Tag: whole family wealth

Truly Creating a Legacy – Story Based Planning

August 18, 2010 /

In this final installment on story based planning, my colleague and mentor – Scott Farnsworth – delves into the reasoning behind why story leading questions are powerful . . . and the key to a story and values based plan.  To me, these are the plans that truly create a legacy rather than just a set of documents.  To have the proper context you will want to read the previous 4 posts here: 1, 2, 3, 4.  I believe everyone needs this type of plan.  If you find yourself longing for a legacy rather than a set of documents, give us a call to schedule your Peace of Mind Planning Session.

Nancy Kline, the author of Time to Think and More Time to Think, has taught me a number of significant truths.  One is that “the human mind thinks best in the presence of a question.”

As I turned that idea over in my brain a hundred million times, I began to see that questions matter, and they matter deeply in every field of human thinking.  The nature and quality of the questions we ask determine the nature and quality of the thinking we spark and of the answers we receive.

I learned in law school that certain types of questions lead to particular kinds of answers.  For example, “open-ended questions” elicit a different kind of answers than “yes/no questions,” and these are different from “leading questions,” which guide a witness to testify a certain way.  The type of questions we ask or the way we phrase or frame our questions influences the answers we receive.

This principle is readily seen in the field of education.   As a Portuguese instructor, a college professor of business law, and now as a facilitator of professional training, I have observed that students receive, process, store, retrieve, and apply information differently according to the types of questions they are asked and, indeed, by the types of questions they anticipate they will be asked.  The learning processes and the thinking processes for one type of question are different from the learning processes and the thinking processes for all other kinds of questions.

For example, a course in which students believe they will be graded with a true-false, multiple choice, matching, or short-answer exam will produce a different kind of thinking and learning than a course in which the anticipated exam is essay, open-ended, problem-solving, or issue-spotting.  Similarly, an oral exam results in a very different educational experience than a written one.

The type and style of questions also determines the nature, quality, and quantity of information available to the teacher to assess the students’ comprehension of the subject matter and their ability to apply the material elsewhere.  Some kinds of questions deliver rich and abundant information about the student and the learning process, while others yield scant and sketchy insights.  If teachers want to understand how well their students are thinking and what they are learning, they should pay careful attention to the nature of the questions they ask.

“Successful” students — i.e. those who score well on exams — learn how to anticipate the nature of the questions they will be asked and apply the learning and testing strategies that work best for those kinds of questions.  On the other hand, “successful” students — i.e., those who learn to think clearly about the material and then put it to use in the “real world” — think beyond exam questions and anticipate the issues the “real world” will present them.

What’s true in the field of education is also true in our work with clients:  the type and style of questions we use matters deeply. Our questions determine which issues our clients think about, and then drive the way they think about, those issues.

If our questions are analytical and numbers-oriented, our clients will think analytically and will focus on the numbers.  And if our questions are more intuitive and visionary, our clients will be more reflective and more thoughtful about the future they are creating for themselves and those affected by their planning.

The best planners are comfortable working in both sides of the brain, and are skilful in getting their clients to do the same.

In her magnificent book, I Will Not Die an Unlived Life,” Dawna Markova writes:

The brain has both analytic and intuitive ways of processing information.  They are meant to work hand in hand, but usually end up in an arm wrestle.  If we analyze only as we have been taught to do in most schools, snapping at the first answer that comes along, then judging it good or bad, right or wrong, the shy intuitive mind, not unlike a prairie dog, runs for cover.  Analysis, when improperly done, causes paralysis.  It creates a world “out there,” of which we are only spectators and in which we do not live.  It is commonly called objectivity.

If, on the other hand, the analytic mind asks open questions of discernment — “I wonder how this would work. . . . What would it look like if this were really possible? . . .” the intuitive mind begins to explore many possibilities, weaving its way through the trees until it has a sense of the whole forest and its meaning in nature’s scheme of things.  Pop!

This wandering and wondering are not useful when one is dealing with issues such as the computation of income taxes.  But the exploration of purpose and passion requires us to uncover patterns and understand the relatedness between things, and then synthesize them into a new whole.  This is the terrain of intuitive processing.  Personal truth can not be found in either analytic thinking or intuitive thinking alone.  It can only be uncovered in an open inquiry between them.

