A Pattern for Joy

A Pattern for Joy

“Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story.”  Eric Hoffer

I believe there is a pattern for finding true joy in life.  As a SunBridge 3-GEN Planner, I have come across a very small handful of people who have discovered this pattern (usually almost by accident) and are living in harmony with it. 

A few weeks ago I enjoyed several delightful hours interviewing a couple from North Carolina who clearly had found and were living the pattern.  Simply being in their presence was a treat, because they radiated happiness and fulfillment. 

Spending time with them was like discovering a warm and sunny spot out of the wind on a cool and blustery day.  We shared lots of wonderful stories and more than a few tears. 

From their example and others, I’ve learned this pattern or process has four steps:

1)      We must discover a passion outside us that is bigger and deeper than ourselves. 

There is no joy in selfishness.  Perhaps brief pleasure, but not joy. 

Those who discover the pattern for a fullness of joy are unselfish.  They inherently love many someones and somethings beyond themselves.  Then something triggers a powerful transformation inside them. 

What begins as a slow boil of caring within us is kicked into overdrive when we find a purpose and a mission outside ourselves that is much bigger than us.  Then the drive becomes relentless; it can no longer be resisted. 

This North Carolina couple loved helping children with serious illnesses and had done much already to help these young victims.  But it was the tragic loss of their own grandson that was the catalyst for supercharging their lives. 

They determined, as another joy-filled couple from Florida once explained to me, that they could either “be bitter or be better,” and they had a choice.  They chose to be better, to use the energy of their grief to make a difference in the lives of others. 

They threw themselves into their new mission because they understood first-hand what losing a young life can mean to the parents and grandparents.  They leveraged their loss into a reason to go the second mile to relieve the suffering of others.

Sadly, few people ever find their own passion, and almost none of them experience the spark that kicks in the afterburners.  They’re too busy playing with their toys, re-decorating the parlor, or jetting off on the latest ultimate vacation.

The truly joyful find the passion, experience the spark, and then take action.  In the end, that makes all the difference.

2)      We must connect with — or build if necessary — an exceptional organization that can produce life-changing results for the recipients of our passion. 

“It takes a village,” as the old saying goes, to put arms and legs and heart onto our passion.  It can’t be done alone.

Satisfying a passion that’s big enough to consume us takes time and coordination.  It requires persistence, order, and organization.  Flash-in-the-pan, fly-by-night, or one-hit-wonder passion never leads to real joy.

It’s OK to build castles in the sky, so long as we push forward to build foundations under them.  That’s why a solid, high-quality organization is so vital to bringing our passions to life.  The structure provides assistance, consistency, and longevity.

The North Carolina couple I interviewed had found such support in the Make-a-Wish Foundation.  I recently spoke at the Jimmy Carter Center in Atlanta and toured Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando where I recognized other similar world-class organizations.  On a smaller scale, I’ve seen the same thing in local churches and grass-roots homeless programs.

I have encountered lots of passionate people who never connect with or create an organization that can deliver life-changing experience for the objects of their passion.  As a result their passions eventually die a slow, unfulfilled death. 

3)      We must throw ourselves headlong into the passion and the organization, including time, talent and treasure, without reservation and without any concern for “what’s in it for me.” 

Those who measure their giving and service will never find the fullness of joy.  It is one of life’s paradoxes that “he that finds his life shall lose it: and he that loses his life for my sake shall find it.”

In the same vein, those who give and serve to be seen of others will likewise lose the greater prize: When you do your alms, do not sound a trumpet that you may have glory of men. Otherwise, that will be your reward.

Only those who are truly “all in” will ever experience this ultimate reward of pure joy.  This is true whether we are talking about our service to a particular charitable mission or our commitment to our marriage. Toe-dippers or those who leave part of themselves on the shore never really “get it.”

My friends from North Carolina were reluctant to fill in many details of their giving and service, but reading between the lines, it was obvious to me that for many, many years they had held nothing back.  They, in turn, had found much greater returns on their “investment,” as promised by Luke: “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over.”

4)      We must share the journey with someone we love.

I believe we humans are hard-wired to be together.  Thus, the final ingredient in the recipe for a fullness of joy is at least one other person to join in the experience with us.  Everything is richer, sweeter, and more satisfying when shared.

This is not to say that much good and much happiness can’t be achieved solo, because it can.  But there is an added element of amazing when we take the path to joy hand in hand, together with someone close to us.

