Football Wisdom for Families

You can learn a lot from the coaches of successful teams.

Pete Carroll is one of them.

Under his tutelage, the Seattle Seahawks pro football team has been in championship form for the last two seasons.

They are in a prime position to get to the Super Bowl this year…

Successful parenting

Annie Reneau is a fan and has studied Pete’s leadership style.

She has catalogued his wisdom into ten nuggets and cross-applied them to parenting on her blog, Motherhood and More.

Each one of them is golden, but here is my favorite:

Have a Clear Philosophy. Pete Carroll’s “Win Forever” pyramid is impressive and obviously effective, but it’s really not rocket science. He simply married his philosophies of the game with his philosophies on life, created a clear vision of what his team is about, and reminds them of it on a daily basis. Our kids benefit from having a clear vision of what we’re about, too. What are the central, defining characteristics of our family? What do we value most as a unit? What are our ultimate goals? Do we articulate those things daily for our kids? If not, maybe we should.

Applied to finance

This wisdom most certainly could and should be reapplied to the world of finance.

• What are you all about?
• Why put it all the time and effort to make money unless you know what you want to do with it?
• How do you know what financial product to buy unless you have a clear idea of your need for it?

So many times people come to me and say, “I need term insurance,” or “I need whole life insurance.”

Of course my question is, “How do you know?”

I then guide them through a process of self-discovery so they can create the job the policy is to perform.

It’s almost as if they want to hire somebody and need to formulate a job description so the new hire can slide right in and be productive.

Have you ever bought a financial product just because you wanted it, as opposed to having a clear idea of what it was supposed to do for you?

Did you keep it?

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