Perhaps you are among them. If so, you know that such experiences are truly a gift. There is a feeling of being on sacred ground when a client shares a deeply held value or discloses a profoundly moving event from the past. It is a powerful thing to be one of the first people trusted to receive news of a pending birth, a big business merger, or a serious diagnosis. And it can be deeply satisfying to know you’ve been instrumental in helping some clients get back on their feet after setbacks, and in helping others stay grounded when they have grown overly exuberant.
How does that happen? How does one both receive and impart such professional gifts? It happens to advisors who have equipped themselves to be ‘Thinking Partners’ with their clients, co-creators of action plans that solve problems and facilitate goal achievement. Such advisors rarely give one-size-fits-all solutions, leaving the client to tug and yank at the advice until it (sort of) fits them; rather, they take the time to find out the clients’ needs and motivations and misgivings, and tailor their advice accordingly. My hope is that, as a result of reading this book, you will be inspired and equipped to make the changes needed for you to become a true Thinking Partner for your clients.
But it’s possible you won’t. That’s because the same things that make it hard for your clients to implement your great recommendations will make it hard for you to implement mine. Doing things differently is hard, especially if you try to do too much at once, on your own, or without any systems in place to remind you of the changes you’re trying to make. I’ve had more than a few such experiences, myself.
How I was undone by a blueberry
Several years ago, a prolonged bout of low energy led me to embark on a whole-health makeover. I hired a personal trainer; I started taking vitamin supplements; I began exercising more often and getting to bed earlier. And it worked! Within mere weeks, I started feeling more energetic … and maybe a little too ambitious. I decided to move on to better eating habits.
It was a time when antioxidants were all the rage, the key to eternal life and world peace. I was convinced that eating a daily dose of fresh berries would turn me into a force of nature. And that’s when it all came crashing down … because getting those fresh berries meant remembering to buy them, and buying them meant making a few more trips to the supermarket every week. That, in turn, required a couple more episodes a week of stuffing the kids into their snowsuits, and wrestling them into their car seats. Soon the whole self-improvement gig just fell off the radar. I’d tried to change too much, too fast, and as a result I ended up changing very little of anything.
How to use this book
Be wary of the Blueberry Effect, good reader! Here are some ideas to help you detour around that trap and head straight for glory:
1. As you go through the book, be sure to look over the Adherence Boosters listed at the end of the chapter (from Chapter 2 onwards). Highlight any of the recommendations that seem particularly germane to you and/or your team.
2. Once you’ve reached the end of the book, perform a triage on those highlighted areas. Identify the top two to three areas of greatest need or promise. Note that many of the changes simply involve adding in a question or two to your client meetings, but they will require dogged, consistent application to see results.
3. Choose just one of those areas to work on for the next month. Write down what you plan to do differently, and why. Tell someone else about what you are committing to do. Put a note in your calendar every 30 days to check in on how you’ve been doing and to identify what you want to tackle next.
4. Find a way to keep those change intentions top of mind. I have a practice of e-mailing myself several questions at the start of each day, reminding myself of the existing habits I’d like to maintain (e.g. emptying my inbox) and the emerging habits I’m striving to establish (e.g. practising music for 20 minutes a day). This keeps earnest but fragile resolutions from falling into the abyss.
5. Every time you try out a new strategy, give yourself credit. Notice what went well, and what needs further alteration or customization.
6. Whenever possible, enlist someone else in the cause. See if there are some advice-enhancing practices that you and a colleague would like to work on at the same time.
7. Each month, when prompted, review your progress. Determine whether you’re ready to embrace another strategy for giving advice that won’t go to waste. Then repeat the above steps.
8. If you’d like to develop your expertise even further in the personal side of advising, or look into getting additional training or coaching, drop me a line at [email protected] – I’d be happy to help.
The Value of Advice That Sticks
It’s shocking, really
Every day in my work as a financial psychologist, I am reminded of Van de Graaff static-electricity generators, those basketball-sized metal globes that are a regular fixture in physics labs and science museums. Reach out your hand and touch them, and your hair rises up in a sphere all around your head. I have found that money, for most people, acts in a similar way. It carries an incredible emotional charge.
What else would explain the weird things that financial professionals encounter in their line of work? There’s the gazillionaire business owner, howling with outrage over an $8 courier charge for the last-minute documents she demanded from her accountant. There’s the dumbfounded overspender, staring at the bankruptcy application the credit counsellor warned he’d be facing if he didn’t rein in his spending. There’s the fighting couple, arguing about whose idea it was to hide their income from the government, and looking to their financial planner to both referee and rescue them from the consequences.
Just as you can only see the results of electricity (and not electricity itself), so it is that you can only see the results of people’s emotions and beliefs around money. It shows up in their spending habits, job choices, and relationships. It shows up in their investment decisions and in their charitable giving. It shows up in the tone and the content of the conversations they have with you and other people in their life when money gets discussed. One of the challenges you face as a financial advisor is how to work with the financial equivalent of live electrical wires. How do you do your work without getting ‘zapped’ by those hidden emotional charges that can thwart the best of advice?
You are uniquely positioned to be the ground wire for clients with emotionally charged financial histories. Doing so requires a firm commitment to not add to the problem through shaming, blaming, or firing them unnecessarily. You are more likely to succeed at this if you have examined the people and events that have influenced your own financial values and beliefs over your lifetime. You also need to ensure that you’re not a financial ‘live wire’, yourself!
Good advice that’s hard to take
As a species, humans can be an ornery lot. When faced with complex decisions, we want advice about what is the right thing to do, and generally we want to do it. Except, of course, for those times when we’d rather do something else. Something easier. Something more understandable. Something more fun. Regrettably, something else seems to crop up with surprising frequency when it comes to money.
Helping people do sensible things with their money is just as hard as getting people to do the right things for their health. As a result, financial professionals can feel like the spoilsports at the party of life, urging prudence and moderation while the fun guys are rolling out the kegs of beer and trays of nachos.
In addition to its tendency towards dullness, prudent financial advice has the problem of being radically counterculture. Think about it. Aside from the professions of health care and finance, what other secular forces