Writing these blogs each week for six years, my weekly habits continue to evolve.
I still get questions from colleagues about the source of ideas to write about, and my answer remains consistent: I write one blog a week, but I usually get at least two new ideas.
Sometimes the ideas come from somewhere unexpected, and sometimes they morph from one thing to another along the way.
Such is the case this week.
Better Investors
I’m guilty of spending more time than most people on social media.
I like to know what’s going on in the world and Twitter and LinkedIn allow me to follow the people and sources that I like and trust, on a variety of subjects that interest me.
A few weeks ago I saw a post on Twitter from Carl Richards (@BehaviorGap)
“It turns out our job is
not to find
great investments,
but to help
create great investors”
A Blog Idea Is Conceived
My first “A-Ha” came right then and there.
An “Investment” is a product or a piece of content, and it is the thing that many professionals in the investing space specialize in selling.
But as Richards points out, that focus is misplaced.
An “Investor” is a person, and such persons are better served by those who will help them with the entire process of the whole scope of being investors.
Teach Them How to Fish
It comes down to the old Bible story about not simply giving a person a fish, but instead teaching them how to fish for themselves.
Do you want to feed them for a day, or for a lifetime?
That’s supposed to be a rhetorical question, but unfortunately many of the business models still followed by many professionals, seem to prefer feeding on a day-to-day business, and being paid for it over and over as well.
Process Over Content
So the thing that grabbed me, as far as this idea being good fodder for a blog post, was the whole Process Over Content question.
It’s certainly not a new idea for me to discuss, but it was from a different angle.
The content pieces that I often deal with are things like legal or accounting structures or trust vehicles, or contracts such as shareholder or partnership agreements.
Strategy of Tactics?
The process part of putting all of these tactical pieces together into a strategy will often be given short shrift.
Too often the concept of making sure that all these pieces will fit together properly is either completely ignored or simply assumed to be sufficient.
In reality, though, this is where many plans fall apart.
Blogging Brings Clarity
So here is where this post took a bit of a turn.
I was set to write about the “process” part, but then realized that there was a “people” component that I simply couldn’t ignore.
My blog title was still a big question mark too, and then it came time to search for an image to accompany the post, with a surprise of its own.
A-Ha # 2 – Improving Together
I’ve been using Shutterstock for a while and am usually quite satisfied with the results I get when I search for the right image to go with each post.
This time my search actually kicked things up a notch, as it created another A-Ha moment for me.
I was looking for something using “process” and “people” and there it was…Improving Together.
Holy crap, that’s even better than anything I had come up with so far.
Families Learning Together
When Richards was talking about investors, I imagine that he was referring to singular people, or perhaps to a couple.
My work is always about families, whether I’m actually working with all family members directly, or working with one person, helping them organize and coordinate their family.
The key to finding success for most families, is for them to find reasons, ways, and opportunities to work together and learn together, so that they can eventually get really good at deciding things together.
Co-Creating the Family Strategy
The families who are most successful at transitioning their wealth to the next generation are those who have mastered the practice of involving as many family members as possible in the process.
The co-creation of the strategy is what ensures the buy in, so that the plans actually work.
The time and effort required are always worth it.
