of both the question and the answer.
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He gives the right answer but his advice isn’t followed because clients and donors don’t trust him.
A real expert is an expert listener.
A real expert realizes that the quality of his answer is only as good as the quality of the information he hears. A real expert knows that if he doesn’t hear the correct question or the real question, his answer — even though correct — will be largely worthless. A real expert recognizes that until clients or donors feel listened to and understood, his answers will be suspect and his recommendations will not be implemented.
A real expert understands that when he sits down with a client or donor, there are two experts in the room, not one. A real expert knows that to find the best answers in today’s complex world, he must bring
everyone’s best thinking to bear on the issue at hand, not just his own. A real expert has the temperament and the tools to do so.
A real expert recognizes that, regardless of what others may call his line of work, he is really in the transformation business. Pine and Gilmore have demonstrated in their masterful book,
The Experience Economy, that the highest-value product a business can deliver is not goods or services or even experiences. It is the transformation of the client or donor.
A real expert understands that he has been hired is to change people, in order to produce a better outcome. He is a catalyst for change, which starts with the way he listens.
A real expert practices what I call “transformational listening.”
Transformational listening goes beyond listening for data, information, or knowledge; it is listening for wisdom and insight. It goes beyond listening with the physical ears; it is listening with ears of discernment.
Transformational listening is not a set of techniques; it is a way of being with another person. It is not based on some clever approach or device; it is based on the deep-down way we see others and ourselves.
An outstanding example of a true expert who practiced transformational listening in his work with clients and donors was Paul Laughlin. Paul was the bank trust officer in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who turned a conversation with Osceola McCarty, an 87-year-old uneducated but generous washer woman into a magnificent gift to the University of Southern Mississippi. (See the details in my earlier article at
http://www.scottfarnsworth.com/Blog.html#April11.)
(April 2011 Osceola McCarty: The Rest of the Story)
Looking beyond her age, her profession, her lack of education, the diminutive
size of her banking account, and the color of her skin, Paul listened to Osceola
and saw a vision for her future happiness and heard an opportunity to make a
meaningful difference in the world. Only after applying his expertise as a
listener did he deploy his expertise in estate planning and charitable giving.
As a result, Paul not only transformed Osceola’s life but he also dramatically changed the lives of an entire university community, of dozens of future Mississippi school teachers, and of untold numbers of philanthropists, and their advisors who have been inspired by this story. Generations yet unborn will be blessed by Paul’s transformational listening.
If you were to talk with Paul, you would discover a man of great humility, respect, and curiosity. These attributes are essential for the transformational listener.
The transformational listener is humble. He sees himself as constantly open to new understanding. He knows that, as much as he already knows, he still has much to learn about the client or donor’s world. He understands that careful, attentive, and appreciative listening both with his ears and with his heart is the only way he will learn enough about their world to become an expert in it.
The transformational listener is respectful. Regardless of the apparent disparity in age, education, wealth, achievement, rank, status, or power, he sees clients or donors as fellow human travelers, each with unique experiences and exceptional brilliance. He acknowledges their strengths and talents, and honors their life journeys. He knows every person he meets has something important to teach him.
The transformational listener is curious. He can’t wait to discover what lies within the clients’ or donors’ every phrase or paragraph or silent pause. He is fascinated by where their minds will go next, by what stories or insights will spring forth from their thinking if he listens generously and without interruption.
As Paul Laughlin showed, being a real expert is first about listening and only then about speaking. It is more about what we are presently learning than what we previously knew. It is more about harnessing shared brilliance than showing off as a solitary shooting star. It is more about a way of seeing others and being with people than the mastery of a set of techniques.
In the end, it is all about touching hearts and changing lives.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
June 2011
Big Papa’s Legacy
This year’s “Pig Pickin’” barbeque and family gathering on Memorial Day weekend in Brookhaven, Mississippi, was grander than most. The Moretons, my wife’s maternal family, used the occasion to honor “The Threes” — their affectionate name for the third generation down from Big Papa.
Big Papa is the larger-than-life lumberman, banker, philanthropist, and family patriarch who established the Moreton family legacy in the first half of the 20th century. Though he’s been gone for over 50 years, in reality he lives on. He personifies the truth of an old Native American saying: “As long as somebody is still telling your story, you’re really still alive.”
Besides the family connection, I have a professional interest in legacy success stories like the Moretons’. Our high-net-worth planning team works with parents and grandparents who love their children and grandchildren and who wish to pass on a lasting legacy of values and virtues to them and to generations yet unborn.
One of the tools we use in this process is the Legacy Circle. We have seen that successful legacy families implement the principles imbedded in the Legacy Circle. Big Papa and his descendants did just that many decades before the Legacy Circle was ever created.
The Legacy Circle
At its heart, the Legacy Circle teaches that a successful legacy family has a shared set of family stories and a shared vision. Who and what a family is will be determined more by the stories it tells about itself and the way it sees its collective future than by any other factor. The thrust of its stories and vision determine the direction of a family’s destiny.
The Legacy Circle teaches that a successful legacy family focuses on the people they love and the causes they support. These must be wisely balanced, with equal parts inward attention and outward concern. There must be a commitment to care for themselves along with a mission to look to the needs of others. A successful legacy family recognizes that too much attention to its own gratification results in generations of self-absorbed navel-gazers, while concern only for outsiders leaves family members’ own needs unaddressed. Balance is essential.
The Legacy Circle teaches that the parents and grandparents of successful families leave a well-rounded legacy consisting of four major components woven skillfully and seamlessly together. These four components include a compilation of life lessons, including the values, principles, and wisdom that make us who we are; directions, wishes, and instructions for loved ones concerning the end of life and beyond; personal treasures such as photographs and keepsakes that help to tell the stories of family members; and financial wealth.
If any of these four components is left standing apart from the other three and unconnected to the core values found in the center of the Legacy Circle, it has a limited impact in blessing the lives
of future generations.
Of particular note is the Financial Wealth quadrant. If inherited money is not integrated into a well-rounded legacy, it seldom creates lasting value for the inheritors, notwithstanding the most benevolent of intentions. It is either dissipated in short order or it robs the recipient of incentive and self-sufficiency, leaving arrested development and disrupted lives in its wake.
At the annual Pig Pickin’ and through the years, I’ve heard tales of how Big Papa’s courage and audacity saved Brookhaven Bank during the Depression, of how family members “took in” children of
deceased siblings, of how the thirteen cousins later known as “The Threes” grew up in a cluster of neighboring houses with open door policies, where aunts and uncles took as much interest in their well-being as their own parents.
I’ve witnessed vigorous but respectful discussions about where the family enterprise is headed or should be heading. I’ve seen that enterprise adjusted over the years as the family situation changed and outside conditions shifted. These stories and vision discussions were part of teaching the upcoming “Fours,” “Fives” and ”Sixes” what it means “to be a Moreton” and setting the stage for the future success of the extended family.
I find it of particular interest that members of the family actually refer to themselves in legacy terms, i.e., as “The Threes,” “The Fours,” and so forth. It cements in their minds and hearts the notion that they are part of something bigger than themselves, something that had its roots before they came along, and something that must still be here after they have passed on.
The regular gatherings of Big Papa’s clan are a robust mix of family business and family pleasure, along with a healthy dollop of honoring Big Papa and Big Mama’s community service and philanthropic wishes. Giving back and taking in are well balanced. Responsibilities are accepted and carried out. Expressions of love and appreciation flow freely. As a result, family members are uplifted and encouraged.
Big Papa had the foresight to establish for his descendants an ongoing family enterprise that would bring them back together often. This in turn has served to foster the preservation of life lessons, final instructions, and personal treasures. He also endowed this enterprise with sufficient financial resources to bring life and energy to the other facets of the family legacy.
As an observer and facilitator of successful legacy families, it was delightful to study one at very close range and recognize the far-sightedness of its founder long ago. It was affirming and reassuring to see that the principles I teach today to aspiring legacy families were implemented many, many decades ago by a wise and visionary patriarch and matriarch and then perpetuated through the years by their equally insightful children and grandchildren.
Big Papa, what a legacy you left for your posterity!
That, and a deep love for family, feasts, and fun.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
May 2011
The Power of Process
To succeed in business today, you must have a clear and
understandable process and a clear and simple story to describe it.
When you have a clear and simple process and a clear and simple
story to describe it, prospective
customers understand that you are
experienced, that you understand people like them, and that you know
how to solve their problems. They see that you are thoughtful and
systematic. They recognize that you will find appropriate solutions
to their unique set of problems. They perceive added value in your
approach because they have a clear understanding of how you work.
Your process story outlines the next stage of your relationship. It
establishes and clarifies expectations. It’s a roadmap for the
journey ahead, and thus it gives customers comfort and reassurance.
They know where they are and where they are headed. They know they
are in the hands of an experienced and confident guide.
In a service business.
If you are primarily in a service business, the process you describe
will be the steps you follow when you work with customers like those
with whom you are speaking. Each step in your process, which
represents a significant meeting or customer event, should have its
own distinctive name. The process as a whole should be simple and
easy to follow.
In a products business.
If your business is primarily selling products, it is even more
imperative that you have a process and that you describe it in a
clear and simple story. As the seller of products, you face a
serious risk of becoming a commodity. A commodity is a product that
is generic and is bought and sold strictly on price, like a bushel
of wheat or a gallon of gasoline. Without a simple and
understandable customer-service process, you will be perceived as a
commodity and thus you face serious pricing pressure as the only
means to differentiate your products from others like them.
How, you may ask, can the seller of products talk about a process?
The simplest way is to identify the steps you use to determine which
products are appropriate for particular customers, and then add to
that the steps you use to deliver your products to your customers
and ensure that they are satisfied. If you have a successful
business that sells products, you are probably already doing those
things. What you must now do is identify the steps you use and
describe the entire sequence in the form of a clear and simple
story. Just as sellers of services, each step of your process
should have its own unique name and the process as a whole should be
simple and easy to understand.
Telling your process story.
In telling your process story, as you name and describe each step,
you should describe what happens in that step and what its purposes
are. Your description should allow prospective customers to
visualize that step as it will happen, thus making each step real
and relevant to their experience. If important actions take place
before or after any of the meetings, or if customers will have
assignments to complete to get ready for any of the steps, you
should describe those activities as part of your story.
How your process fixes their problems.
I have learned that as you describe your process to prospective
customers, it is important that you point out how your process will
answer their specific problems and concerns. Even the world's most
brilliant process is useless if it doesn't fix the problems at
hand. As you tell your process story, it must be clear where in the
process you will address their worries. It is also helpful to
mention there are many other worries you have not yet discussed that
will be solved in the course of following your process.
It has been my experience that describing your unique and thoughtful
process in a narrative fashion will do more to enhance the value of
your products or services than just about anything you can do.
Having a clearly defined methodology for solving your customer's
problems gives you and them confidence that working together will be
mutually beneficial.
One of the reasons this is true is because, as you describe your
unique process, you are able to elaborate on the specifics of how
you solve your customers’ problems, and you get to point out how the
way you address their problems is different from your competition’s
approach.
Closing the circle.
In a sense, the story of your process closes the circle on the
claims you made earlier in the sales meeting. Before, you said, in
essence, “You're here because you have problems. I understand those
problems. I even recognize dangers you may not be aware of. Both
of us recognize that serious consequences will occur if your
problems are not properly addressed. Both of us recognize that
there are incredible benefits to be enjoyed if your problems can be
resolved. In the past I have helped other people similar to you
solve problems similar to yours. Now, here's how we do it; here's
how together we will solve your problems.” Now the circle is
complete.
What it says about you: experienced.
A clear and powerful process story speaks volumes about you and your
company. It says you have been down this road many times before —
so many times, in fact, you have created your own map for how to
traverse this territory. You know all the twists and turns in the
road, and you also know where the potholes are and how to avoid
them.
Thoughtful and empathetic.
A clear and powerful process story says you have thought deeply
about the kind of customer experience you want to create for them.
You have put yourself in their shoes, and you understand what will
be most helpful to them in addressing and solving their problems.
You have seen the journey through their eyes.
Orderly.
A clear and powerful process story says you are systematic and
orderly. Because of your method, none of the pieces will fall
through the cracks. Every piece will be handled smartly and
expeditiously.
Careful.
A clear and powerful process story says you don't shoot from the
hip, but you work carefully through a problem to find the best
solutions. It says you don't glibly hand out quick answers, but you
have an organized way to find the right answers. Today’s astute
consumers understand that because the world is changing so rapidly,
today’s clever answers will be wrong tomorrow. Instead of clever
answers, you offer your customers a caring relationship and a
thoughtful process for finding the right answers regardless of
changes in the environment.
Customized.
A clear and powerful process story says it will be easy for you to
create a customized solution for these prospective customers.
Because much of the process is already thought through and laid out
in advance, you will have plenty of time and attention to focus on
the uniqueness of their situation.
Collaborative.
A clear and powerful process story says you will involve them in the
process of finding the right answers for their problems. It says
you believe in collaboration and teamwork. It says you believe
their thinking is as vital to the process as your thinking. It
says you value them, and the role they will play in solving their
problems with you.
In today’s competitive business environment, there is nothing more
essential to your success than having a clear and simple customer
process and a clear and simple story of your process. It turns
prospects into customers, and customers into happy, satisfied
customers who tell others what a great job your company did for
them. What could be more valuable?
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
April 2011
Osceola McCarty: The Rest of the Story
Osceola McCarty, a black washerwoman from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, single-handedly changed the definition of philanthropy at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Here’s the inside story of her amazing donation.
[Personal note: I was a professor of business law at the University of
Southern Mississippi in the mid-1980’s and later was associated with the U.S.M. Foundation’s Estate Planning Advisory Board.
I was vice-president and trust officer at Trustmark National Bank in the late 1980’s, where I was acquainted with some of the
participants in these events.]
In 1995, at the age of 87, Osceola McCarty had a problem.
This simple, hardworking lady had saved and penny-pinched her way to an estate worth over $200,000 and she
wasn’t sure what to do with it. The tellers at Trustmark National Bank sent her to see Paul Laughlin,
the bank’s assistant vice-president and trust officer.
Listening to her story, Paul learned that Osceola had washed and
ironed other people’s clothes all her life until she “retired” at age 86 due to arthritis in her hands. She had never married
and never had any children. Most of “her people” had passed away earlier, so she needed some advice on what to do with her life savings.
Paul, recognizing her lack of formal education, used a masterful approach to uncover her deeply-held passions. He took out 10 dimes and spread them on the coffee table in front of her. “Miss Osceola,” he said, “show me with the dimes what you want to do with your money.”
“Well,” she began, picking up the first dime, “I’ve always believed in tithing, so this one’s got to go to the church.”