It was clear with the North Carolina couple that, as wonderful as everything was in their generous, all-in quest to make a difference for “wish-kids” and their families through Make-a-Wish Foundation, the whipped cream and cherry on the top of their joyful sundae was the fact that they had done it together.

. . . .

As I see it, the path to a completeness of joy is Passion, Organization, Commitment, and Companionship.  This is the pattern.

This pattern is simple to see but difficult to achieve. But while challenging, it is not impossible.  Because I have seen others do it, I know it can be done.  It is worthy of our best efforts.

Why People Plan

“If we’re starting with the wrong questions, then even the right answers will always steer us wrong.”  Simon Sinek

 SunBridge 3-GEN Planning:  It Isn’t Complicated

I agree with Alexandra Potter when she wrote: “Life isn't complicated. It's very simple, really. It is we who make it complicated.”

That philosophy guides my work at SunBridge.  Much of what I teach in SunBridge isn’t complicated.  In fact, most of it is, as one of my students put it a few years ago, “stupidly simple and ‘duh’ obvious, but it works!”

But as with most of life’s most valuable secrets, SunBridge principles become simple and obvious only when we hear them.  Once they’ve been “discovered,” we wonder why we hadn’t seen them all along. 

More often than not, we overlook the obvious because we are “looking beyond the mark” for something more sophisticated, more glamorous, more grandiose.  A story about Christopher Columbus makes the point.

Several years after his historic discoveries, Christopher Columbus was invited to a banquet where he was treated like royalty.  By then, trips from Spain to the Americas had become somewhat commonplace.  A shallow courtier, deeply jealous of the great Admiral, sought to embarrass him by asking loudly whether, had he not discovered the West Indies, there were not many other men in Spain who would have been capable of the same thing.  After all, the whole concept of sailing west to reach east was so simple and obvious.

Columbus did not reply directly, but instead took a raw egg and invited those in the group to make it stand on end.  They all attempted it, but in vain.  He then picked up the egg and tapped it lightly on the large end so as to indent the shell only slightly.  Without a word, he left the egg standing on the indentation.  Once he had shown the way, it was easy. 

I think of SunBridge 3-GEN Planning in much the same way.  It’s obvious.  When we first hear about it, our knee jerk reaction is “well, of course, I knew that already.”  Kind of like Columbus’ egg — we knew it, but we didn’t really know it.

It’s also uncomplicated.  That is, unless we choose to make it complicated.  That usually happens when we start asking the wrong questions. 

What is SunBridge 3-GEN Planning?

It might be helpful to remind ourselves what SunBridge 3-GEN Planning is:

·        In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, planning isn’t something we do to our family, or even for our family.  It’s something we do with our family.

·         In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, three generations come together to create a blueprint for a happy and successful life for everyone, both today and tomorrow.

·         In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, we bring everyone to the table and discover solutions to the family’s biggest questions.  Then we implement them.

·         In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, planning isn’t a lecture the patriarch delivers to his posterity through a bullhorn, it’s a thoughtful and respectful conversation among all of them.

·         In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, we stop treating the clients’ children and grandchildren as mere objects or pawns.  We treat them as real people who have a real stake in this process.

·         In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, we stop infantilizing the clients’ children and grandchildren in a misguided quest to build a family dynasty by fiat. 

·         In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, the advisory team assumes the role of educating and mentoring family members and guiding them into a new collaborative model of family dynamics.

Seems pretty simple and obvious, doesn’t it?  And it is, now that I’ve said it.

Where Do We Start?

Successful 3-GEN Planning (and, I would argue, all successful planning) starts in what should be an obvious place:  helping clients clarify WHY they are doing planning in the first place, figuring out the core purpose for this endeavor.

Getting clear about the WHY is critical.  Unless and until we get the WHY right, the HOW and the WHAT are impossible to figure out correctly.  It’s a lot like trying to put together a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle without the picture on the front of the box.

Now, here’s the good news.  The answer to WHY, from the clients’ perspective, “isn't complicated. It's very simple, really. It is we who make it complicated.” Alexandra Potter

Parents and grandparents who plan want something quite simple from the process.  They want the same thing that every loving, caring parent or grandparent always wants for their children and grandchildren: they want their offspring to be happy.  They want them to have a better life as a result of the planning than they would have without it.