Because most of us work in a presumptively analytical world, it is not always easy to inspire ourselves or our clients to operate concurrently in the intuitive world.  It sometimes feels awkward or invasive.  And yet, if we fail to go there, we are stuck in the shallow waters of “the computation of income taxes” and similar tasks, ending often in “analysis paralysis.”

So what is the secret to moving comfortably and confidently into the deep waters of real thinking about the issues that should underpin and overlay great planning?  From my three decades in the planning professions, my answer is to ask what I call “story-leading questions.”

Stories are our native language, and everyone, including our most analytical clients, has a story to tell.  Stories are a right-brain, intuitive activity that naturally invites the “wandering and wondering” and the “exploration of purpose and passion” Markova writes about.  In the hands of an artful advisor, story-leading questions and the stories they spark beckon clients (and also advisors) to “uncover patterns and understand the relatedness between things, and then synthesize them into a new whole.”

The result is a masterful, thoughtful blend of solid numbers and bottom-line analysis, together with deep, rich, and meaningful insight into the client’s purposes and passions.  The hard realities of the tax code and the stock market are woven seamlessly with the heart and soul and vision of the human beings for whom we are planning.  Literally, a new world, the future world our clients are seeking, is created.

The key to this beautiful and powerful approach to planning is the art of the story-leading question.  It unlocks the door to what I believe is the best possible planning on the planet: story-based planning.

Scott Farnsworth, J.D., CFP is an attorney and Certified Planner with more than 30 year in the estate, business, and financial planning fields. He is the CEO of SunBridge, Inc. and the founder of the SunBridge Legacy Network. He is a nationally recognized author and expert on practical, holistic, family-friendly planning. Scott was recently named one of Financial Advisor Magazine’s ‘Innovators of the Year.

Michael Lichterman is an attorney specializing in estate planning and helping families and business owners create a lasting legacy by planning for their Whole Family Wealth™.  He focuses on planning for  doctors/physicians, nurses, lawyers, dentists, professionals with minor children, family owned business succession, and the “sandwich generation” (caring for parents and children) – and does so from a Christian perspective.  He takes the “counselor” part of attorney and counselor at law very seriously, and enjoys creating life long relationships with his clients – many of which have become great friends.

The “Story Leading Question” and True Values Planning

August 15, 2010 /

If you haven’t had the opportunity to read the earlier posts in the series on story based planning written by my colleague and mentor, Scott Farnsworth, you can do so here, here and here (sounds funny to have all those here’s!).  They give an important backdrop to this post on “story-leading questions.”  I have found story leading questions to be one of the most transformative processes I’ve implemented when working with clients.  It “opens a door,” as Scott says, to really learning more about who each client is and what’s important to them – true Whole Family Wealth™ Planning.

In “The Power of Story-based Planning, Part 3” I wrote that “the best way to genuinely understand our clients and their values is to ask them thoughtful and insightful story-leading questions in an appropriate setting and then settle back and listen to their answers with all the love and attention and encouragement we can muster. I have learned that who they are and what they deeply value are woven into the stories they tell and can be discovered by a caring advisor.”

So what are story-leading questions?  Simply put, they are questions that invite the other person to answer with a narrative.   They open the door to a story.

I have found that good story-leading questions exhibit a warm and welcoming interest in the life of another.  Good story-leading questions are appropriate to the level of trust and intimacy between those conversing.  They don’t put the other person on the spot, nor feel judgmental.

Good story-leading questions also allow the person answering a number of ways to answer the question, rather than leaving them only one possible option.

Story-leading questions are like wizard’s matches:  they ignite a warm, crackling exchange of life-experiences and life-lessons.  Sometimes, they even kindle bonfires of story sharing.  A good story-leading question naturally and comfortably invites the other person to recall and share a little bit of their life with the person posing the question.

Most of us already have a wide array of story-leading questions that we use but most of us are not mindful of them or how powerful they can be, especially when we remember to ask them “in an appropriate setting and then settle back and listen to the answers with all the love and attention and encouragement we can muster,” to quote myself.

Here’s an experiment you can try.  When you go home this evening and when the time is right, try out this simple story-leading question with someone you love:  “So what was interesting or unusual about your day today?”

