I love stories, especially real life stories of people, communities, businesses, history, current events…..the list goes on. What can I say? I’m just drawn to good stories whether they are told orally, in books, magazine articles, theater, youtube or movies.

I also love simplicity. I’m talking about the kind of simplicity that reduces bureaucratic red tape. I love simplicity that results in beautiful design. Simplicity is not the process of dumbing down to the smallest common denominator. According to Leonardo DaVinci – “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

Beginning in March of 2013 I’ve been on a reading binge. I took some time off from work to learn and to reflect on where I want to take my passions. I’ve read some great books, happy to give you a list if you are interested. They cover a wide range of business topics, some science, fiction and biography. On the business side I’ve read about growing a business, entrepreneurship, idea generation, creativity, marketing and time management. Two words keep jumping out at me – Story and Simple.

The vision for sPlan5 has a foundation in the two words Story and Simple and they will help guide this project along.

Let’s focus first on STORY – Everything a person DOES, everything a business DOES, tells a story. The world is crowded with people and companies TELLING their story, trying to be heard. I am fixated on Storydoing and helping people and companies tell their stories through what they do. Ty Montague, in his book “True Story” introduced me to the idea of Storydoing. This is also the same theme running through the book “The Fortune Cookie Principle” by Bernadette Jiwa. Both books are worth the time. Now I’ve been in the insurance business for more than twenty years. When someone buys a life insurance policy they are telling a story about themselves to their family. Think about it. A life insurance agent’s job is not to sell a policy, it is to help someone tell a story. How many times though are agents focused on the story they want to tell.

So why SIMPLE? In my industry, the insurance industry, simple is really hard to find. Proposals and Policies are way too complicated, applications are a mess and contracts that are 15 pages could be reduced to a page and a half. If the financial services industry can’t make products simple, easy to understand and easy to purchase then how are people going to tell their story?

sPlan5 is committed to customers who want to tell a story about themselves. To do this we will craft and tell the customer’s story with elegant simplicity. You will begin to see case studies and ideas about how to reach this idea. More to come. Thank you and welcome.