“And I’ve got two nieces and a nephew I want to help,” she continued, picking up three more dimes. “These are for them.”
Then she hesitated.
“And what about the rest?” Paul queried.
She studied Paul as if to see if she could trust him, smiled nervously, took a deep breath, and said, “You know, I always wanted to be a teacher. But my auntie got sick when I was in the sixth grade, and she didn’t have anybody to take care of her. I stopped going to school to tend her, and I was never able to go back. After she died, I was too far behind, so I just kept working, washing and ironing and saving my money. So I never got to be a teacher.”
Her eyes filled with tears. She paused and looked away, then composed herself and went on.
“But I understand the college in town helps black kids become teachers. I want to help them.”
“You mean the University of Southern Mississippi?” Paul asked.
“Yes, that’s the one,” she replied.
“What do you know about the University of Southern Mississippi, Miss Osceola?”
“Actually, I’ve never even seen the place. It’s too far to walk and I never owned a car. But I understand they help black kids become teachers. I’m too old to do it myself, but I’d like to help some of them become teachers.”
Paul wisely recognized that she would have needs during the rest of her lifetime, so he helped her set up what we in the business would call a charitable remainder arrangement. The fund provided income to her during her lifetime, then went to the University of Southern Mississippi to pay for scholarships for black students in education.
Paul also realized that sometimes, the story about a gift can be more valuable than the gift itself. He got her permission to tell the University about her donation.
News of that gift hit the University of Southern Mississippi and the town of Hattiesburg like a Category 5 hurricane. The whole community was electrified! A lot of people with a lot more money than Osceola McCarty looked at themselves and asked, “Wow, if a black washerwoman can do something like that, what’s wrong with me?”
Long before she died and her $150,000 gift passed to the University, there were millions of dollars in the Osceola McCarty Scholarship Fund, helping to fund scholarships for needy black students in education. Her gift changed hundreds of lives.
It changed her life too. This humble little lady finally saw with her own eyes the University of Southern Mississippi, where they awarded her the first honorary degree in the history of the school. She saw the whole country. She saw the White House—from the inside, where President Clinton awarded her the Presidential Citizen’s Medal and scores of other humanitarian honors. Harvard University awarded her an honorary doctorate and she won the United Nations’ coveted Avicenna Medal for educational commitment.
Through it all, she retained her grace and humility. "I can't do everything," she said, "but I can do something to help somebody. And what I can do I will do. I wish I could do more."
* * *
From this amazing story, we can recognize at least four powerful principles relevant to the world of charitable giving.
1) Every meaningful donation begins with a conversation.
2) If we listen attentively to the donor's story, we can discover their passions, why they want to give.
3) Once we understand the “why” of giving, it’s easy to figure out the “how.”
4) Sometimes the story about a gift is more valuable than the gift itself.
Our goal at SunBridge is to increase philanthropic giving by providing nonprofit organizations and their representatives appropriate and enduring tools to keep their donors close. We designed The Legacy Chat process to provide charities a toolkit that, when thoughtfully presented and used, can help deepen the relationship between donors and the organizations they support and the causes they care about. Ultimately, the donor experience of using and passing on their personal Legacy Chat will demonstrate the nonprofit’s gratitude for their generosity, and encourage giving for the generations that follow them. For more information, please visit
www.TheLegacyChat.com.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
April 2011
Moving From Level One to Level Two
I believe that both professional advisors and their clients and donors are ill-served when the only option available is the traditional Flatland model of planning focused on transactions, money, analytics, and quick fixes. I call that model of planning Level One.
At SunBridge we have developed an alternative story-based approach that is more suitable for many clients and donors (and their advisors) because it addresses their deeper human concerns, it acknowledges that their real wealth is not limited to those things that can be tallied on a balance sheet, and it recognizes that many of the most important questions in planning cannot be answered with a number. In short, Level-Two planning produces better bottom-line results as well as better human results.
So how can a financial advisor, an estate planner, or a philanthropic professional move confidently from the Flatland world of Level One to the multidimensional world of Level Two? Even though this shift employs story, the natural medium we all live in and our common native language, it’s not always easy for us to make this change.
In many cases, vaulting permanently into the rewarding world of Level-Two advising demands work, commitment, and persistence. Getting to Level Two often requires us to hack our way through the underbrush of years and perhaps decades of Level-One indoctrination and training. It sometimes necessitates replacing lots of deeply imbedded old habits by gently cultivating new habits and then strengthening them over time.
Such a transformation is not an instantaneous event but is an ongoing process. It requires four essential ingredients that must be persistently applied and re-applied in generous quantities. They are: 1) a new mind-set; 2) a new skill-set; 3) a new tool-set; and 4) a new support-set. These four steps are illustrated in a teaching tool we use at SunBridge called “Taking Charge.”
A New Mind-Set. To successfully effect the transformation from Level One to Level Two, we must first develop
a new mind-set. We must think differently about who we are, about who our clients or donors are, about what wealth is, about the purpose and meaning of our work, and about the value we are trying to create in the world. Until this mental shift happens, the conversion cannot really start to develop. Until we can truly see ourselves as operating comfortably and authentically in this new multidimensional realm, our transformation will not make much progress.
Without a soul-deep shift in our thinking, everything else we may attempt toward moving to Level Two will turn out to be shallow and artificial. Being a Level-Two advisor is not a garb we put on for certain occasions, nor is it a set of techniques we employ for effect. It is a way of thinking, a way of feeling, indeed, a way of being. It all begins with a new mind-set.
A New Skill-Set. Once our thinking has shifted, the next step in the transformation process is to develop
a new skill-set. Operating successfully at Level Two requires that we employ additional capabilities beyond those we used in Flatland. Level-One skills are not jettisoned as we are converted into a Level-Two advisor; we still need them just as much. But we must add further strengths and talents to our repertoire.
Developing these new Level-Two skills is an on-going process that can last a lifetime, but fortunately we don’t have to be perfect at all of them to get started. What we do need from the start is an attitude of openness and teachability, a willingness to learn, experiment, and practice. It also helps to have patience with ourselves while in the learning curve, and the courage to dare to be ugly as our new skill-set is maturing.
A New Tool-Set. Working effectively and efficiently in the rarified air of Level Two will require us to employ
a new tool-set. Tools — whether simple tools like the wheel, the lever, or the inclined plane, or complex tools like the computer, the automobile, or the airplane — are devices that allow us to accomplish bigger results with less exertion, in less time, with less resistance, and/or at a lower cost than we could achieve working with our bare hands.
Given the huge expenditure of energy and attention required for most of us to transform ourselves and our practices from Level One to Level Two, we probably couldn’t pull it off without a smart set of new tools, custom-designed for the task. We would simply wear out before we arrived or would get lost along the way.
A New Support-Set. Finally, given our human tendencies to slip back into old patterns, fall back into old habits, or run out of resolve, we will need
a new support-set in order to complete this transformation. We need scaffolding to prop us up and an outside push to keep us moving forward as we embrace this new approach to life and work. We need goals and deadlines and accountability. We need pioneers who have blazed the trail ahead and guides and outfitters for the journey. We need coaches and teammates and cheerleaders and more-experienced players as role-models.
Hopefully, we can develop a community of like-minded colleagues who are on the same journey, a circle of friends who share our vision and who are willing to help us as we help them. In this case, it really does take a village.
The SunBridge Legacy Builder Retreat, The Advanced Legacy Builder Retreat, The Legacy Builder Network, and The Legacy Chat Workshop provide the new mind-set, skill-set, tool-set, and support-set that thoughtful advisors need to effect this transition. I invite financial advisors and estate planners to learn more at
www.SunBridgeLegacy.com, and I invite philanthropic professionals to learn more at
www.TheLegacyChat.com.
* * *
I believe that any significant and lasting change in human behavior must progress through the four steps outlined in the “Taking Charge” graphic image shown above. It is one thing to use this process to change ourselves. It is quite another to use it to help our clients and donors make significant and lasting changes within themselves.
In their seminal book,
The Experience Economy, Joseph Pine and James Gilmore identify
the ultimate economic offering to be, contrary to the title of their book,
not “staging experiences,” but rather “guiding transformations” — helping customers change their lives. They predict that “[o]nce the Experience Economy has run its course, the
Transformation Economy will take over. Then the basis of success will be in understanding the aspirations of individual consumers and businesses and guiding them to fully realize these aspirations.”
When our Level-Two clients and donors start coming to us seeking help to change some aspect of themselves, their family dynamics, their businesses, or their legacies, we begin to move into the realm of the Level-Three Advisor. That’s when this “Taking Charge” four-step model really starts to get valuable and exciting. And that’s a subject for a future article. Please stay tuned.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
March 2011
Level One --
Clinging Tightly to a Sinking Ship
Osceola McCarty, a black
washerwoman from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, singleHere at SunBridge we teach that there are three potential levels of service and relationship between financial advisors, estate planners, and philanthropic professionals and their clients and donors. The deficiency of Level One planning is that it reduces client and donor service to a transaction-based activity centered around money.
Such activity, while undeniably part of the “elephant,” is just one part. Money actually is not the most important form of a client’s wealth, but we professionals have trained clients and donors to believe it is, to the point that they don’t think of their wealth as something beyond money and property, and don’t even realize that they can and should be asking us questions of value and meaning that go well beyond this.
I think the traditional, linear form of client and donor service is like the Titanic headed straight for the iceberg. Financial advisors, estate planners, and philanthropic professionals who cling to this ship now find themselves dealing with a generation of consumers who have come of age, have more material wealth than ever before, and bring higher expectations than any preceding generation that the key advisors in their life will be men and women with insight, awareness, and compatible values.
As a result, advisors who still practice at Level One are coming to realize that they have to, as Lewis Carroll put it, “run twice as fast as they can just to stay in the same place” when it comes to marketing. They have to continually bring in new business, but as long as this new business focuses on quick-fixes and transactions, every sale or every donation essentially means they will have to start over tomorrow.
At Level One, it’s difficult even to imagine ways to add value, but without added value, the relationship with the client remains little more than an isolated, hit-and-run encounter. Further, the clients of Level-One financial advisors often put off long-term, whole-life planning, which leaves the advisor in the unenviable position of having to persuade the client to make a commitment to financial services he or she needs. And when the market declines sharply, as it has done several times in the last few years, there’s a lot of blame and finger-pointing, and eventually shuffling of accounts. With no reservoir of good will based on deep relationships, that’s not surprising.
For
estate planners, it’s even worse, because the Level-One service they provide usually centers on death and disability — issues that people routinely put off until, for whatever reason, they can’t postpone them any longer. As a result, the Level-One estate planner is constantly working uphill. He or she has no context for answering the question, “What do you talk about with clients after you’ve covered taxes, death, and disability?” And what do you talk about in the first place when there are few tax issues to consider, as is the case for most clients today? Not surprisingly, a substantial number of estate plans are never signed, even by clients who have already paid for them.
In the case of
philanthropic professionals, working at Level One is a shallow game of hide and seek, a frustrating chase that has become increasingly difficult in a world when every prospective donor can screen his or her calls, emails, and texts, and who ignores every direct-mail piece the nonprofit sends. There is a constantly growing need for more giving, and sharply increased pressure from the organization to raise more money, but a diminishing pool of contact-able donors to respond to the fund-raisers’ pleas.
Over time, even those few who do listen will tune out or die off. It can be a dreary prospect, pushing the philanthropic professional to move on to yet another nonprofit in search of greener pastures. Unfortunately, there is usually no more grass in the new place than there was in the old.
It is my view that continuing to perpetuate a Level One model of professional practice in today’s world is a recipe for personal and professional disaster. Beyond the consequences for the client or donor imposed by Level One service, there are serious side effects for the advisor — side effects that fairly compel us to ask new questions and, eventually, to move into a reality with options for greater depth. Some of the more serious effects for the advisor are:
1. The products and services that the advisor offers are largely indistinguishable from those offered by competitors (except perhaps on the basis of price), making positioning all but impossible. As a result, these products and services — and by association, the advisor himself — become commoditized. This drives down value and price, making it necessary for the advisor to offset shrinking profit margins by constantly increasing the number of sales just to maintain the same level of income, which creates a marketing reality of diminishing returns;
2. Because there really is no deep and engaging relationship with the client or donor, eventually, the advisor becomes bored with the repetitive, “cookie cutter” quality of the services he or she provides. No client or donor is going to be more enthusiastic about working with you than you are about working with them. This is why so many professionals experience burnout after even a relatively few number of years in practice;
3. The stability of the advisor’s practice remains highly susceptible to shifting economic, legislative, and market conditions. Because the practice is predicated on numbers alone, any changes in laws, regulations, national or world economic conditions, or other factors that affect the numbers, will directly — and often adversely — affect the practice. The unpredictability of such an arrangement fosters a sense of anxiety in the advisor about the future that aggravates the already unsettling marketing reality;
4. A schism develops b etween th Sharing and Saving a Lifetime of Stories
e advisor’s work and personal life that greatly reduces his or her ability to be useful to clients and donors. While many things may have great relevance and meaning to the advisor personally, there exists no conduit for incorporating these into the professional practice. The sense of work as something fundamentally separate from life increases, with corresponding increases in tedium, indifference, and suspicions of irrelevance apart from dollar values alone. And ultimately, dollar values alone cannot provide any deep or lasting job satisfaction or feeling of usefulness and purpose.
Even financially successful advisors are starting to question the stress, tenuousness, and dearth of personal fulfillment inherent in perpetuating a practice limited to Level One client service. For example, Mark is an estate planner in a large southwestern city who has a steady stream of clients and a lucrative business, but he’s grown bored with the repetitive nature of his practice and alarmed about the effects of Congressional tampering with the estate tax laws and the threat that they’ll be eliminated altogether.
“Work just isn’t fun anymore,” he confided in me. “I didn’t get into this profession to become a mechanic, but that’s what it feels like a lot of the time.” Staying at Level One is a formula for boredom and burnout, one that leads to the advisor getting stuck on what we in SunBridge call “the marketing merry-go-round,” because the advisor has to keep pushing people into the pipeline as clients and donors move quickly in and out of the professional relationship.
I firmly believe that professional advisors who do not rise to the challenge of meeting the needs of their clients and donors as human beings, who do not shift beyond the old transaction-based approach to client and donor service, will have increasing difficulty succeeding and even surviving professionally in the years just ahead. They will be clinging tightly to a sinking ship.
At SunBridge, we are charting a new course to a truly client- or donor-centered model of practice, where the advisor meets the client or donor at whatever level the client or donor may be, and then invites the client or donor to move — at the client or donor’s pace — to increasingly more profound levels of advisor/client relationship.
