Click here for more information.

“Am I gaining real value other than dollars from my clients?”

“Are my clients also my mentors?”

On December 9, 2010, at age 87, a great Canadian and friend left us. His name was George Vari and he was one of my mentors. After hearing of his passing Prime Minister Stephen Harper wrote of him: “This remarkable Canadian will be mourned and missed.” George as he preferred to be called, made Canada his home after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. His life since his arrival on our shores was remarkable to say the least. With no money in his pocket, he turned a personal vision into a living reality and legacy that all Canadians benefit from.

George made his mark in international real estate development.  Just to name a few of his many building accomplishments were Paris’ Tour Montparnesse, six of the pavilions at  Expo 67 in Montreal, and Moscow’s Hotel Cosmos. For his great contribution to our society in both his business and his renowned philanthropic work, George was recognized and appointed to the Order of Canada and to France’s Legion d’Honneur.

I was very fortunate to have personally known this man of character, not for his wealth or the great accolades he had received. I knew him as a great Canadian because he was a great teacher. We each have had these people enter our lives, who make an important contribution in us which we carry for the rest of our lives. George was just one of those individuals for those of us who chose to recognize and experience his wisdom.

One of George’s greatest strengths was his belief in investing his time and energy into people, to help them find their own purpose so they could then make their own meaningful contributions back to our society. In the late 1980s, George and his wife Helen chose to invest time and energy in me. The greatest lesson I had ever learned from George, that was far more valuable than anything material, occurred  back in 1994. I had arrived at George’s office to discuss his portfolio. George was at his desk looking a little puzzled.

Earlier that day George had talked with an able bodied man on the street, panhandling for money. He had been asking himself why this man who had been born in Canada, that George considered “the best country in the whole wide world”, who had been offered so many opportunities, how could this man’s life have turned out this way?

George shared with me that he was asking himself this question because he felt that he had come to this country late in life and was able to make a life for himself and why had so many others not taken the opportunities given to them to make something for themselves. George would often share his gratitude for this country be saying: “I came to Canada with nothing and Canada gave me everything.” It were these questions that George was asking that turned me, the professional advisor into the student of a person who had lived a full and complete life.

As we talked, I asked George a very innocent question. I asked him when he was a little boy what had he dreamed of doing with his life? George shared with me that when he was very young he dreamed passionately about building around the world.

Then he joked that in his family engineers were not considered ‘real men’. His father said  ‘real men’ became lawyers and doctors. But George then shared with me that he had decided that he was going to chart his own destiny and become an engineer and realize his inner calling to build.

Every great vision needs its muse and George’s was Helen, the true love of his life. Both George and Helen had embarked on a journey together in this country and enjoyed what life had in stored for them. Most importantly, they both felt a great inner need to give back and help the next generation make their own contributions to our society.

They accomplished this by creating the George and Helen Vari Foundation as a vehicle for much of their charitable works in Canada and internationally by making considerable endowments to universities.

As we finished our conversation that day, I asked George if he had felt that he had accomplished his vision that he had  set out when he was a young man? George smiled and then said: Yes.

I turned to him and said: “Thank you. You have given me a great gift today by sharing insight into why you have achieved so much. You had a great vision that drew you to achieving it and you had been very fortunate to have found the right life partner to enjoy and experience this with.”

That is what made all the difference from taking an ordinary life and making it extraordinary. I have always felt honoured that George had spent those hours with me and shared his insights that had been gained from a life well lived. That day George taught me a valuable life lesson that if you value something, you will be inclined to direct you energies towards it. If you don’t, you won’t.

George was a true citizen of this world, who understood his obligations to this world, to make it a better place. Through his mentorship that day, the lens I saw my world through, greatly improved. Our society has so few Wise Men and Women to be positive role models for the next generation, with George’s passing, there will be one less but he is not the last.

Isaac Newton said it best: “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” I choose to close this column with the same questions I began with, by asking  you:

“Are you gaining value other than dollars from your clients?”

“Are  your clients also your mentors?”

Life is just too short for it to be all about the money.

In essence, our intent and the structure for realizing it does create our outcomes. Our personal and professional realities first begin with well defined intentions of what we want to experience in our lives. It has been said that if you don’t know what you want, there are plenty of other people who are willing and able to step in and gladly decide for you.

