How LifeDesign+ Differs From Traditional Financial Planning
July 3rd will never not be a special day—this year it marks the 8th anniversary of RLS Wealth receiving approval from the state of Indiana to operate as a Registered Investment Adviser. Although RLS Wealth is 8 years old, my career as a financial advisor is heading into its 19th year, which does not seem possible!
How I Arrived At LifeDesign+
The first part of my career was spent finding my way and experiencing different business models in which a financial advisor can help its clients. It wasn’t until I was a few years in at a company by the name of VALIC that I fell in love with the profession and began to understand what financial planning really was. The downside of working at a large corporation that was primarily focused on the retirement plans of teachers was there wasn’t a lot of training on financial planning and how to serve clients—there WAS plenty of sales training though.
Looking back, I now know being a financial advisor was a part of my Pursuit and my authentic life, but at the time I just followed my natural curiosity and developed my approach to planning and advising clients, which was a lighter version of life planning, which I wouldn’t officially be introduced to until a year or two into RLS Wealth.
Over the years I’ve continued to try to dive deeper into life planning, slowly introduce concepts, have deeper conversations, and without formally walking clients through the life planning process arrive at the same outcomes. Not only have I been bringing the life planning approach to my clients but I’ve also been doing the same work with my family’s financial plan.
In working on our plan and going deeper into my (and our) “whys” I discovered something that has fundamentally changed the way I view financial planning and how I want to bring it to RLS Wealth. Through my own journey, observing others, researching, and talking to other advisors and professionals I discovered a strong correlation between the alignment of spirit, mind, body and its impact on money.
This discovery has birthed LifeDesign+, which goes beyond the principles, strategies, and relationships associated with traditional financial planning.
Before I go further, I do not consider “traditional financial planning” to be bad. I define traditional financial planning as a focus on the American Dream goals of retirement, college, and maybe home purchases or starting a business, along with asset allocation. There is a great need for this planning and I believe most people only seek traditional financial planning. I consider what I’ve done for the first part of my career to be closer to traditional financial planning than where I’m going with LifeDesign+. I will continue to spend time in traditional financial planning with my existing clients and bringing components of LifeDesign+ when it fits and is desired by them. LifeDesign+ is not better than traditional financial planning—it’s just different.
How Does LifeDesign+ Differ From Traditional Financial Planning?
LifeDesign+ is focused on helping individuals look within to discover their true Self, identify their passions, and ultimately discover their authentic life and align their financial lives to support it.
Components of LifeDesign+ will resemble traditional financial planning fundamentals—the goals I associate with traditional financial planning will find themselves in everyone’s authentic life, along with the needs for life insurance, disability insurance, estate planning, asset allocation, and more. But LifeDesign+ builds upon traditional financial planning to design the life you feel called to live, not told you’re supposed to live. The design of the life will dictate many of the recommendations and strategies, whereas traditional financial planning often constrains the life being planned.
One of the most obvious ways LifeDesign+ differs from traditional financial planning is the frequency and intention of the meetings.
Because the Pursuit of the authentic life is continuous and evolves, we meet every month. These monthly meetings are less about the financial plan, although when necessary finances are addressed, and more about the designing of the authentic life. Early in the relationship, the meetings often are spent helping to find what is lacking in the current life, connecting to and aligning the spirit, mind, and body, and other exercises to help with self-discovery.
In addition to the monthly meetings, LifeDesign+ includes a dashboard with daily journaling, habit tracking, curated content, and other resources.
LifeDesign+ is closer to a life coaching relationship with financial planning incorporated when necessary, including an annual financial planning review.
I know LifeDesign+ will not be for everyone, and I have and will continue to create non-advisory ways to help people find and pursue their authentic life over at PRST. But for those seeking to finally live the life they feel called to live or want to discover who they truly are and begin to find their authentic life, LifeDesign+ might just be what they need.