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David J. Murphy

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CLU, ChFC, FLMI, is a director, vice president, team leader, speaker and mentor for Global Leadership Partners. For nearly four decades Murphy worked in the financial services industry, and has held positions in sales, marketing, product development, training and development, distribution, agency management, and recruiting. In his latest role he was responsible for managing National Account relationships. In this role he shared business leadership and practice management concepts with business owners, marketing organizations and independent financial professionals. He is a frequent contributor to industry trade journals and a keynote speaker at industry events. After 37 wonderful years in financial services, it was time for Murphy to give back, to share with others the training, development and experiences he enjoyed by God’s grace, and encourage others who are just starting out or seeking to grow. Global Leadership Partners identifies, equips and sends business leaders to speak at leadership seminars in partnership with organizations primarily in Eastern Europe, but eventually, around the world. The intent is to foster development of foreign leaders who will courageously stand for strong values and a high ethical standard. This work is based on the belief that the world will be a better place when filled with leaders who lead according to proven values and bedrock principles. Murphy is a frequent contributor to industry trade journals and is available as a keynote speaker for life insurance industry meetings and training events. He can be reached by telephone at: 312-859-3064. Email: murpd191@gmail.com. Twitter: https://twitter.com/InLifeOnPurpose.

EQ=2xTC

Knock, knock
Who’s there?
Adore
Adore who?
Adore is between you and me so please open up!

I have a small extended family. In my family growing up I had two sisters. While one sister (deceased) never had children, my other sister has four (two girls and two boys). My wife also grew up in a family of three children. She has two brothers. Her one brother never had children, and her other brother did not first marry until into his fifties, to a woman who had three daughters. We really do not have relationships with these young women.

Effectively, I have two nieces and two nephews.

One of my nephews recently observed, “I think we’ve all always known that our family and your family were very different from each other—having different beliefs, different temperaments, even a different socio/economic status.” He is correct. The way our families behave is quite different. We previously gathered as one large family every now and again, especially at Christmas when the children were growing up, but that ceased when the glue of our family—Grandma (my Mom)—passed from this earth in December, 2015.

Since then I have used texting as a means of keeping in contact with my nieces and nephews. In sorting through old files I discovered drawings they had given me, when they were young, as well as letters and cards. I scanned these and texted these images to them. In addition, I frequently texted photos of my family members, shared what I was up to, and passed along quotes from what I was reading.

In my mind, I was being an uncle who wanted to stay connected.

Ann Landers once said, “Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.” True! And trusting your own opinion of yourself is even more unreliable!

Wake Up Time
In August of 2020 I was in the midst of planning the Fall Webinar season with the non-profit I serve. My team and I had exciting opportunities to conduct Leadership and Emotional Intelligence Training for university students in Romania, Ukraine, Latvia, Poland and Russia. I sent my nieces and nephews an enthusiastic text about all the work ahead of us.

What was I expecting to receive in return? I don’t really know. What I did not expect is what I received from one nephew. He wrote:

“That’s nice. Congratulations. And I appreciate this as an attempt to stay in touch with us, but I can’t help but feel that a conversation requires inquiries as well as statements. We receive updates on your life and your children’s lives, but I don’t believe you’ve ever asked what any of us are doing.”

Whoa. Whatever it was I thought I was doing was not at all being received as I had hoped.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
I train university students in emotional intelligence, which of course includes self-awareness. Huh. I thought I had some. Self-awareness, that is.

Look again at the Knock-Knock joke. It is funny, right? Except, it is also instructive. Sometimes there is a door between us and other people. Sometimes, it is “adore” that separates us. Our English word “adore” comes from the Latin adorare which combines ad—“to”—and orare—“speak.” What we adore we tend to “speak to” or “speak of.” Apparently, when it comes to my nephews and nieces, what I adore is me, mine, and myself.

My son-in-law tells his three daughters this quip when they argue over toys: “Sharing is caring.” I thought that was what I was doing—showing care by sharing. Turns out, we show care by showing we care.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is based on two factors: 1) What we see; and, 2) What we do. EQ is about seeing and managing ourselves, but also seeing and managing relationships with other people. There are the four components of EQ:

  • Self-Awareness
  • Self-Management
  • Social Awareness/Empathy
  • Relationship Management

Awareness is seeing. Managing is doing.

In regard to my interactions with my nephews and nieces, I was neither seeing myself, nor them, and managing neither myself nor our relationship.

EQ and You
If you are in independent insurance distribution, or an independent financial professional, your business is people. EQ is a requirement!

A study by the Association of Financial Advisers found that what differentiates leading advisers in the eyes of clients are actually the interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence that complement the adviser’s technical skills. “Clients rated capabilities such as empathy, listening and understanding client needs a massive 82 percent above professional reputation, quality of advice and other factors.”1

Earlier this year, thought leaders in the financial planning space gathered online for the AICPA’s 2021 Personal Financial Planning (PFP) Summit. “Looking to the future, the vast majority of attendees said it will be more important for financial planners to manage their clients’ emotional state moving forward than it has been in the past. And to be successful in the future, the top three most-cited skills planners will need, in addition to technical skills, are emotional intelligence, interpersonal communication, and adaptability.”2 (Author’s emphasis)

I like this definition of EQ:

“Emotional intelligence is that ability you have that allows you to be smart about your feelings and emotions. Those who are emotionally intelligent are also smart when it comes to sensing the feelings and emotions of others.”3

It helps to begin by looking at the background of the word “intelligence.” The term comes to us from two Latin root words legere—to “choose or select”—and inter—“between.”
Combined, these words literally mean “the ability to choose between” options and to make the better choice.

What is the impact of emotions on our ability to make good choices?

  • Managing ourselves: During normal, unemotional times, we can see many options available to choose between. But when a strong emotion rises up in us what happens? That emotion can become so strong it blinds us to other choices so that we only see one option.
  • Managing relationships: Using social awareness and empathy, we can create strong relationships. Making appointments with other people virtually or in person is what we do to build relationships. Practicing empathy is how we do it.

Test Your Level of EQ:
1. Are you someone who listens with your eyes as well as your ears? Do you listen beyond just what is being said by paying attention to the manner in which it is being said? Are you hearing the meaning of what is being said?

2. In your work or practice are you asking questions that convey care and concern when interacting with others? (What I obviously failed to do with my nieces and nephews.)

3. Are you able to distinguish between your personal reactions to facts and circumstances and the reactions of your clients and associates?

4. Are you in the moment, and very present when speaking with others? Or, when they are speaking, are you thinking of what you are going to say next?

5. Do you control your anxieties, anger, frustrations, and disappointments such that they are not influencing what you can see in others?

6. Do you control your own biases? Do you keep yourself from assuming what someone else believes by actively seeking their viewpoints?

Leaning into Empathy
I think the response from my nephew hit me hard because I saw my failure to demonstrate empathy. Empathy is purposefully tuning in and sensing the emotions of others.

“There are three main types of empathy: Cognitive, Emotional, and Compassionate.

  1. Cognitive empathy means putting yourself into someone else’s place and their perspective.
  2. Emotional Empathy means when you feel the other person’s emotions alongside them, like you have their emotions.
  3. Compassionate Empathy is described as feeling someone’s pain and acting to help.”4

Empathy is where independent financial professionals, brokerage general agents, and wholesalers can add a lot of value to the people they serve. The better we can understand why people feel, act, and do what they do, the more successful we will be.

Practicing Empathy:

  • Begin taking written notes of how the people you are working with handle relationships.
  • Take special note of how other people express their feelings in words, how they describe their needs, and what concerns are top of mind.
  • When relating to others one on one use a system that orients you towards others, not necessarily just being friendly and personable but rather curious and compassionate.
  • Practice persistence. People admire someone who does not give up, lose patience, or simply move on.
  • Control your impulses by not interrupting, not filling in another person’s word when they pause or not completing another person’s sentences.
  • Look for opportunities to insert humor and hope.
  • Remember that empathy is not an action. Empathy is an internal commitment that causes you to experience something from another person’s standpoint.
  • When you discern someone’s emotional pain, stand with them, sit by them, and lend just your presence.

Summary
The title of this article is “EQ=2xTC.” This stands for: Emotional Intelligence Yields Twice the Number of Trusting Clients

In May of 2020, the MDRT published a study that found that Americans deem emotional intelligence the most trustworthy quality in an advisor.

“Americans would be more likely to trust advice from advisors who:

  • Listen to and acknowledge their clients’ needs (57 percent)
  • Communicate in easily understood ways (57 percent)
  • Follow through on their word (55 percent)
  • Show they care about their clients as people (52 percent)”5

Bottom line: Unlike IQ which we are born with and cannot change, EQ can be improved. It starts with internal reorientation, redetermining purpose, reevaluating priorities, and choosing to change.

In our roles in financial services we want to influence or inspire others. This begins with being transparent and genuine, by being our true selves. More than friendliness, trust is required. Trust is built through empathy. Empathy leads to genuinely discovering the best outcomes in each situation and finding common ground with people of all backgrounds.

Personal application:
My nieces never contributed to the conversation last August. I have made no progress in their direction. However, I listened to my two nephews. Since I do not live near them, last September I invited them to speak with me over Zoom. Starting then we began to meet for 60-90 minutes on Saturday afternoons twice a month. They appreciate the fact that I am asking questions about them. I promised them that I would act differently than before and am following up on that. They are both avid readers. I asked them if they would enjoy reading a book and discussing it on our Zoom calls. They said they would and suggested the book, “To Begin Where I Am: Selected Essays,” by Czeslaw Milosz.
Not only has my self-awareness improved, but I have also gained close relationships with these amazing young men!