The critical question for the planner is thus quite simple and obvious: “What does happiness and a better life look like, from both the parent’s or grandparent’s perspective and the child’s or grandchild’s perspective?”

We are headed for trouble any time we ask any other questions before we’re crystal clear about what being happy and having a better life mean to our clients and their children and grandchildren. “If we’re starting with the wrong questions, then even the right answers will always steer us wrong.”  Simon Sinek

Starting with WHY means it’s not about investments, life insurance, trustees, powers of appointment, the size of the estate, or allocating the assets within it.  It’s not about avoiding probate, reducing taxes, or placing charitable donations.  It’s not about this tactic or that strategy.  It’s about happiness and a better life for our clients and those they love.

So how do we figure out what happiness and what a better life look like, from both the parent’s or grandparent’s perspective and the child’s or grandchild’s perspective? 

Once again, the answer is simple and obvious.

We have a conversation.  We ask questions.  We facilitate a discussion.  We encourage them to tell their stories.  We listen.  We teach our clients and their families to listen, not just with their ears, but also with their hearts.  We empower everyone to speak in kindness and love from their heart.  We examine our assumptions, jettison untrue ones, and replace them with true, liberating assumptions.

How long does that take?  The answer to that question is the same answer my Mississippi wife was given when she asked her family’s ancient and beloved cook, Ora, how long to cook “upper-ground potatoes:” “Til it’s done, honey. Til it’s done.”

When we find the answer, when “it’s done,” both we and the clients will know it.  Trust me, we will know.

Once we know what happiness and a better life look like for our clients and those they love, figuring out the HOW and the WHAT may still involve a lot of work, but we’re clear what the finished product needs to look like.  We still have to put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together, but now we can work from the picture on the front of the box.

The Problem is Our Planning

“We have met the enemy, and it is us.”  Pogo

             A. Two Problems, One Cause

The voice on the phone was filled with panic.  It was a seasoned and successful financial advisor from the Northeast and he was worried.  One of his best clients had died recently and things were spinning out of control. 

“His children won’t talk to me.  They’ve even hired a new estate settlement attorney.  I’m going to lose $2 million of assets I have under management and the $5 million of life insurance proceeds I set up for them in a dynasty trust.  They don’t seem to appreciate all I’ve done for them.  What can I do?  How can I hang on to this business?”

I had to break the bad news to him that, at this stage of the game, there wasn’t much he could do because his client’s children and grandchildren barely knew him.  All the great service he had given his client and all the great planning he had done for his client were not going to help him with his client’s children. 

Sadly, this episode is repeated frequently, very frequently.

98% of the time, professional wealth advisors lose their client’s business within one year of the death of their client. 

This phenomenon, well known to observant practitioners, has been documented by several in-depth studies, including a recent survey conducted by Price Waterhouse Coopers, Global Private Banking/Wealth Management Group.  This incredibly high attrition rate of 98% has severe implications for advisors wishing to maintain their firm’s profitability and eventually sell their practices.

Unfortunately, the client’s children and grandchildren won’t fare much better, even with the decedent’s millions.  Unbeknownst to them, in all likelihood they are already on their own financial and relational death spiral.

90% of the time, the wealth and solidarity of affluent families are dissipated by the end of the third generation. 

This phenomenon is so universal that it is encapsulated in a similar proverb in nearly every country on earth.  In the US, it is “Shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations.”  In Holland and Ireland, it is “Clogs to clogs in three generations.”  In China, it is “Rice paddy to rice paddy in three generations.”

As my friend and colleague Courtney Pullen wrote in the Introduction to his brand-new book, Intentional Wealth:

“From shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations.”  This is an ancient saying about the fleeting nature of wealth, and modern research has confirmed its accuracy.  Approximately 90% of affluent families lose their wealth by the end of the third generation.  The tragedy of this statistic isn’t the loss of the money; it’s the loss of the family that goes with it.  As the wealth dissipates, so does the connective tissue of the family, whose members often end up disconnected and embroiled in conflict.”

       B.  The root cause for both these stark failures is the same: our method of planning.

The cause for failed multigenerational families and failed multigenerational advisory relationships is the traditional planning paradigm, which is founded on a mindset of superiority, secrecy, and control.  It works like this:

When affluent clients set out to create a plan for the perpetuation of their wealth and their values across multiple generations, they typically assume that they and they alone know what’s best for their descendants and they have the right to dictate the rules.  After all, it is their money.  Many are well-intended: they may wish to shelter or protect their descendants from the challenges and complexities of creating these plans.  Regardless of the clients’ motivations, family members most affected by these plans are seldom consulted except in the most superficial ways.

