REACH YOUR GOALS WITH PICK FOUR FROM ZIG ZIGLAR AND SETH GODIN

Goals, goals, goals. Many systems help you reach them. By experimenting, you'll select or create system that suits you. To succeed, you need to get started and keep going.

Seven Habits

Over the years, I've used elements of the Seven Habits system (and used to buy the paper-based calendars in the days before smartphones). With this approach, you plan by the week. We have many roles (e.g. parent, employee, spouse, student).

You schedule the relevant ones for the week into your calendar. For instance, as a parent you may want to help your child practice a speech on Tuesday evening from 7 PM to 8 PM. As an employee, you may allocate 1 PM to 4 PM on Thursday to catch up on email. Once you schedule the essentials, other activities fit around them. (For more, see Scheduling your priorities the Seven Habits way)

Getting Things Done

Several years ago, I started using the Getting Things Done approach to get things out of my head and into a system I trust.

I'm using PersonalBrain (see review) to track for big things. The drawback is that I can only use it on my Windows computer. There's no edit/sync with Android or iPad.

For To Do items, I use Toodledo for a web-based repository that's connected to Pocket Informant on my Android phone and iPad. I have the Pro version so that I can create subtasks. This works well.
For client-related items I want to track long term, I use a web-based CRM system, Batchbook. There's overlap but that's manageable. (for more, see Three big lessons from Getting Things Done)

What's Missing

My current approach is 100% independent. No one else is involved and the goals are private. Some goals slip ...  but at least no one else knows.

Pick Four

Enter Pick Four. This is Seth Godin's update of Zig Ziglar's low tech process for reaching goals over 12 weeks.

Pick Four combines three elements

1. a mind dump of your life goals (like Getting Things Done)
2. identifying roles and goals (like The Seven Habits but for the full 12 weeks, not week by week)
3. peer support

Most of the workbook is a diary in which you make notes about what you did for each goal each day. You also mark whether what you did was enough.

Form A Team

Amazon sells these workbooks in four packs. We paid $30, which works out to $7.50 each.

At the time of writing, the US price is $20. In Canada, the price is $135.04, which must be a mistake.

The inviting open-me cover looks reminds me of Dr. Seuss and Tim Burton. The paper looks cheap because it's not smooth or bright white. Looks deceive. The paper is good quality. I'm using a gel pen and ink doesn't bleed through the paper.

Rules

I'm in a quartet of high-calibre participants I met recently. We barely know each other but are all committed to meeting our goals. When you're working in a team, members must agree to (obvious) rules like maintaining confidentiality and keeping commitments.

Why 12 Weeks?

Twelve weeks feels right. That's long enough to achieve reasonable goals but short enough to motivate. By the end, we should have built habits that

• keep us from quitting those goals
• encourage us to set more goals

What's Missing?

Pick Four is only paper-based. I'd much prefer an iPad app. That saves trees and helps with privacy. As with a diary, I wouldn't want anyone looking at what I'm writing.

Since the spiral binding is on the left instead of the top, writing on the left-hand pages is tougher for neat freaks. Maybe there will be more options in the future. Since I don't like throwing things away, I'd like an iPad version that lets me print to a PDF for archiving.

You only get five days per week. That gives you two days off. I like that but would prefer a seven day calendar to be consistent with today's lifestyles. For instance, you might have goals that include weekends but that doesn't mean you're a workaholic.

Picked Four

Here are my goals:

1. Ask for business (3 times a week): I make myself available to clients who decide on their own that they'd like my services. That's pressure-free but not proactive.
2. Exercise (3 times a week): I turned 50 last year and must pay more attention to my body. This category also includes sleeping earlier.
3. Declutter (daily): don't ask. I've got stuff piled up on flat surfaces. I have closets and boxes filled with stuff I'll never use and would have trouble finding.
4. Ship video (once every two weeks): this involves getting better with editing and talking to the camera without my mind going blank.

Each goal is a stretch and was reviewed by a peer mentoring group and my Pick Four goalmates.

I'm on Day 2 and will report back in 12 weeks on April 21, 2012 (results here (new)).

Links

• The Pick Four results (after 12 weeks) (new)
• Scheduling your priorities the Seven Habits way
• Getting Things Done: Three big lessons
• Get results with the Process System
• Toodledo beats Remember The Milk
• PersonalBrain: data to knowledge to wisdom
• Lessons from three different masterminds 
• From Bucket List to Balk-it List (new)

Podcast 153

direct download | Internet Archive page | iTunes

PS Don't wait for my findings. Keep working on your goals.