What about you? I invite you to join me in growing your EQ!

References:

  1. https://www.afa.asn.au/news/whitepapers/the-trusted-adviser-2.
  2. https://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/accounting-audit/news/21212231/the-tops-skills-financial-planners-need-to-succeed.
  3. https://positivepsychology.com/emotional-intelligence-goleman-research/.
  4. https://newplannerrecruiting.com/enhancing-your-eq/.
  5. https://www.mdrt.org/emotional-intelligence.

Novel Financial Ideas

“Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life.”1 —Barbara Kingsolver

Over the years I have heard many people cite the fact that the Bible frequently talks about money. Depending on the translation you use, there are as many as 2300 verses that reference money, wealth, or possessions. You may be familiar with some of these:

  • “The borrower is a slave to the lender.” Proverbs 22:7
  • “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”1 Timothy 6:10
  • “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Acts 20:35

The Bible of course is literature. It turns out, money is a vast topic in many forms of literature (second only to love, perhaps).

There would not be literature without people, nor would there be money.
To succeed in the financial services business, a business about money, we must first understand people. To understand people, we must collect stories about them. Humans are not predictable and determinative like algebraic equations. Human lives display “narrativeness.”

To apply knowledge about the human experience we need both to read about people in the form of stories, and also share what we learn from those stories.

Question: Are you reading fiction, whether short stories or novels? Are you gathering stories to help you better understand your clients?

Gaining Financial Education through Fiction
I came across an intriguing paragraph while reading articles posted on Knowledge@Wharton, an online business journal of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

“When you read a great novel and engage with its characters, you sense from within what it is like to be someone else. You see the world from the perspective of a different social class, gender, religion, culture, sexual orientation, moral understanding, or other features that define and differentiate human experience. By living a character’s life vicariously, you not only feel what she feels, but also reflect on those feelings, consider the nature of the actions to which they lead and, with practice, acquire the wisdom to appreciate actual people in all their complexity.”2

Fiction, when well-written, helps us to understand real people by first seeing the world through the experience of fictional characters. Such insights are as necessary in financial services as in any discipline. If we are not equipped to understand what motivates people, how can we possibly grasp their limitations, clearly see their problems, or recommend appropriate solutions? People do not always act rationally or, seemingly, even in their own self-interest.

This is the point Barbara Kingsolver made. Empathy is necessary to successfully build a trusting clientele.

Sometimes we need empathy to understand the collective actions of an entire people. (Macro.) Usually, we need empathy to better understand the individual people we meet. (Micro.)

Macro View
Consider the Brexit vote. People on that occasion seemingly voted against their own economic self-interest. This could have been foreseen by economists who were familiar with Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, in which he astutely observes that human beings will sometimes willingly act against their self-interest precisely to demonstrate their unpredictability.

“To care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether it is good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things.”3

Micro View
First Example: Edith Wharton was born Edith Newbold Jones on January 24, 1862. As a novelist and author of short stories, she “drew upon her insider’s knowledge of the upper-class New York aristocracy to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age.”4 The expression, “Keeping up with the Joneses,” is said to refer to her father’s family. Wharton was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Literature, for her novel The Age of Innocence. Her novel The Custom of The Country provides insight into a behavior still common today. Insatiable greed.

The novel’s subject is Undine Spragg, a beautiful, vain, spoiled, ambitious, and selfish woman. Undine feels entitled to live a luxurious lifestyle and she intends to live it to the fullest. Her indulgent overspending leads to marital stress and financial strain.

“She had everything she wanted, but she still felt, at times, that there were other things she might want if she knew about them.”5

Second example: Honoré de Balzac wrote a series of some 90 novels and novellas collectively known as The Human Comedy. The books that made up the series were published between 1829 and 1847. Eugénie Grandet is one such novel first published in 1833. The novel is a provocative, entertaining, moral tale about avarice and stinginess that remains astonishingly relevant.

Honoré de Balzac was no stranger to the tyranny of money. He studied law and philosophy but to his family’s dismay (some things never change) he settled on a literary career, in which he was not initially successful. He failed in his publishing and business ventures and landed in debt. He wrote at a feverish pitch, fueled by gallons of coffee, and an urge to be financially successful.

In Eugénie Grandet we meet Felix Grandet, a master cooper, who married the daughter of a wealthy timber merchant. This took place when the French Republic had confiscated the lands owned by the Catholic Church. Felix Grandet auctioned his wife’s dowry in order to buy substantial property. At this time, his only daughter, Eugénie, was ten years old. Soon more wealth fell into Grandet’s lap by way of inheritance of the estates of his mother-in-law, grandfather-in-law, and grandmother.

With all this wealth, he was an unhappy miser. No one but his banker was invited into the house. Wealth made him powerful, but not generous.

“The miser does not believe in a life to come; the present is everything for him.”

Other novels explore similar important financial lessons:

  • “Money doesn’t buy happiness.” Read more about the depth of this truth in The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
  • “You cannot count on an inheritance.” This is graphically depicted in The Nest, by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney.
  • “Only fools treat their money with childish contempt.” This, and other valuable lessons are learned from reading , by J.D. Salinger.
  • “Spend within your means, or misery will ensue.” Like the reality of this experience, this subtle lesson is discovered in Gustave Flauebert’s Madame Bovary.

Fairy Tale and Fable View
Aesop’s Fables are so prized as a source of proper moral and practical education (including financial education) that the entire collection is available free on a website hosted by the Library of Congress.6 Consider The Miser and His Gold:

“A Miser had buried his gold in a secret place in his garden. Every day he went to the spot, dug up the treasure and counted it piece by piece to make sure it was all there. He made so many trips that a Thief, who had been observing him, guessed what it was the Miser had hidden, and one night quietly dug up the treasure and made off with it.”

The Miser valued the gold so much that he continually wrapped his arms around it and whispered his affections for it. His world revolved around it.

“When the Miser discovered his loss, he was overcome with grief and despair. He groaned and cried and tore his hair.

A passerby heard his cries and asked what had happened.

‘My gold! O my gold!’ cried the Miser, wildly, ‘someone has robbed me!’

‘Your gold! There in that hole? Why did you put it there? Why did you not keep it in the house where you could easily get it when you had to buy things?’

‘Buy!’ screamed the Miser angrily. ‘Why, I never touched the gold. I couldn’t think of spending any of it.’

The stranger picked up a large stone and threw it into the hole.

‘If that is the case,’ he said, ‘cover up that stone. It is worth just as much to you as the treasure you lost!’”

The Moral: “A possession is worth no more than the use we make of it.” In other words, wealth for the sake of itself—merely for bragging rights—is worthless.

Aphorisms and Maxims
The writings of Benjamin Franklin (under the pseudonym Poor Richard) often tackled topics of money and business. Entitled Poor Richard’s Almanack, this collection contains many truths that are simple to use when instructing clients.

Examples:

  • “Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.” Franklin had a great disdain for being in debt. In those days, if you were in debt, the whole town knew it. He would rather be hungry than owe money.
  • “Tis easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it.” Franklin compared “Wants vs. Needs.” Fighting the urge to spend money makes it easier to suppress future desires to spend.
  • “For age and want, save while you may; No morning sun lasts a whole day.” There is no time like the present to begin saving for old age and times of need.
  • “Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.” Franklin knew that little things add up. Spending just $1.50 per day, five days a week, for fifty-two weeks = $360!

Summary
A successful independent financial professional is someone who seeks to understand people. To gain this understanding requires reading stories, nourishing empathy, and listening closely to the client. None of us will live long enough to gain the wisdom that humanity collectively has accumulated. This collective wisdom is found in novels, short stories, fables, and aphorisms.

Clients deserve the wisest advice we can give. That wise advice is readily available—if only we will read.

References:

  1. https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/novel-quotes.
  2. https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/could-a-bit-of-tolstoy-and-austen-improve-economic-forecasting/.
  3. Notes from Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Vintage; Reprint edition (August 30, 1994).
  4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Wharton.
  5. The Custom of the Country, Edith Wharton, page 362, Bantam Classics; Later Printing edition (May 1, 1991).
  6. http://read.gov/aesop/112.html.

The Antidote To Selfishness And Wastefulness

There is a tension in our teenage years between the urge to rebel and the desire to fit in. I wanted to be like my friends in high school and therefore chose to listen to the music they preferred. I also found that this same music met with disapproval from my parents. Take the band Jethro Tull, for instance. Their album Aqualung had troubling lyrics, harsh sounds, and a caustic feel. These factors made the music perfect for the drive to conform to one’s own generation while rejecting the tastes of the former generations.

I outgrew the rebellious phase. My taste in music changed. I gave away all my Rock albums from the 1970s, including Aqualung. I have long since ceased to listen to this particular musical group. And yet, one melody and lyric from Aqualung recurs in my mind. I find myself singing it from time-to-time. It is the song entitled Wond’ring Aloud. (You can find it on YouTube.) The final line in the song, the Outro, grabbed my heart way back then, and it continues to move me.

“And it’s only the giving that makes you what you are”

Living a life of generosity, giving of oneself–this is an admirable quality. To be known as a generous person may just be the height of desired reputations.

Question: Is it natural or even wise for an independent financial advisor to encourage clients to be generous?

The Economics of Generosity
Many of us are familiar with the tug-of-war regarding the beneficial or deleterious effects of thrift on economic growth. Some economists believe that thrift is a long-term stabilizer, and perhaps even a growth factor in macroeconomics. Others, like British economist John Maynard Keynes, subscribed to the theory known as “The Paradox of Thrift,” an economic theory that considers personal savings as a net drag on the economy during a recession.

