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.

 

Gary Norton

Scott fishing with his friend Gary and his brother Lane.

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.

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.”   

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?”

• 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.

• 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.

• 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

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.

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.”

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.