Financial DNA - Discovering Your Unique Financial Personality for a Quality Life

Generally in business, and particularly in financial services, people associate risk with the markets or economy. What we fail to drill down into are the risks caused by human behavior. Another way of looking at this is to consider how people handle the market risks. What decisions do they make? What solutions do they come up with? How do they manage their emotions? How do they communicate?

Would you prefer to be asked about your dreams or your goals?

Last week in one of our Wealth Mentor Community Calls we discussed this very question. Prior to the meeting, I had the Wealth Mentor participants read a book called the Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly. This book really brings out the connective power of encouraging people to get in touch with their dreams.

The point that emerged during the discussion was that most people would prefer to be asked about their dreams rather than goals.

On the weekend, I had the great fortune to listen to a very inspiring presentation by Dr. Ben Carson. Dr. Carson is a leading pediatric neurosurgeon at the John Hopkins Hospital. In his career he has been a pioneer in performing highly risky surgery on children. He has a great book: "Take the Risk - Learning to Identify, Choose and Live with Acceptable Risk".

Dr. Carson explained how he has often been faced with addressing the viability of taking a major risk in his work. What is there to gain? Will it be worthwhile? What if I fail?

The stage is now set. The family have committed to a meeting. Further, the initial homework has been done with everyone completing their Financial DNA® Profiles, Family Quality Life Review and other pre-meeting exercises.

Remember, there are a lot of settings for a family meeting. Further, there are a lot of times when key questions can be asked. Questions can be asked during meetings with professional advisors, whilst on vacation, over dinner at the family home or in more formal settings such as during a family retreat.

The issue is now what questions will be asked at the family meeting?

What has been the impact of money on your family? This is a big question and one often addressed in a family meeting. Also, it is often asked by your financial advisor in the financial planning discussion.

In many ways these impacts will shape who the family is, determine the family relationships, define the family legacy and how the family is remembered by others.

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-c7785816d46106f2dad9db212636c9c3}

Recently, I have had a great experience in reading a book called “The Energy of Money” by Maria Nemeth. I would thoroughly recommend this book to any person who is interested in better understanding their relationship to money. After all, this is what I have been advocating very strongly in my past few blogs. To become financially educated and realize your potential, you need to understand who you are and why you make the life and financial decisions that you do.

My last couple of podcasts have really hit on the issue of financial education to develop greater financial capability for the consumer. The need is now "red hot" with the financial markets in turbulence and many people very concerned about how they will unwind. Are we at the lows yet? It would not seem likely. So, there is potential for a lot more concern and emotion yet.

Financial DNA was originally built based on our passion to see the consumer receive education to become more financially empowered and in our view this starts with greater self-understanding. Consumer financial education does not start with understanding the technical aspects of alpha and beta and what a stock or bond is, or hedge funds.

So, we believe that financial advisors must play a greater role in consumer financial education starting with client behavior.

Core to my passion is seeing people take more personal responsibility for their financial decisions. In the end this is actually key to your financial success, and overall quality life. To take more personal responsibility means increasing your financial capability. I believe there is an obligation on yourself to get the right financial education and also on your financial advisors to help you by providing it and guiding you. In the end, you need to be able to make more informed choices about the products and solutions you are buying, and not just rely on others to decide for you.

A common derailer that I have seen in many families is a lack of transparency. There is key information which is not being disclosed to other family members and, in some cases, to key people in a family business. Usually, this is caused by the holder of the information not trusting the other family members in some way.