Many advocates of The Paradox of Thrift point to the experience of the Great Recession (2008-2010) as proof of this theory. In those tumultuous, belt-tightening months, many 25- to 29-year-olds moved back in with their parents in order to save money on rent and other expenses. The 35 percent increase in young adults living at home is believed to have caused estimated damages of as much as $25 billion per year to the economy.1

Point: While savings (thrift) behavior may negatively impact economic recovery during a recession, there is not a single independent financial professional anywhere who discourages clients from this valuable habit.

Question: Is generosity good for the economy, for individual financial success?

The University of Notre Dame hosts something called the Science of Generosity Project.
This project defines generosity this way: “Giving good things to others freely and abundantly.”2

Generosity is considered by social scientists to be prosocial. This essentially means that an individual’s selfless behavior can have a beneficial effect on the social order. It may even have a positive impact on the person acting beneficently. “A host of studies have uncovered evidence that humans are biologically wired for generosity. Acting generously activates the same reward pathway that is activated by sex and food, a correlation that may help to explain why giving and helping feel good.”3

Acts of generosity may make our lives richer experientially. Being generous may also extend our lives. “A study that analyzed data from a nationally representative sample of 1,211 Americans over the age of 65 found that volunteering was associated with delayed death.”4

Paradoxes appear frequently in economics. “Paradox in economics is the situation where the variables fail to follow the generally laid principles and assumptions of the theory and behave in an opposite fashion.”5

There is an economic theory known as “The Paradox of Generosity.” Many people are stuck in a “scarcity mindset” such that they believe there are finite resources. Within that framework, giving some of their resources (time, money, property) away to others means there will be less for them.

In reality, the opposite is true. There are several reasons for believing that generosity leads to greater prosperity:

  1. People who are generous with their resources subscribe to a belief that those who freely give will freely receive. Therefore, generosity is actually the antidote to scarcity.
  2. Generous people give both financially and of themselves. These gifts may include time, money, things, or simply encouragement. The root of the word “generous” is in the Latin word genus, meaning “birth.” A gift can bring new life to the recipient, but also to the giver. When seen through the lens of generosity, time and money assume their proper place. They are simply the means, and not ends in themselves. Generous people are therefore able to spend time and money well on others and not just on themselves.
  3. The antithesis of generosity is selfishness. A life lived under the pressure to accumulate everything possible for oneself is exhausting and limiting. The focus on one’s own needs results in behavior that leads to fewer relationships, reduced trust, and limited purpose. The most successful people realize that their purpose is always about others.
  4. The less generous a person is, the more likely it is that wastefulness will creep into behavior and habits. Generosity expands one’s view of the needs and opportunities. The costs of an hour wasted, or a dollar misspent, is not limited to the opportunity cost of one’s own enjoyment, but the reduction of what could have proven beneficial to others.
  5. Generous people typically enjoy two freeing attitudes: Gratitude and forgiveness. It is unlikely that a person can extend generosity until that same person can experience gratitude. Someone has said, “Gratitude turns what you have into enough.” Contentment frees a person to extend resources to others. In a similar way, a generous person is quick to forgive because holding a grudge is too costly. Time wasted in bitterness is time taken away from enjoyment or serving.

Generosity is the antidote to the fear of scarcity, it puts money and time in perspective, is the antithesis of selfishness, a curb to wastefulness, and a path to gratitude and forgiveness.

Question: As an independent financial professional, why wouldn’t you encourage and assist clients in increasing their generosity?

Three Historical Examples
Is there actually any evidence that generosity leads to prosperity?

Consider William Colgate, founder of Colgate Palmolive. He had a long and successful business career. He gave not merely one-tenth of the earnings of Colgate’s soap products, but he gave two-tenths, then three-tenths, and finally five-tenths of all his income to the work of God in the world. “When he was sixteen years old, he left home to find employment in New York City. He had previously worked in a soap manufacturing shop. When he told the captain of the canal boat upon which he was traveling that he planned to make soap in New York City the man gave him this advice: ‘Someone will soon be the leading soap maker in New York. You can be that person. But you must never lose sight of the fact that the soap you make has been given to you by God. Honor Him by sharing what you earn.’”6 As of May 12, 2020, Colgate-Palmolive Co. had 34,300 employees and $15.7 billion in sales.7

Example #2: Henry Parsons Crowell, founder of Quaker Oats. Crowell exemplified leadership, innovation, commitment, and generosity in business and through philanthropy. Crowell donated over 70 percent of his wealth to the Crowell Trust. Not only did he live generously, he guided the eating habits of Americans and also introduced new approaches to marketing and merchandising. “The Quaker Oats Company has 10,000 total employees across all of its locations and generates $3.71 billion in sales (USD). There are 3,134 companies in the The Quaker Oats Company corporate family.”8

Example #3: A Canadian American entrepreneur and inventor named James Lewis Kraft founded Kraft Foods. As a young man he was stranded in Chicago in 1903 with only $65 to his name. He put his knowledge of merchandising to good use and obtained a horse (called Paddy) and a wagon. Every day he bought cheeses in the wholesale warehouse district of the city and resold them to small stores, saving the local merchants the task of making the trip. He wrote this in an autobiographical essay: “As head of the Kraft Cheese Corporation, I had given approximately 25 percent of my income to Christian causes for many years. The only investment I ever made which has paid consistently increasing dividends, is the money I have given to the Lord.”9 In 2020, Kraft Foods had $18.2 billion in revenue, $22.9 billion in assets, and $1 billion in profits.10

Summary:
I began with lyrics from a Jethro Tull song and now end with three iconic businesses founded by generous people. The moral of this article is simple: As an independent financial professional you are committed to helping your clients achieve successful outcomes from their use of money and assets. If you do not do so already, consider introducing your clients to the paradox of generosity.

Perhaps it won’t be the giving that makes them what they are. But it is certain to have an impact on who they are. (With your help.)

References:

  1. Economic Research Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “Wait, Is Savings Good or Bad? The Paradox of Thrift” Accessed Oct. 23, 2020.
  2. https://generosityresearch.nd.edu/.
  3. https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Generosity-FINAL.pdf?_ga=2.11753270.38977004.1608835647-1616817560.1608835647.
  4. Ibid.
  5. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/paradox.
  6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colgate.
  7. https://www.forbes.com/companies/colgate-palmolive/?sh=9e127a47e4fe.
  8. https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-profiles.the_quaker_oats_company.f227f48f8025a07a6c7950b41a680ad2.html.
  9. http://fgbt.org/Testimonies/james-lewis-kraft.html.
  10. https://www.forbes.com/companies/kraft-foods/?sh=603f6d3d63a6.

Excelling In The (Long Term) Relationship Business

On December 7, 1965, the writer E.B. White wrote a letter to a friend. From this same man White had previously heard about a boy telling his teacher that alligators eat herons, pigs, small dogs, and beer bottles.

“I am writing simply to report a development of the story…While drifting south this morning on Route 17, trending towards Brunswick, I regaled my wife with this yarn, hoping to relieve the tedium of mid-morning on a national highway. She listened attentively and made no comment. About five minutes later she said, ‘I wonder how an alligator eliminates a beer bottle.’

‘That’s simple,’ I replied. ‘He Schlitz.’

I did not get a very strong response to this witticism, and we knocked off another couple of miles in silence. Then I asked Katherine, ‘Do you know how an alligator feels after he has passed a beer bottle?’ She said no, she didn’t know.

‘He feels sadder, Budweiser.’

The response was still rather weak, and silence fell upon us again.

A few minutes later, my wife broke the awful stillness. ‘Pabst he does, and Pabst he doesn’t.’”1

This incident is as much an insight into their relationship as it is an indication of their personalities. At this point in their lives, E.B. and Katherine had been married for 36 years, he was 65 years old and she was 72 years of age. Many couples no longer enjoy lively conversation after so many years of marriage.

“The more you get to know a person, the easier it becomes to run out of things to say.”2

This is not only true of life partner relationships, but also of long standing Client-Advisor relationships.

Independent financial professionals (IFPs) are in the relationship business. Clients place as much value having a close relationship with someone they trust as they do in securing strong investment returns. IFPs who build their practice over several decades have many relationships. The question is, how can these relationships be kept strong and active?

Authentic and Fresh
The Client-Advisor relationship is similar to every other important relationship. It is kept strong and active by the application of several skills:

  • Regular, personal, and effective communication.
    • The relationship takes priority over simply seeking successive revenue opportunities.
  • Continuous assessment of the goals of the relationship.
    • With each life stage, the IFP has the ability to assess new and pressing financial realities and open new doors.
  • Expressed commitment from both parties.
    • No relationship can rest on past glory, so the IFP and the client need to make fresh commitments to one another.
  • Courage and the willingness to be true and authentic.
    • If at any point either party feels like the other is hiding an ulterior agenda, or harboring unsettling concerns, there is no point in the relationship continuing unless the air is cleared.
  • The assumption of positive intent.
    • Every single relationship will encounter road bumps, twists and near accidents, which means, each party must assume the other did not intend harm or have malicious motives.
  • Most important—trust.
    • The IFP needs to take the client at his/her word and vice versa.

The First Quarter of a New Year is the perfect time to take stock of our most important asset–relationships. This is particularly true of IFPs and their clients. (It is also true of wholesalers and their BGA relationships, and BGAs and their advisor relationships.)