The clients’ old-school professional advisors, locked in the mindset of the traditional planning paradigm, reinforce this patronizing attitude because it plays into their own mindset of superiority and control.  This creates an echo chamber in which clients and advisors hear only what they want to hear. 

And lest anyone slow down the planning in progress or undo it once it is written, the entire process is cloaked in secrecy.  Family member don’t speak to advisors and advisors don’t speak to family members except until the very end when, in the stereotypical “reading of the will” the great plan is finally unveiled. 

By then, the die for the family dynasty is cast.  The surviving family members’ lives for the next several generations have been largely determined without their even being consulted.  As it turns out, the so-called “objects of the client’s bounty” are merely pawns in the process.  The result is the objectification and infantilization of the clients’ children and grandchildren.  The plan—carefully crafted by the client and his advisors—becomes a patronizing, self-fulfilling prophecy. 

It is highly unlikely that those who are thus neutered by being treated by their parents and grandparents as objects and infants will succeed in maintaining and building the family wealth or family relationships beyond their own generation.  Instead, they will — 90% of the time — go to great lengths to resist and eventually dismantle their parents’ planning.

It is highly unlikely the client’s children and grandchildren will feel much affection for their parents’ “co-conspirators,” the professional advisors who devised the plans that now hold them hostage.  Instead, they will — 98% of the time — fire those advisors and hire others more sympathetic to their point of view.

It is no small irony that the planning process itself, the very process that is intended to perpetuate the client’s success and make his advisors indispensable to the heirs, plants the seeds of failure on both counts.

      C.  Two Problems, One Solution:  SunBridge 3-GEN Planning

Einstein defined insanity as continuing to do things as they’ve always been done while expecting a different result.  For those astute enough to recognize that the old paradigm of planning doesn’t work, it’s clear we’ve got to re-think the way we plan.  Fortunately, there is a solution to both these serious problems.  It is a new—but actually age-old—approach to planning called “SunBridge 3-GEN Planning.”

What is SunBridge 3-GEN Planning?

• In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, planning isn’t something we do to our family, or even for our family.  It’s something we do with our family.
•  In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, planning isn’t a lecture the patriarch delivers to his posterity through a megaphone, it’s a thoughtful and respectful conversation among all of them.
• In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning we stop treating the clients’ children and grandchildren as mere objects or pawns.  We treat them as real people who have a real stake in this process.
•  In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning we stop infantilizing the clients’ children and grandchildren in a misguided quest to build a family dynasty by fiat.  After all, why worry about the 7th generation if your family and your wealth aren’t going to survive past the 3rd?  What good is a 100-year plan if your children and grandchildren are falling apart today, and will be tearing each other apart as soon as you’re gone?
• In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, three generations come together to create a blueprint for a happy and successful life for everyone, both today and tomorrow.
• In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, we bring everyone to the table and discover solutions to the family’s biggest questions.  Then we implement them.
• In SunBridge 3-GEN Planning, the advisory team assumes the role of educating and mentoring family members and guiding them into a new collaborative model of family dynamics.

D. Why SunBridge 3-GEN Planning Works

The plan that emerges from the SunBridge 3-GEN Planning process is a shared, collaborative plan, built by the family working together with their trusted advisors.  Not everyone gets everything they want, but they get a voice and a place at the table.

Since everyone has a say, everyone buys in and takes ownership.  Everyone takes responsibility for making it work, not only for their generation but for generations to come.  No more “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves.”

As a SunBridge 3-GEN Planner, you connect with your clients’ children and grandchildren naturally and organically during these planning experiences.  They know you and trust you, so of course they will turn to you for advice and counsel when their parent or grandparent passes on.  Unlike 98% of your peers, you will not lose the business when the patriarch dies.  This will secure the long-term value of your business.

      E.  SunBridge teaches advisors how to become 3-GEN Planners

SunBridge is the national leader in 3-GEN Planning.  Our mission is to guide professional advisors through the process of becoming SunBridge 3-GEN Planners.  We understand what’s required to step up and take charge of one’s professional development.

