The Break Up… The Annual Client Review!!!

This September marks my thirty fifth year of navigating every single sector of the financial services industry. I recently met up with my lifelong friend Roberto at a professional conference in North County San Diego. We spent the weekend observing the content being presented while digging for a much deeper truth about human relationships.

Roberto and I go back to our formative days as executive vice presidents of the student government at our university in Toronto. We represented approximately sixty thousand students at what was then the second largest university in Canada. This provided more than enough practice for a lifetime of navigating complex systems and big personalities.

I often joke with him that I actually possessed a thick head of hair when we first met back in those university days. It is quite funny to look at old photos and see the lush landscape that used to sit atop my head. Nature decided to move on and leave me with a much more aerodynamic look for my professional journey.

I now shave my head like a polished cueball to hide the fact that nature claimed that particular asset long ago. It is a bit of a miracle that I have reached this milestone with my sense of humor and my curiosity intact. I am simply a humble observer who has managed to notice the patterns that others usually miss.

There is a specific kind of deep perspective that comes from handling the heavy lifting of global planning and complex estate systems. Many people find themselves drawn to the grounded strength of a person who has mastered their craft within a chaotic landscape. It is a quiet honor to provide a steady hand while I am laughing at my own reflection in the mirror.

To understand how to build fulfilling and profitable human relationships, we must first look at the three qualifying pillars of any connection. These three questions act as a filter that determines if a person is worthy of our most precious asset… our time. When you look at your own life, you will see that these questions provide the sharp definition needed to lead with truth.

The first question is… Do we share the same values? Values are the bedrock of the human experience, and without alignment here, the relationship is built on shifting sand. If two people do not value sovereignty and truth in the same way, their paths will eventually diverge.

The second question is… Can we work together? Values are the foundation, but working together represents the actual mechanics of the daily interaction. We might share values, but if our habits and temperaments clash, the friction will eventually burn out the engine of the relationship.

I have found that if you answer yes to these first two questions, you can actually manifest the third… Is there opportunity? When values and mechanics align, you possess the power to create the opportunity from thin air. It is a natural progression of energy that allows two focused minds to build something now.

In the case of my friend Roberto, we have always been able to answer yes to the first two questions with absolute confidence. Thirty six years after we left our executive positions in student government, we are finally implementing our yes answer to the third question. We answered yes to the first two long ago, and today we are building our shared opportunity together.

The real jewel of the entire weekend did not appear until just a few hours before we were going to depart for our separate lives. Roberto was heading back to the desert heat of Arizona and I was returning to my home in Little Italy in downtown San Diego. We were standing together as the event ended when he shared a secret that completely shifted my understanding of connection.

Before we parted, he told me why he believes his marriage has remained so successful and harmonious for nearly twenty years. He believes the strength of their union comes down to one intentional practice they perform every year. On each anniversary of his union to his wife, they sit down and ask each other one fundamental question: “Why are we still together?“

This is not a question of doubt, but a question of absolute sovereignty and freedom. It creates a space where the truth can breathe and the relationship can be reaffirmed or released with grace. I reflected on the raw power of this practice deeply once I arrived back at my home in Little Italy.

Roberto shared that both he and his wife are completely and utterly financially independent on their own merits and terms. They are not in their marriage for financial reasons or basic survival… which is a very valid reason why many unhappy people stay in bad relationships. In those cases, the marriage is no longer about love and instead becomes entirely about the business of the union.

During their anniversary talk, they sit as equals and ask if they wish to continue their journey as partners. They give each other the ultimate freedom to wish the other well and choose separate paths if the spark has faded. They choose each other again every year because their connection is voluntary rather than a matter of necessity.

You can imagine the power of a bond that is renewed by choice every single year. This level of radical honesty leads us to the wisdom of Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist. She famously said… “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world… indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Mead taught us that true change starts with the quality of our primary connections and the strength of our commitments. In our world, this wisdom reminds us that we do not need thousands of superficial connections to make an impact. We need a few committed souls who share our values and our vision for the future.

This brings us to the work of Robin Dunbar and the concept of the Dunbar Number. Dunbar is an evolutionary psychologist who found that there is a cognitive limit to the number of social relationships a human can maintain. His research suggests that our brains are hardwired to handle approximately one hundred and fifty meaningful connections at any one time.

Beyond this number of one hundred and fifty, the complexity of social interaction becomes too great for our minds to process. If your spots are filled with individuals who do not pass the three questions, you have no room for the gold. To be truly sovereign, you must have the power to prune your relationships to make room for growth.

When you apply this logic to your annual client review, you are claiming your own professional sovereignty. You are asking your client to reconfirm why you are still working together in this free society. If the values are no longer aligned, or the mechanics have failed, it is time to wish each other well and move on.

Benjamin Franklin told us that time is money, but he did not say that money is time. You can earn more money as you walk this earth, but you can never get your time back once it has been spent on the wrong people. By asking the question, you reclaim your power and your minutes.

I am just a fellow traveler on this journey we call life that seeks to build more fulfilling and profitable human relationships. This article is not written out of arrogance but deep humility, as I am simply an observer sharing what I have observed to work in life and business. I suggest you may want to apply this lesson today by sitting across from your most important clients and asking them the same question Roberto asks his chosen Queen.

Why are we still together?