The next mentor I consulted must remain nameless because he is the second example here of “Ethics costing me money!” He was such a significant actuary that a Federal District Judge once appointed him a special master to protect the pension for the employees of a national airline that went bankrupt.
My personal history with him is hard to believe. We moved to Miami from Brooklyn in 1956 when I was 8. Dad owned his own taxicab from 1952 to 1956. When we got to Miami he drove a cab. We lived in the Betsy Ross Hotel. It is still there. We soon moved inland to West Miami where Dad bought us a house. My mentor’s mother-in-law was a neighbor, so I had known him since I was ten. After another year Dad was selling Lincoln Mercury’s and was incredibly good at it.
I was 9 years old when I answered the phone.
“My name is Bill Sanes. Is Leon Spitzer there?’
He was a Prudential manager who recruited Dad into the life insurance business.
I am convinced that EVERYTHING we have EVER seen, done, experienced is somehow stored in that miraculous brain of ours. I must have access to a trans-dimensional computer to have that much RAM. My brain later connected the memory of that call because IT knew how consequential it was. Now my eventual mentor and my Dad were in related fields. At that time fee based financial planning was non-existent, but he was in a fee based financial business. He had a poor opinion of how most insurance agents sold policies. He paid me a cherished compliment once,
“You’re the only insurance agent I’ll do business with.”
Before going on to his experience that led to my second ethical epiphany, I realized in talking to him I could not afford the time to transition from insurance and benefit sales to a pension practice.
He knew Janis was from Tallahassee. The Florida Education Association (part of the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO) had created one of the first cafeteria plans in the country at the Dade County Public Schools. They wanted to expand on that success. They needed somebody with prestige and the professional credibility of the CLU and CHFC designations on the business card. My mentor put us together. They hired me. We raised our then 3-year-old daughter Monica in a rural city of 250,000 instead of an Urban Metropolis of millions.
That year, 1983, I helped create the cafeteria plans in Pasco, Martin, and Charlotte counties. I doubled the number of IRC Section 125 plans of any size in the country. I owed him a lot, this man I had known all my life. Professionally. And then one July 4th morning he called me. In Tallahassee. From Miami. And just talks. At some point I said:
“I know you know what you mean to me, but you’ve never called me up just to have a personal chat. What’s going on?”
An aside: I do not know why but over the years SO many people have turned to me; not a family member; not a friend; not clergy; me; in times of needing support. Maybe I’m a good listener (I know those who know me are shaking their heads at that 😊!)
His wife was a chronic pain sufferer. She had just killed herself with one of his shotguns. I got to Miami as soon as I could. Over the next year or so we spent more time together than in the over 30 years we had already known each other. How did this cost me money?
A client of mine, Dennis, was a film director. He had been instrumental in helping a young script writer break into Hollywood. The man had since had two major films produced to his credit. He gave Dennis a script with the W.G.A registration number on it, as thanks. I do not fully understand it but apparently possession of the registered script is ownership. Dennis knew I loved sci-fi and fantasy. The script was a Lovecraftian style horror story set of all places in the cypress swamps of North Florida where I lived! I do not think I have done much posting about it, but I am a Film Freak, like the character Tony DiNozzo on NCIS. Somehow it came up in conversation with my friend in need, He was a very wealthy man.
“How much would you need to produce it?”
“Well, we would not need to build set. Florida State University has a top film school. A few million?”
“You got it!”
No! This one was harder than confronting my father. My name in the credits as Executive Producer? That was a dream I had never even had yet but was not hard to imagine it.
“Gee, thanks, but it is really a bad time for me to get involved in something like that.”
Not! I would have dropped everything to do it. I do not know why we sometimes do what is right even if it is against our own interests. My friend was vulnerable. I instantly felt that what I was for him at the time led him to offer that.
“Not now, thanks.”
A few years later out of the blue I mentioned the script again. I said that the time was right for me to produce it. It was not, but I had to ask.
“That’s not really my cup of tea” he said.
It isn’t ethics until it costs you money and your dreams.