SunBridge is uniquely qualified to help professional planners and advisors add this exclusive planning methodology to their professional service offering.  Members of the SunBridge Network experience our powerful and time-tested “TRAINING – TOOLS – SUPPORT” approach to equipping professionals for this amazing journey of becoming a SunBridge 3-GEN Planner.

Since 1999, we’ve been showing professional advisors how to address the WHOLENESS of their clients’ wealth, not just their money.  We provide SunBridge Network members with a wide array of resources, including our latest graphic and conceptual image, “The Thriving 3-GEN Family.”  This exclusive proprietary tool will help you, your clients, and your colleagues “get” what 3-GEN Planning is all about.

 It’s our job to help advisors shift their thinking and their perspective to achieve the new mind-set they will need to succeed in this important work.  We help them develop additional capabilities so they will have the new skill-set required to operate effectively in this broader role.  We equip them with a new tool-set to make their work more efficient and profitable.  And we provide them a new support-set so they can make this transformation stick for the long haul.

The process of becoming a SunBridge 3-GEN Planner is a joyful, meaningful journey, perhaps more so than anything else in your prior work experience.  Using “The Thriving 3-GEN Family” planning model, the twin dangers of the loss of family wealth and solidarity within three generations and the loss of the advisor’s business at the death of the client can be effectively addressed and avoided.

      F.  Imagine Yourself as a SunBridge 3-GEN Planner

Can you picture what it would be like to practice this way? See if you can visualize yourself in settings such as these:

As a SunBridge 3-GEN Planner, you teach a teenage grandchild how to conduct a “Priceless Conversation” interview with his or her grandparent, then listen in the wings as it actually happens.  Imagine witnessing a grandchild’s delight in uncovering his grandparent’s stories and a grandparent’s pride in sharing his life’s wisdom.

As a SunBridge 3-GEN Planner, you lead an “Angels & Heroes” activity for the entire multigenerational family.  During the exercise, each person’s honest and authentic value system is discovered, shared, and appreciated.  Imagine the impact of carefully weaving this insight into the family’s 3-GEN plan.

As a SunBridge 3-GEN Planner, you guide a three-generation client family through a real-life philanthropic adventure using the “Main Street Giving Experience.”  This hands-on activity draws the family together and changes the lives of everyone involved.  Imagine them discovering what makes each one come alive and recognizing their power to make a difference in their communities.

As a SunBridge 3-GEN Planner, you facilitate a “Time to Think Council” in which the family’s knottiest issues are artfully and lovingly dissected and resolved, to the amazement and satisfaction of all.  Picture a family learning — perhaps for the first time — how to talk to each other about difficult subjects without it turning into a shouting match.

As a SunBridge 3-GEN Planner, you make sure that a large bequest from a parent or grandparent is not a “Sudden Money” event, because you prepare the children and grandchildren to receive it long in advance.

As a SunBridge 3-GEN Planner, you don’t let your clients make “The Ultimate Gift” mistake of waiting until they’re dead, then counting on others (or their documents, or even a DVD) to fix their family.  As a SunBridge 3-GEN Planner, you understand that “it is better to build a fence at the top of the cliff than it is to station an ambulance at the bottom.” Harold B. Lee

As a SunBridge 3-GEN Planner, you get paid for connecting families and changing lives.  Your work is richly rewarding, in every sense of the word.

      G.   An Invitation

If you’ve always dreamed of practicing this way, or if you can at least imagine yourself working this way with select clients, I invite you to become a member of the SunBridge Network and learn to become a SunBridge 3-GEN Planner. 

Your journey will begin with a free introductory webinar “The Case for 3-GEN Planning” on Wednesday, February 12, 2014, at Noon Eastern.  That will be followed by monthly SunBridge Network training conference calls on the fourth Wednesday at Noon Eastern. 

We are offering two 2-day workshops this spring and summer that will kick your training into high gear:

“The Main Street Giving Experience for Facilitators and Ambassadors,” Thursday and Friday, April 3-4, 2014, in Orlando, Florida

“The SunBridge 3-GEN Planning Retreat,” Thursday and Friday, June 26-27, 2014, in Orlando, Florida.

If you’re ready to step up your game, we’re ready to support you every step of the way.  Don’t you owe it to yourself and to your clients and their families, for generations to come?

For more information contact Scott Farnsworth, 407-593-2386, Scott@SunBridgeNetwork.com.