One huge thing to celebrate this week @ Leading Advisor is we received CE Accreditation based on the new 2010 Advocis / CLU Institute CE Accreditation Guidelines for;

• Clear Your Roadblocks – 1 CE Credit
• Clear Your Roadblocks To The Client Engagement Process – Part I & II – 3 CE Credits

See you in September!

What Is Your Jump Date?

You could be standing on the edge of a helium balloon’s gondola ready to jump from over 100,000 feet.

You might not have jumped off exactly with both feet at the same time and gotten into a spin that exceeded 150 miles an hour that eventually separated your skull from your spine.

You might not have gotten into a spin but the defroster on the view screen that will melt your helmet’s protective view screen at sea level could malfunction and crack and you would find out that water boils at 98 degrees at 100,000 feet and that the saliva on your tongue is boiling

Your view screen might not have cracked but your suit might have torn because you broke the sound barrier and you and your lungs expanded to twelve times their size with the pressure change in space and you died in twelve seconds.

You are not Felix Baumgartner who is the incredible man that is planning to risk his life for science to develop a suit to enable space craft astronauts to jettison in the event of a malfunction like the one that killed the crew of the Challenger space shuttle.

What are you going to do this fall that is incredible?

* * *

Advisor.ca Name That Visionary

What do Simon Reilly, Mark Carney, Jim Flaherty, Moshe Milevsky and Terry Zavitz have in common?

Voting for Advisor.ca ‘s Name That Visionary will commence on September 7th 2010 (just after Labour Day).

If you previously voted you’ll receive an email voting reminder on September 7th.

Round One is over. Your votes have been cast and tabulated. Advisor.ca’s expansive list of candidates is now down to just 20 entries displayed below. It is your turn to pick the Top Ten for the next phase of Advisor.ca’s poll to determine Canada’s greatest financial visionary. In the Second Round, you can only cast one vote so read the bios carefully, familiarize yourself with the candidates and make your pick.

Your votes will be tabulated and Advisor.ca’s first round of judging will determine the top ten finalists. A second round of judging will determine the order of the Top 10 nominees and an overall winner.

I’ve one more leg of my conversion to complete from the BlackBerry to the iPhone with the installation of an Enterprise version of Outlook e-mail and aside from having to push the e-mail versus BlackBerry’s pull system; all the other features of the iPhone will make pushing e-mail insignificant.

This is funny to me in that I thought that I would run the iPhone and the BlackBerry side by side for a month to make a decision and that idea went out the window in the first hour of using the iPhone.

Every once in a while, a product comes along that meets and exceeds ones expectations and the iPhone is one of those in a world where we are spoiled with “same old same old” through globalization which contributes to the limiting belief “there isn’t really anything all that new out there these days”.

One more thing – now I have three bars! I’ve been a loyal Telus customer for decades. Back five years ago when we moved to Craig Bay in Parksville I was lucky to have one cell phone connection bar on Telus. So having a smart phone was not that high on my priority list without smart cell phone reception and the only reason that I changed from a Motorola Razor to the BlackBerry Storm was because my contract was up and the BlackBerry was a freebee ( provided that I renewed my contract ).

From time to time I would hear from a neighbor that Telus was working on improving the cell phone reception but nothing changed.

Advisor.ca blessed me in another way because they are a member of Rogers Communications which includes their own telephone company which my iPhone is connected to so they have raised the bars from no bars / one bar to three bars so now I have a smarter phone and cell phone connection to go with it. Failing that, the iPhone has WiFi so that gives me another option to use the smart phone out here in the cell phone reception wilderness.

The iPhone and iPad have been on my wish list for a while and in advance of recently winning the iPhone 3GS w/32GB through Advisor.ca, I picked up a copy of MacLife’s iPhone Handbook – 99 Must Download Apps back in May.

I picked up MacLife’s iPhone Handbook thinking that with zero experience with an iPhone, reading through the handbook might give me some stronger reasons for wanting one and to understanding why loyal Apple fans will line up for new product launches.

