I now realize, after 30 blogs and nearly a year of blogging, learning, that I should have named my book, on life-wealth planning, THE LOVE TRIANGLE, self-realizing, connecting and giving. Readership of the 337 page free down-load book would be more enticing with talk of passionate love, hard struggles and happy endings, rather than the mondane topic of "planning". Life-wealth planning is all about real stories and real passion. Love.
My planners at AIS Planning sent their clients a copy of Financial Intelligence, by Doug Lennick as a Thanksgiving gift. The book is about aligning your ideal self with your real self in all financial decisions, by better awareness of your values, emotions, thoughts, physiology and decision making process. The concepts are good. I reference their exercises in ADVOCATE PLANNING. They have a heart, formed with money on the cover. I read that as - use your money resource to do what you love to do - one of the premises in ADVOCATE PLANNING. Interestingly though, there is no mention of love or passion in the text. Is that a sensitivity to talking about love and passion in the same sentence with financial planning?
What was more sticking to me, though, was their research, which concluded that principles and values overlap, and principles differ from values in that "principles are virtually universal: people everywhere tend to believe in their importance.... Where values tend to be an expression of what's important to us individually. (Furthermore) the research on universal principles identified four primary principles held in common - Integrity, Responsibility, Compassion, and Forgiveness". My observation is that they are talking about love being a universal principle - love of self and love of others. Integrity and Responsibility are matters of self-love. And, Compassion and Forgiveness are matters of love of others.
Why is this important? Because my personal study and development of the Advocate Planning Model was based on the premise that of all the "zillion" of values to consider in the priorities planning process, the important values to focus on, to make it simple and effective for life-wealth planning, boil down to love of self and love of others, which I understand now, are actually principles, universal truths, not just plain old values. Having a priorities planning process based on principles, universally important values, makes it easier to understand why the narrow focus on so few values in my easy to use process. I am now going to refer to the process as "Principle-based" priorities - love of self and love of others; self-realizing by learning, serving and mentoring your passions and talents - connecting by loving yourself, others, nature and God with exploring, relating and playing - and giving by protecting love ones, contributing and transferring your money, values, and principles.
Individual values are not to be ignored in the love priorities process. They are part of understanding your planning "foundation". There are only two fundamental steps to making good decisions in living your passion-driven life: 1. Develop an understanding of yourself by connecting the dots of your history, dreams, values, passions and plans; and 2. Maintain a recurring process of setting priorities and doing activities that result in doing what you love to do! It is in the recurring process that I limit the exercise to the principles of SCG; to make the process effective by becoming second nature, while focusing on what is important for love of self and love of others. Try it.
What is most important to you NOW, in taking your next action to fully live your passion-driven life? Know yourself and set up a simple process which becomes second nature for you and any people, personal or professional, that advocate for your success - the realization of your unique good (love).
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