Ultimately, at Level Three, the professional advisor serves clients or donors as an architect of sorts, helping them define and design a future of greater abundance, purpose, and significance, and then as a general contractor in turning their blueprint into reality. Those who are able to envision a future for themselves of working with their clients or donors in this way are enjoying greater abundance, purpose, and significance in their own lives, as they produce the same result for those they serve. We invite you to explore this brave new world with us.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
February 11
Selling the Invisible
Most of us make a living selling something that can’t be seen, can’t be touched, can’t be tasted, smelled, or heard. We sell services.
Unlike ice cream or perfume or a brand new car, which purchasers can experience with their senses, what we offer is invisible, intangible, and has no taste. Whatever “it” is that we sell, “it” happens largely inside the customers’ brains.
So how do we persuade our customers to buy from us something that has little or no sensory input?
Surprisingly, in the same way marketers sell Haagen-Dazs, Obsession, or a shiny new Lexus.
Those products are sold when their sellers succeed in creating inside the minds of their customers a future story of pleasure experienced or pain avoided.
Take for example, every perfume commercial you’ve ever seen. What are they selling? Romance, adventure, seduction. Or at least the imagined hope of it. Buy this perfume, dab it on, and that’s what will happen to you. Can’t you just picture it?
Or consider all those Lexus commercials last December. You know, the ones with the devilishly beautiful couple still in their pajamas on Christmas morning, one leading the other out to magically unveil the shiny new car with the big red bow on top. What are they selling? An over-the-top surprise gift, leading to overwhelming gratitude on the part of the [wife, husband, girl friend, boy friend], leading to ... Well, you get the idea.
The key to the sale is the future story brought to life inside the mind of the prospective customer.
This is just as true for you as for your local Lexus dealer: To sell a professional relationship with you, you must bring to life inside your prospect’s mind a narrative of a shared future, one in which they are finding happiness or avoiding danger because you are a part of their life.
“Great,” you say, “but how do I do that without the benefit of sensuous smells, new leather seats, and a million dollar TV advertising budget?”
My answer: learn to master the art of story.
There’s something different about the way a story touches us and inspires us and moves us to take action, compared to other ways of communicating. Steve Sabo captured the essence of this difference when he stated:
Tell me a fact and I’ll learn.
Tell me a truth and I’ll believe.
Tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.
It is not altogether clear why stories have such impact, but I believe it has to do with the way the two sides of our brains operate. It is thought that the left hemisphere is the critical, analytical side. Its function is to process numbers, evaluate data, and keep things neat and tidy. The right hemisphere, by contrast, is the intuitive, creative side. Its function is to think imaginatively, handle abstractions, and form and decipher stories. Storytelling and story listening are definitely right-brain activities.
The mental picture I have is that when story-based information is directed toward our brains, it gets routed to the right side, whereas numbers, statistics, and logical arguments are directed to the left side of the brain. Upon arrival, bundles of information sent to the left side (numbers, statistics, and logical arguments) are scrutinized and critiqued careful and skeptically, because that’s what the left brain does.
Story-based information, on the other hand, is subject to less cynical review because that’s the way the right brain operates. It’s as if stories bypass the harsher scrub-down and go straight into the system. And since most of our important decisions are made intuitively and then later justified analytically, stories can be very potent in moving us to action. When it comes to touching hearts and affecting behavior, a well-placed story is almost always more effective than numbers, statistics, and logical arguments.
Stories Connect Us on a Human Level
I have learned that stories are the real ties that bind, regardless of the type of relationship. Sharing stories is an honoring, intimate experience that results in feelings of closeness and affection.
Sharing stories is the best way in the world to connect with people, to understand them, and for them to feel understood. We create genuine human connection by sharing the stories of our lives. As we share experiences back and forth, we start connecting on a personal level. It’s very natural and comfortable.
I believe that we human beings are hardwired to connect with each other through story and to share important information, both factual and emotional, by sharing stories. For thousands of years, we sat around the community fire sharing the events of the day. We sat on the porch and rocked and talked about life. We shared happenings at the family table. We told our children stories at bedtime. We hung around the fishing hole weaving tales waiting for the fish to bite.
Today, however, with Twitter and iPods, text messaging and life’s busy pace, we don’t seem to have nearly as much time for story sharing. Nevertheless, I think it is still a basic human need to tell stories and to hear them.
Because this deep need to share stories is still strong within us but is so seldom honored in today’s world, when you offer to listen and share stories with prospects and customers, they appreciate it and they connect with you. As a result, they start to feel comfortable with you and trust you. One of the most important things you can do in an initial meeting is to use stories to nurture a relationship of sufficient trust so that when you ultimately offer your advice, prospective customers will accept your recommendations and implement them.
Stories Create Empathy and Understanding
By sharing stories, we are briefly able to see the world—or at least a part of it—from another’s vantage point. We take in their words, their tone, and their body language through our senses and send them on to our minds, where they become the catalyst for our own internal reconstruction of the life experiences they are sharing with us. Their stories remake the neuron structure of our brains, and thus they literally become a part of us. True empathy and connection occur.
Just as story sharing builds human to human connections, conversely, whenever people reduce or terminate story sharing between themselves, their relationships are weakened. If you look closely at any relationship that is fading or already dead, you will find the parties to the relationship—whether friends, a married couple, family members, management and labor, or even nations—no longer share stories.
In fact, if you work back upstream to the point in time when the relationship turned from good to bad, you will discover it was at that moment that the parties stopped listening to each other’s stories and stopped trying to tell them to each other. I’m not sure which is cause and which is effect, but I’m certain that, left unchecked, the cessation of story sharing is an unmistakable harbinger of the death of the relationship. Strong and lasting human relationships require the sharing of stories.
A Secret about Stories
We connect with those who listen to our stories, and we cherish those whose stories we have truly heard. Through stories, we understand their world and they understand ours.
The fact that this can happen quickly, almost immediately, is one of the keys to honest and authentic professional selling. When two people meet at the story level, they don’t need decades of memories to create a meaningful friendship. They become friends by creating a positive story of their future together. Friendships turn prospects into customers.
My third book, Double Your Sales:
An Honest and Authentic Approach to Professional Selling, is based on these principles. It teaches how to use story to connect, to humanize, to warn, to encourage, to clarify, and to share information, both personal and professional.
Most importantly, it shows
how to use stories to create between you and prospective customers a shared narrative of your future together. It allows both you and them to visualize a tomorrow in which you are working together for your mutual benefit. Without that, few if any sales are likely to happen.
Fortunately, you don’t have to become a professional storyteller to be a successful salesperson. You don’t have to understand all the details about stories and how they work, any more than you must be able to service a modern computerized, fuel-injected automobile to successfully drive it. It doesn’t hurt to know those things, but it’s definitely not required. Your innate skills as a storyteller and a story listener, with a little practice and a little polish and with an engagement process based on a sequence of storytelling and story listening will be enough.
But the key is to remember that the most important story of all is the one being created in the mind of your prospect – a future story of pleasure experienced or pain avoided, resulting from their relationship with you and their implementation of your client process. That is the way to sell the invisible.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
January 2011
The Life Circle: Roadmap to Better Planning
Financial and estate planners traditionally have focused on money and property as the defining elements of a client’s wealth. But consider this: If your house were on fire, and you had time to save only one possession, which do you think it would be: the cash in the top drawer of the dresser or your family albums with the only photos of your children as babies?
Money has value, but only quantitative value. We inherently understand that many things hold far greater value than money, and we readily would part company with all our money rather than lose something that holds tremendous emotional value for us. As the MasterCard commercials rightly recognize, we can buy many things of value with money, but some things are “priceless.”
Now, here’s a fascinating question for you as a professional: If you asked your clients the “burning house” question, what would you expect their answers to be? Wouldn’t you be surprised if even one of your clients said that they would forfeit the irreplaceable photo albums in order to save the cash?
If so, this means that you already recognize that real wealth is not limited to money and property. It’s just that, until now, in the traditional world of financial and estate planning, the wealth of a client’s life—the admittedly greater wealth that belongs not to money but to meaning, history, relationships, purpose—this wealth has been “none of your business.” It’s personal, and traditional financial and estate planning are largely impersonal. And this is exactly what changes when we enter the world of Level-Two client service. It becomes personal indeed, to the point that the client’s
most meaningful wealth informs the decisions that determine how the client’s money and property are managed.
It is crucial to understand that these areas of wealth, which Level-One client service largely ignores or, at best, regards as incidental, move to center stage in Level-Two client service. The ancillary questions that you may or may not have asked a client earlier will now become the crucial, defining ones— questions about the things they value most. such as their heritage, personal history, and values.
Before we discuss how you can do this, let’s look at a map of what a client’s comprehensive wealth typically includes. We call this map the Life Circle. It’s actually a tremendously useful tool to have on the desk when talking to a client, as it illuminates, in a highly visual way, the Level-Two axiom that a client’s wealth is far more than his or her material assets.
You can readily see that Level-One client service deals only with the upper left quadrant, the “Financial” area, essentially ignoring the other three areas as well as the areas in the center. This way of thinking has led us to ignore more than 75% of our potential usefulness as financial professionals whose purpose is to advise clients in the management of their wealth.
Of course, we didn’t realize this. We may have thought of the categories contained in the center and upper right and lower quadrants as the province of genealogists, therapists, clergy—but certainly not the hard and impersonal lines of financial advising. We simply haven’t had the vision, concepts, methods, and tools needed to acknowledge and work with them. The simple truth is, whatever a client values is part of his or her wealth. As such, it may directly or indirectly affect decisions involving any area of wealth, including finances.
As professional advisors, we’re trained to focus on the financial, legal, investment, and tax issues that affect our clients’ wealth. This is all good, solid, Level-One thinking. But we shortchange our clients if the services we provide fail to take into account and appreciate their wealth as extending far beyond money and property alone, because the most significant wealth we possess as human beings is not material. Material wealth, considered in isolation, is devoid of any real or enduring meaning. If our services deal only with the client’s money and property, and ignore the client as a human being, then those services are similarly devoid of any real or enduring value.
The Life Circle reminds us that clients come to us with a heritage that connects them to a past, to people and places, cultures and traditions out of which they emerged into their present life. Each client is part of a family that has shaped his or her identity, beliefs, and values. All belong to a larger human community through friends, work, the organizations to which they belong, and the causes they hold dear.
Through the stories of their past and their vision of the future, they naturally seek to learn and grow humanly, to live whatever spiritual life speaks to them, to be responsible and skillful stewards of their life’s riches, to shape their destiny, and to move into ever deeper fulfillment of their life’s meaning and purpose. Properly addressed, understood, and applied, these non-material assets inform the client’s material wealth with meaning and purpose, and establish real and lasting value in the professional relationship.
The Life Circle is a visual reminder that we humans are so much more than our bank accounts. It helps us to remember what’s most important, and to make sure that we acknowledge, appreciate, and honor this in the way we provide service.
We sometimes use The Life Circle as a roadmap to help us visit the stories that shed light on the key components of a good plan. Those stories will lead us to answers to questions like “What do you see as your life’s purpose, and how did you come to understand what it was?” and “Who do you consider ‘family’ and what do each of them mean to you?” and “Besides your family, who else is important in your life and why?” and “What causes and organizations do you stand behind and what led you to feel that way?”
As those stories are shared, they lead the clients and us to consider, for each dimension of their lives, another important set of questions: “How do you personally define success in each of these areas of your life?” Once again, the answers reside in the client’s stories. Once again, by listening attentively and lovingly to their stories, we can glean the true answers. We can then ask the next questions, the questions at the heart of the matter: “What is still missing for you to feel successful in each dimension of your life and how can we help you achieve it? What are the stories you want to be able to tell about your life’s purpose, your family, your community, and your financial well-being, and how can we help you be able to tell them?”
The Life Circle reminds us that all the pieces of life are interrelated; similarly, all the stories are interrelated. A meaning of money story can tell us just as much about the meaning of family or the meaning of community as about the meaning of money. And the same principle applies to financial plans and estate plans: it’s never just about the money, because everything we do with the money affects the other pieces. It affects family relationships, it affects our footprint in the communities we care about, it affects our ability to live our life with purpose.
The Life Circle, in the hands of a caring SunBridge advisor, helps us understand and then piece together the most important parts of our life in a plan that reflects our deepest values. The Life Circle is the roadmap that leads to deeper, richer, more meaningful planning
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
December 2011
Give the Gift of Self
“Silver and gold are not gifts, but only excuses for gifts. The only true gifts are gifts of self.” Anon.
In this season of gift-giving, it’s easy to get sucked into a frenzy of gift-buying. The urgency of checking off our list can seduce us into focusing on gifts that come from a store and can be tied up with a bow.
Surely they’ll be appreciated when opened, but just as surely they’ll soon lose their luster and be forgotten. The truth is, most of what we purchase in our gift-giving frenzies are things the recipients don’t really need. A comment by Dallin Oakes, my university president in my undergraduate days, explains why these gifts ultimately leave both giver and receiver feeling empty:
“You can never get enough of what you don’t need, because what you don’t need won’t satisfy you.”
What they do need—and what we all need—more of is a little more old-fashioned human kindness.
I’d like to suggest that in lieu of (or perhaps in addition to) those store-bought gifts, we consider giving gifts that are a little piece of ourselves. But what to give? I believe if we pause and take time to ask ourselves one simple question, we’ll know what to give.
What can I do to demonstrate my love, esteem, respect, or appreciation for this person?
Note that the question invites us to “do” and to “demonstrate.” Loving, esteeming, respecting, and appreciating all call for expression and action.
Here is a short list to get you started. I’m sure your list will be much longer and more specific than this one.
Listen.
Listen generously.
Listen generously to their stories.
Ask how they’re feeling.
Ask how they’re really feeling, and pay close attention to their answer.
Share.
Share what’s in your heart.
Share the stories in your heart.
Express appreciation.
Express appreciation that is specific, sincere, and succinct.
Express appreciation that is specific, sincere, and succinct in a written note.
Seek to understand.
Seek to understand, then to be understood.
Forgive.
Ask for their forgiveness.
Call.
Call just to say hello.
Call just to say hello and forget about the time.
Bake their favorite cookies.
Bake their favorite cookies and then eat them together.
Share some photographs together.
Hug.
Hug long and hard.
Hug long and hard, look them in the eyes, and say “I love you.”
Hug long and hard, look them in the eyes, say “I love you, and here’s why . . .”
By now, you get the picture. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
November 2010
What do you do at work, Daddy?
When they were smaller, my children used to ask what I did at work. When you’re not a fireman or a police officer but an estate planner and financial advisor, it’s a bit challenging to describe what you do to a five-year-old. As they grew, though, they figured out what estate planners and financial advisors generally do.
But in 1998 we moved to Orlando and shortly thereafter I started SunBridge. That renewed their uncertainty. Today, even though they’re smart and mature, they still have a hard time following the evolutions of this company.