In the mature phase of the Client-Advisor relationship, clients do not come into the office as often, and may not be as responsive to emails or phone calls. Still, because of the work done together, the client is enjoying regular retirement income, or experiencing handsome returns on assets invested, or seeing the account values grow in the life insurance and annuity products they purchased.

Note: Past success is no reason to cease making progress.

Best Practices with Mature Relationships

  • Trust is maintained when care is expressed. While a client’s financial life can be in order, other aspects of their world can change and cause upheaval. The IFP who cares, really cares, inquires, respectfully, into the other aspects of a client’s life such as family dynamics, health, career advancement, and achievement of dreams.
  • Three magic words: “How about you?” If a client asks a question, the wise IFP responds and then asks the client to do the same. This deflection adds to the impression of interest and care.
  • Client Reviews are conducted just as professionally as always. No short cuts are taken. At the same time, nothing superfluous is forced on the client. There is nothing worse than an IFP telling a client, “Thanks for coming in today. I guess we had nothing to talk about, nothing to review.”
  • It is unwise to start driving to a new destination without first researching the best route to get there. Similarly, it is unwise to start a conversation without a goal in mind. A conversation without a game plan is like driving without first planning the route.
  • The wise IFP freshens the relationship with mature clients by asking thoughtful questions. Examples:
    • You have come a long way. Are you pleased with the direction you are heading now?
    • You have achieved great success in your career. Do you still enjoy what you do?
    • At this stage in life, how are you building new relationships?
    • What is left on your bucket list?
    • What fears do you have regarding your kids’ and grandkids’ futures?
    • Can you describe the ideas you have for how you can give back?
    • Is there a group of people or type of person you care deeply about?
    • Have your risks changed?
    • Are you seeking different kinds of rewards?
  • The IFP is wise to ask these kinds of questions because the answers can lead to more planning and perhaps product purchases.

Light and Life
Perhaps the most important opportunity in close relationships is leaving every encounter with both people feeling better. We easily recognize an enjoyable conversation by the fact the persons involved in it are laughing a lot.

A. Humor: I found four pertinent quotes about the importance of humor.3

  • “I think the next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in it.” –Frank A. Clark
  • “Laugh as much as possible, always laugh. It’s the sweetest thing one can do for oneself and one’s fellow human beings.” –Maya Angelou
  • “A good laugh makes any interview, or any conversation, so much better.” –Barbara Walters
  • “The more I live, the more I think that humor is the saving sense.” –Jacob August Riis

Question: Are you bringing humor into your long-standing relationships?

Example: My wife and I have homes in two locations separated by a five-hour drive. We experience the togetherness of the car’s passenger compartment four times or more every month. That translates into twenty hours together in close quarters!

Sometimes we drive along in silence. In these moments she is often on her phone while I drive. Recently, I waited until she was off her phone but indicated that I had a serious question to ask her. When she was ready, I asked:

“Do you know the Muffin Man?”

Without hesitation, she said, “I’ll answer your question if you answer mine.
… How much is the doggy in the window?”

B. Positivity: Enjoyable conversations stem from positive content that two or more people share. In this era of craziness and disruption, we all need to hear good news. In reality, good things are happening all around us. However, these instances generally do not make the front page or cable news. When we can share good news with others, we provide lift in the conversation.

Question: Are you able to bring good news into your conversations?
Suggestion: get a daily dose of good news via email from this web site: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/category/news/usa/

C. Encouragement: “The word encourage comes from the Old French word encoragier, meaning ‘make strong, hearten.’”4 Encouragement is not the same thing as praise. Encouragement acknowledges what people do, the effort expended and the improvement someone makes. It is a means of lending others courage to continue to do the hard, right thing. Everyone everywhere wonders if they are doing the right things well.

Question: Are you able to sense when another person needs encouragement?

Consider: Make use of each contact with mature clients to:

  • Instill confidence
  • Feed hope
  • Give support
  • Give empowerment

D. Something New: Successful IFPs working over many years with the same clients know they cannot change everything for these people. That knowledge, however, does not keep these IFPs from helping their clients change the things they can.

  • What was once a dream is now simply impractical. The mature client once asked the IFP for ideas to achieve certain goals. Life, somehow, got in the way.
  • The IFP must now apply rigor and creativity to assist the client to search for new, achievable goals, while ensuring suitability to the client’s current circumstances and life phase.
  • The word “innovation” comes from the Latin noun innovatio, derived from the verb innovare, which means to introduce “something new.” New can mean repurposed. Clients may have saved money for a goal that no longer is meaningful. How can those funds be applied to some new goal?

Summary:
Longstanding relationships mean that the IFP and the client have seen one another’s ups and downs and have watched each other move through several phases of life. To continue taking these relationships deeper, the wise IFP will introduce authentic freshness, light, and laughter into their conversations.

Humor, positivity, encouragement, and something new are relationship elements that mature clients appreciate universally.

“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?”—George Eliot

References:

  1. Letters of E.B. White, Collected and Edited by Dorothy Lobrano Guth, Harper & Row, 1976, page 537.
  2. https://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/15-things-happy-couples-talk-about-that-draw-them-closer-together.html.
  3. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201101/25-quotes-humor.
  4. https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/encourage.

Are You A Selfish Or Selfless Person?

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The comedian Jack Benny “left an unusual but touching instruction in his will when he died in 1974. ‘Every day since Jack has gone the florist has delivered one long-stemmed red rose to my home,’ his widow Mary Livingstone wrote in a magazine, shortly after his death. ‘I learned Jack actually had included a provision for the flowers in his will. One red rose to be delivered to me every day for the rest of my life.’”1

I think that is rather beautiful.

The famous newspaper columnist, Lewis Grizzard, left most of his estate to his wife Dedra when he died in March 1994. He also added specific bequests to relatives and friends. “He had said he would remember an old college friend in his will, and he did.” Written in Grizzard’s Last Will and Testament was this provision: “To Gary Hill, who I promised to mention in my will, I want to say, ‘Hi, Gary.’”2

I think that is rather hilarious.

In Genesis 49 in the Old Testament, there is a wonderful description of the proper way to leave this life. After blessing each of his sons, the patriarch named Jacob gave final instructions regarding his burial, and then we read, “When Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.”3

I consider that great timing!

Something that is neither beautiful nor funny, and terribly untimely, is dying intestate. Actually, failing to plan for one’s own future, or the future well-being of dependents and loved ones, is altogether unsavory.

Planning for the Future—Your Help Is Needed
All of financial planning can be reduced to this: Preparing ourselves and others for days yet to come.

For many years I asked my prospective clients a very pointed question: “Are you a selfish or selfless person?” I would follow this up (providing they had not thrown me out of their home or office) with, “How do you treat yourself, especially your future self?” That generally bought me some time to explain my initial question.

Reasonable and prudent people simply look out for themselves and their loved ones by looking into the future.

Two Simple Examples
Example #1: My father had a modest collection of rare and valuable coins. I received that as part of my inheritance when he died. His death was sudden and unexpected. He did not get to see my reaction to his specific legacy instructions. I combined my own coin collection with what I received from my father and then split the total into three equal parts and gave them to my three children (and their spouses). I would have little use for these coins and they might need to sell them for needed funds in the future. It was rewarding to watch them look over what I gave them.

Example #2: My wife and I sold our family home in 2017. This was where, for 25 years, we raised our kids. You discover things when you move, like just how much crap you have accumulated! One thing I rediscovered was my childhood baseball card collection. It was very modest, but because I have lived long enough, contained valuable cards. I made the offer to my son and two sons-in-law to come and take any portion of the collection they desired. They did not respond right away, the cards moved with me (again), and memory of those cards slipped into the past. That is, until Friday, October 2, 2020. That is when Hall of Fame starting pitcher Bob Gibson died.

On October 4, 2020, I received the following text message from my son-in-law David:

“Hi Father!

I’ve been in our basement clearing out old stuff and I’ve come across my 2,000+ baseball card collection from my childhood.

Random question: While you guys were moving out of your house 2.5 years ago, you had asked if one of your boys would be interested in giving a home for your old cards. Did you ever find a place for them to go?

I think I mentioned it then, but If you still have them, I would certainly have interest.”

I searched around and found them again and took a photograph of the front and back of one of the cards situated on the top of the stack. Bob Gibson’s card. I texted those photos to David.

On October 7, 2020, I received the following text message from David:

“I see the card of Bob Gibson. My uncle just sent a long message about him when he died last week.

From Uncle Jim:

‘Today is a very sad day for me because of the passing of this legend, Cardinals great Bob Gibson. He was my biggest boyhood idol. My first memories of watching baseball were in 1964. I was a Cardinals fan because there was no major league team in Denver and my father was a Cardinals fan. He was a Cardinals fan because, as a boy in rural Colorado, the only radio signal that could penetrate the dusty plains where he lived and that broadcast baseball emanated from KMOX in St Louis, MO, 850 miles to the east.

All of us baseball nerds know the remarkable numbers posted by Gibson in 1968, especially the other worldly 1.12 ERA. That remarkable feat was the impetus for Major League Baseball to lower the mound the next year. Crazy, huh? But the numbers within the numbers are even more impressive. Bob Gibson pitched 28 complete games that year. 13 of those were shutouts. To add some perspective, last year two pitchers tied for the major league lead in complete games with three.

Now here is where it gets really crazy. Because each team usually had a four-man rotation, pitchers had to pitch on only three or four days rest. Despite the physical toll that had to have taken, from June 6 to July 31, 1968, Bob Gibson took the hill 11 times for the Cards. All of them were complete games. All of them were wins. Eight of the 11 were shutouts including five consecutive whitewashings. In the other three victories, Gibson allowed only one run per game. So that was 99 innings pitched, three runs allowed. That equates to a 0.27 ERA during that streak. By the end of July, Gibson’s season ERA was a minuscule 0.96.

