What side of the fence do you operate?

Most people are living their lives:

• Impulsively
• Emotionally; and
• Unplanned

The great’s and the successful are:

• Purposeful
• Passionate; and
• Planned

It seems easy to recognise this disparity when you mention a few names.  Rutherford, Hillary, McCaw, Kirk, Te Kanawa, Tindall

The impulsive, emotional and unplanned are always subservient to either:

• Other people
• Institutions; or
• Events

What stops the transition beats me.  How come we continue to self-sabotage at the expense of ultimate ‘victory’ or ‘success’.  There might be a psychological reason beyond my understanding. I know it’s not an intellectual capability.  The world is full of incompetent intellectuals who couldn’t change a light bulb or organise a celebration in a brewery.

Is it that success takes even more than purpose, passion and planning to achieve?  What else makes the greats great?  When I look at the above names, empathy and understanding are obvious, as is a natural talent.

Perhaps we can be successful without being great.  That would entail a definition of success – and that’s a bit like defining wealth.  It means different things to different people.

What about working backwards then: why don’t we define success and work backwards towards the strategies for achieving it?  Piece by piece, day by day.  That sounds like being purposeful, passionate and planned.

Interestingly – that’s exactly what financial planning does for people.  It aligns short, medium and long term goals with the strategies and tactics necessary to achieve them.

When we re-designed our company and purpose for FoxPlan it occurred to us that everyone should own a ‘FoxPlan’.  ‘A life map to smooth the road’ ‘to ensure our client’s financial affairs are in order and there are no surprises’.

When planning to climb a mountain or sing an aria it takes practice and coaching.  No one succeeds on their own and that includes the greats.  They know the necessity to seek external direction and ongoing assistance, yet most of us live our lives making our daily decisions subjected to someone else’s goals and expectations, not our own.  Understandable in a socialist regime or under the shroud of religious law such as Sharia– but we don’t live under such a ‘control’ environment.  And yet that is exactly how most are behaving.  The expectation that government or company or partner or family will determine one and all’s destiny.

That’s not what I want for my grandkids. 

The change needs to start in the homes, hearts and minds of Mums and Dads that don’t want their kids to be the puppets of the state or subservient to institutions.  Our kids need to read, discuss, even debate ideas, challenge, and innovate – with passion.  Challenge and criticism is the engine of the truth and if we are to seek character and authenticity for the next generation it will come from communication – it always has.  Nothing wrong with social media and digital communication but it needs to be harnessed – information and knowledge is useless without concept and meaning.

I think the kids are seeking relevance and ‘man’s searching for meaning’ – we just need more mentors capable of understanding the paradigm shift to a changing world orchestrated by digital language and the powerful influence available 24/7.  The influence available whilst held in one’s hand from the ownership of our first cell phone.

Financial planning means you begin to build a better life by determining to make ongoing good decisions and the discipline to implement those decisions because they are right, not because they are easy, cheap or popular.  If we can get the Mums and Dads purposeful, passionate and planned – so to the children.