They’re not alone. Professional colleagues frequently ask: “What all do you do at SunBridge? You seem to have such a wide array of offerings that it’s hard to understand them all.”
So, anticipating my family’s questions as we gather this Thanksgiving at my daughter’s new home in Wilson, North Carolina, and hoping to craft an answer that will also satisfy those professional queries, I wrote out the following description.
To my dear and precious Elisabeth, Nathaniel, Sara, Kate, Evan, and Paul (and all of my wonderful professional colleagues)—here’s what I do at work:
Our mission at SunBridge is to touch hearts and change lives. We do this by providing practical, affordable, and innovative training, tools, and support to professional advisors and to select client families in our area. Here’s a summary of our programs.
Services for Professional Advisors:
The Legacy Builder Network is a community of caring professionals who tap into the power of family heritage and legacy stories to develop deep, meaningful relationships with their clients and design financial, estate, and philanthropic plans that are based on their clients' most significant vision, values, and purposes. See
www.SunBridgeLegacy.com.
The KEY Advisor Network is an alliance of attorneys and financial advisors who provide middle-class and upper-middle-class families the training, tools, and support they need to navigate the financial and legal issues of these turbulent times and to de-clutter their financial and legal lives, put their houses in order, get their ducks in a row---and keep them there. See
www.SunBridgeKeyAdvisors.com.
Double Your Sales Professional Training is a client engagement system based on a sequence of simple stories that helps honest and authentic professionals connect with people more quickly and effectively and allows them to turn more prospects into customers—customers who buy, who buy more, and who buy more often. See
www.DoubleYourSalesNow.com.
Time to Think Teaching and Coaching is an approach to leadership and professional services based on the observation that the quality of everything we do depends on the quality of the thinking we do first, and the recognition that the environment we create will determine whether those around us can think for themselves with rigor, imagination, courage and grace. See
www.TimetoThink.com
and
http://www.sunbridgenetwork.com/TTT.html.
Services for Client Families:
SunBridge KEY Advisor Planning is a common-sense, down-to-earth program for giving middle-class and upper-middle-class families in the Orlando area the training, tools, and support they need to navigate the financial and legal issues of these turbulent times, and to de-clutter their financial and legal lives, put their houses in order, get their ducks in a row---and keep them there. See
www.SunBridgeKeyAdvisors.com.
Legacy Planning Associates is a comprehensive process for high-end Florida families in which hard-core legal, tax and estate planning is integrated with family vision, virtues, and values for a lasting legacy, assuring that a family’s heritage, faith and life’s purpose are the foundation on which to shape future generations of healthy, productive, and responsible children and grandchildren. See
www.LegacyPlans.com.
The Money & Success Client Connection System is my process for engaging new clients. I use a Double Your Sales-based “Get Acquainted Conversation” to set up a deeply-connective Meaning of Money Priceless Conversation, which leads to customized estate or financial plan based on their money stories. Later, I use the Meaning of Success Priceless Conversation to begin a long-term advisory relationship by discovering what elements of success are still missing for them. See
http://www.sunbridgenetwork.com/Money_and_SuccessHOME.html.
That’s it. Seven programs. All based on the power of connection, the power of story, and the power of thoughtful, integrated, people-centered processes.
In this effort, I am blessed with the greatest help on the planet. Sharon Greenway and Cyndi Campbell are the other members of the SunBridge team, and my partners at Legacy Planning Associates are Mike Cummins and Mary Tomlinson. Each one is brilliant, creative, hard-working, generous, and full of integrity. I’m thankful I get to work with them.
I’m also thankful for the blessing of being able to work with some of the most exceptional professional advisors and client families anywhere. Something attracts the best and the brightest and the most caring to our networks and programs—the kind of folks you’d pick to hang out with as friends if you could pick anybody. What I said about Sharon, Cyndi, Mike, and Mary— brilliant, creative, hard-working, generous, and full of integrity—is equally true about the advisors and client families we serve. Every minute spent with them is a treat.
As you can see, I have a lot to be thankful for. Life is good when you love the work you do and the people you do it with. As I’ve often said, if you want the perfect job, sometimes you just have to go out and build it yourself.
So now let’s get on with the turkey and dressing.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
October 2010
Knee Pads: An Eye to See, A Heart to Care, and a Will to Act?
I heard a story this week at our SunBridge team meeting that I think must be shared. While Sharon Greenway will no doubt be embarrassed for others to know about it, her story must be told.
Sharon, our incredibly capable Chief Operations Officer, is an avid volleyball player, and she has passed on her passion for the game to her daughter, a high school freshman. Sarina is so passionate about the game that even though she is in a brand-new school this year, she is a full-time starter on the junior varsity volleyball team at Olympia High.
Last week, Olympia’s varsity and junior varsity teams played the teams at Evans High. Evans High is a struggling, traditionally black school in a low-income, high-crime section of Orlando. Athletics is one of the few positive outlets for a student body that doesn’t have many bright spots in their challenging lives. The matches were epic struggles between determined competitors, but ultimately the Olympia girls—most of whom play club volleyball on national traveling teams—were victorious.
But that’s not the story here.
As Sharon watched the two teams play, she noticed that, of the 24 girls on the Evans teams, only five had knee pads. To a serious volleyball player, knee pads are like shoulder pads to a football player or shin guards to a soccer player: you just don’t play without them. And yet, here were 19 girls who didn’t have them, scuffing and scraping their knees whenever they went to the floor.
Those bruised and bloody knees really bothered Sharon. Yes, those girls were competitors, but they were people first—people who couldn’t afford the proper equipment to compete fairly. That just wasn’t right.
But rather than shrug her shoulders, high-five her daughter and her teammates for their victories, and return home to her comfortable neighborhood, Sharon decided something had to be done.
She launched a campaign to round up knee pads for the entire Evans roster. She first contacted the parents of the Olympia players. Many had “extra” sets of knee pads they could give. Some wrote checks. Then Sharon reached out to her daughter’s club volleyball team and their parents. They too were inspired by Sharon’s leadership and an obvious need.
In short order, there were enough and to spare, for every girl on the Evans High volleyball teams to have her own pair of kneepads. The Olympia coach has invited the Evans teams to a joint clinic where each Olympia player will present kneepads to their opposite number from Evans. No more bruised and bloody knees for the Evans High volleyball team.
I’m sure there are some surly people who might point out that knee pads are not on the same plane as food, shelter, and medical care, but they would miss the larger point. I believe that any time there is a need we are able to address, we have a moral obligation to do so. The SIZE of the need is not nearly as significant as the EXISTENCE of the need.
I admire three things in this episode: First, Sharon perceived the need. How many other teams and how many other parents have played against Evans High this season and through the years, yet did not notice that only five players out of 24 had knee pads? How many were so caught up in winning the game that they failed to see the impact on the lives of those young girls?
Second, she cared. Having seen the need, she yearned to avoid a hurt, to right a wrong, to equalize an inequity. In her heart, she knew she could not turn a blind eye to what she had observed.
Then she acted. How many of our good intentions are ignored, or allowed to wither on the vine? How many acts of service are “procrastinated” into oblivion? How many of us “mean well,” but fail to DO well?
Here is the lesson I am taking away from the story of the kneepads: I will strive to have eyes to see, a heart to care, and a will to act, when I am in the presence of needs great or small. I cannot do everything, but I can—and I must—do something.
Thank you, Sharon, for teaching this lesson so eloquently.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
August 2010
What Does Money Mean to You?
The meaning of money is as unique and personal to each of us as our fingerprints. It is something we have acquired through a lifetime of experiences with money. Then in turn, like it or not, our lives become significantly defined by what money means to us. It shapes our personal identity, our relationships, our careers. It affects our sense of the past, our awareness of the present, and our vision of the future.
So why would we even consider entrusting our money to someone who doesn’t really understand what money means to us?
Whether we’re considering leaving money to children, grandchildren, or a charitable organization; or we’re about to turn over investment assets to a financial advisor; or we’re asking someone to help us make estate or financial plans, we should share our wealth only with those who are privy to the meaningful experiences that have shaped our understanding of what money is all about.
Those who would inherit our money need to know what it took to earn it and safeguard it, and they need to hear in our own words the lessons life has taught us about how to use wealth wisely. When an inheritance is combined with the wisdom to use it wisely, it can become a meaningful and lasting legacy.
Those who would manage or plan for our money need to appreciate the experiences that have influenced our sense of what money really stands for, and they need to understand how it fits in with the larger themes of our lives.
The best way for them to understand what money means to us is by hearing our “meaning of money” stories. Steve Sabo has pointed out that stories are the most powerful way of teaching and transforming:
Tell me a fact and I’ll learn.
Tell me a truth and I’ll believe.
Tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.
It is by sharing our experiences in our own words that we convey to them the important money lessons and insights of our lives that are critical to their wise use and management of our wealth.
Nearly half a century ago John F. Kennedy envisioned “a great future in which our country will match its wealth with our wisdom.” Using the power of our meaning of money stories, we can uncover a treasure house of wisdom about the meaning of money hidden within ourselves—wisdom that deserves to be shared and cherished for generations to come.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
July 2010
Story is the Key to Client Connections
Story is the key to a truly client-centered practice. As professional advisors, we actually begin to make the transition from transactional to relational when we become willing to meet clients on this common ground of sharing and listening to stories about what the client has been through, what events shaped and influenced his or her values, and what matters most. We shift from trying to get the client to understand why he needs our product or service, to understanding who the client is. This new direction is so basic that there isn’t an area of our practice that isn’t deeply affected by it.
This is true for at least two reasons: First, the stories of our experiences form the reality in which all of us live our lives. Who we each are as a person is defined not by what has happened to us, but by how we remember and describe what has happened to us. We have the inherent ability as human beings to choose our response to what the world does to us and to assign our own meanings to the world’s actions and our responses. Consequently, we are not the events of our lives; rather, we are the sum total of the stories we hold on to and tell about the events of our lives.
Second, story is our native language. Until we were a dozen or so years old, it is how we looked at and made sense of the world. It is how our parents taught us right from wrong. It is how we played (cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, Barbie and Ken) and how we learned. It is how we connected and communicated with those around us. It wasn’t until later that we learned how to be analytical. Even then, it wasn’t until law school, business school, or professional training that much of our native expression in story was replaced. But a part of us—and a big part of our clients—still longs for story, this most human of media.
I’ve learned first-hand this power of communicating in our common native language. I have a college degree in Portuguese, which I earned after I had spent a number of years in Brazil speaking Portuguese most of the time. Unfortunately, I subsequently lived for 20 years in places where no other person spoke Portuguese; consequently, I lost the ability to speak comfortably in this second language.
Now I live in the Orlando area and have frequent opportunities to speak Portuguese. But because of that 20-year hiatus, I have to work hard to be fully present in the conversation. I notice how tense I become as I struggle to remember how to express a certain thought, or conjugate a particular verb, or construct agreement between nouns and adjectives. I’m sure that I often miss the meanings of the other person’s statements, and certainly the nuances of tone and expression.
Occasionally the person I’m speaking with, recognizing that his or her English is better than my Portuguese, switches the conversation to English. It’s amazing for me to notice how I immediately relax, begin to enjoy the exchange of ideas, and grasp the whole conversation.
Clients may find that meeting with a financial advisor or attorney can be a stressful situation, especially as we discuss money, taxes, investment, death, or disability. As if this weren’t daunting enough, we often speak to them in our legal-ese, financial planner-ese, or analytical-ese. If we’re perceptive, we may notice how tense they become as they struggle to understand us, and to express themselves in the language of our transactional world.
But if we switch from the traditional, professional idiom into the client’s native language of story, the whole tone of the conversation changes. They relax, they enjoy the exchange of ideas, and they grasp more of what we’re seeking to share with them. More importantly, they begin to share who they are with us.
I have found that the best way to get comfortable with stories is to begin telling your own to someone you trust. In a truly client-centered practice, the line between personal and professional is not nearly as hard as it has been traditionally among financial and legal professionals. In fact, it’s safe to say that our success as a client-centered advisor will depend on our ability to share our wealth with the client—our experiences and stories, our wisdom and discernment, our compassion and creativity.
Truly client-centered professional service is rooted, first and last, in a rich and meaningful dialogue between two human beings, two equals—not an aloof expert and a passive client. Naturally, there are many things that we and our client will not elect to share with each other for many reasons.
It is, however, essential that we become comfortable with the language of story, and be willing to show up humanly in the truth of our stories. We teach best by example, and by doing this, you demonstrate in the most powerful way possible your qualifications and trustworthiness as a client-centered advisor.
It’s hard to overstate the power that story has to create an immediate and lasting connection between any two human beings. One of the things I learned from a project of capturing clients’ life stories on tape and preserving them with the photographs and documents from their personal histories, is how deeply and quickly one person will bond with another, even a total stranger, who demonstrates a genuine interest in that person’s life and experiences.
We show how much we value another person simply by asking what we at SunBridge call “story-leading questions,” then listening generously, with undivided attention. In this simplest and most natural of human exchanges, we can create amazing and lasting trust and friendship in a matter of a few minutes.
A client’s stories drawn from his or her most meaningful experiences are a gold mine of understanding for the attentive advisor. The client’s values and priorities are laid out for the discerning to see and appreciate, far more effectively than can be achieved through the most cleverly designed questionnaire.
Story provides a context within which the client’s concerns and problems can be identified, pointing the way, often immediately, to deeply human and gratifying solutions. When the client and advisor share the language of story, they become more fully human in each other’s eyes. The client who is invited to share his or her life experiences as part of the advisor’s search for answers to the client’s problems feels valued, heard, and understood. And the advisor’s counsel acquires a correspondingly greater value, in every sense.
Since the prospective client has usually come to see the advisor about some issue related to finances, I’ve found it helpful, after learning something of who the client is, where he came from, and how he ended up here, to invite him to share with me what I call “meaning of money” stories. These are experiences that have helped the client define what money means to him (a meaning that’s deeply personal and individual), which in turn dictates what types of planning the client is open to considering.
Often those stories are about something that happened early in the client’s life when he discovered—often dramatically—what money meant in the family or community in which he grew up. Sometimes the story takes place early in the client’s married life, when he abruptly learned that money meant something entirely different to his spouse. To get this ball rolling, I often share one of my experiences, when a new pair of shoes helped me understand the meaning of money in the Farnsworth family.
I grew up on a small dairy farm in northwest New Mexico, one of thirteen children. Our place bordered the San Juan River across from the Navajo Reservation. Things were difficult for us financially with so many mouths to feed, but we raised most of our own food. We had dairy cows, chickens, pigs, a beef cow, gardens, and orchards, so we were able to provide for ourselves that way. Shoes and clothes, however, posed a real challenge for my parents. Fifteen pairs of feet were a lot to keep in shoes!
