1000 Lives Changed Through Life Planning
As I continue through the Kinder Institute of Life Planning’s RLP® (Registered Life Planner) program (currently starting in the mentorship), it is obvious to me that life planning is where I am supposed to be. I thought I knew what life planning was before by reading George Kinder’s books, talking to friends who had been through the program, and having success through my version of the practice.
What I didn’t realize, and couldn’t have realized, is how magical the process is.
I thought it was my job as the advisor to help clients discover the life they truly desired by leveraging my gift of being able to see the potential in others and help them paint a picture of the life we would plan for; what I have learned is that my only role in the process is to give clients the space, prompts, and love to find their own vision—what I think I see in them doesn’t matter, it’s about what they see in themselves. It might sound crazy, but in the life planning process, it’s the client’s responsibility to find their authentic life and bring it to reality. I am merely a shepherd or guide.
This simple shift in perspective came at precisely the right time as it matched my personal growth and understanding of the importance of aligning spirit, mind, body, and money—uniting RLS Wealth and my personal mission to help more people live their authentic lives.
A few weeks ago, a number popped into my mind—1,000 and at first, I wasn’t sure what that number meant. But after a couple of days of reflecting on this random number, I came to the conclusion that was how many lives I am to change, directly, through the life planning process with LifeDesign and LifeDesign+; I will change many more through my speaking, writing, podcast, videos, and other content that I’ll create outside of RLS Wealth.
But when it comes to RLS Wealth and my work as a financial advisor, 1,000 is the number I’m after.
I’ve done the math, and it’s going to take a long time to get there; realistically, it might take 20 years to eclipse that number—I do have the benefit that the number is 1,000 lives and not 1,000 families, as 1 family could lead to four or five lives changed. I’ll be honest, I contemplated choosing a different number to make my goal more attainable, but I quickly moved away from that easy path.
Plus, 1,000 came to me. I didn’t sit down and come up with a plan to have a goal for how many people I will help live their authentic life, so I couldn’t change the number—the number was already decided for me.
I’m not sure how I’m going to share my progress, or if I will at all. My initial thought was to share an annual update on the number of lives changed at the end of the year, and with client permission, share some of the exciting changes, realizations, and authentic lives brought to reality, but I don’t know if feels right. Maybe it’ll be a podcast episode at the end of each year where I share some of those same stories and casually mention how many lives were changed that year. What I don’t want to have happen is that the process and the work gets watered down because of the goal and if it becomes too commercialized, I fear the outcomes and impact will suffer.
In addition to to helping the 1,000 lives, I’m also excited to become one of the best life planners in the business; I’ve mentioned before how I’d like to earn the same respect Rick Rubin has in the music industry in my profession, and as I make progress toward my goal I believe that will be earned.
So, we’re starting at zero today—the lives I’ve changed and helped in the first 20 years of my career do not count toward this goal because it was not through the life planning process.
1.3.24 0 lives changed through life planning