Steve Lear Wrote The Generosity Conversation to Help Wealthy Clients Find a Purpose for Their Money
“I was in the business of making people feel wealthy. And I still am in that, but there's more to wealth than wealth itself.”
Steve Lear, author of The Generosity Conversation
Steve Lear has been a financial advisor for 45 years. Over that time he watched a wealth gap open up that did not exist when he started, and he came to believe his own profession helped build it. His book, The Generosity Conversation, hands wealth managers the conversation to have once a client has enough.
The gap his profession helped create
Clip · Steve Lear on why he wrote the book · 21s
Advisors set out to help people go from no net worth to financial independence. Steve says that work succeeded for some people and left many others behind.
“And our role, my role as a financial advisor, what ended up occurring is that we actually helped create that wealth gap.”
— Steve Lear
His answer is a new idea for his own generation to embrace.
“That's one of the big reasons why I wrote the book is because I believe that my generation now needs to embrace kind of a new financial concept, and that is behaving generously. Just behaving generously.”
— Steve Lear
Three currencies of generosity
Steve counts three kinds of generosity: attitude, time, and money. They build on each other. On the money side, he has a specific view of what giving does the most good.
“I've come to a different place to believe that the greatest thing you can do for somebody else is give them the opportunity to make their own income.”
— Steve Lear
The question that turned his first year around
Clip · Steve Lear on the question that changed his career · 69s
Steve started in the business at 24, with a lot of intensity. His mentor Doug Lennick, whose organization is Think to Perform, asked him one question: was he pushing too hard? Steve backed off, got more cheerful, and started asking better questions and listening to the answers.
“I starved for the first four months. Barely made any money. And then what happened is when Doug said that to me and I started loosening up and having more fun, I ended up making $60,000 in 1981.”
— Steve Lear
Forty-five years later, the two still see each other at least once a month. Doug wrote the foreword to The Generosity Conversation.
What people talk about after a disaster
Clip · Steve Lear on what disaster survivors talk about · 46s
Steve founded Nechama, Jewish Response to Disaster, a volunteer group that clears debris after tornadoes and hurricanes. He went on 40 deployments over 20 years. What he heard from the families changed how he saw his own work.
“What happened to me is I came to a conclusion very quickly that the accumulation of stuff really did not have that much meaning in comparison to the accumulation of relationships.”
— Steve Lear
It is now one of his biggest suggestions to anyone in wealth management: go on a disaster response run.
Knowing when a client has enough
Clip · Steve Lear on knowing when a client has enough · 27s
Planning tools like Monte Carlo simulations let an advisor show a client the odds that their money lasts as long as they do. Steve says that changes the conversation entirely.
“All they got to do is paint me a picture of what they want to do with their time. And I can tell you when you got enough. And the conversation turns to, if you got enough, what are you going to do?”
— Steve Lear
Twenty years ago, he says, almost nobody had enough. Now many clients do, and nobody taught advisors what to ask next. That is why the book is called a conversation.
“They have the brains of a capitalist in the heart of a social worker.”
— Steve Lear
A family that doubled its giving
Clip · Steve Lear on a family that doubled its giving · 44s
Steve’s team is building a Generosity Capacity Report at SteveLear.org that takes a client’s goals and shows how much they can give away and still reach them. He has already seen what that answer can do for one family named in the book.
“They ended up doubling their annual giving because they figured it out that, okay, our kids only need this much at the end of our lives.”
— Steve Lear
Why he stopped waiting
Clip · Steve Lear on writing the book with Scribe · 31s
Steve first planned for the book to come out after he died. It felt too much about him. Then he decided the message was needed now, so other advisors could start having these conversations with their clients.
“I just got set up with all these great people at Scribe that continued to motivate me. I look back, it took me a year to write it. But he [my writer] was so enthralled with the concept that I just felt incredibly proud of being able to produce it.”
— Steve Lear
“You know, if it moves the needle and a bunch of people become more generous, it's a win-win for me. It's a win-win for society.”
— Steve Lear
The Generosity Conversation is available on Amazon, in bookstores, and at SteveLear.org.
Ready to Write Your Success Story?
Join 1,600+ authors who have published with Scribe Media and transformed their careers.
Schedule a Consult
Course
Write and Publish Your Best Possible Book
Six modules. 28 lessons. Everything Scribe has learned helping 1,600+ authors, organized into the same process we use with our professional clients.
A Wall Street Journal Bestseller
The Scribe Method
No catch, just everything you need to write, publish, and own your book.