Core Skills for “Real Life” Financial Planning · Understanding the Spirit and Value of Money in Your Life ... smart planning. Act conversations clarify accountabilities and launch

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Welcome to:

Core Skills for “Real Life” Financial Planning

FPA Retreat 2006Scottsdale, AZ.May 4, 2006

Tracy BeckesCourtney PullenEd Jacobson

Session Purpose

Speak from OUR hearts, minds and experience, to YOURS… about the core skills that planners need to:

create productive, enduring relationships;

co-create the most “heartful” visions;

develop the most creative & effective financial plans;

achieve sustained implementation.

About the SessionWe three will “speak with one voice”

about the critical role of:

Caring, connecting, and presence;

Listening, conversing, and communicating;

Co-creating the all-embracing vision;

Strengths and appreciation; leading from and building on client’s and planner’s gifts

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Creating the Container

• Together, we will create a framework for establishing a powerful, present, and productive container for the client-planner relationship…

• A container strong and flexible enough to meet the client at all points in the journey towards their most full and fulfilling life.

8621 Myrtle Rd NW8621 Myrtle Rd NWStanwood, WA 98292 Stanwood, WA 98292 [email protected]@tracybeckes.comwww.tracybeckes.comwww.tracybeckes.com

Tracy Beckes, MBAFPA RetreatScottsdale, AZMay 4, 2006

www.TracyBeckes.com 2

What Makes Great Advisors Great?



1.1. ConnectConnect


1. Connect

Know thyselfKnow thyselfIdeal clientsIdeal clientsEngagement StandardsEngagement Standards


1. ConnectQuestion:Question:If you connect with yourself, If you connect with yourself, your ideal client, and the your ideal client, and the standards that will transform standards that will transform your practice, what your practice, what threethree things things will you decide to work on in the will you decide to work on in the next next thirtythirty days?days?



2.2. CareCare


2. CareCuriosity / wonderCuriosity / wonder“Wanting for”“Wanting for”Giving permissionGiving permission

ActionAction::List three things you List three things you “want for” your clients“want for” your clients..



3. Co3. Co--CreateCreate


3. Co-Create a compelling future

PastPastFutureFuturePresentPresent


3. Co-Create a compelling futureStrengthening your personal foundationStrengthening your personal foundation

Foundation

Vision

Ideal Business and Life


Author of:Author of:The Seven Stages of Money Maturity:The Seven Stages of Money Maturity:Understanding the Spirit and Value of Money Understanding the Spirit and Value of Money in Your Lifein Your Life

www.kinderinstitute.comwww.kinderinstitute.comPastPastFutureFuturePresentPresent

George Kinder3 Questions


George Kinder Question One

I want you to imagine that you have all the money you need, now and to the future.

What will you do with it? How will you live your life? What will change?

Let yourself dream. Don’t hold back. Describe a life that is complete, that is richly yours.

What is freedom for you?©George Kinder www.kinderinstitute.com


George KinderQuestion Two

You’ve just come from a visit to the doctor, who has told you that you have only five to ten years to live. The good part is that you won’t ever feel sick. The bad part is that you will have no notice of the moment of your death.

As you let the emotional impact of the situation sink in, ask yourself these questions:

How will you change your life? What will you choose to do in the finite amount of time you have remaining?

Let your answer fully reflect your whole self.©George Kinder www.kinderinstitute.com


George KinderQuestion Three

The doctor this time told you that you have only one day left in your life. The question you face is not how to spend the hours that remain. Instead, ask yourself:

What am I feeling?What are my regrets and longings? What dreams will be left unfulfilled?What do I wish I had finished or had been?What do I wish I had done?

©George Kinder www.kinderinstitute.com


3. Co-Create a compelling future

PastPastFutureFuturePresent: Present: What action could What action could you take today to create a you take today to create a vivid, compelling future?vivid, compelling future?


3. Co-Creation question examplesPast: Looking back on the last ten years, what financial outcomes are you most pleased with? How did they come about?

Future: Imagine it is five years from today, what has to happen financially in order for you to be satisfied with your progress?

Future and present: Imagine your most vivid, compelling financial future. What does it look like? What could you do today to move towards that vision?

Action: Schedule a vision conversation with your clients.



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Deepening and Sustaining Client Relationships

Core Skills for “Real Life” Financial Planning

FPA Retreat

May 4, 2006

Presented By: Courtney PullenPullen Consulting Groupwww.pullenconsulting.com

Purpose

Work towards creating productive, enduring relationshipsCo-create the best plans and implement themInformative and practical

What is occurring conversationally when a relationship isn’t going well?

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© Conversant Solutions, LLC 2003 Conversant Solutions, LLC 2002

© Conversant Solutions, LLC 2003


Align conversations create shared purpose, stimulate creativity, and ensure smart planning.

Act conversations clarify accountabilities and launch action.

Adjust conversations review performance and translate experience into improvement.