One of the many blessings we had was our Uncle Jack, who had a trading post on the Navajo Reservation, where we could buy clothes and shoes wholesale. Every month or so our family went out to the trading post and got the things we needed. A trading post is not exactly Saks Fifth Avenue; it’s a store stocked with only the basic things of rural life, a general store with sheep and goats, and rugs, jewelry, and the like.
Before we went to the trading post we invariably had a family meeting to decide who would get what. My father was not one to brook any sort of “confusion,” as he called it, when we got to the store.
I remember when I was eleven, I’d decided that I was due a new pair of shoes, but the family council had decided that I was not going to get a new pair of shoes, and this left me anything but pleased. I can still remember sitting in the back seat of the car in the driveway, the whole family ready to go, and we couldn’t leave because I was throwing a fit.
My father stood in the driveway reasoning with me through the open window of the car. Finally, after some minutes of unsuccessfully trying to persuade me to be happy about what I was going to get, he did something unexpected. He lifted up his shoe and laid it on the window seal of the car, then turned it over to show me the bottom. These were his good Sunday shoes and the bottom was totally broken out. There wasn’t enough leather there to re-sole them, even if we had had the money, and he, the inclination.
He looked me straight in the eye and he said, “Scott, we can’t afford to buy me new shoes today, and we cannot afford to buy you new shoes, either. Do you understand, son?” Did I ever! In an instant, through the image powerfully conveyed by that single, unforgettable, moment, I understood what money meant in our family. That moment was indelible. It still shapes the way I think of money; it still affects the way I respond when my children ask me for things.
Each one of us has had experiences that define what money means to us. As truly client-centered advisors, we take the time to understand what money means to our clients by listening to their stories. They also have stories about their family, community, heritage, and many other important facets of their life. Indeed, every person has many stories, however unwitting, unformulated, or even forsaken they may be. Hidden within each story is a compass heading for deeply fulfilling financial choices and directions. These are the keys to client connection and client understanding.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
April 2010
The Power of Story-based Planning Part 5;
Do Questions Matter?
Nancy Kline, the author of
Time to Think and
More Time to Think, has taught me a number of significant truths. One is that “the human mind thinks best in the presence of a question.”
As I turned that idea over in my brain a hundred million times, I began to see that
questions matter, and they matter deeply in every field of human thinking. The nature and quality of the questions we ask determine the nature and quality of the thinking we spark and of the answers we receive.
I learned in law school that certain types of questions lead to particular kinds of answers. For example, “open-ended questions” elicit a different kind of answers than “yes/no questions,” and these are different from “leading questions,” which guide a witness to testify a certain way. The type of questions we ask or the way we phrase or frame our questions influences the answers we receive.
This principle is readily seen in the field of education. As a Portuguese instructor, a college professor of business law, and now as a facilitator of professional training, I have observed that students receive, process, store, retrieve, and apply information differently according to the types of questions they are asked and, indeed, by the types of questions they anticipate they will be asked. The learning processes and the thinking processes for one type of question are different from the learning processes and the thinking processes for all other kinds of questions.
For example, a course in which students believe they will be graded with a true-false, multiple choice, matching, or short-answer exam will produce a different kind of thinking and learning than a course in which the anticipated exam is essay, open-ended, problem-solving, or issue-spotting. Similarly, an oral exam results in a very different educational experience than a written one.
The type and style of questions also determines the nature, quality, and quantity of information available to the teacher to assess the students’ comprehension of the subject matter and their ability to apply the material elsewhere. Some kinds of questions deliver rich and abundant information about the student and the learning process, while others yield scant and sketchy insights. If teachers want to understand how well their students are thinking and what they are learning, they should pay careful attention to the nature of the questions they ask.
Successful” students — i.e. those who score well on exams — learn how to anticipate the nature of the questions they will be asked and apply the learning and testing strategies that work best for those kinds of questions. On the other hand, “successful” students — i.e., those who learn to think clearly about the material and then put it to use in the “real world” — think beyond exam questions and anticipate the issues the “real world” will present them.
What’s true in the field of education is also true in our work with clients: the type and style of questions we use matters deeply. Our questions determine which issues our clients think about, and then drive the way they think about, those issues.
If our questions are analytical and numbers-oriented, our clients will think analytically and will focus on the numbers. And if our questions are more intuitive and visionary, our clients will be more reflective and more thoughtful about the future they are creating for themselves and those affected by their planning.
The best planners are comfortable working in both sides of the brain, and are skilful in getting their clients to do the same.
In her magnificent book, I Will Not Die an Unlived Life,” Dawna Markova writes:
The brain has both analytic and intuitive ways of processing information. They are meant to work hand in hand, but usually end up in an arm wrestle. If we analyze only as we have been taught to do in most schools, snapping at the first answer that comes along, then judging it good or bad, right or wrong, the shy intuitive mind, not unlike a prairie dog, runs for cover. Analysis, when improperly done, causes paralysis. It creates a world “out there,” of which we are only spectators and in which we do not live. It is commonly called objectivity.
If, on the other hand, the analytic mind asks open questions of discernment — “I wonder how this would work. . . . What would it look like if this were really possible? . . .” the intuitive mind begins to explore many possibilities, weaving its way through the trees until it has a sense of the whole forest and its meaning in nature’s scheme of things. Pop!
This wandering and wondering are not useful when one is dealing with issues such as the computation of income taxes. But the exploration of purpose and passion requires us to uncover patterns and understand the relatedness between things, and then synthesize them into a new whole. This is the terrain of intuitive processing. Personal truth can not be found in either analytic thinking or intuitive thinking alone. It can only be uncovered in an open inquiry between them.
Because most of us work in a presumptively analytical world, it is not always easy to inspire ourselves or our clients to operate concurrently in the intuitive world. It sometimes feels awkward or invasive. And yet, if we fail to go there, we are stuck in the shallow waters of “the computation of income taxes” and similar tasks, ending often in “analysis paralysis.”
So what is the secret to moving comfortably and confidently into the deep waters of real thinking about the issues that should underpin and overlay great planning? From my three decades in the planning professions, my answer is to ask what I call “story-leading questions.”
Stories are our native language, and everyone, including our most analytical clients, has a story to tell. Stories are a right-brain, intuitive activity that naturally invites the “wandering and wondering” and the “exploration of purpose and passion” Markova writes about. In the hands of an artful advisor, story-leading questions and the stories they spark beckon clients (and also advisors) to “uncover patterns and understand the relatedness between things, and then synthesize them into a new whole.”
The result is a masterful, thoughtful blend of solid numbers and bottom-line analysis, together with deep, rich, and meaningful insight into the client’s purposes and passions. The hard realities of the tax code and the stock market are woven seamlessly with the heart and soul and vision of the human beings for whom we are planning. Literally, a new world, the future world our clients are seeking, is created.
The key to this beautiful and powerful approach to planning is the art of the story-leading question. It unlocks the door to what I believe is the best possible planning on the planet: story-based planning.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
March 2010
The Power of Story-based Planning Part 4;
The Art of the Story-leading Question?
In “The Power of Story-based Planning, Part 3” I wrote that “the best way to genuinely understand our clients and their values is to
ask them thoughtful and insightful story-leading questions in an appropriate setting and then settle back and listen to their answers with all the love and attention and encouragement we can muster. I have learned that who they are and what they deeply value are woven into the stories they tell and can be discovered by a caring advisor.”
So what are story-leading questions? Simply put, they are questions that invite the other person to answer with a narrative. They open the door to a story.
I have found that good story-leading questions exhibit a warm and welcoming interest in the life of another. Good story-leading questions are appropriate to the level of trust and intimacy between those conversing. They don’t put the other person on the spot, nor feel judgmental.
Good story-leading questions also allow the person answering a number of ways to answer the question, rather than leaving them only one possible option.
Story-leading questions are like wizard’s matches: they ignite a warm, crackling exchange of life-experiences and life-lessons. Sometimes, they even kindle bonfires of story sharing. A good story-leading question naturally and comfortably invites the other person to recall and share a little bit of their life with the person posing the question.
Most of us already have a wide array of story-leading questions that we use but most of us are not mindful of them or how powerful they can be,
especially when we remember to ask them “in an appropriate setting and then settle back and listen to the answers with all the love and attention and encouragement we can muster,” to quote myself.
Here’s an experiment you can try. When you go home this evening and when the time is right, try out this simple story-leading question with someone you love: “So what was interesting or unusual about your day today?”
Or ask a young parent: “What has your child learned to do lately?”
Or ask a child: “What’s something you’ve discovered lately that makes you happy?”
Or ask an older person: “What’s happening with your grandchildren?”
Or ask a friend: “What’ve you been up to since the last time we talked?”
Then listen, really listen. Show with your countenance and your body language that you deeply want to hear the answer. Don’t rush, don’t compete, don’t minimize or infantilize in any way what they say. Just listen.
I promise if you do, you will discover — or rediscover — magic.
This same approach works in our professional lives. Story-leading questions and attentive, caring listening can transform the planning process.
Our clients safeguard a treasure trove of information about themselves, their lives, their loved ones, and their visions for the future behind a heavy locked door. Opening the door requires two sets of keys. One set is the questions and the other is the listening. Accessing this valuable cache of information can lead to the creation of elegant and appropriate planning for these clients.
Great story-leading questions and attentive, respectful listening are the keys.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
February 2010
The Power of Story-based Planning Part 3;
“The Siren Call of the Questionnaire”
In an earlier post I wrote that “values-based planning” is founded on the notion that each client has a personal set of values that should be ascertained early in the planning process and then used to fashion a financial plan or estate plan unique to that client. Most enlightened planners today would concur that financial and estate plans based on client values are far superior to the “one-size-fits-all” cookie-cutter plans that many of us grew up doing.
The question with regard to values-based planning is not whether we should create plans based on client values. The answer to that one is duh-obvious: Yes. The issue is not
WHETHER we should do values-based planning, but rather
HOW to do it so that it actually works.
In other words,
how do we respectfully and accurately ascertain each client’s unique and deeply-held values upon which their planning will be based? What methodology will allow us – and our clients – to look into their hearts, to see there what truly matters, and to then discern how to create a plan with them based on what we have discovered?
Unfortunately, the widely-heralded “values-based planning revolution” has been in my view a case of one step forward, two steps back. This is largely because in nearly every instance what started out to be “values-based planning” quickly morphed into what I call “questionnaire-based planning.” Indeed, with a few notable exceptions, virtually every so-called “values-based” approach is designed to be implemented by means of a cleverly designed, carefully worded questionnaire.
I think that is a tragic turn of events, and here’s why:
A. Questionnaires are blunt instruments that deliver cut-and-dried, categorical answers. As a result, they seduce planners into seeing clients as cut and dried and categorical. But that’s not the way we humans are, especially when we drill down to a values level. We are not pegs to be pushed into differently shaped holes, or colored bobbles to be sorted into different boxes. We are each unique. We are full of nuances, contradictions, uncertainties, and places where the lines are blurred. We don’t fit into four or five neat categories, as most questionnaires require.
Some would argue that being able to offer clients a plan based on which one of several categories they fall into, as determined by their questionnaire responses, is substantially better than the old “one-size-fits-all” method of planning. While it may be an improvement, it is not true values-based planning. Offering clients a choice of cookie cutters is still cookie-cutter planning.
B. Questionnaires have built-in biases, which are based on the assumptions and prejudices of their creators. Regardless of whether these biases are accidental or intentional, a biased questionnaire skews the results away from the client’s true values. When you start with untrue assumptions, you always end up with incorrect conclusions.
I have seen long, beautiful, and well-worded questionnaires that were supposed to assess a client’s values and direct the planner to the type of plan the client needed. Oddly, it seemed that nearly everyone using that questionnaire was steered toward essentially the same plan, one that favored the aims and products promoted by the questionnaire designer. It seems to me that when everyone gets the same answer, maybe the questionnaire is asking the wrong questions.
C. Questionnaires can be “gamed” by clever clients. The process of answering questions in a questionnaire invites clients to consider not just their answers, but the impact of their answers on the planner and the planning process. “Will this answer raise or lower the fee?” “Will this answer make me seem more wealthy or less wealthy?” “Will this answer cast me in a negative light?” “Will I appear miserly, judgmental, prejudiced, immature, or short-sighted if I answer that way?” “Will I be exposing my weaknesses, and will that allow her to take advantage of me in some way?”
Human nature being what it is, the odds are high that clients’ responses will be less than candid and unguarded. Consequently, there is a high probability that questionnaire answers will be scrubbed, distorted, shaded, or flat-out wrong. This makes the results of a questionnaire unreliable as a basis for serious values-based planning.
D. Questionnaires lead to dull, inattentive planners. Questionnaire-based planning doesn’t require planners to listen deeply and attentively to clients, to ask insightful questions, or to employ judgment and wisdom to discern how to weave the client’s life-lessons into the plan. The “correct answers” or the client’s “categories” just “magically” pop out from the responses. Yeah, right.
True values discovery requires careful and attentive listening. Each client and the stories they tell are alive with insight and meaning. They are full of clues and pieces of answers. Real people living real lives are like that. The right answers don’t just pop out; they have to be teased out and then pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle. But when you make a commitment to discover for yourself – and for the client – a clear and complete understanding of what’s really in their heart, their deepest purposes for planning, you discover that the results are unquestionably worth the effort.
E. Questionnaires don’t lead to values-based planning.
Questionnaire-based planning is neat, clean, analytical, and easy, but it is incapable of drilling all the way down to the values-bearing strata deep inside the client. No matter how cleverly worded, a questionnaire can never respectfully and accurately ascertain each client’s uniquely personal values. The results are too shallow and mechanical. The intention may be right but the methodology is wrong.
Thus, whenever planning becomes questionnaire-based, it ceases to be truly values-based. I call it “faux values-based planning.”
Please understand that I believe there is an appropriate role for questionnaires in the financial planning and estate planning process, which is to help gather data. I have no problem using questionnaires as fact finders. They just don’t work to discover and discern significant client values.
So What?
“So what’s the harm,” you may ask, “in doing questionnaire-based planning? It’s definitely a lot better than the old way we used to do it.”
The most significant harm is that when financial planners and estate planners – even smart, sincere, and well-intentioned planners – think they are doing values-based planning but are only doing faux values-based planning, they stop seeking the real thing. They become enamored with zirconium and fail to find the acres of diamonds just over the next hill. They take the shortcut and never realize they just missed the best part of the journey. As a result, they rob themselves and their clients of the magnificent experience of true values-based planning.
Good is the enemy of great.
The moment earnest planners apply the label “values-based planning” to something that is not and once they start to believe they are doing “values-based planning,” even though it is really only the “faux” variety, they lose the sense of urgency to discover the real thing and are unable to see the need to do more. Once they get locked in, it is nearly impossible to unlock them. As a wise person once said in another context,
“the problem is not what they don’t know. It’s what they do know that just ain’t so.”
