Over a decade ago, my wife and I flew out to Palm Springs to engage in a weeklong “Date with Destiny” program with Tony Robbins to help redefine what we focus on, prioritize values and find more purpose. I created a framed poster of a Temple with broken pillars representing away from values (like resentment and insecurity) and strong pillars representing towards values such as Love and Truth. It still hangs on my bathroom wall today and I look at it most mornings. At the time I remember that my foremost value before the conference was “Truth.” Truth is still important to me today, but it was not the most important value for me after the conference.
We teamed up with partners in our groups and talked in depth about what we valued most and how this empowers us or disempowers us. We also talked about how some of our away from values were hurting us. The key is to make it easy to feel our towards values and much harder for us to feel our away from values, so we can be healthier and happier in our lives going forward.
I believe it is very important to confront the truth so that you can deal with things before they get out of hand. In markets and life, the longer it takes for you to be able to deal with new information, the more painful the losses may be. However, in chatting with my partner, I realized that “Truth” may not be the most empowering of all the values. I realized that focusing on “Truth” was important but that it could sometimes lead to over-analyzing and beating myself and others up when not pleasant. “Truth” can be empowering but not when it becomes “Brutal Truth.”
Over analyzing and stressing over these things I found was not as healthy for me. Because of this, I realized that I wanted to reorder my top two values. “Love” and “Health” were re-prioritized to be shifted ahead of “Truth” in my life.
Tony Robbins’ “Date with Destiny” in 2012 provided a greater interest in studying Ray Dalio
As a team we studied Ray Dalio’s Principles for Life and Business over the last year. It is a great read for anyone, but an especially good read for those in the financial industry. Over several months we addressed his principles and looked into these further to make these our own.
Dov Baron visited with us in September, and we spent time with him going through some key principles for Franklin Wealth. Our First Principle is “Facilitating Freedom to put God First and Fulfill His Purpose.” We want to do this in our lives and help our clients find and fulfill Gods purpose for them in their lives. Most come to us looking at retirement readiness, but we realize that we end up looking at renewed purpose in the lives of our clients. In many cases that is much more fulfilling.
In considering many of the Dalio principles, his “Radical Truth” and “Radical Transparency” formed a great pillar for Bridgewater to grow into the largest hedge fund in the U.S. This was not totally what we wanted for our team, however. For Franklin Wealth we determined we wanted to focus on “Loving Candor” which stems from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians in the New Testament.
Ephesians 4:15 reads: “Speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the head, that is, Christ.”
Truth without love tends toward obnoxious aggression. Love without truth could result in ruinous empathy. A lack of either may manifest as manipulative insincerity. If we both love someone and speak the truth, we can make a major impact in someone’s life. We can encourage, lift them up and provide what they need in a way that is more likely to be accepted. For this reason, we have decided to focus on “Loving Candor” rather than overly focusing on “Radical Truth.”
Have you taken the time to look at what principles guide your life? How are your values empowering or disempowering you?
Franklin Wealth Management
4700 Hixson PikeHixson, Tn 37343423-870-2140
