As a financial planner, it didn't take Reese Harper long to realize that conversations in which dollars and cents dominated the discourse did little to strengthen the bond between him and his clients.
Searching for a way to get closer, the veteran certified financial planner and CEO of
After all, simply investing or managing your money can be done solo with a smartphone and a few swipes of the finger. And the number of people doing it that way remains sizable. A survey conducted earlier this year by
At the same time, data shows that financial advisors are highly valued, with 38% of U.S. adults surveyed saying that they rely on their advisor to manage all of their investments, and another 23% using a hybrid model that blends a financial advisor with their favorite DIY investment options.
So Harper, eager to put people ahead of their portfolios, took the idea of value cards that are typically focused on life or wellness and tailored them to financial services.
"There's a lot of value card decks out there. But a lot of them are overly complex, or they have terminology that doesn't really apply in the financial world, or they lean more toward a particular philosophy. Like a religious philosophy or a life philosophy," Harper told Financial Planning. "So I tried to create a really broad and common ground set of values. And I made sure that I tested them over a long period of time with my kids and family and friends and clients."
Sporting a colorful design that would look right at home on a store shelf next to an
Bearing words like independence, gratitude, respect, family and enjoyment, the cards are used by clients who divide the deck of 72 into one of three stacks: not, kind of and really important. Harper said a few blank cards are thrown in the mix so clients can write in values that mean the world to them, but may not be represented in the stock deck.
Once sorted, the "not" and "kind of" piles are discarded, and clients are asked to put the top 10 cards from the "really" important pile into a pyramid with the most important value at the top. A photo of the pyramid is taken, and that selection of values provides a framework for all future financial discussions.
Harper said he was originally going to deploy the cards as part of a nonprofit he started a couple of years ago, but decided to use it for his fintech startup. He found the process of delivering financial advice more effective when he understood someone's values, and having clients go through a process in which they not only identified their top values but eliminated others was revealing for everyone in the room.
"It's really hard for people to do that. Because these are all good things. There's no bad thing in this deck," Harper said. "I personally feel like it's like a bedrock of my philosophy of how to engage someone in a healthy way. I don't give people advice until I understand their top 10 values in the sequential order. And then once I get those values discovered, then I develop a statement of financial purpose.
"This seeking of values and purpose is the foundation of any successful wealth building strategy. Wealth maximization is not the goal. But wealth building is the goal for every person aligned with their well-being."
Harper explained that he believes in the philosophy of Ikigai, a Japanese concept referring to something that gives a person a sense of purpose or a reason for living.
"So that governs all of my career choices. My entrepreneurial decisions, my strategy decisions, my wealth decisions," he said. "If it helps me discover and lean into my purpose for being, and if it helps others do the same, and if it helps my family find meaning in their own lives, my decisions are filtered by that lens."
That is crucial, he added, because despite the growth of the industry and rising wealth, Harper believes financial planners still have a great deal of work to do when it comes to making Americans feel good about their finances.
Money is a difficult conversation in many households, and the idea of taking a hard look at one's long-term financial plans sends stress levels to the moon faster than meme stocks in early 2021.
"This whole financial planning thing, we are not doing it very well. We failed as an industry after 50 years to reduce people's financial anxiety and stress. The rich are much richer, and the income disparity between the classes … that's a real thing that needs to be addressed," Harper said. "The liquidity in the majority of America is a fraction of what it used to be. So they're less liquid, we have a more income disparity, we have more stress at both the high end of the market and the low end of the market."
Harper then discussed another philosophy that is important to him and gave a shout out to the book "The Big Leap" by Gay Hendricks. He said Hendricks says there are four zones that most of us operate in: a zone of incompetence, a zone of competence, a zone of excellence, and a zone of genius.
"When we're in our zone of incompetence, it is when we're doing things fundamentally that we're not great at. And the zone of genius is really closely aligned to values and purpose," Harper said. "Most people need to find that for themselves in order to start building wealth and reducing their stress. And that's where the values and purpose cards kind of come in. The idea of having value cards and going through this kind of exercise … this is not the first time it's been done. But the philosophy behind it is maybe what is a little bit different, or maybe a little bit more impactful."
The cards, he said, aren't a game. They're a vehicle for connection, purpose and empowerment, something an advisor needs to stand out in a market full of options.
"When you stop focusing on wealth maximization and you start focusing on being centered and aligned, that unlocks someone's creativity. That unlocks their flow and unlocks their zone of genius. And that allows them to progress in their career," Harper said. "So if a financial advisor can connect with their client in this deep way, the client will immediately feel a bond with that advisor. And instead of focusing on projecting the future, and like Monte Carlo simulations and future simulations, which are very important in certain cases, I want to focus more on the present alignment of values and purpose and improving their financial vital signs."