I must admit, with my drive for intense focus and the use of time, I have had my blinders on for a while with the belief “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and I had no reason to change to an iPhone but MacLife’s iPhone Handbook changed all that.

You could say that I used pull learning versus push learning … there are all kinds of opportunities being pushed at us and we have to be ever  vigilant about the doors that we open because we could open too many … then again, growing old because of not opening any. Another way of looking at this is I am choosing to do strategic learning versus trivia learning. Strategic learning means learning something to push me out of my comfort zone.

Here is the link to MacLife’s iPhone Handbook – 99 Must Download Apps which caused me to brainstorm my own Apps list that sold me on both the iPhone and the iPad and I’ve included the 3 Apps that sealed the deal.

Before you get into my brainstorm list of Apps, check out; Advisor.ca’s – Advisors share their favourite mobile apps

1. Methodology – Clearly inspired by Brian Eno’s famous “Oblique Strategies” card decks, Methodology stimulates creative thinking by offering 100 flash cards that each offer a creative prompt. You can swipe your way through the deck, or shake to re-shuffle Methodology’s advice.
2. IDEO Method Cards started out as a physical deck of cards intended to inspire designers and creative pros. The app gives you eight free cards, which have ideas and exercises for improving designs and sparking creativity. The entire 51-card deck can be purchased in-app for $4.99, a small price to pay for creative sparks to inspire your next project.
3. WritePad – It’s one of the dream applications for the iPad–scribbling on the iPad’s screen with your finger or a touch-capacitive stylus, and watching your handwriting convert seamlessly to type.

Before I do that, I’m acknowledging some Tolerations that have been eliminated and savouring the thought of moving forward with;

• Coaching gym delivery simplified
• New filing system for my business files
• New mirrored hard drive main computer running Windows 7 and Maximizer 10 – happy to say that all of our computers are less than a year old
• My office is tidy

This leaves the following as projects for the summer;

• Block out time to research articles for our E-Newsletter
• Update web pages;
  • Coaching; live one on one coaching, tele-coaching and gym coaching
  • Training – business plan workshop, clearing your roadblocks workshop, team building workshops, breakthrough the plateauing out syndrome e-book
• Update the Leading Advisor Coaching Program
• Write and act upon a coaching marketing plan to high net worth financial advisors

After that I’ll enhance our customer service and technical competency with; Camtasia, Dragon, iPad, Teleclasses, Video Mail and Webinars

Part of my midyear celebration includes; Empty My Mind.

Sidebar – To find the link to the above Empty My Mind blog I use the search engine in my blog and ran across this very cool blog From 0 “Innertainment” To Warp 9 “Infotainment” In 1 Second … And Back that includes The Transporter Exercise.

A midyear celebration is so important because it improves consciousness and focus as it helps to clean up the mental pollutants and information viruses that one can pick up along the way from stimulation addiction on today’s information highway.

In order to function in the new normal, one must be more mindful of their well being for without it, one will not be able to concentrate, feel foggy, anxious and fatigued in an endless stream of information.

2010 Mid Celebration

We feel honoured to have the opportunity to work with our clients to assist them to clear their roadblocks to their success to enable them to meet and exceed their goals

