e-mails and telephone calls made contact easy.

Leonard did not unplug himself completely from Navigoe. He worked about 20 hours a week from the 50-foot catamaran where he and his family lived, and he returned to Southern California for a week each quarter to meet with clients.

“When I came back to meet with clients, the schedule was intense,” he says. Leonard saw more of the clients during this period than he sometimes does when he is working full time. “If I had it to do over again, I would add one more day to the time in California and reserve it for meetings with staff.”

The staff back in the office kept the operation running and made all but the big decisions, Toya says. “Scott’s absence went at least as well as we expected. The volume of organic growth the firm underwent while Scott was away was better than expected.” The five-person firm has $220 million in AUM.

The idea of being left in charge of the office was one of the drawing points for the job when Toya interviewed for the position, he says. “The opportunity to run the day-to-day client relationships sped up my development as a financial advisor,” Toya says.

Leonard, the author of The Liberated CEO, is a big proponent of not letting work consume a person’s entire life. He and his wife and three sons now live in a ski resort near Lake Tahoe. The most precious memory from the trip are the extended dinner hours the family shared on the back of the boat, dubbed the Three Little Birds, a name taken from a Bob Marley song and to honor the three children.

Leonard says he and his wife, Mandi, wanted the boys to be as old as possible for the trip but that they wanted to have them back in the United States for high school. The boys, Griffin, 14; Jacob or Jake, 12, and Luke 8, were home schooled by Mandi while they were away. The family returned last November and the boys returned to their regular classes.

Leonard says he is a serviceable sailor but not a champion. However, he has always loved the water. The Three Little Birds was docked most of the time they were away, allowing the family to live in places like French Polynesia for months at a time and get to know the people and the culture.

Every financial advisor should take a sabbatical to recharge, says Leonard. “Maybe not for three years, but for three or six months because when you come back the business gets better. The entrepreneur in me has been rekindled by the trip.”

Navigoe’s marketing efforts were put on hold while Leonard was sailing and he says the firm now has to start a full marketing campaign to get the firm’s name out to the public. Leonard has now set his sights on 20 percent growth for the firm for each of the next 10 years so he can reach approximately $2 billion in AUM.

 
 

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