My brother-in-law and I were laughing about a quote by Gibson’s catcher, Tim McCarver, who said about his ace: ‘Bob Gibson’s the luckiest pitcher in baseball. He always pitches when the other team doesn’t score any runs.’

For my money, I have never seen a pitcher as great as Bob Gibson. I can’t imagine we will ever see another like him. Rest In Peace Bob, and thanks for the great, great memories.’”

Consider the timing of all this. David randomly asked me about my cards. I randomly chose to take a photograph of the top one. Bob Gibson died just a few days before. David’s uncle sent him a meaningful text. It is hilarious that David was cleaning out his basement three years after I was cleaning out mine and we both found our card collections. It is a beautiful thing to give my son something he values while I am still living.

Fun, Beauty and Timing
You are a financial professional. No one needs to tell you that the people all around you are unprepared.

“In 2017, almost half (42 percent) of all Americans said that they have a will or another type of estate planning document. Fast-forward to 2020, and less than one-third (32 percent) say they have one or more documents—that’s a decrease of nearly 25 percent in just three years.”4

These people are not all selfish. In fact, they may be very selfless. Then what keeps them from acting in a reasonable and prudent manner by looking out for their loved ones’ futures? Answer: No one is there to make them do it now. No one is there to paint the process of estate planning and legacy planning in a fun and beautiful way. No one is encouraging them to use the time they have while alive to delight the ones they love most.

Question: Why shouldn’t you be the one to do so?

Application:
As in all things, it starts with questions. Consider presenting all your clients and every prospective client with these questions:

  • Do you agree that people should plan for their eventual deaths by having a Will?
  • Should parents name guardians for their kids?
  • Do you think people should create a list of their accounts and assets to help their families make the transition after their death?
  • Do you think parents should talk to their children about end-of-life issues like long term care and associated medical treatments?

Consider reaching out to people you do not know who are likely not to know where to even turn for such planning.

  • “According to the 2020 survey results, disparities in knowledge and/or access to education about estate planning between different races may be playing an increasingly important role in who has a will.”5
  • “Those of Hispanic descent are the most likely to put off getting a will or living trust because they do not know how to start the process.”6
  • “In 2019, Black non-Hispanic respondents were by far the most likely to not know how to get a will or living trust.”7

Being selfless or selfish depends on whether or not we weigh doing something for ourselves today or subjugating today’s wants for something we may need in the future.

There is something wonderful about showing love to the people who depend on us in such practical ways as having a Will, having discussions about end-of-life planning and asking our loved ones what they would find most precious in terms of an inheritance.

None of us like to imagine being in a position where we cannot make our own decisions. Few people genuinely care so little for their family members that they would choose to neglect such important actions. That is why we need to encourage others to be prepared for all situations, and to do a little advance planning today to make things easier for our loved ones tomorrow.

For your clients: They need to foster an awareness of future needs, understand the opportunity cost of neglecting tomorrow, and maximize the time value of money.

For people you do not know: All around you are people who simply do not know where to go for help. This could be your opportunity to make all the difference for these prospective clients and their families.

Lastly, here are two quotes by Bob Gibson:
“Why do I have to be an example for your kid? You be an example for your own kid.”
“I owe the public just one thing—a good performance.”

What this author is asking you to do is to care about other people’s kids.

In addition, this author would ask you, as a financial services professional, to give the public (the unprepared public) your very best performance!

References:

  1. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/aug/25/10-strangest-wills-finances-death.
  2. https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1994-04-21-9404210376-story.html.
  3. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+49&version=ESV.
  4. https://www.caring.com/caregivers/estate-planning/wills-survey#:~:text=In%202017%2C%20almost%20half%20(42,25%25%20in%20just%20three%20years.
  5. Ibid.
  6. Ibid.
  7. Ibid.

Surprising Everyone In Winter

You know what seem like distant memories? Summer, gardening, and landscaping. It is now Fall heading into Winter.

I am married to an expert gardener. We have a home on a lake in East Tennessee. My wife is someone who plans, arranges, selects, and nurtures plants of intrinsic beauty and compatibility. She plants in sets of three, adequately spaced, and balances each bed so that two sides of the garden separated by a driveway, sidewalk or lawn look identical.

Meanwhile, I let what grows naturally take hold. Truth. I have several areas of our property (not visible from the road) over which my powers to superintend are unchallenged. In these spaces I watch to see what indigenous plants grow and flourish. Plants with thorns, bristles, or noxious oils (poison ivy) are ruthlessly removed. Everything else is welcome. I am open to surprises.

By late Summer, my “garden” area is covered in tall plants bearing either white, yellow, or purple flowers. Here is a sampling of what grows:

  • Giant Ironweed, Vernonia gigantea, as tall as nine feet with prolific purple blooms that attract a variety of pollinators.
  • Showy Goldenrod, Solidago speciosa, a lovely addition adding bright yellow to the autumn landscape.
  • Small-headed Sunflower, Helianthus microcephalus, an attractive woodland yellow sunflower with smooth green or burgundy tinged stems.
  • White Crownbeard, Verbesina virginica, is a late season nectar plant which has hundreds of white blossoms on each plant in heads terminating from several branches arising at the upper leaf axils. They grow as tall as seven feet.

I like these plants because they are impressive in size, color and they attract butterflies, wasps, skippers, and bees. And besides, they are free!

Surprising Everyone in Winter
The first Winter my wife and I spent here we discovered an amazing phenomenon. Frost Flowers.

Long after I have cut down the tall barren stems, when only several inches of the once-glorious stalks remain, the White Crownbeard plant is not done delighting. This wonderful specimen is also known as “Frostweed.”

Frostweed earns its name from the wonderous ice sculptures on its stems upon the first frost, or even subsequent deep frosts. This natural majesty graced us by splitting its stems and producing amazing, delicate ice sculptures. Frost Flowers are airy, fragile constructions that pour out of the plants’ stems like ice meringues.

(None of my wife’s plants can do this. Just saying…)

Question: What does this have to do with independent life insurance distribution? Keep reading.

Winter of Life
Old age and winter of life are semantically related. People will sometimes replace the phrase “Old age” with the “Winter of life.”

I am privileged to know many independent financial professionals who in any other occupation would be retired by now. I am referring to men and women in their seventies and eighties who are still meeting with clients, even prospecting (casually). As you might expect, their clientele is similarly aged.

This article is written for anyone currently in their later years and still in the business. (It is also for anyone who is currently younger but who is anticipating working as an independent financial professional beyond normal retirement age.)

According to J.D. Power, “The average age of financial advisors is about 55, and approximately one-fifth of advisors are 65 or older.”1

Kiplinger claims that “There are more CFP® professionals over the age of 70 than under the age of 30.”2

Are you among these people who are 65 years old or older? Are you still holding onto your licenses, attending CE training, participating in association meetings, and maintaining regular appointments with clients? Beyond these, how are you using your time?

How Not to Prioritize
I came across an article giving suggestions for people for how to pass the time in Winter.3 Check out these suggestions:

  • Try A New Hot Drink Recipe
  • Spike Hot Chocolate
  • Spike Coffee
  • Clean Out Your Wardrobe
  • (And my favorite) Clear Your Browser’s Bookmarks

Seriously?

My Suggestion: Surprise Everyone in the Winter of Your Life
These questions are for you.

1) Your wisdom and knowledge are your treasure for having lived this long. Who in your community needs to draw from this wealth?

a. Undoubtedly, a significant immigrant and refugee population lives in your geographic vicinity. Would you be willing to partner with organizations serving these people by offering financial education for free?

b. Young people entering adulthood have little preparation for financial decisions. Would you consider offering yourself as a financial instructor at a local high school or community college?

2) You no longer need to actively prospect. You have amassed a significant client base. They are connected to all kinds of people. Who is it in their families, neighborhoods, religious organizations, or community groups that they can introduce you to?

3) Younger independent financial professionals are relying more and more on technology. They can run circles around you in the use of digital tools. On the other hand, they do not know what you know. Would you be willing to mentor someone in the elements of client-building that they cannot learn on-line? Here are a few areas:

a. You learned to serve the clients rather than push products. You may sell insurance, but you first teach people about the value of insurance, what it does, why it enjoys tax advantages, and how it can protect loved ones. You know how to link the benefits to the individual situation. Show a younger professional how to do this.

b. Teach another person how to show gratitude to the clients they are privileged to work with. Examples:

  • Send hand-written notes
  • Remember birthdays with a phone call
  • Celebrate their financial accomplishments
  • Visit them in the hospital
  • Attend funerals of lost loved ones

c. You have learned that the best tools in your repertoire are not answers, but questions. Mentor a younger advisor in the art of knowing which questions result in the client making the best decisions–ones they are proud to make. Examples:

  • Do you have a belief system that drives how you handle money? If so, what specific ideals or priorities do you have?
  • How do values such as frugality, generosity, fairness, corporate responsibility, hard work, innovation, compassion, respect, diversity, faith, integrity, and love influence your financial decisions?
  • What makes you most anxious about the financial preparedness of your children, grandchildren, and others?
  • How do you know that what you believe to be true really are proven financial principles?
  • Who has had the greatest influence on your approach to financial matters?

4) You may have grandchildren or even great-grandchildren. Write them a story about a lonely dollar that finds how to make friends by working hard, being kind, demonstrating discipline, avoiding bad decisions and suddenly discovering the land of Compound Interest!