• Relationships have been established with corporate decision makers to sponsor us to deliver our Clear Your Roadblocks Speaking and Workshops to their companies
• Our 2010 Financial Advisor Speaking Resume is filled with the who’s who of the financial advisor conferences; Advocis, BFG Financial Ontario | BridgeForce Financial Group, Canada Life, Great American Advisors, Great West Life, Hub Financial, London Life Financial, Macquarie Private Wealth, Sun Life Financial and The Million Dollar Round Table.
• Our daily blog, monthly e-newsletter and website have eclipsed their 5 year anniversary and as a result Leading Advisor continues to have top financial advisor coaching search engine rankings on Google.
• I was voted at one of the finalists in Advisor.ca’s ‘Name That Visionary Contest’ as voted on by their readers
• Curing The Unmet Needs Disease has 2000 copies in print
• I have two more books in production; Breakthrough! How To Breakthrough The Plateauing Out Syndrome and Clear Your Roadblocks To Practice Management
• Over 15,000 financial advisors have heard me speak over the last 4 ½ years
• We connected with 40 new financial advisor speaking opportunities when we were at the MDRT
• We will be doing more USA financial advisor speaking which was witnessed by leaving for to speak at The Great American Advisors Conference from The Million Dollar Round Table.
• We continue to explore and develop; FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter
• Breakthrough! How To Breakthrough The Plateauing Out Syndrome and Clear Your Roadblocks To The Client Engagement Process PowerPoints have been produced and delivered
• Thank you to Laura Reilly, Tiffany Mayrhofer, Lea Ortner,  Kim Black, Simon Parsons, Chris Barrow, Pat Finucane and Bob Gignac for all of your help.

I said it to an executive member of the Financial Planning Standards Council whom I met at The Million Dollar Round Table in Vancouver and he exclaimed that he had not heard it before and I just Googled “InspirTechnical” and the only search that comes up is from my April 2010 E-Newsletter.

The financial advisor profession is highly technical on a number of fronts from understanding their clients needs, to writing a financial plan and making the correct financial product recommendations right through to the operation of their own business that includes and is not limited to;

• writing a business plan
• budget/cash flow
• goal setting
• time management
• delegation
• client segmentation
• client needs analysis
• marketing and sales concepts

Through coaching, speaking and writing I help financial advisor to inspire themselves based on their values to embrace the technical to add value to their clients.

I rarely watch movies on plane flights and use the quiet time for more creative pursuits but after weeks of work behind me and another week on the road ahead I decided to take a break and watch a movie on my way from Lake Tahoe to Toronto.

Eli is charged with the purpose of carry the last remaining copy of a very special and powerful book to the coast.

It is sad that this movie is as violent as it is, but vampires and violence is what it seems to take to draw the attention of the unconscious masses.

Bandits and marauders try to interfere with Eli’s journey as there are those from the dark side that would pay any price for the book as they have heard of its legendary power.

The book was written in such a way that one needed a special talent to truly understand it and while Eli finally lost the book the dark side, it didn’t matter as the ones on the dark side lacked the special talent to read it.

Given that Eli was practicing his special talent to read the book, he was able to dictate the book from memory to those that he met on the coast when he reached his destination.

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” – Confucius

Eli was a man of purpose and the movie reminded me to revisit my purpose to confirm that we are on track.

The movie closed with Eli giving thanks; “Thank you for giving me the strength and conviction to complete the task that you set out for me”.

Our Vision

Our vision is to help our clients and their teams to feel fulfilled through the development, realization and enactment of their values, vision, mission and purpose.

We define fulfillment as a deep, soul-orientated feeling that one experiences when they are expressing their values, and being themselves.

Our Mission

Our mission is to help our clients and their teams to wholeheartedly engage in their businesses to identify, enjoy and profitably deliver their best talents for the benefit of their clients, teams and themselves.

Our Purpose

Our purpose is to seek wisdom, enhance understanding and provide encouragement.

Do you see the distinction between the three terms?

Vision is about what you see as possible.

Mission is what you are going to do, to make that vision happen.

Purpose is how you are going to be, to further that possibility.

* * *

I’m speaking at The Million Dollar Round Table Annual Meeting in Vancouver, BC @ 3:30pm, June 15^th so please come and say hello.

I loved the ring of the term Blind Spot Warning Technology in Infiniti’s commercial so check it out …

In your business and personal lives, Blind Spot Warning Technology would run because you operate with a vision, mission, business plan, objectives, strategies, actions and measures.

* * *

I’m speaking at The Million Dollar Round Table Annual Meeting in Vancouver, BC @ 3:30pm, June 15th so please come and say hello.

It seems to me that there are 31 R’s and counting that support the Reinvention Process.