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• All humans have purposes and concerns.• When people perceive you threaten or are

unaware of their purposes and concerns, they resist. This produces waste.

• When people perceive you are aware of and sensitive to their purposes and concerns, they communicate and collaborate. This produces value.

Axioms of the Intersection

Part of your job is to explore the gap between where the client is and where they want to be…

What are their values?What is important to them? (i.e. purpose)What does the client want you to know about them in order to have a good working relationship?

“Real life” financial planning

The Value Of Listening…

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Bad Listening

Pick a topic of interest to you and talk to your partner about it for 1 minute.The listener needs to practice bad listening.Reverse roles.

Developing Listening SkillsDeveloping Listening Skills

Ladder ofLadder of

0 points - Bio Reaction

1 point - Content

2 points - Compassion

3 points - Essential Intent

4 points - Intersection

Listening

What can you bring to a client relationship?

Poise (a combination of presence and purpose)

HonestyAvailabilityDevotion

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Good Listening

Return to your partner and repeat your story of interest.The partner listens looking for essential intent.After 90 seconds change roles.

Essential ReciprocityListening is a rare happening among human beings.You cannot listen to the word another is speaking if you are preoccupied with your appearance or with impressing the other, or are trying to decide what you are going to say when the other stops talking, or are debating about whether what is being said is true or relevant or agreeable.Such matters have their place, but only after listening to the word as the word is being uttered.Listening is a primitive art of love in which a person gives him or herself to another’s word, making him or herself accessible and vulnerable to that word.

William StringfellowOn Listening

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Serving From Appreciation:Core Appreciative Skills

for Financial Life Planners

FPA Retreat 2006Scottsdale, AZ.May 4, 2006

Ed JacobsonMadison, WI.608-345-3332

[email protected]

Two Core “Appreciative Skills” for Financial Life Planners

The ability to…

1. form & hold an unwavering positive image of client’s potential.

2. continually reframe “deficit-based questions” to become appreciative questions.

Appreciative Inquiry Basic #1

“WORDS CREATE WORLDS:”the powerful role of language

in shaping what we

perceive, believe, think, feel, do

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“WORDS CREATE WORLDS”

The difference between

1. “Striving to be the best IN the world.”

2. “Striving to be the best FOR the world.”

Which is more life-enhancing?

Where would YOU prefer to spend your time? Your life?

Appreciative Inquiry Basic #2

Relentlessly Choosing the Positive as the

Focus of Conversation and Inquiry

A Choice in Each Moment:

Deficit-based Conversation: root out, focus on, and FIX the weakness.

Appreciative Conversation: find, focus on, and AMPLIFY the best of what is & what can be.

Core Skill 1Forming Unwavering Positive Image of Client’s Potential

• The skill of “seeing the Oak in the Acorn.”

An image of client as whole, resourceful, resilient; a person of worth and dignity.

Believing in the client. Unshakeable faith in them and their future.

Anticipatory Principle:What we believe about future has powerful role in creating that future. Includes our belief in what others will become.

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Three Perspectives on “Unwavering Positive Image”

Research perspective: “Pygmalion Effect”

Historical perspective: Winston Churchill

Experiential perspective: Your Appreciative Stories

Research Perspective: The Pygmalion Effect

“Rosenthal Studies”

• Teachers told that half their students were High Potentials (HPs), the other half Low Potential (LPs).

• (In reality, students were randomly assigned as HP or LP.)

• Student progress was carefully monitored.

• HPs flourished; LPs languished.

• Only difference was the different “image of potential” the teachers developed.

What Accounts for this Potent Effect?Research showed if you have a positive image of someone’s potential, you will:

be more alert to and aware of their successes

recall more of their past successes

provide more emotional support

make many resources and opportunities available to them.

In short, you’ll barrage them with connection, caring, and co-creation.

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Historical Perspective: Winston Churchill

• More than most anyone else, Churchill saw the resilient character of his people (“the Oak in the Acorn”) and exerted a profound effect on them.

How Churchill Used His “Unwavering Positive Image”

of His Fellow Brits

• “In 1940 he [Churchill] idealized them with such intensity that in the end they approached his ideal and began to see themselves as he saw them: ‘the buoyant and imperturbable temper of Britain which I had the honour to express’.

• So hypnotic was the force of his words, so strong his faith, that by the sheer intensity of his eloquence he bound his spell upon them until it seemed to them that he was indeed speaking what was in their hearts and minds.


of His Fellow Brits

• His optimism, even in Britain’s darkest moment, came not from a Pollyanna-like sense that ‘everything is just fine’ but from a conviction that was born from what he, like few others, could actually see in his country. Doubtless it was there; but largely dormant until he had awoken it within them.

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of His Fellow Brits

• After he had spoken to them in the summer of 1940 as no one else has ever before or since, they conceived a new idea of themselves. . . . They went forward into battle transformed by his words. . . . He created a heroic mood and turned the fortunes of the Battle of Britain not by catching the [life-diminishing] mood of his surroundings but by being impervious to them.”

