"Every great work, every big accomplishment, has been brought into manifestation through holding to the vision."
- Florence Scovel Shinn

The French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote, "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

When we are working with clients, we stress that a clear vision of their futures would greatly enhance their abilities to make those visions realities. While the planning and details are very important, without a definite mental picture, the attainment of their dreams and goals becomes less likely.

At our initial meetings with prospective clients, we ask them what they would consider the most important piece when doing a jigsaw puzzle (thanks to Elizabeth Jetton). Most will tell us the corner piece. While this is important, we suggest that the most important piece of the jigsaw puzzle is the picture on the box. Without that, how would one know what one is trying to accomplish? So in our initial discovery meetings, we help our clients paint that picture before we begin making specific recommendations and suggestions. We believe that visualization is an extremely important tool in the accomplishment of one's goals.

So if this exercise is so essential for clients, shouldn't it be equally important to building a successful financial planning practice? While I am not proposing that business plans are not relevant, I am suggesting that without a clear vision of what you want your business to look like (the picture on the puzzle box) your business plans may have little chance for success. As a matter of fact, I will even go so far as to say that if you were to choose only one, the vision would be the most important.

It has been my experience that when one has a passionate vision, the people and tools necessary to reach that future seem to miraculously come into your life. I have been unable to explain this. Some may call it karma, while others will say that one becomes acutely aware of what is needed and is able to recognize these opportunities when they appear if the vision of the future is clear.

In 1982, while I was a regional vice president with a major life insurance company, I heard someone speak about financial planning. It intrigued me so much that I decided to take advantage of an opportunity with my company to become a general agent once again. I did this with the sole purpose of beginning a financial planning practice. Unfortunately, I had no way of knowing how to do this nor did I have very many models to follow. But I did know that that was where I wanted to be and I thought about it constantly.

Shortly after taking over the agency responsibilities, I got a "cold call" from a person who was displaced as a result of a merger of two large life insurance companies. His specialty was estate planning and he decided that he would market written financial plans to independent insurance agencies. My opportunity to begin building a financial planning practice was presented to me. If I did not have the vision, I suspect that I would've treated this as just another sales pitch and ignored his proposal.

But since he was offering me an opportunity to do what I did not know how to do myself, I accepted his offer. This, of course, was before we were even aware of financial planning software. So all of our plans were written from scratch by this person. As a matter of fact, we provided him with so much work that he became a full-time employee of our agency.

It wasn't very long before I realized that building an independent financial planning practice in the environment of an insurance agency was difficult, if not impossible. It was a bold move to resign from a very secure and well-paid position, but the vision was more important than the money and security. So in 1985 we started an independent practice and left the large insurance company.

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