Values on the cheap vs. paying the price
While questionnaire-based planning may appear neat, clean, analytical, and easy, it is really only values-based planning on the cheap. The real process of values discovery – like virtually every other authentically meaningful human endeavor such as nurturing a fulfilling marriage, raising independent children, growing a beautiful garden, or building a success business – can be disorderly, messy, intuitive, and sometimes challenging. It requires real work. It requires that we pay the price to come to know, really know, our clients. It cannot be achieved with clever techniques.
The Solution
To move into the beautiful new world of true values-based planning, the solution is not to try to come up with a more artful questionnaire. The solution is to recognize that their stories -- the oldest and most natural form of human communication – are rich and ripe with the unvarnished truth about our clients’ values. We just need to ask the right questions and then listen, really listen.
I have found that the best way to genuinely understand our clients and their values is to ask them thoughtful and insightful story-leading questions in an appropriate setting and then settle back and listen to their answers with all the love and attention and encouragement we can muster. I have learned that who they are and what they deeply value are woven into the stories they tell and can be discovered by a caring advisor. That is the essence of what I call “Story-based Planning in a Thinking Environment.”
How to do that gracefully, effectively, and affordably is the subject of my next post.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
January 2010
Give Yourself More Time to Think
If you didn’t get everything you wanted this Christmas—or even if you did—I want to suggest something you should give yourself as a new year’s gift: more time to think. No, I haven’t discovered how to squeeze more than 168 hours into a week, but it’s probably the next best thing.
If it is true that the quality of everything we do depends on the quality of the thinking we do first, then the key to a high-quality 2010 is for us to think better. Fortunately, Nancy Kline has already figured out how to do that and has shared those insights in her newly-released book,
More Time to Think.
Among the many delicacies I savor in Nancy’s work are the dozens of paradoxes she has uncovered. One of those is that
taking time to elicit everyone’s independent, fresh thinking up front actually
saves time in the long run. Along the same lines as John Wooden’s piercing question, “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” I have found Nancy’s assertion to be absolutely true:
In the Thinking Environment we think so well in the time we have that the time we have increases.
So before you rush off to begin making this year better than the last, let me offer you the best piece of advice I could give you: Go to
www.amazon.co.uk and order
More Time to Think. (Nancy’s book is published in England and is not yet sold in the United States, notwithstanding my incessant “inveigling” her—Nancy’s word, not mine—to make her materials more accessible to the American market.) You’ll find that the British version of Amazon is no harder to use than the U.S. based Amazon, it just takes a few days longer for the book to travel across “the pond.”
When
More Time to Think arrives, read it thoughtfully cover to cover. Put its wisdom into practice. Apply its principles in your business, in your meetings, in your relationships, and in your life. Then get ready to have the best year ever!
Nancy’s work has had a long and lasting impact of me, so I was happy to provide her my testimonial, which she included on the back cover of the book:
When you change the way you think, you change everything. In my work and my life, the Thinking Environment has made all the difference.
Nancy’s new book makes the big picture and the minute details of the Thinking Environment accessible to all. Whether you are brand new to Time to Think or you have spent dozens and dozens of days studying with Nancy as I have,
More Time to Think will challenge you, inspire you, and invite you to seek everyone’s independent, fresh thinking. It will, without exaggeration, change your work and your life.
Here’s the complete link to order the book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/More-Time-Think-Being-World/dp/1906377103/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262186287&sr=1-1
To learn more about Time to Think, including programs taught by me in the United States, visit
www.TimetoThink.com.
To learn more about how SunBridge helps caring professional advisors touch hearts and change lives, visit
www.SunBridgeNetwork.com.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
December 2009
This Christmas, give the gift of story
During this hectic time of year, we hope you will take the time to share stories with those you love.
We think sharing stories is the perfect gift. Stories are affordable, non-fattening, and you can never have too many of them. You don't have to worry about size and color, the hassle of wrapping, losing sales receipts, or long lines at the mall.
Most people really don't need a new toy or a new tie, but we all have stories ("To be a person is to have a story to tell" Isak Dinesen) and we all need to be able to share our stories ("There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you" Maya Angelou).
Long after the batteries have gone dead and the luster has faded from other gifts, stories will live on. "Tell me a fact and I will learn; Tell me a truth and I will believe: Tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever" (Steve Sabo).
Sharing stories successfully doesn't take much - a few thoughtful story-leading questions, an authentic interest and curiosity, and a few minutes of ease. Throw in a digital recorder or a video camera and you have a gift that you can share again and again and again.
This season is custom-made for remembering and recounting stories. Just ask anyone, young or old, to recall their most memorable Christmas, the best gift they ever received, the most thoughtful gift they ever
gave, their loneliest holiday, the time they felt closest to the true spirit of Christmas.
Ask the questions and then sit back and enjoy their answers. Share your own. Watch their eyes sparkle. Notice how their cheeks glow. Feel the power of real human connection. This is the best way to enjoy the holidays.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy, story-filled New Year.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
November 2009
The Power of Story-based Planning Part 2
For at least the last decade, the hottest buzzword in the planning professions has been “values-based.” You couldn’t turn around without running into “values-based” selling, financial planning, estate planning, you name it. But what in the world is “values-based planning” anyway?
Looking under the label and behind the question is helpful, I believe. In truth, all planning is based on someone’s values, so the question behind the question is whose values? To acknowledge our professions’ dirty little secret, the truth of the matter is that in the “pre-values-based planning era” nearly all planning was based on the professional’s values or, at best, on the values we assumed the clients held.
If the professional was selling life insurance, lo and behold, one of the key values was “tax-free liquidity at death.” If the professional was selling living trusts, it was generally assumed the clients valued “avoiding probate,” “reducing estate taxes,” and “distributing the assets” in some orderly fashion, usually in a way consistent with the drafter’s trust templates. If the professional was selling investments, every financial plan was based on the premise that the client wanted to pay for his kids’ college and then retire comfortably a few years before he turned 65.
Not surprisingly, every plan a planner created looked strikingly similar to every other plan he created: they were all based on the planner’s values and assumptions, not the client’s.
What the term “values-based planning” was trying to communicate was the notion that each client has a personal set of values that ought to be ascertained early on in the planning process and then used to fashion a financial plan or estate plan that was unique – truly unique – to that client. The real question then became, for those planners actually trying to create plans based on client values,
“how do you ascertain the client’s values?” At least now the issue was correctly framed.
This breakthrough led to the advent of what I call “questionnaire-based planning.” Client values, the planning professions assume, can be ascertained through a cleverly designed multi-page questionnaire. But while “questionnaire-based planning” is far better than its predecessors, it still fails in its primary objective: to develop for the planner and the client a clear understanding of what’s in the client’s heart – the client’s deepest purposes for planning. For that you need story-based planning.
In the next installment I’ll outline why “questionnaire-based planning” is merely masquerading as genuine values-based planning. It looks good on the outside, but inside it has no real power to get to the heart of the matter.
To be continued.
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October
The Power of Story-based Planning Part 1
Virtually all my "official" training as an estate planning attorney and a Certified Financial Planner has been about numbers. Tax rates, code sections, rates of return on investments, asset allocation models-the unwavering focus has been on something quantifiable. The underlying message always came through loud and clear: unless something can be tallied on a ledger sheet, it isn't worthy of our professional attention and probably isn't all that important. Only "numbers-based planning" is real planning.
But my gut-and my real-life experience-told me something different. They told me that when numbers-based planning collided with human beings, i.e., our clients and their children and grandchildren, either the planning was never actually implemented by the clients, or the wheels came off when the planning landed with a thud on the succeeding generations. They told me that the most clever and tightly-wound estate or financial plans could and would be unraveled by the people they were designed to "help" or "protect." They told that we planners ignore the human issues at our peril, and at the peril of the beautiful numbers-based plans we crank out.
My sense was often that with numbers-based planning, the tax tail was wagging the dog-driving the planning instead of riding in the back seat along with all the other significant but not critical factors. One significant study found that the likelihood of a family-based business surviving into the second generation was inversely correlated to the amount of tax planning the first generation had done. (Correlates of Success in Family Business Transitions, Morris, Williams, Allen, and Avila, Journal of Business Venturing 12, 365-401, 1997) In other words, the tax doctors were actually killing the patients they were hired to "save."
Numbers-based planning might work if we were planning for robots, but we're not. We're planning for real flesh-and-blood people. I recall a series of conversations with a couple from New York City who had spent tens of thousands of dollars for one of the premier law firms in the country to draft a plan to care for their estate and their two teenage children. The plan touched all the legal and tax-planning bases, but in the words of the wife it was "cold and impersonal, not what I want to leave for my children." The expensive, well-drafted plan was never executed but remained nothing more than a pile of paper, glistening with lawyerly brilliance on the surface but empty and meaningless underneath.
Unfortunately, that couple's experience is repeated all too often. In my view, such outcomes will not change until we take a fundamentally different approach to this whole business of estate and financial planning. They will not change until we spend more time listening to client stories than tallying up their balance sheets; until we tailor their plans to the human hopes, dreams, and fears imbedded in their stories; and until the plans we create help them tell the story of their legacy-of who they really are and what impact they have had and hope to have on the people and causes they love. I call this approach story-based planning.
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March 2009
Good Fences, Good Neighbors, Sad Story
What’s the appropriate way to thank a neighbor you just met who spends two long days helping you build a fence and who won’t accept any payment? That was my quandary.
Bob and Mary Lane have a beautiful picket fence around their modest and well-manicured yard here in Harmony. My wife saw it and decided it was the perfect fence to keep the grandchildren in our yard, and the deer, wild turkeys, and sand hill cranes out.
I stopped by Bob’s house one evening to introduce myself and ask about his fence. He said he built it himself and said if I decided to build one, he would be happy to help, as long as I didn’t ask him to dig the post holes. He seemed truly genuine and I knew I didn’t have the handyman skills to build a fence myself, so I told him I’d take him up on his offer.
I ordered the materials and called Bob when they arrived. On the Saturday before Martin Luther King Day, he and my son Paul and I built the fence for several hours. At his insistence, he returned the following Monday and worked nearly the whole day with us. His experience and keen eye for detail were invaluable. I absolutely could not have done it without him.
And if I say so myself, the fence looks great—mostly thanks to Bob.
And what counted for more than building a fence was building a new friendship. As you might imagine, we told a lot of stories out on the fence line. There’s something about sharing hard work and stories that turns strangers into friends. But Bob’s generosity was troubling.
How could I thank and repay someone I only recently met who cheerfully gave not just one but two whole days to help a neighbor in need? Having them over for dinner was a given, but that wasn’t enough. Offering money would be insulting, but I had to do something. Fortunately the answer came to me Monday as we worked.
In the course of our conversations, Bob told me that they have seven children, including three married daughters who live within a block of their house. One of those daughters, their middle child Amanda, 33 years old and the mother of a five-year-old daughter, was dying of breast cancer. She had fought it a couple of years earlier, successfully they thought, but it had returned with a vengeance. This time it was taking over her whole body. Fence building, Bob said, was good therapy to get his mind off her plight.
I responded by telling Bob about my 32-year-old mother and her fight against throat cancer. I told Bob about my mother’s letter, and how it inspired me to develop tools like “Priceless Conversations” to help people like Amanda share love messages with their children, their spouse, and others. I told Bob about my book, Like a Library Burning. I told Bob I wanted to repay him in part by helping his daughter share and save her legacy. From the tears in his eyes, I could tell Bob was touched and grateful for my offer.
Bob left that afternoon with a copy of my book for himself and a copy for Amanda. The next day I took them three Priceless Conversation tool kits—“My Child” for her daughter Addison, age 5; “Love” for her husband Shawn; and “Legacy” for the rest of her family. Amanda thanked me and said she would read the questions and call me when she felt well enough to talk. She also asked some legal and financial questions that I was able to answer for her.
Sadly, she never called. Bob phoned last week when I was in Scottsdale and said Amanda and Shawn wanted to see me Tuesday to address some of their legal and financial issues. He said Amanda had been in constant pain and on medication, and didn’t feel she could complete a Priceless Conversation.
I met with them Tuesday afternoon and discovered a couple of really critical insurance issues that needed immediate attention. Amanda told me she really wanted to do the Priceless Conversations, especially the one for her daughter, and as soon as she felt a little better, she would do it. She was afraid her little girl might not remember her very well if she didn’t.
On
Wednesday, Bob and I took care of those pressing insurance issues, but Amanda still didn’t feel that she could talk.
At three o’clock Thursday morning, Amanda passed away at home in her sleep.
Amanda’s death hit me hard. It hurts that we failed to capture her words and her voice and her stories. I feel like a frustrated fireman—I rescued the money, but the library burned down while I looked on. This wasn’t supposed to happen on my watch.
The family is planning a memorial service on the 28th of February, which would have been Amanda’s 34th birthday. Before then I’ll give Bob and Mary the “Tribute” Priceless Conversation and offer to facilitate it for them when their family is together again. That will afford them an occasion to remember Amanda and tell their favorite stories about her and save those stories for her daughter. It’s the least we can do for little Addison; I hope it will be enough.
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February 2009
What Does It All Mean?
This morning a friend halfway around the world sent me this link to a five-minute You Tube video. It is well worth your time to watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY
The video vividly describes our headlong rush into a future that is faster, more congested, and more technical than anything we have yet imagined. It ends with the daunting question, “What does it all mean?”
Like the story of the blind men and the elephant, each who watches the video will discover a different meaning and a different answer. After all, as Anais Nin wrote, “We see the world not as it is, but as we are.”
One of the messages I found is that in an increasingly frantic, crowded, and technology-driven world, there will be an exponentially greater need—and hence unimagined opportunities—for those who understand and practice the healing, connective, and transformative art of storytelling and story listening.
Technology may race ahead, but the human heart and the human spirit still deeply yearn for a sense of human connection and human meaning. Those who gracefully and compassionately provide their services within the warmth and security of a story-based environment will always be richly valued and appreciated. They will touch hearts and change lives. If they are wise and thoughtful and intentional, they will also be abundantly rewarded for this rare gift and unique set of skills.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
January 2009
Finding Joy, Energy, and Purpose in Our Work
These words of George Bernard Shaw inspire me deeply every time I read them.
This the true joy in life—being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly used out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
I can vouch for the veracity of those words, for the times I have felt the greatest joy have been when I have been clear as to my life purpose and have been full of drive and energy—a “force of nature” in Shaw’s words—in achieving that purpose. I’ve heard it said that “a man all wrapped up in himself makes a pretty small bundle.” When we find a larger purpose than our own comfort and when we exert ourselves toward achieving it, we stretch ourselves, unwrap that “small bundle,” and stand a little taller.
