On a Tuesday morning in November, I took my car in for repair. All of a sudden it had begun displaying a series of warning lights and messages:

• Check Brake System!
• Check ABS!
• Check VSC System!

Ruh-roh.

While I waited for the repairs to be done, I walked down the street to a Panera Bread restaurant where I met a friend. We enjoyed bagels and coffee and conversation.

The dealership called to say they needed to collect a replacement part from another dealership and that my car would not be ready for another three hours. My friend left and I stayed and got some work done.

A married couple in their seventies came in and occupied the booth next to me. They had a pleasant conversation between them about repairs they were making to their home in anticipation of putting it on the market. They were getting ready to move into a single level, smaller, courtyard home.

Then in walked a man wearing a Cincinnati Bengals cap, a Bengals shirt, and jeans. He said, “Hey Mom and Dad, been waiting long?”

Dad: “Nah. We looked for you in the stands during Monday night’s game between the Bengals and Bills. Were you there?”

Son: “We were. We loved the feel of the arena that night!”

(He said “arena.” I liked the sound of it. Very Roman.)

Dad: “What was it like when Damar Hamlin came out onto the field?” (Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest during a Week 16 game between the Bengals and Bills in the 2022-23 season. This was the first time Hamlin had walked back onto the field where he nearly died.)

Son: “The crowd expressed great empathy and warmth for him. He seemed to reciprocate.”

Dad: “Amazing, and on top of that, it was a great game!”

Mom (Switching subjects): “Are you still getting married in January?”

Son: “Yes, for sure.”

Dad: “Thank you for coming to meet with us. Your upcoming marriage has prompted us to think about our finances and the plans for our estate.”

I am admittedly a Bengals fan and had listened to this point in their conversation with casual interest. Suddenly, when estate planning came up in the conversation, I began exercising my best ease-dropping skills.

Here is what I learned about the family:

• The married couple has two sons.
• The older son is very successful and owns a business he built from scratch.
• The younger son, in Bengals gear, is not so successful. His first marriage ended in divorce. He has had a few different careers. The woman he planned to marry in January is not someone his parents are thrilled about.

Point: All financial and estate planning occurs within the arena of vital family dynamics.

The Financial Arena
The English word “arena” dates back to the 1600s and has its origins in the Latin word, harena, meaning “sand, or a sand-strewn place of combat.”¹ According to the dictionary, the word “arena” has various definitions:

“1: an area in a Roman amphitheater for gladiatorial combats
2a: an enclosed area used for public entertainment
b: a building containing an arena
3a: a sphere of interest, activity, or competition, the political arena
b: a place or situation for controversy, in the public arena”²

Question: In what sense is there a “Financial Arena?”

Answer: In this sense: “a sphere of interest, activity, or competition.”

Point: Financial planning is an ongoing process designed to guide people to make sensible decisions in the sphere of money that can help them achieve their life goals by competing against forces like inflation and market volatility. The activities that happen within this arena include the following:

• Establishing life goals–short, medium, and long term
• Identifying current assets and liabilities
• Evaluating the current financial position–and the distance remaining between now and to achieving financial goals
• Developing the plan–creating a clear path for achieving specific goals
• Implementing the plan–making the necessary spending, saving, and investing changes in order to make goals happen
• Monitoring and reviewing the plan regularly and making necessary adjustments

Sidenote: In Orlando, Florida, on the main campus of the University of Central Florida, there is a sports and entertainment arena named “Addition Financial Arena.” It was constructed beginning in 2006 as a replacement for the original UCF arena. Addition Financial is a credit union with a history of helping clients for more than four score years. On May 1, 2019, CFE changed the arena’s name to Addition Financial. Effective beginning August 18, 2022, UCF announced that Addition Financial had extended their naming rights for the facility through 2034. The arena is home to the UCF Knights men’s and women’s basketball teams.

The Financial Arena Is a Scene of Contest
Allow me to return to the family I overheard at Panera discussing financial and estate planning decisions. Recall that there are two sons. There is also a finite estate that the parents intend to pass on to these two men.