Or ask a young parent: “What has your child learned to do lately?”

Or ask a child: “What’s something you’ve discovered lately that makes you happy?”

Or ask an older person:  “What’s happening with your grandchildren?”

Or ask a friend: “What’ve you been up to since the last time we talked?”

Then listen, really listen.  Show with your countenance and your body language that you deeply want to hear the answer.  Don’t rush, don’t compete, don’t minimize or infantilize in any way what they say.  Just listen.

I promise if you do, you will discover — or rediscover — magic.

This same approach works in our professional lives.  Story-leading questions and attentive, caring listening can transform the planning process.

Our clients safeguard a treasure trove of information about themselves, their lives, their loved ones, and their visions for the future behind a heavy locked door.  Opening the door requires two sets of keys.  One set is the questions and the other is the listening.  Accessing this valuable cache of information can lead to the creation of elegant and appropriate planning for these clients.

Great story-leading questions and attentive, respectful listening are the keys.

Scott Farnsworth, J.D., CFP is an attorney and Certified Planner with more than 30 year in the estate, business, and financial planning fields. He is the CEO of SunBridge, Inc. and the founder of the SunBridge Legacy Network. He is a nationally recognized author and expert on practical, holistic, family-friendly planning. Scott was recently named one of Financial Advisor Magazine’s ‘Innovators of the Year.

Michael Lichterman is an attorney specializing in estate planning and helping families and business owners create a lasting legacy by planning for their Whole Family Wealth™.  He focuses on planning for  doctors/physicians, nurses, lawyers, dentists, professionals with minor children, family owned business succession, and the “sandwich generation” (caring for parents and children) – and does so from a Christian perspective.  He takes the “counselor” part of attorney and counselor at law very seriously, and enjoys creating life long relationships with his clients – many of which have become great friends.

The Power of Story Based Planning – Introduction

August 4, 2010 /

If you read my post here about Whole Family Wealth Planning™, you know how important it is to share your values, insights, stories and experiences.  It got me thinking that I should share a series of posts written by my colleague and mentor, Scott Farnsworth.  As we walk through this area via Scott’s thoughts, please share your thoughts as well via comment below or contacting us.

Virtually all my “official” training as an estate planning attorney and a Certified Financial Planner has been about numbers. Tax rates, code sections, rates of return on investments, asset allocation models-the unwavering focus has been on something quantifiable. The underlying message always came through loud and clear: unless something can be tallied on a ledger sheet, it isn’t worthy of our professional attention and probably isn’t all that important. Only “numbers-based planning” is real planning.

But my gut-and my real-life experience-told me something different. They told me that when numbers-based planning collided with human beings, i.e., our clients and their children and grandchildren, either the planning was never actually implemented by the clients, or the wheels came off when the planning landed with a thud on the succeeding generations. They told me that the most clever and tightly-wound estate or financial plans could and would be unraveled by the people they were designed to “help” or “protect.” They told that we planners ignore the human issues at our peril, and at the peril of the beautiful numbers-based plans we crank out.

My sense was often that with numbers-based planning, the tax tail was wagging the dog-driving the planning instead of riding in the back seat along with all the other significant but not critical factors. One significant study found that the likelihood of a family-based business surviving into the second generation was inversely correlated to the amount of tax planning the first generation had done. (Correlates of Success in Family Business Transitions, Morris, Williams, Allen, and Avila, Journal of Business Venturing 12, 365-401, 1997). In other words, the tax doctors were actually killing the patients they were hired to “save.”

Numbers-based planning might work if we were planning for robots, but we’re not. We’re planning for real flesh-and-blood people. I recall a series of conversations with a couple from New York City who had spent tens of thousands of dollars for one of the premier law firms in the country to draft a plan to care for their estate and their two teenage children. The plan touched all the legal and tax-planning bases, but in the words of the wife it was “cold and impersonal, not what I want to leave for my children.” The expensive, well-drafted plan was never executed but remained nothing more than a pile of paper, glistening with lawyerly brilliance on the surface but empty and meaningless underneath.

