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Season’s greetings to you this holiday season!

Dear Clients and Friends: Season’s greetings to you this holiday season!            As is our tradition during December, we want to publicly thank our Creator God for His love and faithfulness! The Holiday Season is a very special time for the Jewish and Christian faiths because they share spiritual beliefs rooted in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) and they both celebrate the experience of faithfulness of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Following is a brief summary of why each celebrates. HANUKKAH           In Hebrew, the word “Hanukkah” means “dedication.” In 168 B.C.E. the Greeks seized the Jews’ holy temple and dedicated it to the worship of Zeus. Some Jews were afraid of the Greek soldiers and obeyed them, but most decided to take back the temple and rededicate it to the worship of God. After three years of fighting, the Jews defeated the Greek army, despite having fewer men and weapons. After rebuilding the Temple they decided to have a large dedication c
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“How to Tell Your Employees How to Vote: American Business Advisors and Colorado Amendment 69”

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Author’s note: We have intentionally reprinted last week’s Insider in a slightly different form to model the principle of repetition.  In “telling your employees how to vote,” be sure to remind them that it’s important for them to vote their conscience. In order to connect with their conscience as best as possible, brain science tells us they need to do a few key things to diminish the levels of  adrenaline, cortisol and a multitude of elevated stress hormones:   Turn off their screens Go for a walk Drink lots of water Reflect on: What their core values are What is in the best interest of their loved ones What is in the best interest of their community, our nation, and our world Then cast their vote. TRUST = Credibility + Reliability                   Perceived Self-Interest The current political climate makes it difficult to have civil conversations about anything remotely political. Nevertheless, it’s important to find an effect way to communicate to our employees and
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Thank You for Supporting Money Smart Week 2014

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One of the joys of presenting during Money Smart Week is learning about concerns from participants. The best questions—and answers—often come from either new business owners or the most veteran. Q: What are my options for funding a new business? A:   You have several choices—each with corresponding advantages and disadvantages. 1. Bootstrap your business. (more…) Thank You for Supporting Money Smart Week 2014 is available on http://www.abadvisors.com
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What Industry Trends Mean for the Future of Your Financial Planning Practice: Blue Ocean Spotlights Tectonic Plate Shifts

At a recent Colorado Financial Planners Association (COFPA) meeting, Sameer Somal, Blue Ocean founder, gave a sobering snapshot of things every financial advisor needs to consider: what’s next for your practice. When an industry like financial planning is undergoing rapid tectonic plate shifts, the impact of those shifts create a tsunami of change to every participant in the industry—not only advisors--especially their clients. I rarely use superlatives like “every” but consider the following profile of the financial advisory space: Average age of a financial advisor is 50+ 10% are 60 and older Of the advisors within two years of retirement age more than half do not have a written succession or contingency plan 75% of advisors have never had a third party valuation of their firm More than 40% of approximately 315,000 advisors will transition their practices over the next 15 years. Where are their successors coming from? (more…) What Industry Trends Mean for the Future of
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No Dog in the Hunt: Why Bottlenecks Work

Have you ever been distracted by the plank in your eye? What about the fly stuck your ointment? I have. And so has every business owner I know! We all need tools that both highlight our blind spots and assist us work around them. To take action, we all benefit from the catalyzing effects of clarity and simplicity. I had a BFO last Wednesday. Facilitating the TiE Rockies Entrepreneurial Roundtable (click for upcoming offerings), I discovered firsthand why a Crankset Group tool--the Bottleneck Exercise--works so effectively to highlight a business owner’s blind spot and allow us to truly take the next step. Our bottleneck exercise reflects some principles from James Surowiecki’s book, Wisdom of Crowds . He explains four factors that contribute to the surprising power of the “wisdom of crowds”: Diversity (vs. homogeneity) of opinion: Groups that have greater diversity—not just the ‘crème de la crème’ but also “the least of these”—produce clearer wisdom. Crankset Group 3to5 Club
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Why You also Need a Client Happiness Specialist!

NOTE: We’ll continue the series on “acedia” next week. You’ve no doubt heard Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” song/video. If you haven’t, take 4 minutes to get a little happy: I recently hired a Client Happiness Specialist. Don’t have one? You need one too! Why? I believe you want to live a life of no regrets. I believe you want to let yourself be happy, too. Let me share my unsurprising epiphany: what we all long for is to be happy. If you ask a new parent what she wants for her child, she’ll likely say, “to be happy and healthy.” If you ask someone on his deathbed what he wish he’d done differently, he’ll likely say, “I wish I allowed myself to be happier.” Many business owners I know don’t allow themselves be happy! They bemoan the fact that they are stuck (by choice?) wearing so many hats that don’t suit them. They’ve misplaced their Big Why . They think being a business owner means wearing most, if not every, hat. They feel stuck in that overwhelming role. Until last year, I knew
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Real Christianity – Why You Should Consider It (Part II)

God’s Solution for Our Disobedience and Sin Living in Us: Become a Child of God and Be Set Free From the Sinful Nature   No one escapes the reality of physical death on this earth. As most estate planners point out, the mortality rate in this life is 100%. But the Bible does say a person can find the “tree of life,” get past the “guards” to it, and escape spiritual death. Therefore, the key question is “how?” As indicated previously, in Romans 7:17&20, sin is a noun, something that is living in us. Is Paul trying to avoid responsibility? No, put in context, he is using his own experience to define reality for us and help each person understand that through accepting Christ’s death at the Cross as payment for his/her sins (see definition above) and through daily faith in Jesus Christ, sin (the “thing” living in us) is rendered powerless. “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” The “sin living in” you is what the Bible c
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