It's hard to believe that it's already time to honor the Top 20 Program Managers again. This year is special because it's the first time we'll be able to gather our ranking program managers for a celebratory dinner and awards ceremony in late June, thanks to the sponsorship of New York Life/Mainstay. We'll keep you all posted.

Many of our winners this year come from small programs, which in some cases they created from scratch, so they have a special tale to tell. Because our qualifying formula can favor smaller banks, we are thinking of having two categories next year, one for small and one for large banks. Your two cents is welcome on this subject.

I have been thinking about a certain kind of risk lately. Not risk in the sense of money-losing investments, but risk in the sense of losing opportunities for fulfillment and excitement in life. After all, we can often get lost money back. Witness the market's 1,000-point plunge on May 6 and the almost-equal rally that followed. But life only comes around once, we can't get our time back.

A crucial theme we harp on in BIC is that it's not the money per se that matters to your clients, but what money represents to them. I therefore want to call your attention to the story "Examined Lives." It's written by the executive director at the Kinder Institute of Life Planning. Life planning is all about how money is a means to making life more fulfilling. It uses money to access our values and emotional lives to create goals that are truly meaningful to individual clients. Exploring that layer of what truly matters to your clients, what dreams they can realize, is critical.

Getting at those deeper feelings may sound mushy, but when you read the examples in this story you will realize that it is the hardest currency you can have in terms of client loyalty and advocacy for your skills.