I recently attended, for the third year in a row, the one day "Leadercast" event (5-8-15). It's an inspirational and practical guide to being a better leader, better businessperson and better person overall. An amazing slate of speakers are assembled. The actual live event is in Atlanta and it is "simulcast" around the world. I attended at North Coast church in Vista. There are 100-200 just at this local location. You can see a 2-minute video summary at this link. If you are a client, I will host you at next year's Leadercast event. (5-6-2016)Each Leadercast event has an overriding theme. This year's theme was "the brave ones" - addressing fear and how to deal with it as a leader.Rudy Giuliani said that you should , "Put fear in the right place. Use it as a motivation to work harder."Commander (Navy Seal) Rorke Denver said about fear, "Face it. You have to grab it by the neck and confront it. You say to it, 'I'm not going to be afraid of you.'"My own daughter inspired me because she confronted fear in college. She was deathly afraid of Speech class. She "grabbed it by the neck" (Cdr. Denver) and took Speech her first semester. She "put fear in the right place" (Giuliani) and worked very hard on each speech. She was at or near #1 in the class and the speech professor hired her to work in the speech lab! I love that story and so proud that my own daughter handled fear so well.What more can I say than these two (three counting my daughter) leaders have said for me? They are exactly right - confront it, work hard on it! I think many people do not get a financial plan in place because they are afraid of finding out where they are. Often that's for good reason - but is it a good idea to put your head in the sand? Of course not. You need to do what you can to get in a better trajectory. And you would be surprised how encouraging and stress-relieving it is to know where you stand, and to know you are doing all the right things to get to a better position.So what to do next?1) Get a financial plan in place - a quality, written, step-by-step plan that is overseen by a CFP. Unless you happen to be a CFP, your plan you developed yourself doesn't fulfill this item #1. It is even better if your plan is reviewed annually by more than 1 professional, such as your CPA and your investment advisor. (We do that for our clients.)2) Use the planning process to help you understand the things you CAN control and things you CANNOT control. Focus on what you CAN control and try not to let the other things distract you. Often people allow the things they cannot control to freeze them in their tracks and not get the things done that they can control. This is obviously counter-productive. The famous serenity prayer, "O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the one from the other" describes exactly the issue here.The good news for serenity in financial planning: A planner gives you the wisdom - that's the information in the plan. And not much courage is required to follow the guidance given inside a financial plan. "Just do it." The courage that is required: to decide to move forward to get a written plan. To do something new.Before hiring a planner to put together your initial plan, we recommend you do the following pre-work:1) Put what's most important to you in writing - we're talking big picture here - way beyond finances or material things.2) Put your tangible financial goals in writing.3) Get organized and have a rough idea of the overall moving parts in your current personal finances.4) Make a list of your current "advisers" - (you may not have some of them in place)5) Understand your preferences in working with an adviser/planner as that will help you select one.The five items just listed is what we do in the discovery meeting. We conduct discovery meetings for anyone interested, even if we know in advance there is no interest on your part or ours to work together.Whether or not we decide to work together, you receive all the information generated in the meeting and you are now ready to hire someone, or to do it yourself.