Empowering Conscious Vision

My life's purpose is "Empowering Conscious Vision." This purpose informs everything I do. Each of those words means a great deal to me, and is reflected in my life and work.

"Empowering" - my best use is often being the space in which people come to see their own intentions and potential. I work with the whole person; it is a individual's plans, dreams, visions, and concerns that are addressed. It's not about what I want, or even what I think - it's about what's desired by those I work with. (That said, I have too healthy a respect for my own abilities to allow them to further behavior or institutions that I consider damaging).

I make sure that my estate planning clients know that all of the choices are theirs - it doesn't matter what anyone else does; what matters is what that particular client wants. In my coaching, I do my best to give my clients the focus and attention that I know helps one make his or her best choices. The speaking work I do through the Advisors Project encourages professional advisors and their clients to talk about what really matters - and then reflect that conversation through a charitable gift in an estate plan. My poetry refers back to the individual's place in effecting change and growth. All of these reflect a deep commitment to and belief in empowering individual responsibility for what shows up in life, and how it is experienced.

"Conscious" - by conscious, I mean actions and choices considered and intentional, made with awareness of the given, the facts, the circumstances, and to the greatest extent possible, the myriad factors that often operate in the background. The more light we shed on the unseen and unarticulated factors that motivate choice, the more conscious the choice we are able to make.

So I ask way more questions of my estate planning clients than most attorneys do - of their past, their values, the stories and relationships that have been instrumental in shaping the client in front of me. The Advisors Project encourages other advisors and their clients to do so as well - and then focus planning in ways generous and satisfying. In my coaching, I employ some key assessments that help shed light on the why behind certain unconscious behaviors. And my poetry - well so much of it is about awareness.

"Vision" - what do you see ahead of you? What do you want to have happen. The universe is indeed full of possiblities - the ones we choose, the ones we see in our minds eyes, the ones we select from among the possibilities, often become our realities. From the mundane - selection of someone to be a fiduciary in an estate plan - to the sublime - realizing a lifetime goal's accomplishment - vision is key.

I encourage my estate planning clients to see what circumstances might present themselves when the clients are disabled or gone, and then make choices from the vision of what they'd then like to happen. Since much of the coaching work I do is with people in transition - from job to job, work to retirement, single to coupled, etc. - seeing what might be in the future is critical to success. The Advisors Project talks all point out that everyone leaves a legacy - the only question is whether it's intentional and considered, or unconscious and accidental. My poetry probably speaks most directly about vision per se, and its critical part in our collective evolution - I'm pretty sure that evolution is no longer a passive process (if it ever was), and will succeed, if at all, through our collective vision.

"Empowering Conscious Vision."