Unfortunately, that couple’s experience is repeated all too often. In my view, such outcomes will not change until we take a fundamentally different approach to this whole business of estate and financial planning. They will not change until we spend more time listening to client stories than tallying up their balance sheets; until we tailor their plans to the human hopes, dreams, and fears imbedded in their stories; and until the plans we create help them tell the story of their legacy-of who they really are and what impact they have had and hope to have on the people and causes they love. I call this approach story-based planning.

Scott Farnsworth, J.D., CFP is an attorney and Certified Planner with more than 30 year in the estate, business, and financial planning fields. He is the CEO of SunBridge, Inc. and the founder of the SunBridge Legacy Network. He is a nationally recognized author and expert on practical, holistic, family-friendly planning. Scott was recently named one of Financial Advisor Magazine’s ‘Innovators of the Year.

Michael Lichterman is an attorney specializing in estate planning and helping provide peace of mind to families and businesses throughout Grand Rapids and West Michigan.  He specializes in Whole Family Wealth™ planning for professionals with minor children, doctors/physicians, nurses, lawyers, and the “sandwich generation” (caring for parents and children) – and does so from a Christian perspective.  He takes the “counselor” part of attorney and counselor at law very seriously, and enjoys creating life long relationships with his clients – many of which have become great friends.

Legacy Planning for Your Whole Family Wealth™

July 22, 2010 /

When meeting people for the first time, I’m regularly asked “what do you do?”  I help families create a lasting legacy through Whole Family Wealth™ Planning.  Of course that prompts the question, “what is Whole Family Wealth™?”  I thought I would share the answer here so everyone can benefit.

Whole Family Wealth™ is about planning to pass on more than just what you have – it’s about who you are and what is important to you.  Your values, insights, stories and experiences.  Because it is those values, insights, stories and experiences that are going to matter most to your children/grandchildren when you are no longer around.

For instance, the Allianz American Legacies Study found that non-financial items that parents leave behind, like ethics, morals, faith and religion, are ten times more important to people than the financial aspects of inheritance.  And that makes sense.  If you think about it, by having your values, insights, stories and experiences shared with them, your family will be able to build their own financial wealth.  Sadly, it doesn’t work in reverse.  Once you are gone, so are any values, insights, stories and experiences you haven’t passed on.  Experience has shown me that even though we think we do a great job of sharing those “intangible assets,” in fact we have so much more that we could have shared that would have added a lot to the Whole Family Wealth™ of our loved ones.

So, how do we plan for your Whole Family Wealth™?  We do several things:

  • First, we take a significant amount of time to really learn about who you are as a person – your goals, wishes, hopes, and dreams for yourself and for your loved ones.  We want to know who you are as a person and what is important to you.  One of our clients commented that “Mike was very easy to talk to and I was able to convey my thoughts and feeling about my plan.  He listened to me very patiently and gave me his full attention.”
  • Second, we work with you to determine how we can use planning as a way to pass on these goals, wishes, hopes and dreams.  The idea being that your plan is uniquely representative of who you are and what is important to you.
  • Third, we include ongoing reviews of your planning at least every 3 years in all of our planning levels to make sure your plan is still in line with your legacy goals.
  • Fourth, we include a Priceless Conversation in all our planning levels.  This is a conversation we have with you on various subjects that enables you to share your legacy from your heart, not your head.  We record the conversation to a CD which is then placed in a presentation box with a summary of the conversation and the questions – this becomes the first part of your “legacy library.” There are numerous topics about which we can have a Priceless Conversation.
  • Finally, we are constantly seeking out new ways to help you convey more of your Whole Family Wealth™ based on our own efforts and your feedback

Have questions?  Curious to know more?  Wonder how your specific family situation can benefit from Whole Family Wealth™ Planning?  Give us a call or send us an email.  And if you reference this blog post your Peace of Mind Planning Session will be FREE ($750 value).

Michael Lichterman is an attorney specializing in estate planning and helping provide peace of mind to families and businesses throughout Grand Rapids and West Michigan.  He specializes in Whole Family Wealth™ planning for professionals with minor children, doctors/physicians, nurses, lawyers, and the “sandwich generation” (caring for parents and children) – and does so from a Christian perspective.  He takes the “counselor” part of attorney and counselor at law very seriously, and enjoys creating life long relationships with his clients – many of which have become great friends.