Financial Planner vs. Financial *Life* Planner. Which one is the “right one” for me?
I spent last week working and learning in Hana, Maui. If you’ve never been to Hana, you can find it on the side of Maui that is less trodden by tourists. George Kinder, the father of the life planning movement, opens his home in Hana once each year for the Kinder Institute’s 5-Day Life Planning training. In December of 2015, it was this training that ignited the fire in me to change my life entirely. Ultimately, it set me on the path to launch Mana with Stephanie in 2018. This year, I returned to this retreat to assist and coach a new class of financial planners, fourteen in total, many of whom belonged to the XY Planning Network. I left Hana convinced that this generation of life planners, our generation, will be the generation that brings life planning to the people.
What is Life Planning?
Life Planning focuses on the human side of financial planning. In Life Planning we discover a client’s deepest and most profound goals through a mindfulness-based process of structured and non-judgmental inquiry. Then, using a mix of professional and advanced relationship skills, we inspire clients to pursue their aspirations, discuss and resolve obstacles, create a concrete financial plan, and provide ongoing guidance as clients accomplish their objectives.
In his book A Golden Civilization, George Kinder writes “Life Planning is the term for a kind of coaching that financial advisors do that is dedicated to discovering and delivering their clients into their dreams of freedom regardless of their means.”
Life Planners are a subset of the global financial planning community. Today, there are Registered Life Planners® in over thirty countries, and I’m proud to be one of them.
How is financial planning different from Life Planning?
When you step into a financial planner’s office, you typically have a goal in mind. You might be looking for the planner to figure out the amount required for your retirement, analyze and recommend your insurance needs, or perhaps you want to minimize your tax bill. If the financial planner is good at their job, they’ll be able to get you that number, or build a clear tax strategy. They might even prepare a comprehensive financial plan for you, filled with solutions to the questions you’ve brought them. You’ll take this plan home and, if you’re like most people, that plan will sit in a corner of your filing cabinet for the rest of time. Sound familiar?
If you work with a life planner, you quickly realize that it just feels different.
In the first few meetings with a Life Planner, you’ll notice that the planner you’ve hired does very little talking. Instead of graphs and spreadsheets, you’ll find a space in which you feel open to voice the things you find vitally important to you. It might be the first time anyone has truly heard you. Life Planners take fiduciary duty to the highest level. A Life Planner will listen to your entire story, and will pay attention to both the technical financial details as well as your personal goals and priorities. It’s how we know where your energy and inspiration come from, so we can help you embrace and step into your life.
Our group of life planners last week in Hana, HI
Life planning is financial planning, with heart!
When would I choose a life planner over a financial planner?
Answer: Every Time.
Here are some quick scenarios:
Imagine that...
You are an executive in Corporate America who has put work before anything else. Nearing your 40th birthday, you wonder to yourself where the time has gone. You yearn to take some serious time off - maybe even a sabbatical - to live in one of your bucket list cities or towns around the world, but it feels irresponsible. You fear destabilization.
You work in tech sales. The money is good, you’re earning lots of company stock, and it is work you find both challenging and fulfilling. Your partner feels very unfulfilled and loathes living in the city. He quit his full time job to work part-time and spend more time at home with your two young children. You’re afraid to talk to your partner about the future and don’t even know where to start.
You’re a creative entrepreneur who has worked hard to build your business for ten years. The business is thriving and you’re proud of the impact you’ve made...but somehow, it doesn’t feel as good as you thought it would feel. Your business has become your entire life; there is a growing need to figure out how to weave a personal life back in. You have no idea what will happen to your business if you decide to put yourself first.
You’re a single woman in finance who has not stopped moving up the ranks since you graduated from business school. You love what you do and you’re great at it. You live in LA and feel the pressure to have the nice car, the perfect house...and the size of your bonuses have created a shopping habit. You’re afraid to admit to anyone that, and although you’re an excellent derivatives trader, you’ve never had the time or interest to master your personal finances.
You are a couple who find yourselves staring down the barrel of thirty five years of retirement. Your adult kids have moved away to start families of their own. You’ve both spent the last forty-five years working and saving diligently. Faced with all this free time, you wonder silently about who you’ve become. You wonder how to fill your free time while finding purpose.
Notice that in all of these scenarios, financial details are a significant, yet incomplete piece of the picture. Life planners know that peoples’ goals, values, and personal experiences are inextricably tied to financial well-being. They are trained to take a person’s entire self into account when building financial strategies, to set people up for holistic success.
Life Planning starts with you and your vision
A financial planner will tell you how, financially, to get there. If you’re spending more than you make, a financial planner can show you how to make the financial trade offs necessary to cut your spending. If you want to know how your investment portfolio for your future home down payment should be different from your retirement savings, a financial planner can both teach you and execute on the agreed upon strategy. A financial planner is the perfect solution for anyone who wants to understand their financial situation.
Although money is an essential factor in the formula of our lives, life can’t be solved with just dollars and cents. When you think back on your life, what do you cherish most? Life Planning focuses on the most essential elements you need in your life to feel free. In adulthood, these essential elements often get pushed aside or buried because we’re told to focus on a societal definition of ‘success’.
The Life Planning process helps clients learn how to effectively use their time, energy and talent. As a Life Planning client, you’ll put work into improving yourself, taking a pause from the chaos of everyday life to refocus energy to the aspects of life that ultimately matter most. We all have to make important decisions as we go through life, particularly as we work through big transitions like having a child, buying a house, or entering retirement. As you move through life making decisions for your career, your family, your health, your spirituality, your community, your friends, and your finances, Life Planning allows you to think back to the essential elements that bring you the greatest freedom and happiness. As you make more and more decisions through a lense of your freedom, you will find that the energy will continue to attract joy into your life as well as the lives of those around you.
Every person’s story is unique, which is exactly why anyone can benefit from a relationship with a life planner. At Mana, we believe that sound technical finance and individual fiscal wealth is only a small building block in the foundation of a life well-lived. A successful Life Plan can only be constructed by understanding individual strengths, weaknesses, experiences, and goals.
Have you ever wondered what you might do if given the choice to consciously create your life?
Cristina Livadary is a fee-only financial planner based in Los Angeles, California and is the CEO of Mana Financial Life Design. Mana Financial Life Design provides comprehensive financial planning and investment management services to help clients organize, grow and protect their wealth throughout life’s journey. Mana specializes in advising professionals in the tech industry, as well as women who work in institutional investing, through financial planning and investment management. As a fee-only fiduciary and independent financial advisor, Cristina never receives commission of any kind. She is legally bound by her certification to provide unbiased and trustworthy financial advice.