Wouldn’t you enjoy surprising everyone you know during the Winter of Your Life?

Summary
The White Crownbeard plants in my yard are beautiful in full bloom at the peak of their lives. Yet, more prized than their blossoms are the wonder they provide in the time of Winter. There really is nothing more surprising than to discover Frost Flowers formed from sap.

The Psalmist4 long ago wrote to inspire people in their Winter of Life:

“The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon…
They still bear fruit in old age;
they are ever full of sap and green.”

The oldest bristlecone pine is more than 4,800 years old! The wood is very dense and resinous. (Read that as sappy!) The wood’s extreme durability helps the tree resist invasion by insects, fungi, and other potential pests. Turns out, sap is an essential defense and necessary for full life!

Are your energy and will “sapped?” Or, are you still “full of sap?”

Only one way to prove it. Bear fruit!

References:

  1. https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2019-us-financial-advisor-satisfaction-study.
  2. https://www.kiplinger.com/article/retirement/t023-c032-s014-what-happens-when-your-financial-advisor-retires.html.
  3. https://www.bustle.com/articles/135530-21-winter-activities-for-adults-to-keep-you-occupied-during-this-drab-and-dreary-season.
  4. Psalm 92:12-14 (English Standard Version).

The Intrinsic Value Of A Starting Point

There is no small debate currently being waged in the United States regarding our shared cultural history. Statues are coming down, place names are being changed and historic symbols are being eliminated. This pattern repeats itself throughout history. Everything is known as something until it is called something else by people living later.

There are, however, some people, places and things that stand the test of time simply because they remain the starting point from which everything is still viewed. World religions have founders. Scientific laws, discoveries, inventions, words, and innovations have their originators.

Bottom line: for everything there is a starting point.

Point of Beginning
A monument stands outside of East Liverpool, in Columbiana County, Ohio, near the three-way intersection of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the northern tip of West Virginia. This monument is protected and included in both the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and as an U.S. National Historic Landmark.

The Point of Beginning is a surveyor’s mark and the starting point of the surveys of almost all other lands to the West, reaching all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

In Thomas Jefferson’s day approximately five million people lived on the East Coast within 50 miles of the Atlantic, hemmed in by a confusing series of ridges and peaks known as the Appalachians. From his home at Monticello, Jefferson could see the easternmost portion of these ranges known as the Blue Ridge hills. He was fascinated by whatever lay beyond. Furthermore, he believed in an idea that was antithetical to the Native Americans who had lived for hundreds of years beyond those geographical impediments. Jefferson’s radical notion was simply this—land ownership. He knew that as America expanded in population the people would have to spread westward. He knew they needed places to settle.

Thomas Jefferson believed men should have the right to buy, sell or borrow against land that they owned. He also knew that the government needed funds to properly govern. (The Congress was prohibited from raising revenue by direct taxation, but land sales could provide an important revenue stream.) As a seated member of the Continental Congress he sponsored a bill in 1785 known as the “Land Ordinance.” “The Land Ordinance established the basis for the Public Land Survey System.”1

The Public Land Survey System (aka “Rectangular Survey System”) was established to survey land ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Paris in 1783. This territory included what is now the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

The Land Ordinance “laid down the requirements for a survey, the creation of a grid of meridians and baselines from which to create these parcels.”2 Of course, to begin the process, there had to be a starting point. The responsibility for choosing the starting point fell on Thomas Hutchins.

In 1781 Thomas Hutchins became the First (and only) Geographer of the United States. He was a military engineer, cartographer, geographer, and surveyor. He was also the architect of a system still in use today. The system Hutchins created is based on townships, each one measuring six square miles. These are stacked North and South in “ranges.” Each township is then divided into 36 numbered sections equaling one square mile (640 acres).

Hutchins somewhat randomly chose the Point of Beginning. It is situated at baseline Latitude 40° 38’33” and Longitude 80° 31’10.” The Latitude chosen is referred to today as the “Geographer’s Line.” The line extends all the way to the Pacific.

Point: One man chose the starting point and the system for surveying the whole country (before most of the territory to be included was even part of the Union).

Question: What does this have to do with independent life insurance distribution? Keep reading.

Financial Planning Is All About Getting Started
A Financial Plan is a map for how to move forward. Before engaging the Plan it must be known where things stand. The starting point is the current holdings and sources of funds and how they add up. In other words, the starting point is a Financial Inventory that includes total income, tax rates, credit score, expenses, debt load, account balances, assets, real estate and total net worth.

The starting point serves as the “you are here” mark on the Financial Plan Map. The next step in a financial plan is to identify the destination. Consider these examples of Financial Destinations:

  • Debt Free
  • College Funds
  • Seasonal home
  • Retirement at a certain age
  • Charitable legacy

Financial Planning Is about Baselines
A financial plan must be based on reality to be successful. A financial plan therefore must include a baseline, the all-encompassing examination of actual spending, saving, and giving. Habits dictate the future. Bad habits lead to a less-than-optimal future. Good habits can accelerate the arrival of goals and dreams. To not understand current behavior is to fail to achieve future results.

Financial Planning Is about a System or Process
While keeping a jar on the kitchen counter to collect spare change may accumulate some funds for future use, this is not a system. The process of financial planning is applying known elements that have proven to be successful. These elements include:

  • Annual review of the financial plan
  • Establishment of an Emergency Fund
  • Systematic savings and investments
  • Diversification matched to risk tolerance
  • Dollar Cost Averaging
  • Discipline
  • Tax minimization
  • Protection against downside risks
  • Regular rebalancing
  • Insurance to prepare for the unexpected

Starting Points Require a Starter
Sadly, a significant proportion of the American population is operating without a sound financial plan. It is not for lack of goals, dreams and sometimes even resources. They lack a catalyst. Their lives have not intersected with the life of an independent financial professional.

This article began with the Point of Beginning in East Liverpool, OH. That is not the only thing East Liverpool is famous for. It is also where Ben Feldman spent most of his adult life. (If you asked, “Ben who?” then you need to read up on this hero.)

“As early as 1979, Feldman had sold more life insurance than anyone in history.”3 It is estimated that he sold $1.5 billion in total life insurance face value for New York Life from 1942 to his death in 1993.

How Ben Feldman Became a Starting Point in My LIfe
In 1986 I decided to get my designations: Chartered Life Underwriter and Chartered Financial Consultant. CLU and ChFC. A total of twelve exams.

The company I worked for was willing to reimburse me for the cost of every course I took and passed.

They cost roughly $300 each with books, etc.

I called the American College in Brynn Mawr, PA, and ordered the course materials and scheduled the exam dates. Oops. I accidentally ordered all twelve. Our credit card maximum credit was $2,500. I charged $3,500. I worked it out with my bank to take all twelve exams in nine months. I was at the office every morning by six AM. I passed all twelve exams in nine months.

The local Association of CLUs hosted a conferment ceremony and dinner. The person giving me my certificates would be the legendary Ben Feldman. I knew that this man was from East Liverpool, OH, a struggling factory town of less than 20,000 people. And yet, Fortune magazine featured him on the cover of a 1974 issue stating that he had written more business that year as an individual agent than half of the 2,400 life insurance companies had written in total. I was excited to meet him, and pridefully, I expected him to acknowledge my singular feat of passing all 12 exams in nine months.

That night I was disappointed. First, Ben Feldman the legend turned out to be about 5’6” tall, bald, stoop-shouldered and he spoke with a lisp. And, instead of congratulating me or flattering me, he simply shook my hand, gave me my certificates, and then said, “Send money on ahead for the old man you’re going to be.”

Afterward I bemoaned to my wife, Di, my disappointment. She said, “So what are you going to do?” I said, “About what?” She replied, “A man who is a legend in your business gave you individual advice. What are you going to do about it!” Well, we began putting $50 per month away in an account that now has $165,000 in it, thanks to Ben Feldman.

During his historic and heroic career, he changed the lives of clients and other financial professionals (like me). He gave advice to both groups that is useful today.

To Clients (Prospects):

  • “You haven’t done anything wrong. You just haven’t done anything, and that’s what’s wrong.” The point being, today needs to be your Starting Point!
  • “If you’ve got a problem make it a procedure and it won’t be a problem anymore.” Basically, know your Baseline and build a Process.
  • To Financial Professionals:
  • “If you don’t have any place to go, you won’t go any place.” Go see the people who need a Starter!
  • “Your prospect doesn’t get excited first. You must get excited first.” This is your Baseline!
  • “See the people.” For independent financial professionals, this needs to be the Starting Point!

Summary:
We all want to make a difference. Not many of us will discover something new and have it named after us. Not many will invent something everyone will find useful. Few of us will become legends. One thing we all can do is make an impact on the lives of others. To interact with others and to be helpful in directing them to their Starting Points is amazingly fulfilling.

Ben Feldman did that for me. Who are you going to impact in the balance of this crazy year?

References:

  1. “Land Ordinance of 1785” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Ordinance_of_1785.
  2. The Men Who United the States, by Simon Winchester, HarperCollins, 2013.
  3. Ben Feldman, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Feldman_(insurance_salesman).

Time, Memory And The iGeneration

The Loyola University Chicago Department of Philosophy offers a course entitled PHIL 280: Being Human: Philosophical Perspectives. In the course description we learn that the syllabus is “a treatment of the meaning of human nature. The course considers the human person as physical being, as knower, as responsible agent, as a person in relation to other persons, to society, to God, and to the end, or purpose, of human life.”1

Let’s explore this a little further.
Humans are physical beings. We now know that 99 percent of a human body is made up of atoms of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. What about those atoms?