One perfect example of the power of knowing the end in mind is the history behind the creation of the RRSP. In 1957, Canadian Finance Minister Walter Harris introduced the RRSP into legislation as the solution to issues raised by the Canadian Medical Associations, who pleaded for a tax deferral plan for self-employed taxpayers that wanted to save for their retirement. Canadians know the rest of this story. Today close to $1 trillion are held in Canadians’ RRSPs.

Another example with a similarly result is the story behind the American 401k Plan. Ted Benna, a Pennsylvania benefits consultant in 1980 asked the simple question of how could American executives save more tax efficiently for retirement? By knowing what he wanted to find, Benna used his question as his cipher for reading the American tax code. The result was him finding hidden within the code an obscure provision, 401(k). By knowing what he wanted, Benna turned the 401(k) tax provision into an all American solution.  Today’s 401k plans have grown into the US’ most popular employer-sponsored tax deferred retirement benefit plan.

We can all benefit by learning the approach that both Harris and Benna mastered for reaching their goals. Both the RRSP and the 401k plan would have never materialized if these two individuals had not know what they wanted to create. By beginning with the end in mind, we are able to articulate and then coordinate where we are  and what we have to begin with to determine the best route to reach our desired outcomes. The focus of this month’s column is defining the process that both Harris and Benna applied to arrive at their solutions which can help us become more effective in defining and reaching our best results as tax and financial professionals.

I have always been fascinated  with how in the early 1960s the United States mobilized its resources to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth within that decade. At the moment President Kennedy announced his dream for his nation to achieve that feat there were well over a million calculations that had yet to be made to turn this vision into a reality. Edward Lindaman the director in charge of planning the Apollo space program at NASA discovered that when people create plans by working backward from their desired future outcome, the result was they took less time to plan. Using this method of planning increased enthusiasm for the plan and developed a more realistic simulation of the challenges that would be faced. This planning technique is credited with the discipline of Project Management.

Project Management is a formalised and structured method of managing change. Project Management focuses on defined future outcomes that all parties involve aim to achieved by allocating resources effectively. These insights can be incorporated into the planning processes we apply when working with clients and ourselves to achieve success and to avoid failure.

First begin with the question of what your goal is and the intent behind it. A question is infinitely more powerful than its answer because it presupposes that there is an answer within the framing of the question. Your success and intelligence are founded on your  ability and willingness to frame the right question and to have the fortitude to go down the rabbit hole to wherever it takes you.

Below is a process that has been successfully applied by Project Management professionals since WWII. Next time you sit down to plan try this process on for size.

Step One: Begin with the end in mind. Clarify your intention for doing what you do. To be successful at this step you  need to identify goals and objectives, as well as clarify financial, personal values and attitudes. These considerations are important in determining the best planning strategy.

Step Two: Clarify the present situation by collecting and assessing all relevant personal and financial data such as lists of assets and liabilities. In Step Two of this process, one becomes grounded in knowing what he or she has to work with. This creates tension between what one has now and what he or she wants to manifest in their lives in the future. It is this discrepancy that propels you towards what you want to create in both your personal and business life.

Step Three: Work backwards from your desired goal towards your current circumstance to identify what needs to be done to realise your end goal. Problem areas during this step will become clearer. These possible problem areas must be identified before solutions can be found and acted upon so you will reach your desired outcome.

Step Four: Put your intent down in writing and then the path you plan to take, to reach your goal. The length will vary with the complexity of an individual goal. The person who is successful at this process knows if the plan is not written down in a tangible formal document, the plan is not real for in your mind.

Step Five: Take action now. A plan is only helpful when it is put into play. Implementing the right strategy will help you reach your desired goals and objectives. As a Trusted Advisor you will assist clients in the actual execution of their plans, and in coordinating their implementation with other knowledgeable professionals, if necessary.

Step Six: Consistently go back and review your goals and plans. Understand that this process only ends when you are no longer walking this earth. Life is a journey so make the commitment to frequently review your intent and your corresponding plan. The one congruent unifier about life is change. Your situations should be reviewed and reassessed at least once a year to account for changes in life to accommodate what you have learned and current conditions.

When one adopts this process of seeing the end in mind, they are trusting in their own intuitive assessment of reality. They have the same knowing so eloquently put by Napoleon Hill in his landmark book Think and Grow Rich, first published in 1937: “thoughts become things.” They are not seeking social approval, personal advantage or a sense of absolute truth. They are seeking to find opportunities to contribute. The secrete is the more time you spend with this process, the more energy and vitality your end product will have on your own life, those around you, your environment and most importantly on your legacy.