At the Beginning - Part 2

(On the phone, A is talking to B)

A: "How do you get there from here?"

B: "There? Where do you mean? And where are you?"

A: "I am here, and I want to go there!"

B: "For me to help you, I have to know where you are now and where it actually is that you want to go. Can you do that?"

A: "Well,...."

Ok, a little weird, huh? But it does happen. Someone not knowing where they are now and not knowing where they want to go. This is especially true when it comes to insurance planning.

Where are you now?
To go anywhere, you need to know where you are now. So if we are planning for the future and all of the "what ifs" that can happen, we need to closely examine today first. This is the first crucial step in long-term success.

For martial arts, this happens when I take on a new student. I need to know what arts they may have studied previously. I also need to know how they move their body; are they top heavy (shoulders move first) or are they centered? Do they clop their feet or slide across the ground easily? Is their stance too narrow or too wide. Etc, etc, etc.

The same happens when I take on a new insurance client. I need to know what they have already done and how it fits with where they want to go. I need to find out what policies they already have in place. After that, I have to determine if those policies are going to do the job when the time comes. For any protection plan to succeed, we need to have a thorough understanding of where we are today.

Where do you want to go?
In many ways understanding one's direction into the future is a lot more difficult. Today's "stuff" we know. It's here with us. But tomorrow's "stuff"? Well, a lot of that is unknown. My job is to ask questions - the "what ifs" - about tomorrow that most people don't want to consider.

Martial Arts "What ifs":

• if a drunk in a bar picks a fight with you, what do you do?
• if you are attacked at night, while walking to your car, what do you do?
• if an attacker pulls a gun on you, what do you do?
• if there are multiple attackers, what do you do?
• if a knife is involved, what do you do?

Insurance "What ifs":

• if your spouse dies, what do you do? what happens to your family? your home? your kids? your future?
• if you and your spouse both die, then what happens?
  
• if your business partner dies, what happens to the company? your employees & their families? your family? your partner's family?
• if you suffer a disabling injury or sickness, how long can you go with out a paycheck? is your disability benefit at work going to be enough?
  
• if you require care in your later years of life, will you stay at your home or go into a nursing home? if you stay at home, who will care for you? can they care for you? will you require home health nursing?

No one really enjoys answering these types of questions. But, they do appreciate me helping them through it. Look, do you buy a newspaper for the paper? No absolutely not. You buy it for the information; the news. So when you buy insurance, you are not buying the policy, but the piece of mind knowing that when life happens, you have a plan that will protect you/your family/your business.

And when you buy martial arts, you are not buying the "art," you again are buying the piece of mind knowing that when life happens, you have the necessary physical skill, mental clarity and emotional balance to protect yourself and your loved ones from harm.

In Japanese, "sensei" means "one who has gone before". This is commonly interpreted as "one who has more experience in doing something over another". Allow me, and my experience at exploring protection issues (self-defense and insurance), guide you and yours to that piece of mind that we all seek.

Ninpo ik kan my friends ...

David L. Holzer
Insurance Advisor & Martial Arts Guide