“The size of an atom is governed by the average location of its electrons. Nuclei are around 100,000 times smaller than the atoms they’re housed in. If the nucleus were the size of a peanut, the atom would be about the size of a baseball stadium. If we lost all the dead space inside our atoms, we would each be able to fit into a particle of lead dust, and the entire human race would fit into the volume of a sugar cube.”2

I am pretty sure it would blow the minds of the “social distancing” police if all of humanity was packed into the space of a sugar cube!

Human beings are knowers, responsible agents. This is the very basis of any discussion of social justice. We expect people to know how to behave and when they do not, we want them held responsible.

A human being is a person in relation to other persons, to society. We judge how well someone is acting in relation to other people by using a standard that we call cultural norms. “Cultural norms are the standards we live by. They are the shared expectations and rules that guide behavior of people within social groups. Cultural norms are learned and reinforced from parents, friends, teachers and others while growing up in a society.”3 In recent decades we have experienced significant changes in what are considered cultural norms. Yet, there are some norms that seem to transcend generations and cultural shifts.

Human life. Every aspect of the financial services industry can be encapsulated in those two words. Because human life is finite, we offer life insurance. Because human life is fragile, we offer disability insurance, medical insurance, long term care insurance. Because human life can be unpredictably extended, we offer annuities and investments.

Like all of nature, human life is also generational. “Generational theorists Neil Howe and William Strauss are usually credited with identifying and naming U.S. 20th-century generations in their 1991 book titled Generations.”4 They have categorized and labeled the last six generations as follows:

  • 2000–: New Silent Generation or Generation Z
  • 1980 to 2000: Millennials or Generation Y
  • 1965 to 1979: Thirteeners (America’s thirteenth generation) or Generation X
  • 1946 to 1964: Baby Boomers
  • 1925 to 1945: The Silent Generation
  • 1900 to 1924: The G.I. Generation

For purposes of this article we want to focus on the human beings categorized as “Generation Z.”

“The Center for Generational Kinetics lists the latest generation as beginning in 1996 and labels these people either Gen Z, iGen, or Centennials.”5 The moniker, “iGeneration” seems to be catching hold. Labels help companies and marketers who are trying to reach young people. This latest generation is viewed primarily as relating to the world via technology (think iPhone, iPad) and, therefore, placing an “i” in front of generation seems to be apt.

Question: How Will the Financial Services Industry Serve the iGeneration?
Wendell Berry wrote a marvelous novel entitled Jayber Crow. Consider the way he describes human life in relation to the inverse relationship between time and memory. When we were young, “Life was all time and almost no memory.” When we are old, however, we see that, “Life is almost entirely memory and very little time.” In the end, we all, “Belong entirely to memory, and it will not be our memory that we belong to.”6

Point: There is an inverse relationship between time and memory. The implication is, the accumulation of useful wisdom flows in a direction that places the greatest treasure at the point it is least needed. Our memories of knowledge and wisdom gained through experience reach their peak at the moment we run out of time.

Proposal: What if we used the technology embraced by the newest generation in order to pass on the memories (knowledge and wisdom) our industry has accumulated?

The human beings comprising the iGeneration are not going to be “knowers or responsible agents” when it comes to their finances unless the financial services industry gets creative soon. We must be the “others” who help shape the cultural norms that will inform the behavior of iGen individuals.

Example: I discovered a web site offering an interactive game-like experience that teaches important personal finance concepts.

The web site is located here: https://www.genirevolution.org/overview.php

From the web site: “The Gen i Revolution consists of sixteen interactive missions in which students complete a variety of activities to help them learn important personal finance concepts. Within each mission, students are introduced to a character who is facing a particular financial crisis. As a part of the Gen i Revolution, the student learns about the crisis, strategically selects ‘Operatives,’ and then completes activities with the ultimate goal of solving the mission.”

This tool is available for teachers and students grades six through 12.

Consider these sample Missions:

  • Mission 1: Building Wealth Over the Long Term.
    • Concepts: Compound interest, Saving.
    • Description: “Angela Faces the 401(k) Challenge. Why should she sign up now when retirement is so far in the future? Your mission is to convince Angela to invest in a 401(k) plan now to build wealth over the long term.”
  • Mission 4: Budgeting
    • Concepts: Budgeting, Financial goal setting, Saving
    • Description: “Clayton and Casey ‘O’Neil are a young married couple with two children. They both have jobs and seem well off to their friends, but they cannot seem to save any money. They want to buy a home but need to save up the down payment. They keep good financial records, but do not have any money left over at the end of the month for saving. Your mission is to help the O’Neils identify how to save $300 a month for a down payment on a home.”
  • Mission 6: Risk and Return
    • Concepts: Forms of saving and investing, Costs and benefits of saving, Risk vs. Return, Diversification.
    • Description: “Kai Chung’s wealthy grandmother has given each of her grandchildren $10,000 to invest for their future. Kai is planning to go to college and wants to use his gift for that purpose. In the meantime, he wants to put the money where it will grow, but he does not want to take a lot of risk with it. Your mission is to persuade Kai to invest his Grandmother’s $10,000 in a type of asset with the appropriate risk and return for the time when he will need the money for college.”
  • Mission 15: Financial Planning
    • Concepts: Forms of saving and investing, Diversification, Risk vs. return, Financial goal setting, Bonds, Certificate of deposit, Diversification, Liquidity, Money market account, Mutual funds, Principal, Rate of return, Risk, Savings account, Stocks.
    • Description: “The Red Roosters community service club is sponsoring a financial planning workshop for its members. Gen i has been asked to conduct the workshop in the absence of the group’s president. Your mission is to conduct a financial planning workshop with several members of the Red Roosters community service club.”
  • Mission 16: Risk and Insurance
    • Concepts: Dealing with risk, Insurance as a means of sharing risk, Types of insurance, Factors affecting cost and coverage.
    • “Eight Mile Community College is holding an insurance fair. Student Lamar plans to attend and is contemplating his options. Your mission is to educate Lamar on the basics of risk management, help him decide whether insurance is a good idea for him, and if so, advise him on appropriate insurance policies.”

This interactive tool was created by The Council for Economic Education (CEE). I encourage you to visit their web site found here: https://www.councilforeconed.org.

According to the web site, “CEE’s mission is to equip K-12 students with the tools and knowledge of personal finance and economics so that they can make better decisions for themselves, their families, and their communities.”

CEE Vision: “To reach and teach every child in America about personal finance and economics.”
While I celebrate this effort on behalf of CEE, I appeal to all of us in independent financial services to step up to the challenge of sending memories back downstream, generationally.

Applications:

  1. Look at your professional life. How are you helping to educate the next generation?
  2. What do you have in your hands, what investable assets do you own that you can direct to building relevance with people in the youngest generations?
  3. Could you develop internships for members of the iGeneration?
  4. Are you equipping clients who have children in the iGeneration to train them in financial literacy?
  5. Could you and your team host Financial Training Camps?
  6. Could you partner with your own community’s teachers of grades six through 12 to use the Gen i Revolution game?
  7. Spend time on the Council for Economic Education website. Could you create similar content on your web site?

Summary:
The financial services industry exists because of human beings. We have served generation after generation. Our relevancy to the people in the younger generation depends on our ability to share with them our memories of experience, wisdom and knowledge. Now is the time to invest in platforms to introduce these young people to the benefits of owning the products we represent. As human beings their lives are connected to other people, and we do our best work in the space defined by those relationships.

This is your opportunity to maximize your humanity, to be a “person in relation to other persons, to society, to God, and to the end, or purpose, of human life.”

If we do this well, we will eventually belong entirely to the memory of others, including many in the iGeneration.

References:

  1. https://www.luc.edu/philosophy/coursedescriptions/180.shtml#:~:text=As%20a%20treatment%20of%20the,or%20purpose%2C%20of%20human%20life.
  2. https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/the-particle-physics-of-you.
  3. https://www.globalcognition.org/cultural-norms/#:~:text=Cultural%20norms%20are%20the%20standards,growing%20up%20in%20a%20society.
  4. https://www.thoughtco.com/names-of-generations-1435472.
  5. https://www.npr.org/2014/10/06/349316543/don-t-label-me-origins-of-generational-names-and-why-we-use-them.
  6. Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry, Counterpoint, Berkeley, CA Copyright © 2000.

Your One Percent

What is it that distinguishes one person from another? In independent brokerage distribution, I have worked with thousands of people. Interestingly, no two are alike.

Sam Kean noted that, “Wine is well over 99 percent water and alcohol, but water and alcohol alone do not make a wine.”1 Wine connoisseurs can often discern the grape, region and even the year that a bottle of wine was vinted or cellared. These are the same people who inform us that we can expect to taste chocolate, blackberry, plums, coffee, musk or other traces in a glass of wine. I do not have that sensitive of a differentiating pallet.

In case you are interested, you can purchase a bottle of 1945 vintage Château Mouton Rothschild Pauillac Red Bordeaux Blend for only $33,000. They say it pairs well with salami and prosciutto, pungent cheese, potato, pasta, white rice and pork. (It just doesn’t pair well with being able to afford to feed teenaged children, make a house payment or put gas in the car.)

Point: The smell, balance, depth and finish of a wine arise from less than one percent of its ingredients.

What Is Your One Percent?
I first met Ken Bowman in 1984. We have watched each other’s careers develop for over 35 years. While I only intermittently dedicated my efforts solely to retail sales of life insurance, annuities, disability insurance and property and casualty, Ken has steadfastly built his career one client at a time. While I pursued opportunities to positively impact other people by serving in the home office of carriers dedicated to independent distribution, Ken dedicated himself to discovering the means of changing lives in retail sales.