CAN AN ADVOCATE SERVE TWO MASTERS?

In a game of strategy, you can’t play on both sides at the same time. If you switch allegiances, who can trust you?

Near the end of 2011, I had an epiphany. I realized that I wasn't putting your interests first as well as I could.

Product Design

When I designed health and life insurance products for a decade, I knew there were compromises that boosted profits.

Example (skip if you don’t like statistics): universal life might have a contingent bonus that rewards you if your investment returns are high. For instance, you might get a 2% bonus if you earn 5% in a year. That looks appealing but research showed the bonus would only pay 60% of the time. That reduced the projected payout to 1.2% (= 2% rate x 60% probability). To cover costs, the investment loads were increased by 1.2% (say from 1.8% to 3.0%).

I was okay with this because other insurers had similar designs and sales were made through independent advisors. Buyer beware looks fair when you have an impartial advisor with the will and skill to help you make sound choices. I didn’t realize that advisors also suffered from the plague of innumeracy (low financial literacy).

One For All

When I spent 5 years helping top advisors sell insurance, I saw a more troublesome issue. Since I was working for an insurance company, I could only promote their offerings. No company in any business can have the best product for every situation. That's because companies make different compromises. For instance, clients at younger ages or buying smaller policies may be charged more to subsidize older clients buying larger policies. Why? There's more competition for the wealthy, which means better prices for them.

Representing a single company creates a conflict between what you’ve got and what's best for the client. I rationalized. I was supporting independent advisors who could deal with different companies. They decided what to offer their clients and I was there to help them. Never mind that compensation or other incentives might influence the recommendations. Since the advisors were really salespeople, they were not required to put your interests ahead of their own (see the insurance loophole).

All For One

Since 2009, I've been saying that I've been serving you directly, bypassing the salespeople. At least that’s what I said. That wasn't 100% correct. In some cases, I was still collaborating with advisors to serve their clients. This is often called “splitting cases” since the revenue gets shared. That looked like a win/win:

• advisors had clients but needed more credibility or expertise
• I had both but, as a startup, needed more clients

This time, I had access to products from different companies, which allowed the better solutions to be presented.

There was a bigger problem.

Oh No

Since the advisors "owned" the clients, I had to meet their interests first. This lead to conflicts since I would not concede. Too often, these advisors wanted to sell products with

• more coverage than necessary
• higher compensation than conscionable, or
• strategies with more sizzle than substance

There was reluctance to provide after-sales service, since revenue came primarily from new sales.

Example: You know mutual funds have high investment expenses. You may not know — but probably guessed — that investments inside life insurance have high investment expenses too. This is normally hidden, but I told you in 2008 (see two drawbacks of investing in life insurance). A salesperson might not feel compelled to inform you but an advocate for you must ...

What if an advisor doesn't provide full disclosure? There's the sin of omission. It's not the same as telling a lie but now the onus is on you to pose questions you might not think to ask. Even if you do, what answer can you expect?

What's worse than fooling a client? Fooling their tax advisor into recommending a strategy. When clients find out what happened — which may take years — the tax advisors get blamed since they were more trusted.

Conundrum

Do you see my conundrum? Serving you with life and health insurance is my calling. It's the only thing I've done in my entire career. This is not my Plan B or Plan C.

How could I serve two masters, the salespeople and you?

I couldn't find a way to overcome the troubling conflict of interest. There's a time to take sides. That's why I've stopped sharing cases with advisors who make their living by selling health or life insurance.

I've terminated every single arrangement by the end of 2011. I can't serve them and you.
I choose you.

Links

• Who can you trust?
• The foolproof measure of trust
• The word advisors imply but dare not say
• The ABCs of 1-2-3: The key to financial literacy
• The Globe and Mail on Canada’s insurance loophole: what else is wrong?
• What are you doing about your high investment expenses?
• How to fight cynicism
• image courtesy of nacu (Spain)

Podcast 152 (6:51)

direct download | Internet Archive page | iTunes

PS I still collaborate with hand-picked specialists like accountants, lawyers, fee-only financial planners, investment-only advisors and employee benefit specialists.