Experiential Perspective: Your Own Appreciative Stories of

“Unwavering Positive Image”

Pair up with a neighbor… preferably someone you don’t know very well.

You’ll share stories about an “unwavering positive image” that someone had of YOU.

Appreciative Story-telling in Pairs

Please tell a story of a time when someone really believed in you; when they believed that“I SIMPLY KNOW YOU CAN DO IT!!!”

This person had a positive image, a belief, a faith that you would either…

• achieve something important to you, or• rebound from a setback you’d experienced, or• lead a successful life in general.

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Cover these Details

• Who was the person? What was your relationship?

• What was the situation?

• Describe their “unwavering positive image.”

• How did you know they had that view of you?

• What was its effect on you?

• How did the situation turn out?

• How has their image influenced you since then?

Take Turns Telling the Tale

LISTENING GUIDELINES:

• LISTEN IN AWE AND APPRECIATION.

• COVER THE DETAILS.

Brief Debrief

How was that?

What did you learn about the importance of holding a positive image of someone?

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Core Skill 1Forming Unwavering Positive Image of Client’s Potential

Benefits of Using This Core Skill;

1. Energizes planner and staff

2. Becomes part of the “container”

3. “Inoculates” planner when client goes negative

4. Creates “positive contagion” (client catches what you have: an unrelenting “Can-Do” picture of them)

5. The client needs that “Can Do” self-image to achieve their most positive life. The unwavering positive image the planner has of the client is the NECESSARY CATALYST to power the outrageous, co-created image of the client’s future.

Core Skill 2Reframe “Deficit-based Questions” to Become

Appreciative Questions

Challenge --->

Affirmative Topic --->

Appreciative Question

How Do Appreciative Questions Differ From Two Other Kinds?

Neutral:neither appreciative nor negative: neutral.

“Deficit-based:”negatives, deficiencies, weaknesses, liabilities, etc.

Appreciative:positive, life-giving elements: successes, skills, experiences, beliefs, etc.

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Comparison # 1:Inquiring About How the Person Is

Neutral: How are you?

Deficit-based: Tell me what’s bothering you.

Appreciative: What’s going well?

What shall we celebrate?

What’s one thing that’s brightened your day so far?

Comparison # 2: Parenting

Neutral: Describe your relationship with your daughter.

Deficit-based:What are some areas that disturb you in your relationship with your daughter?

Appreciative:When do you feel especially close to your daughter?

What makes your daughter special?

What moves you when you think about your daughter?

Two Keys to Appreciative Questions

Use either “Mantra” as basis for forming AQs:

One:“What’s working? What can we build on?”

Two: “What do we want more of? What would it look like?”

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Try Your Hand at Reframing These Questions (to be Appreciative)

1. Previous Financial Planner

“Tell me about your relationship with your previous financial planner.” (Neutral)

Appreciative Question:

“______________________________________”


2. Financial Decision-making(Client couple)

“What difficulties do you two have making financial decisions?” (Deficit-based)

Appreciative Question:

“_____________________________________”


3. Staff Outing

“Where should we hold the next staff outing?”(Neutral)

Appreciative Question:“_____________________________________”

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Reframe One of the Questions Into an Appreciative Question

What Did You Come Up With?

Benefits of Core Skill #2: “Reframing Questions to Become Appreciative”

(and Then Asking Them)

1. Creates & supports positive image of client (shifts the client’s “internal soundtrack”)

2. Teaches client an important ‘real-life’ skill

3. Short-circuits client crisis (“Recall a time when you faced a daunting situation and coped successfully. What did you do? Who helped? What did you learn?”)

4. Deepens client-planner connection

5. Supports and deepens entire financial planning process

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When you get the hang of using them, When you get the hang of using them, appreciative questions become like appreciative questions become like

Lay’s Potato Chips:Lay’s Potato Chips:

“Bet You Can’t Ask Just One!”“Bet You Can’t Ask Just One!”

These 2 Core “Appreciative Skills” Complement Each Other

Without an unwavering positive image of the client…

asking appreciative questions is simply a TECHNIQUE, and loses much of its power and “heart.”

These 2 Core “Appreciative Skills” Complement Each Other

To state it more “appreciatively …” your unwavering positive image

• … gives your appreciative questions meaning,

• … adds depth to the conversation, and

• … provides “lift” to the client.

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Final Segment of Our Session

Take a moment to reflect privatelyon what you’ve heard, seen, and

experienced in this session:

• What stands out as High Point Moments for you thus far? What resonated with you?

• What are one or two concrete steps you’d like to take to follow-up or build on these?

Questions?

Comments?

Contact Information

Tracy [email protected]

Courtney [email protected]

Ed [email protected]

Documents

Core Skills for “Real Life” Financial Planning · Understanding the Spirit and Value of Money in Your Life ... smart planning. Act conversations clarify accountabilities and launch