Ken is like most independent financial professionals. He is credentialed. He networks with advisors serving in legal and accounting capacities. He works primarily through referral. He attends continuing education seminars, remains curious about new ways to use financial products to improve lives and enjoys long-term relationships with clients.

Like a fine wine, Ken has improved with age. His distinction is in his humanity. Ken loves people. Selflessly. He learned of relatively unknown benefits available to surviving spouses of deceased veterans. Ken will spend hours with people trying to help them secure modest amounts of Federal money which, to them, will make the difference between staying in the family home or downsizing.

The one percent that makes Ken different from every other person I have known is his compassion. (I should add that no one has a laugh exactly like his. Explosive and full of heart as well as decibel.)

What Is Your Driver?
Every successful person is driven by something. For Ken, it is compassion. What is motivating you?

Have you ever been on a sailboat? Sailing is akin to being in the financial services business in the sense that both are driven by unpredictable winds. How is it that sailboats move at all?

Look at how Bill Streever describes the power of a sail:

“When air moves faster across the front of a sail, its molecules spread out and the pressure drops. There are fewer molecules in a cubic foot of air in front of the sail than in a cubic foot of air behind it. The wind in front of the sail creates a void. The wind behind it wants to fill the void.”2

Listen, every person you meet has a void. Something is absent in their risk management, retirement plans, college funding arrangements, investment returns, tax-leverage maximization, Will and Trust preparation or succession planning. Every person’s life is full of motion. Career changes. Additional children. Small business launches. Inheritance. Divorce. Illness. Retirement. All this motion means decisions ought to be made regarding the financial implications. The void is formed in the space created by not knowing what to do and/or not having the self-drive to address it. People need someone to bring pressure in the form of knowledge and urgency (not in the sense of pushy salesmanship).

Whether you are employed by a carrier, serve in a wholesale capacity in a brokerage general agency, or serve clients directly in retail financial services, you meet real needs of real people. What is it about you that makes what you do different?

Varieties of One Percent
Which of these describe you?

  • Motivator: You are driven to help clients get the most out of their financial lives.
  • Communicator: You are driven to explain technical product features and economic principles in clear terms that people can understand.
  • Visionary: You embrace the fiduciary standard and want clients to explore all reasonable opportunities.
  • Empathetic: You are driven to know what clients really need and research/recommend the one product/solution that is most appropriate for them.
  • Relational: You are driven to keep in regular contact with clients in order to update them on current financial issues and opportunities.
  • Quarterback: You are driven to assemble a broad range of experts to meet each client’s specific needs through a team approach.
  • Navigator: You are driven to keep your clients away from mistakes, from wasting resources, and from untimely market swings.

I am personally driven by the desire to see people grasp the right perspective. A BGA once came to my attention that was working itself out of business. The agency’s sales were 95 percent term life insurance. The agents they worked with were primarily P&C based. This meant that these agents knew extraordinarily little about underwriting. The symptom of the agency’s sure demise was in the tension every case manager experienced. All sales were made based on illustrations assuming Preferred or Preferred Best rates. Every case was an argument with an underwriter. None of the agents really wanted to work on their cases after the initial sale. Underwriting requirements were difficult to secure.

The perspective I could offer was from other BGAs I worked with that had a better product mix and a more traditional life insurance agent base. We worked together to reduce the attention paid to agents causing disproportionate problems. We designed a recruiting effort to attract more experienced agents as replacements. In just a few years, the percent of sales arising from misquoted term fell dramatically and revenue increased sharply. More importantly, the atmosphere in the agency improved. Gone were the constant battles with underwriting. No longer were requirements remaining outstanding.

All it took was a little perspective provided by sharing the more profitable experience other agencies were enjoying.

Reputation vs. Identity
You may know that the three most important things on a wine label are the vintage date, the place where the grapes were grown, and the grape(s) used to produce the wine.

“The vintage date tells you that 95 percent of the wine in the bottle had to be harvested in the year listed. The place (State, County, or AVA) on the label tells you that 85 percent of the wine comes from the listed location. And finally, the grape varietal identified on the label ensures that the wine is produced from at least 75 percent of that grape variety.”3

Did you catch that?

  1. How much then does location matter? Every year more than 17 million gallons of wine are made in California alone.
  2. How important is the type of grape? In Napa alone there are 21,665 acres devoted to growing Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. There are 550 Napa Valley wineries that produce more than three dozen different wine grape varieties.

It is not enough to know that a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon is from California and was vinted in 1996.

Here is where we begin to discover distinction: Approximately “95 percent of Napa Valley’s wineries are family owned and nearly 80 percent make less than 10,000 cases of wine per year. Most wineries can be described as small, artisan producers. These vintners share a commitment to blending historical practices and achievement with an eye toward innovation, quality and prosperity for the Napa Valley.”4

Wine aficionados know the importance of getting to know a consistently dependable vintner.

Would your clients describe you as consistently dependable?

You are probably aware that the word “identity” is from the Latin idem meaning “same as” or “quality of being identical.” Your identity is bound up in your industry and related to other independent financial professionals. Why? Because 90 percent of what you do is the same as what most every other IFP does.

I am urging you to focus not on the sameness, but on the distinction you can create by focusing on your one percent. That one percent is what builds your reputation. That is the root of your particular identity.

References:

  1. “Caesar’s Last Breath,” by Sam Kean.
  2. “And Soon I Heard a Roaring Wind,” by Bill Streever.
  3. https://www.everwonderwine.com/blog/2017/2/24/what-does-vinted-by-mean.
  4. https://napavintners.com/vintners/.

Chance Of A Lifetime

America, and indeed the world, is in the stranglehold of a virus (COVID-19) with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome, 340 picometre in size.1 (A picometer is equal to one trillionth of a meter.) The worldwide disruptive impact of this miniscule organism is historical.

The NBA suspended its season after a top player tested positive for COVID-19. The next day, the NHL, MLB, MLS, U.S. Soccer, and multiple tennis associations followed suit. The NCAA canceled all its spring and winter championships, including the March Madness basketball tournaments for both men and women. The Masters Tournament, golf’s first major championship of the year, was postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Schools switched to virtual classrooms. Religious services also moved on-line. Businesses told their employees to work from home.

Question: With everyone sequestered in their homes, is this an opportunity or a disaster for independent financial professionals? In other words, if you are separated from current and prospective clientele, are you shut down?

Answer: Only if you choose to be.

Inspiration from Past and Present Overcomers
John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is one of the ten most published books of all time. It has been translated into more than 200 languages and has never been out of print.2

After twelve years of imprisonment, in Bedford, England, John Bunyan was released in 1672. Bunyan found prison to be a painful but fruitful gift. He used the time locked behind bars to write, study and to correspond with others. It was in prison that he wrote Pilgrim’s Progress.

Consider Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, three hundred years later, who, like Bunyan, turned his imprisonment into a world-changing work of explosive art, including One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

After his imprisonment in the Russian gulag of Joseph Stalin’s “corrective labor camps,” Solzhenitsyn wrote, “I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me: ‘Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!’”3

Or consider the modern-day example of Joni Eareckson-Tada. Tada broke her neck in a diving accident when she was 17. Her spinal cord was severed and she became paralyzed from the shoulders down. She has limited arm motion but can’t use her hands or her legs. In addition to her quadriplegia, she suffers from chronic pain. If that was not enough, she began battling breast cancer in 2010. This woman of faith and determination is an author, host of a nationally-broadcast radio show and the recipient of six honorary doctorates. All of this while trapped inside a broken body.

Recently, Tada recorded a calming word during the Coronavirus pandemic. She said, “I am an aging quadriplegic with fragile lungs and an immune system which can be easily compromised. Nevertheless, there is absolutely no reason to be caught up in the panic or blame.”4

Point: Restricted from seeing people, having limited access to others, and being confined themselves, these people found the motivation to use their circumstances to do their best work. You can too!

Thriving Amid Crisis
There is one simple way to continue building your business, your reputation and your relationships during times of quarantine, sequester and distance: Communication.

Here are three suggested communication approaches you can implement now.

  • Make phone calls just to check in on your clients to see how they are faring. They have not only been anxious about their physical health. The market volatility (historic drops and increases) triggered intense anxiety. Build on your relationships by showing care.
  • Use Zoom, Facetime, Facebook Messenger or Google Hangouts to schedule a policy review with any client you have not seen in several years. A policy review could potentially help find money to pay for the unexpected expenses they may have incurred. Reconnect and discover new sources of income.
  • Schedule conference calls for investment clients and invite people to join the calls who are product, tax or other experts. Your clients are suddenly faced with increased uncertainty. One thing they should consider at such times is how to create certainty. If you do not discuss annuities and life insurance with them, who will? If you are not knowledgeable in these products, partner with someone who is.

Summary
In this wild, historically unique, time, independent financial professionals can shine the light of reason, calm, planning and perspective into their clients’ anxious lives. The reason most people get into our business is because they care about people. If ever there was a moment to demonstrate care, through proactive and intentional communication, it is now. This may be a chance in a lifetime for you to distinguish yourself from all other financial professionals and to build an indestructible reputation.

I wonder if years from now, when you look back on 2020, you will say, “Bless you, Coronavirus, for having been in my life!”

References:

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki Base_pair#Length_measurements
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pilgrim%27s_Progress
  3. The Gulag Archipelago, vol. 2, 617.
  4. https://www.joniandfriends.org/a-calming-word-during-the-coronavirus