Relationally Focused Stewardship Cures Anxiety
When put into practice the first BRS distinctive that stewardship is primarily relational, not financial, can provide a great cure for anxiety about the future.
We help our clients focus on relationships and transform their retirement goals into a simple question:
“How much do you need in savings to fund your living expenses through death.”
Note that it’s not a net worth goal of $X million. (What’s your number?).
It’s not a goal to save enough so that you can spend an amount equal to 80% or 90% of your highest income earning years until you die.
Have you noticed how most advertisements by financial advisors and firms subtly play off your fears of not having enough money in retirement?
This is a common selling technique backed by psychological and neurological research on perennial human fears related to safety and security. The ads are designed to tap into your “lizard” brain, that deep part inside of you that reacts instinctively either with a “flight” or “fight” response.
As advisor fiduciaries who must earn your trust, we do not believe that selling ourselves or services through fear-based, anxiety-producing techniques is right. It’s not how we want to be treated by those who advise us.
And we do not believe it builds the kind of trust between an advisor and client that should be built. At the most fundamental level, we do not believe it values relationships over finances. If you think about it, you really don’t want an advisor who stokes your fears to move you to decisions that might put his financial interests ahead of yours.
So what we do is flip the motivation for planning around by emphasizing its relational core. Instead of negative, fear-driven reasons for decision-making, we help our clients cultivate a vision of life motivated by positive, trust-driven planning.
What we and our clients have discovered is that this kind of relationally driven stewardship becomes the cure for financial anxiety. And it creates a freedom from money worries rooted in unhealthy self-focus and fears about the future, liberating clients into living a life of self-giving for the good of others.
Clients find their minds and their time freed up. Their talents and experience become more and more available to serve others. And, being assured that they have enough to live on until they die, they realize that they have much more financial and other resources available to help others, as well. Once our clients realize that they have more than enough in retirement savings to live on, they begin to experience the liberty of finding the kind of deep-rooted, soul-satisfying joy that comes from being a generous steward.
This is the cure for financial anxiety induced by the American Dream.
We at BRS believe stewardship is about relationships. Careers, reputation, financial stability, and personal goals are all important pursuits. However, none should come above our relationships with family, friends, and our community. Our relationships are the cornerstone by which we leave a positive impact and lasting legacy.
The Relationally-Driven Life Stewardship Process
This graphic depicts our planning process. It’s a comprehensive and fully integrated planning process. We expend considerable effort, energy, and time gathering and then analyzing all facts pertinent to your planning and goals. It’s integrated with your business or profession, with your age and the ages of your children, with your values and objectives.
We help you think about estate planning integrated with financial planning. We help you think about managing potential risks of loss associated with unnecessary taxes (whether estate, gift, income, or capitals gains), premature death or disability, unwise market risk, non-exempt asset classes, and inappropriate company or corporate structures that risk the loss of limited liability.
Point A represents when you have your first dollar to save. This is the first goal. It’s the starting point in the marathon to financial freedom, to becoming a generous steward and leaving a lasting legacy.
Point B is the goal, the end line of the marathon: ReHirement, Critical Stewardship Mass. It’s the point in time when you have converted enough earnings and gifts into savings sufficient to fund your living expenses through death. We calculate this number for you at regular, annual intervals along the way of your planning marathon.
Point C represents death. It’s what we call retirement. The final rest, the end of our labors as stewards. We view life as a gift to be stewarded faithfully. And we view death, although it is both alien to the original intent of being human and an enemy that has been defeated, also as something to be stewarded. What our clients discover through applying our trust-driven process is that there is meaning both to life and death. That they can impact the future through their legacy of faithful stewardship. Hope and peace are fruits of our process and perspective.
We call the phase of time from Point A to Point B the “stewardship savings phase.” We help our clients manage the safety, efficiency, and control of the process of converting their earnings and gifts to savings.
The period of time from Point B to Point C is the “stewardship distribution phase.” During this time period, we help our clients manage the safety, efficiency, and control of the process of converting their savings into spending on living expenses and joyful giving.
We at BRS believe stewardship is about relationships. Careers, reputation, financial stability, and personal goals are all important pursuits. However, none should come above our relationships with family, friends, and our community. Our relationships are the cornerstone by which we leave a positive impact and lasting legacy.
Think "ReHirement," Not Retirement.
We call the point in time when you have enough in savings to fund your living expenses through projected mortality Critical Stewardship Mass.
Note that it is not a net worth goal. Nor is it a goal to live on 90% or 80% or 75% of your highest income earning years for the rest of your life, as is so commonly heard in financial advice.
Instead, it’s a realistic goal to convert enough of your earnings and assets into savings that will meet your living expenses until you die. We calculate that number based on what you project your living expenses will be once you decide to retire.
And along the way of helping our clients reach Critical Stewardship Mass, we are helping them re-think their lives in terms of “ReHirement,” not retirement.
Once they have enough in savings to live on, all clients have gifts, talents, experience, and so much more to give to their family, friends, communities, young professionals or executives or in their fields, charities or other non-profit interests, and so forth. The opportunities to serve and give are virtually endless in a world where needs are endless.
Our planning process helps clients discover the deeper reasons and motivations why they want more wealth, success, net worth, possessions, or savings that far exceed what they need to live on until death.
In the process, they discover the ineffable value of relationships and discover their deeper selves and deeper meaning in life. In other words, we help them discover the inestimable value of relationships.
And in the process, we help our clients discover why they become so anxious and fearful over their perceived lack of money, security, wealth, or whatever it is they think will give them peace of mind about the future. We help them cultivate realistic perspectives and goals, and then develop practical plans to reach their goals.
To put it in a nutshell, we have the great privilege of helping our clients discover the joy of valuing their relationships with their loved ones, with their neighbors and communities, with themselves, and with the world of things more than they value the “things” themselves — that is, more than money, wealth, safety, security, acquiring, possessing, net worth, profit, you name it.
We at BRS believe stewardship is about relationships. Careers, reputation, financial stability, and personal goals are all important pursuits. However, none should come above our relationships with family, friends, and our community. Our relationships are the cornerstone by which we leave a positive impact and lasting legacy.