There is another joy beyond the direct, personal happiness that comes from finding and living our own purpose. This other joy is the kind that comes from working alongside another who has found their purpose and is stretching themselves to change the world for the better. When we have played some small part in helping them clarify and live out their purpose, we are able to share in their joy and energy. We are able to bask in their reflected sunlight.
My sincere conviction is that our greatest potential as professional advisors is not merely to help our clients make more money, pay less taxes, or pass on more of this world’s goods—and I in no way want to imply that these are not valuable skill, for they are—but rather it is help our clients live more joyfully by finding their own “mighty purpose” in which they can become “a force of nature” in their own right.
Over the past few decades, I have learned that Legacy Building and story-based planning are our quickest routes to this vicarious joy. That’s because in the story sharing that is the heart and soul of this approach to client services, our clients will discover the deeper meaning of their lives and find what makes them truly come alive.
Harold Whitman has written: “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that, because what the world really needs is people who have come alive.”
To which I would add: The world also needs those who can help others discover what makes them come alive. My vision is that I can be one of those.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
November 2008
A Simple and Valuable Secret
My upcoming book, Double Your Sales: An Honest and Authentic Approach to Professional Selling, is about relational selling, and it's based on what I consider one of life's simplest yet most valuable secrets:
Meaningful relationships depend on creating a credible story of your future together.
If you want to develop a relationship today, you must weave a common story of the future, a shared vision of tomorrow. Strong and lasting relationships belong to those who can create and nourish future mutual stories with others.
With a shared future story, relationships will emerge even in the harshest environment. Without a credible story of a future together, they won't, regardless what other conditions are present. A shared vision of your tomorrow is the sine qua non of every meaningful and ongoing human relationship.
Want proof? Just examine any "relationship" from any aspect of your life, by answering frankly these questions: "Do we share a story of our future together? Is it a story we created jointly? Is our story still lively and vibrant, or is it stale and sickly? Do we work at maintaining and updating it? Does it continue to inspire us both?"
If you answer these questions honestly, it will become glaringly obvious that the quality of any relationship is never better than the quality of the story of your future together. Real relationships are based on a shared future story. It's as simple as that.
So how can you use this secret? You can use this secret in lots of ways, both personally and professionally. You can strengthen your marriage or your bond with children, parents, or siblings by rejuvenating the story of your future together. You can mend a rift with a neighbor, with a co-worker, or in your church. You can "excuse yourself" from a phony and toxic relationship because you can begin to recognize that it has no future.
Knowing this secret will make you more perceptive about relationships in many settings. If you understand this principle, you can easily explain the existence--or non-existence--of long-term relationships everywhere and in every realm: in sales, in employment, in politics, in parenting, in the PTA.
With this secret in mind, you will recognize that without a credible story of a future together, all interactions, whether they are "one and done," or they are a string or series, are transactional, not relational. Two people or groups of people may occupy the same space, be it a home, an office, a business, a community, a political party, or a country, but without the presence of a shared future story, they are just cohabiting; they are not in a meaningful relationship.
And here's the best news of all. Once you know the secret, you'll see that it's not complicated to create a new relationship or to revive an old one. All you have to do is create and nourish the story of your mutual future.
This one simple secret can turn your business completely around. Abraham Lincoln once said, "If you can't make a living from your friends, you surely can't make one from your enemies." Or said another way, friends make better customers than enemies. And what is a friend? It's someone with whom you share a credible story of a mutual future.
If you can develop relationships with prospective customers by creating a story of your future together, they will buy from you and they will buy more from you.
My aim is to teach professionals like you how to do that comfortably, consistently, and compellingly in conversations with prospective customers. By mastering the art of building a credible story of a future together, you can double your sales easily, honestly, and authentically.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
September 2008
The Power of the "New Me" or "Transformation" Story
Let me say right up front that this is not a political commentary. This is a commentary about how to communicate more effectively, more persuasively, through a certain style of story, what I call the “New Me Story” or the “Transformation Story.”
Like 40 million other people, I watched John McCain’s speech at the Republican convention, and although I support him politically, I was not impressed with his presentation. Not impressed, that is, except for one part near the end, when he told the story of how the direction and focus of his life was changed.
If you missed it, Senator McCain described how his experience as a POW, and in particular the brutality he endured after he refused his captors’ offer of an early release, changed him from a hot-headed, self-centered, Top-Gun punk into a person whose mission in life is to put service to his country about all else. This, he said, was the defining event of his life and this is what drives him to want to serve his country as its president.
Of course the facts of his capture and torture are well-known, so he wasn’t saying anything new, in one sense. But in another sense, this was an entirely new narrative which he had never shared before in public. For me, this brief segment of his speech made all the difference in the impact of his message. For me, it gave a compelling explanation for why he wants the job, and how he’ll treat the job differently than previous presidents or current candidates. Shots of people in the convention audience wiping away or fighting back tears confirmed that I was not the only one affected by his account.
So how was it that this story worked and worked so powerfully?
The answer: it was not the events of the story but the way it was told. It was a classic “New Me Story” or “Transformation Story,” one of the skills and tools I have long taught in SunBridge, in Mastering the High-End Close, and in Professional Story Selling. And whether you agree or disagree with John McCain’s politics, you really should re-listen to that little piece of his speech after you read this. See if you can identify the structure he used in telling the story, which caused an old, well-known story to have such impact.
The “New Me Story” is very simple and has four parts:
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The Old Me: This is who I used to be.
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The Transforming Event: This is what happened to me that sparked a change.
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My Reaction and Response: This is how I first reacted; then this is how it caused a deeper change.
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The New Me: This is who I have now become, and this is how I am now more able to help you.
John McCain followed this format to a “T” and the result was a transforming experience for his audience. It’s a skill set great communicators have learned to master.
If you want to put punch and sparkle into your workshops and speeches, or if you want to transform the way prospects and clients see you when you sit down in an engagement meeting with them and they make the decision to hire you or not, you need to create, practice, and tell your own “New Me Story.” You may or may not have a transforming event as dramatic as John McCain’s, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve experienced real life, and real life has changed you, and as a result you’re better equipped to help them deal with their real-life issues. The result is the same: you’re more authentic, you’re more trustworthy, you’re more valuable to them. You’re much more likely to get hired, at a higher fee.
More about the power of story is available in my new book “Like a Library Burning: Sharing and Saving a Lifetime of Stories,” which I wrote with Peggy Hoyt. (Visit
www.LikeaLibraryBurning.com.) Peggy and I will be teaching a break-out session at the National Network Collegium in San Diego on September 26, 2008, on how to use the power of story to build your business. You’re invited to come and learn more.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
August 2008
The Five Phases of Client Relationships
A smart business recognizes that every client relationship can—and should—go through five distinct phases. One of the keys to success in business is being mindful of these phases and creating an appropriate process for each phase of those relationships. This is particularly true for each of us as we work to weave Legacy Building into our business. We must recognize each one of these phases and consciously determine whether and how we will utilize Legacy Building in each phase of our relationship with each client.
With each client relationship, there exists the potential of five distinct phases. Here are The Five Phases of Client RelationshipsTM:
To maximize value, a business must develop and refine a unique process for each separate phase. Sadly, not every business fully develops each phase of each relationship, and as a result, significant revenue and other value are lost for the business. In addition, when the business is not sufficiently mindful of each distinct phase, the workers in the business are likely to be unclear about how to develop each client relationship to its greatest potential.
The purpose of this brief article is not to fully explore all the possibilities of applying this concept to our respective businesses. That would probably require a rather large book. Instead, it is to call to your attention that these five phases do exist, and that Legacy Building can play a role in each one.
At this stage of your development, given the limits of your time and resources, it may not be feasible to create unique Legacy Builder components in your processes in each phase. You need to identify where the low-hanging fruit can be found in your client work, and, for the present, devote your time and resources to that phase. Over time, Legacy Building will become a consistent and significant element in each phase of your business for those clients who find it valuable. But unless you pick your spots in the early going, you will spread your resources too thin, and you will become frustrated at your lack of progress.
Let me be more specific by using an example of an estate planning attorney who is a passionate, dedicated member of the Legacy Builder Network. Based on the training she received at the Legacy Builder Retreat and the further development of her skills and tools, there are many, many ways she might weave Legacy Building into her practice.
First, she might use Legacy Building in her marketing, that is, in the
Client Attraction Phase of her business. This could be through presentations to groups, clubs, and even in her own workshops. This could be through creating great referral relationships by helping her referral sources with their personal legacy building (such as doing Priceless Conversation interviews with the CPAs and financial advisors who send her business.) This could also be through writing articles for local papers and other publications about Legacy Building. This could be through using the Meaning of Success interview to come in contact with successful people in her community. The possibilities are virtually endless.
Second, she could use Legacy Building to transform prospects into clients, that is, in the
Client Engagement Phase of her business. For example, she might conduct the Meaning of Money conversation with prospects to help deepen the relationship between them and motivate them to hire her as their estate planner. She might ask select prospects to watch the Lighthouse DVD in her conference room before they meet with her, to help them understand that she has a different perspective of what quality planning looks like. She might use the Legacy Circle in her initial engagement meeting to discover what each client is most interested in. She might use stories in that meeting to demonstrate what an impact Legacy Building planning can have on children and grandchildren. Again, there is any number of possibilities.
Third, she could use Legacy Building as part of her core business, that is, in the
Client Service Phase of her business. She could ask clients to bring a brown paper bag, or pictures and heirlooms, to her design session. She could use a “Priceless Objects, Important Stories” worksheet in place of a standard “Personal Property Memorandum.” She could include an “Our Kids” interview as part of her standard package for each couple with children under 18, or an “Our Values” interview as part of her process for all grandparents. Her “Big Red Book” binder of estate planning documents could include special tabs and sections about Legacy Building issues. Once more, there are tons of options.
Fourth, she could use Legacy Building to add spice and zest to her ongoing client membership or maintenance program, that is, the
Client Retention Phase of her business. Her clients would probably enjoy watching the Lighthouse DVD at the annual client meeting, or sharing the “My House” activity there. Her clients would greatly appreciate being able to complete a new Priceless Conversation each year, to be added to their ever-growing “Legacy Library.” Her clients would cherish “The Treasure Chest Game” (a.k.a. Tapping into Your Wisdom) as a special gift for an important birthday or anniversary. Certain of her clients would find huge value in using the “Book of Life” to review their life and prepare an oral or written story of their life. She would likely find dozens of other ways to enliven her services to her existing clients.
Fifth, she could use Legacy Building to draw business from family members of her clients, that is, in the
Multigenerational Client Engagement Phase of her business. Her clients probably couldn’t stop talking to their parents, brothers and sisters, children and grandchildren about her amazing ability to incorporate the most important human elements into her planning, not just the money. Her clients’ relatives would hear her voice and see her address on all the Priceless Conversations interviews she had conducted with them. Her clients would include her in family meetings to explain the planning she had done for them. Some of her clients would even insist that she do planning for their children and grandchildren, so that the younger generations’ planning would be integrated with the older generation’s plans. In a myriad of ways, her business would grow (both for herself and her successor) from her Legacy Building work with her clients.
Yet, while she can see that Legacy Building can dramatically transform virtually every aspect of her work with clients, she is smart enough to know that, given her available time and resources, she cannot tweak that many moving parts all at once. She has to decide where she will achieve the greatest results right away and start there. Once she has that part up and running, she can shift her focus to other phases and other applications. She knows that, like the launch of the Space Shuttle, getting off the launch pad is the hardest and most energy-consuming part of any journey and that future progress will be much easier because of her momentum. Ultimately, she wants to change all her client relationships to include Legacy Building in every phase. But for now, she knows to focus on first things first.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
July 2008
Beyond Story-Based Planning
If you’ve read Chapter 7 of Like a Library Burning by Scott Farnsworth and Peggy Hoyt, you understand that presently the best financial planning, estate planning, funeral planning, and philanthropic planning out there is “story-based planning.” At its core, The SunBridge Legacy Builder Network is all about story-based planning, because the essence of Legacy Building is sharing and saving stories. If you thoughtfully evaluate each component of the SunBridge Legacy Builder mind-set, skill-set, tool-set, and support-set, you will find they’re each about how to effectively, efficiently, and elegantly share and save stories. For all the dozens of reasons set forth in Like a Library Burning, sharing and saving stories is one of the most important things we can do for our clients, our clients’ loved ones, and ourselves.
As I wrote in the May 2008 blog (A New Breed of Planner), I believe the best advisors are those who are able to engage their clients on the story level and then use the insights and understandings gleaned in that exchange to build technically brilliant plans that reflect the values, personalities, fears, dreams, wisdom, and life-learning of their clients and their families. To do anything less is to grossly short-change and over-charge them, and to rob ourselves of the core reason we got into this business in the first place: to make a difference in the lives of those we serve.
Once you get that concept, you immediately recognize that Legacy Building or “story-based planning” should not be merely an add-on to your planning process. It’s not a quaint set of activities you stick into a workshop or a cute set of steps you append to the “real work” of estate planning or financial services. To the contrary, it is the heart and soul of good human-centered planning. It is not only what we do, but also who we are as we work with our clients.
To do that, we must move beyond story-based planning. The next step on this journey is what I call “story-based planning in a Thinking Environment®.” To become the most effective Legacy Builder advisor—and hence the best financial advisor or estate planner on the planet—you must not only master the art and science of story, you must also master
Time to Think.
Thinking Environment principles, properly implemented, add incredible energy and impact to your story skills. With Time to Think under your belt, you can know which stories to tell and when, you can help your clients share their stories more effectively, and you can better understand their stories as they share them with you.
What I have learned from listening to
Nancy Kline (creator of the
Time-To-Think process) and then applying her message to my work with clients is that the most powerful planning occurs in a four-way confluence of expertise: 1) the planner’s technical training and experience; 2) the planner’s mastery of the art and science of story; 3) the clients’ unparalleled expertise about their world and their life; and 4) the planner’s skill at creating a Thinking Environment within which the other skills are at their best. When these four streams of expertise come together, magic happens and brilliance explodes in the room. The outcomes are unimaginable. There’s simply nothing like it in the world.
When a technically competent professional advisor who has mastered the art and science of story is also able to be a Thinking Environment in the presence of clients, the very best thinking, the very best stories, and the very best discernment about the meaning within those stories are available to push the planning to its human and technical zenith. Both the analytical and intuitive sides are fully honored, completely addressed, and elegantly woven into the finest possible result. When you’re working at that level, if feels as if each person involved is a genius and every product is a masterpiece. Which indeed they are!