1. bReathe
2. caRdio
3. cleaR
4. cReate
5. exeRcise
6. foRgive
7. heaR
8. inteRview
9. jouRnal
10. leaRn
11. machineRy, camtasia, comuteRs, dRagon, flip, iPad, go to meeting, teleclass, webinaR
12. natuRe
13. netwoRking
14. pRoduce
15. puRpose, mission and vision
16. prayeR, concentRation, consideRation, delibeRation, intRospection, Reflection,
17. pResence
18. Reading
19. Refine
20. Relax
21. Release
22. Research
23. Reserves
24. Rest
25. Restore
26. Review
27. show Real
28. social netwoRking
29. spiRit
30. understand
31. wRiting

• Page C4 – We’re evolving, but are we progressing? Not such a simple question: The idea of ‘progress’ cuts many uneasy ways By Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun May 22, 2010
• Page C5 – Bothered by uncertainty? Certainty is scarier – Economic crises occur because people are sure they have everything figured out. The truth is, we don’t have a clue By Dan Gardner, Canwest News Service May 22, 2010

While these articles are outstanding, seems to me the order of these articles should have been swapped.

Dan Gardner’s article offers that we are really not all that certain about the cause of the May 6^th DOW plunge of 1000 points that wiped out $1 trillion in assets because first it was blamed on Greece and then it was blamed on a trader with fat fingers that hit the trillion key instead of the billion key.

Gardner goes on to say that two weeks after the May 6^th DOW plunge of 1000 points, know one really knows for sure so how can we be really certain about anything and that our projections of what is going to happen is only a best guess.

People find that scary, which is entirely understandable. As I discuss in Future Babble — my forthcoming book, available at fine stores everywhere — human nature loathes uncertainty. It demands explanations. And so the brain churns them out as quickly and effortlessly as breathing. Usually, they are satisfying and we don’t investigate further. But sometimes we are forced to confront evidence that our explanations are nonsense and we are left with the realization that we really don’t know the answer. That’s when we get cold, sweaty palms. – Dan Gardner, Canwest News Service May 22, 2010

Garder goes on to talk about the value of skepticism and the addiction to certainty which brings up my thoughts about last week’s sell off of currency to buy US dollars. Wait a minute, isn’t the US broke so why buy US dollars?

So the whole thing leaves my mind uncertain about what is certain … only if I allow my mind to be uncertain.

Douglas Todd’s article talks about evolution and that if you believe that we are evolving then it would stand to reason that we are progressing and also offers views from some that we are regressing in many ways and the progress is one step forward and one step back.

So while many of us in the industrial countries enjoy the convenience of driving an automobile, I am deeply saddened by the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

I’ll leave you with the last three paragraphs of Douglas Todd’s article;

Even though the evolutionary process does not guarantee progress — the confidence that we will ultimately succeed, or even avoid global disaster — there is something embedded in evolution that continues to call forth people and other living things to creative transformation.

Each of us is being asked to contribute to the evolutionary process. Even though the world is in constant flux, evolution calls us to make in each moment the best possible choice. We proceed with hope, even when things are uncertain.

Every move we make, every step we take, creates the foundation on which the next stage of evolution builds. – Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun May 22, 2010

• June 15^th           MDRT                                             Vancouver, BC
• June 17^th           Great American Advisors            Lake Tahoe, NV
• June 18^th           Great American Advisors            Lake Tahoe, NV
• June 21^st           SunLife Sales Congress            Toronto, ON
• June 24^th           SunLife Sales Congress            Winnipeg, MB

So this means that I will be on the road for two weeks as I have to leave for Vancouver on June 12^th for rehearsal on June 13^th at the MDRT. 

I feel like this is a New Beginning because I am as organized as I have ever been in my business and life with the following completed components in place;

• Empty Mind
• Prioritized Project List
• Time Blocked
• Quarterly Review
• Giving Thanks List For The First 4 Months
• SWOT
• Updated Business Plan
• Regular Management Meetings
• What Can We Quit?
• What Are We Tolerating?
• What Systems Do We Need To Put In Place?