Weathering Financial Storms: Second Edition: Dynamic Mapping for Professional Planners by Mike Helgesen
Author Michael Helgesen provides the most entertaining and engaging opening to a financial book that you might ever find.
Fortunately for readers, his father, Lars Helgesen, was a Norwegian Merchant Marine during World War II, and his ship was part of a convoy delivering goods and supplies from the U.S. to England.
The whole point of the convoy was to keep ships traveling together at an appropriate distance so as to make them more difficult targets for German U-boats. Lars tells the story of how his captain, Reinert Lei, had to adlib the journey, traveling into icy waters where he knew the U-boats wouldn’t follow. He secured the safety of the crew against the U-boats, icebergs, storms and mines.
“He succeeded,” writes Helgesen, “because he understood the nature of the risks he faced, and then selected a course he could best manage.”
A FINANCIAL METAPHOR EVERYONE CAN UNDERSTAND
As such, it should come as no surprise that Helgesen, in his fascinating and unusually presented work, Weathering Financial Storms, Second Edition: Dynamic Mapping for Professional Planners (Real Intelligence, LLC), likens a financial advisor’s duty to that of a captain at sea.
“Some may think that, by comparing life and death decisions during the war to financial planning, I’m trivializing wartime decisions. I don’t think so. I’ve met too many people whose careless and arrogant manner, and their disregard of lessons in risk management from past events and other disciplines, put the financial lives of their loved ones or clients in peril.”
Helgesen has created a planning process called Dynamic Mapping that translates complex financial concepts into graceful illustrations. The process enables financial planners to assess clients’ financial conditions and uncover hidden aspects of their financial lives — that, if left unattended, may destroy long-term plans. “Bringing positions, risks and purposes into focus helps planners see new opportunities, avoid hazards, and invigorate decisions.”
The author writes that “a fine sailing vessel with splendid lines and gleaming sails offers a stylish metaphor for people’s financial life… Your mind’s eye can convey a ship across a fanciful ocean more readily than it could ever conceive the results hidden inside a multi-page financial plan.”
A METAPHOR THAT’S MEANT FOR EVERYONE
Helgesen handles intricate financial concepts with aplomb, targeting financial advisors but carrying the conversation beyond sea vessels to truly get inside the heads of the exact clients – soccer moms, construction workers, therapists, surgeons, clerks, firemen and the like – that those advisors need to understand and guide. He tackles what he calls the 12 Essential Planning Truths and then delves into his Dynamic Mapping approach. Topics include inflation, long-term care, retirement, sustainable income, taxation, calculating your portfolio and building a sound plan for yourself or your client. He uncovers the risks, myths and baggage that can cause hidden liabilities and addresses how to avoid them.
The author writes like a novelist, with visual and literal images and anecdotes to make his information and ideas breathe life into necessary truths and principles that might otherwise come across as dry. The book is full of illustrations and diagrams to make his points. Even the book cover and design are striking in a way that is quite attractive, and what you would least expect from a financial tomb.
Helgesen’s book is the kind of work that gives readers confidence – in the materials and in the source. The author successfully grabs the attention of, both, financial professionals and more casual followers with a very readable and real-life account of managing and avoiding risk.
“We’re setting out,” he writes, “to achieve a colossal goal: to support the financial lives of clients so they, in turn, may become beacons for others to emulate, not one of those whose life is a warning flare for others to avoid.”
About Michael Helgesen:
Michael Helgesen, Director of Development at Real Intelligence LLC, has been in the financial services business for over 30 years and is the creator of the financial planning process known as “Dynamic Mapping.” This unique financial planning method helps consultants to know their clients in a way that traditional financial planning does not. This human-centric approach to financial planning is a consultant’s greatest tool to combat the competitive threat of boilerplate financial planning calculators often found in free programs through robo-advisers. Helgesen insists, “It is not how you compute, it is how you think!”
Real Intelligence LLC has also developed two mobile apps to complete Helgesen’s book, Weathering Financial Storm, Second Edition: Dynamic Mapping for Professional Planners. The first is “Dynamic Map,” and the second is “Whoosh! Primed for Retirement.” Both apps are available on the Apple app store and Google Play.
Michael holds a BA from The New School University and was an early adopter of the CFP program. He and his wife live in Savannah where they spend their free time boating, hiking and traveling.
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