Some day in the not-too-distant future, clients will insist on working only with planners who have the capability to bring these four skill-sets to the table. I plan on being there, and I invite you to join me.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
May 2008
A New Breed of Planner
From my vantage point, I believe we are witnessing the budding of a fresh, new model of planning and the appearance of a brand-new breed of advisor who is capable of working with clients in a revolutionary new way. And yet, while I call it “fresh” and “brand-new” and “revolutionary,” it is really as old as human communication. It is financial planning and estate planning based on our native language of story. I have not only envisioned the possibilities but have also experienced them, and I’m happy to report they are very tantalizing, both for clients and advisors.
I believe there are exceptional advantages for families and individual clients who work with financial advisors and estate planners who personally understand the power and importance of sharing and saving stories, and who have the skills and tools to elegantly and seamlessly weave a story-based approach to client services into their handling of the more traditional elements of planning such as investments, insurance, taxes, legal documents, public benefits, charitable giving, and the like.
Traditional financial services and estate planning, with their emphasis on numbers, formulas, tax codes, legal minutiae, and other “hard” issues, are not usually thought of as being naturally compatible with the “soft” issues of stories. Some in these fields tend to pooh-pooh the notion that story has much, if any, relevance to what they do. Story to them is just “warm and fuzzy,” “touchy-feely” kind of stuff.
But I don’t think there is a conflict between good technical skill and good story skills. I think both are essential to good results.
We believe those planners who look down their noses at story skills run the risk of creating glorious, gleaming plans that are technically correct but inside are empty shells because they fail to connect with the human dimension of planning. As a result of not checking carefully with the people involved, their ladders of “successful” plans end up leaning against the wrong walls, to borrow Covey’s metaphor. Like the Alaskan congressman’s ultimate earmark boondoggle, they design and build the financial or estate planning equivalents of “the bridge to nowhere.”
Good technical expertise and good story skills are both required to do the job right and to do the right job. I had an experience several years ago that illustrates this point. The names and some of the non-material details have been changed to protect the client’s identity.
Mr. Jacobs came to see our firm when he was 88 years old. With an estate worth approximately $9 million, he was looking down the barrel of an estate tax of about $5 million, largely because of some botched planning that had previously been done for him.
After reviewing the situation, I asked Mr. Jacobs if he were open to the idea of charitable giving. He was. “I’ve been a lifelong member of Rotary, and I’d be happy to donate $2,000. My deceased wife was an active member of a sewing club. I could give them $3,000 in her memory.”
I decided to save the discussion of charitable giving for another time. Instead, I started getting to know Mr. Jacobs. He was a good man with a remarkable story. It seems he had grown up and spent his long life on two pieces of ground. Born in upstate New York, he had lived on a farm there until his family moved when he was 10. They bought a small farm near the town of Ocoee, where he had lived ever since.
He’d certainly had his share of misfortune. As a boy in New York, he had lost an eye in a farming accident. He also had had polio, so one of his legs was withered, and he walked with a pronounced limp. He had been married for many years, but his wife had passed away about five years before I met him. He had one child, a daughter in her mid-50s who had not fulfilled any particular ambitions, and still waited tables at a local all-you-can-eat restaurant. She had two children, a son and a daughter, both in their early 20s at the time. Both were heavily involved with illicit drug use. The son had been arrested for dealing drugs for his father, Mr. Jacobs’ ex-son-in-law, who was serving time in a federal prison. Mr. Jacobs’ granddaughter also was pregnant; Mr. Jacobs did not know who the father might be.
In view of all this, and understandably, while Mr. Jacobs wanted to make sure that his child’s and his grandchildren’s needs were met, he certainly had no intention of leaving them $9 million. Mr. Jacobs had worked hard all his life. When he was a teenager, he and his father had built a service station on their property, which Mr. Jacobs had operated since he was 18. He told me interesting stories about sleeping in the station all night, so in case a car drove by he would be there to sell them a quarter’s worth of gas. At one point, he owned his own tanker truck, and worked in the station all day, and drove a tanker to Tampa, which in those days, took four or five hours, filled up, drove back, and worked all day taking care of customers.
Ocoee, where Mr. Jacobs lived, might fairly be described as a stepchild of Orange County—a town with a hard luck story much like Mr. Jacobs’. In the early 1920s, there had been a race riot there on Election Day. Several people were killed—an incident that had stigmatized the town and still cast a shadow over it even these many years later. Early in the Great Depression, the town lost its bank, leaving it no source of lending for businesses looking to put down roots and grow there. Mr. Jacobs told me that he knew a number of merchants who went to the bank of a nearby town seeking a loan, and were refused because the bank did not want to support businesses that would compete with those in its own town.
Mr. Jacobs chose to use this setback as an opportunity. In the 60s, he and a few Rotary Club buddies opened a bank in Ocoee. He donated the property on which the bank was built. One merger followed another until eventually Mr. Jacobs’ investments of land for the bank had returned the current value of his estate—$9 million.
Mr. Jacobs and I spent a good bit of time together. I helped him capture and articulate some of these stories. I wanted to make sure that, in addition to protecting the financial resources he had, we also preserved the rest of his wealth—who he was, what he had learned, and the values that have guided him to his hard-won wisdom, and ensure that these somehow would be passed along intact to those who would follow him, even though, at the time, they did not seem particularly interested in what he had to say.
As we talked one afternoon, I was struck by an insight into what might be important for Mr. Jacobs. He was describing his friendships and associations with citizens of Ocoee, his adopted hometown, and it suddenly seemed clear to me that this was the key. “Mr. Jacobs,” I asked, “what would you think if we could take the money in your estate that otherwise would go to the IRS, and instead direct it into an account that you and those you trust could dispense for projects in Ocoee?”
He looked at me and asked, “What do you mean?”
“We could take the money that otherwise would have to be paid in taxes, and see to it that it was spent to improve the town and the lives of the people there.”
He was intrigued. “Give me an example,” he said, leaning forward.
“Well,” I said, “suppose that the elementary school needed new playground equipment. We could take some of the money that we had set aside in a special fund—one that you and those you trust could control—and buy the equipment. If the girls needed a new softball field to play on, you could finance its construction. If you just wanted to make the Christmas parade extra special one-year, you could direct funds to do just that.”
Mr. Jacobs’s eyes grew wide; I could see he was imagining the possibilities. “We could do that?” he asked.
“Indeed, we could. And it wouldn’t take away anything from your family, because the money we’d be using to set up the fund would otherwise just have gone to the government.”
Mr. Jacobs sat back in his chair with a deeply satisfied grin. “This is exciting,” he said, and a new mood of enthusiasm came over him. He was already planning what he would do with the money.
Rather than giving $2,000 to the Rotary Club or $3.000 to his wife’s sewing circle, Mr. Jacobs ended up contributing $5 million. The money was used, as we had discussed, to create a fund to benefit the city of Ocoee—a fund that would be controlled by him and those he trusted, and be used expressly to support worthwhile community projects for that town, in keeping with the things that Mr. Jacobs felt were most important. With his wife gone, and appropriate arrangements made to care for his child and grandchildren, his remaining great love was the town of Ocoee. The difference that this advising made for him and for the citizens of Ocoee may well extend beyond the foreseeable future, benefiting countless generations to come.
I believe the best advisors are those who are able to engage their clients on the story level and then use the insights and understandings gleaned in that exchange to build technically brilliant plans that reflect the values, personalities, fears, dreams, wisdom, and life-learning of their clients and their families.
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March 2008
How to Create Your Transformation Story
Whether you call it “Our Firm’s Story” or “The Story of My Practice” or “My Personal Introduction,” every successful advisor must be able to crisply and credibly relate a personal Transformation Story. It’s one of the key pieces in meeting prospects and engaging clients. It can make all the differences between a thriving, vibrant business and one that barely squeaks by.
Your Transformation Story is powerful for several reasons. First, it makes you more human. People can relate to you because they know that the real world is about dealing with change in a constantly changing world. When they see that you have experienced life in real terms, that you’re not just simply a figurehead, a plastic person, somebody with a title and a bunch of letters behind your name, they can relate to you as a real person.
It’s also an effective way for them to connect with you. We feel connected to the people whose stories we have listened to and who have listened to our stories. By hearing your story, they feel more comfortable telling you theirs. By opening up to them, they are invited to open up to you. Your authentic sharing makes it easier for them to share genuinely with you.
Another very important benefit of the transformation story is that it gives permission and encouragement for them to change. When we approach prospects about working with us, we are asking them to change, to change from being a prospect to a client; to change from not having a plan to having a plan. The story of our transformation is a subtle and powerful way to say, “I’ve changed, and it’s okay for you to change too.” While the message will never be spoken by you in those terms, nonetheless they will understand it in those terms.
Finally, telling a Transformation Story is an amazing way of shifting the dynamic of an advisor/client meeting. Most clients come to an advisor’s office feeling intimidated, guarded, skeptical, and worried about fees. They’re very much on the left side of their brain because they’re going to have to process some complicated information. People who are in the left side of the brain, in analytical or critical mode, are much less likely to move forward. That’s because virtually every major decision we’ve made in our lives—whether to buy this house or to move or to marry or to go to that college—was decided on an intuitive level, on the right side of the brain. Then it was justified on the left side of the brain. So, if you want your clients to make the transformation from prospect to client or from ordinary client to exceptional client, you need to address the right side of the brain. And you do that best by shifting the conversation into story-sharing mode. You can do that most easily by telling a story about yourself—your Transformation Story.
The structure of your Transformation Story is deceptively simple. It has four key steps:
Step number one is that you describe what I call “the old you.” You briefly describe the way you used to be, setting up the transformation that will soon follow in the story. Thus your listener is able to see you and the setting in which you were operating. It’s important to set that anchor first, because people need to know and identify with the person who was “the old you.”
Step two is the transforming event. Something happened that rattled your world and shook up the status quo. It may have been an earth-shattering, life-changing event like a major disaster, a serious illness, or even the death of a loved one. Or it could have been something subtle, something cumulative that built up over time, like the feeling that enough is finally enough. Some times, it’s only the last straw. But whether it was large and dramatic, or small but irritating, it put the protagonist of the story in a bind and created a tension that had to be dealt with.
Step three is the response. You reacted—perhaps badly at first—to the transforming event. It makes a more interesting story if the protagonist (which in this case is you) initially pushes back, reacts badly, doesn’t handle well the change that has been thrown his way. It’s important that you share that less-than-perfect side of yourself, because that shows you to be more human because as humans, we naturally resist change. But ultimately your better self took over and you became a much better, more qualified, competent person.
And that lead to
step number four, which I call “the new you.” As a result of the way you responded to the transforming event, you became a different person, someone much better qualified to help the prospect or client address the concerns and problems that they have.
This very basic pattern can be used to narrate a very powerful story. But,
while the story is told in this sequence, it is created by approaching the four steps in a different order. You tell the story in order: step one, step two, step three, then step four. By contrast, when you sit down to design your story, you use a different sequence. To create a great Transformation Story, you’re going to first identify who you are today. You’re going to recognize which attributes you want to emphasize to the client. That’s the new you. Next, you’re going to decide which event in your life played a key role in helping you become that kind of person. After that, you’re going to focus on how you responded to the transforming event, both negatively and positively. Finally, you’re gong to clarify who you used to be before the event happened, before the transformation occurred.
Your Transformation Story has to be told quickly. Typically the prospect’s only going to allow you about three minutes, even if it’s an interesting story. Hence, you need to write out the pieces of the story and polish it. I would suggest you take a piece of paper and identify in writing the characteristics you want to project to the client: Who are you and what makes you uniquely qualified to help them? Who is “the new you?” Next, write down what changed you. Go back in your memory and think about which events are causes for your becoming that kind of a person. You’ll be surprised at how many triggers there could have been. Find one’s that interesting and has a human believability to it. If it’s big and dramatic, that’s good. If it’s only small but believable, that’s still okay because we know that even small things can drive us to make major changes. Then think about and write how you reacted and ultimately changed in response to the event you identified. Finally, write down a description of who you used to be before all this change occurred.
Once you’ve written it out, it’s important to start telling the story. You might start by just telling it to yourself, maybe into a recorder for the first time or two. Then find somebody who is willing to give you a listening ear and good feedback. Say to them, “I’m working on telling a story about how I’ve changed and I wonder if you would listen to this story and then give me some response.” Tell them the story and then listen to what they say. As you practice, remember a few important points: The story has to be believable, it must be interesting, and it must be short. It doesn’t have to be perfect before you tell it to a client. In fact, the very best practice you get is simply telling it to clients and seeing how they respond. Over time, the story’s going to get better and better as you learn which words to use to help your listeners connect with you and visualize the events you are describing.
Before you know it, you’ll start seeing what I call “the connecting look” in the eyes of prospects and clients, as they “get it.” They understand you, they like you, and they want to work with you. It’s a magical moment for both of you.
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February 2008
What Stories Will They Be Telling About You?
I was recently coaching the Chairman of the Board of Directors of a large hospital network in the Midwest. He was struggling with how to get his board to see the vision and come alive to a series of bold initiatives for improving patient care. Nothing he could think of seemed to generate in them the kind of energy and excitement he felt. I suggested he tap into the power of story to help his colleagues appreciate the potential impact of their efforts. I asked him this question:
“When you finish this project, what stories do you want patients to be telling about your hospitals?” In answering my question, his mind and his spirit literally leaped with excitement. And furthermore, he knew clearly how to energize his board.
Last summer, I was speaking to an estate-planning conference in Washington, D.C. The group has a reputation for being technically astute and very analytical. I wanted them to understand how much value they were leaving on the table, both for themselves and their clients, if they failed to combine Legacy Building with their technical expertise. I asked them a variation of the same question that had worked so well with my Chairman of the Board client. I asked them to think silently for a minute or two about this question:
“When your days as an estate planner are over, what stories do you want your clients to be telling about you?”
At first, they were fidgety and resisted considering the question in silence. But I insisted and they finally settled into reflection. After a couple of minutes, I asked them to share their thoughts with a colleague. Their tones were thoughtful and subdued. I asked a few to share their thoughts with the whole group. What they had discovered in their thoughtfulness was that what they really wanted to be remembered for was their kindness, their wisdom, and their ability to make a difference in the lives of their clients.
Let me invite you to reflect on the same question: When your days as a financial advisor or insurance expert or estate planner—or whatever it is you do—are over, what stories do you want your clients to be telling about you?
My good friend, Richard Stone wrote in
The Healing Power of Storytelling that “[a]t the end of our lives, all that is left of us is our story.” He also quotes a Native American tradition: “As long as someone is still telling your story, you’re really still alive.”
Ultimately, our work as advisors is about helping clients tell and pass along
their stories. If we’re lucky, our clients will also ask us to help them change
the way those stories turn out. Not much else compares to the importance and
fulfillment of that work.
If you enjoyed this blog please send Scott a comment.