I do not feel in any way unethically responsible for knowing the details of this family’s financial picture because they loudly, and openly, discussed this with each other after I was already in place before they came in and sat down next to me. (Who doesn’t enjoy a little eavesdropping with their coffee?) Listening to the conversation, however, I made specific mental note of these sometimes-controversial factors:

• Dad retired and rolled over his retirement plan assets into an IRA now held by a large investment firm. He estimated the current value at $700,000. It was initially significantly higher, but they have been living off the IRA over the past several years.
• The house is owned outright and has an estimated market value north of $500,000. When the couple acquire a smaller home, they expect to have no post-sale, post-purchase surplus left over.
• Dad described having another significant account (nonqualified) being managed by an independent financial professional (IFP). He estimated the current market value to be in excess of $400,000.
• Dad and Mom want to pass on their existing funds to their sons while alive and not in testamentary fashion.
• Problem #1: They are not interested in their younger son’s second wife benefiting directly from their gifts. They demand that he have a prenuptial agreement that specifically excludes her from receiving his inheritance.
• Problem #2: They are unwilling to take into account the comparatively disproportionate financial standing of their sons in the division of assets between them.
• Problem #3: The older son and the couple’s IFP (a woman) had previously dated, and now totally dislike each other. He does not trust her and frequently asks his parents to move the money to an IFP he uses.
• Problem #4: The older son was not present at this meeting. He, however, has instructed his parents to only give him financial gifts in years that would coincide with favorable investment market conditions.
• Problem #5: The younger son thinks his older brother is so successful financially that a greater portion of the estate should go to himself.
• Problem #6: The older son is the favorite offspring of both Mom and Dad and the younger son knows it.
• Problem #7: There are no grandchildren. This is a problem because Mom believes without grandchildren there really is no lasting legacy. She would prefer to give the money to charity.

Point: A successful IFP must help clients navigate economic factors of course, but there are often familial factors, sources of intense emotional contest and conflict, which often prove much more intransigent.

Blood and Money
There is a reason why the word arena came from the Latin word for “sand, or sandy place.” The broad open areas of Roman amphitheaters were strewn with sand to soak up the blood.

In the Old Testament, in Leviticus 17:14 we read that “the life of every creature is its blood.” That is why God said to the Israelites, “You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off.” Blood equals life.

But then we hear the expression “bloodshed.” Bloodshed is the destruction of life, as in war or murder, slaughter. It is death.

Point: When engaged in the arena of financial and estate planning, the IFP must remember both aspects of life and death when helping clients make plans. Money has utility during life and must be properly and responsibly passed on at death. In both instances, the IFP must address a wide array of issues such as taxation, inflation, risk, and multiple alternatives for accomplishing stated goals.

Application
Returning to our family in Panera, how might an IFP begin guiding them in their estate planning goals?

• Meet separately with the parents away from either son.
  • In this meeting, gain full understanding of how they feel about their investment advisors and management.
  • What will they need by way of income to last their entire lives?
  • How much should they retain in an emergency fund?
  • What principles are guiding their preferences? Specifically, why do they wish to treat each son equally? Why do they not want their future daughter-in-law to benefit from their son’s future inheritance?
  • Ask the parents if life insurance might be a way to accomplish estate equalization.
  • Is a Grantor Trust perhaps indicated by the family dynamics? A properly drawn trust could supplant the need for a prenuptial.
  • Should they consider their older son’s feelings about their IFP?
  • What gives them the greatest joy when they think about their financial legacy?
  • Is there an opportunity to achieve Mom’s charitable aspirations?
• Meet with the sons together and with both parents present. At this meeting both sons need to know that they are beneficiaries and not benefactors. This means that:
  • They will receive the gifts and/or inheritance when and in the manner that Mom and Dad prefer.
  • They need to plan for how they will utilize these gifts, and what steps they will take to multiply the gifts’ effectiveness and extend their longevity.

Summary
The Financial Arena is not a place for the timid to go to find refuge and safety. Every seasoned IFP knows that it is frequently a place to battle economic, societal, and familial contenders.

President Theodore Roosevelt, who left office in 1909, delivered a speech in Paris on April 23, 1910, which would become one of the most widely quoted orations of his career. Although he had labeled it, “Citizenship in a Republic,” it would become widely remembered as “The Man in the Arena.” At 3:00 PM in front of the Sorbonne, where an estimated 25,000 people packed the streets, Roosevelt criticized people who have “an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities.”

Dr. Brené Brown paraphrased Roosevelt’s speech in a TED Talk and used his phrase “daring greatly” as the title of one of her books.

As this article concludes, let us remember that our business is not conducted in the realm of theories, but in the actual lives of real people with real problems.

From “The Man (Person) in the Arena:”

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”³

For every IFP battling in the Financial Arena of sweat and blood, I applaud you and hold you in great esteem. Keep striving to do the daring deeds of assisting people in their quest to live financially successful lives.

P.S. The conversation between the son and his parents took a strange turn when he suddenly, and with a surge of energy, announced in non sequitur fashion, “I bought my future wife a gun!” Dad said he had much to say about this. At this same moment the dealership called and informed me that my car was finished. I almost hated to leave before I heard where the conversation was going to go next!

Footnotes:

1. https://www.etymonline.com/word/arena.
2. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arena.
3. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/63389/roosevelts-man-arena.