One of our mantras here at Bolen | Dodson & Associates is: Treat change as a gift. We talk about how “sudden money” is more about the change and transition than it is about the money.
Long term care: To insure or not to insure?
People are living longer. In less than 100 years, life expectancy has gone from barely 50 years old to over 80. Not only are we living longer, we are...
Roles of the Integrated Wealth Planner
At Bolen | Dodson & Associates, our vision is that you will live an inspired life, free from worry about your money matters. There is a lot of value in plain vanilla financial planning and asset management services. However, we believe there is much more to be accomplished through truly integrated Wealth Planning.
Integration occurs when your core believes and highest goals become the reference point for financial and life decisions. Uncovering your core beliefs and highest goals requires a well developed “Discovery” process. Last week I attended Kingdom Advisors annual conference in Orlando, FL. Kingdom Advisors is a faith based association which advocates operating one’s financial advisory practice on Biblical principles. In one of the sessions, they discussed a model of the different roles of the advisor and I wanted to share that with you today.
An Integrated Wealth Planner fills at least three roles for clients: Leader, Advisor and Coach. My role as Leader is to provide inspiration and direction towards better financial and spiritual health. My role as Advisor is to provide technical advice along with an understanding of how best to implement that advise relative to your aspirations and goals. Most of traditional financial planning and asset management services reside here. As Coach, my role is to remove barriers to growth and change by engaging clients in meaningful dialogue. The integration of any two of the roles blends the expertise accordingly. The integration of all three roles will help you define and establish your worldview and how best to facilitate narrowing the gap between your ideal self and your actual self.
Enjoy your President’s Day
Managing Life’s Perspective Fosters Increased Happiness
I am attending Dan Sullivan’s Strategic Coaching Program, which is helping me grow my practice, improve client service and increase my own productivity and sense of well being. One of Sullivan’s coaching constructs is “Learning How to Avoid the Gap.” I see this as managing one’s perspective on life. Regardless of the words, the construct works and improves happiness and one’s sense of well being. Please read on.
The Gap is the space between our Ideal selves and our Actual selves. Our “Actual selves” are our actual achievements and results in life. It’s what we actually get done. Our “Ideal selves” is who we are after we accomplish our long list of goals and desires. It is a mental construct that helps us set goals, dream about the future and motivate us towards our goal accomplishments.
Unfortunately, Ideals exist only in our minds. The ideal is rarely if ever actually achieved. As such, how we manage the Gap, or our perspective, directly influences our level of happiness. If we always measure our Actual results against our Ideals, we will fall short and we can become frustrated and even despondent. That is seeing the glass as half empty. However, if we measure our results against where we started, we will see how far we have come and be more likely to be pleased with the progress. We will see the glass as half full.
Let’s call where we started as Actual 1 and where we are now Actual 2. Measuring our achievements from Actual 1 to Actual 2 is quite productive. Realizing we have more progress to make is also useful; that is, the distance between Actual 2 and the Ideal. But remember, we are unlikely to ever get to Ideal. We will set new goals, change our plans or whatever. Ideal is always in the distance.
I know many individuals that are very successful, but they are not particularly happy because they always fall short of their Ideal selves. They don’t give themselves credit for the ample progress they’ve made over time. I encourage them and you to reframe your perspective and see the progress you’ve made. You will be much happier if you do.