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Top 10 coaching books for financial planners

Discover the top 10 coaching books for financial planners
Expand your mind with a good coaching book

If you’re doing life-centred financial planning — the kind that helps clients clarify their goals, stay on track, and live the life they want — then coaching skills are essential.

Because let’s face it, life is full of distractions. People get side-tracked, lose momentum, or forget why their goals even mattered in the first place. They get discouraged. Overwhelmed. Stuck.

So, the real question is: if you’re not there to coach them through it, who will be? And if you don’t coach them what is the alternative – watch them fail?

This is exactly why more financial planners are embracing coaching as a powerful part of their client relationships. Not only does it deepen trust and impact — it can also open the door to a valuable new revenue stream.

The challenge is where do you begin?

Here are my top 10 coaching books for financial planners and why I have chosen each one.

1. Supercoach by Michael Neill

Michael is one of the world’s finest coaches. What he shares has had a huge impact in my own life and I am a graduate of Supercoach Academy, which took my professional coaching career to the next level.

This coaching book takes you through 10 coaching sessions that will give you a new perspective on how to approach success. It also includes a chapter on financial security that you will find extremely helpful in the work you do with your clients.

2. Inside out transformation by Sheila Masand

Coaching is at its most powerful when it results in a person’s transformation. In other words, someone sees and experiences their world differently and this lasts. For example, imagine your client becoming free from a lifetime of unnecessarily worrying about money. This unique book is a compilation of interviews with 15 of the world’s best Three Principles practitioners and how they approach their work with clients.  

3. The life coaching connection by Steve Chandler

Steve Chandler is called ‘the grandfather of coaching’ and author of forty books. This book is a wonderful resource for anyone who wants to coach people and make a powerful impact in their lives (and their own life too).

4. More time to think by Nancy Kline

Coaching is not giving advice. The most powerful coaching is creating an environment where people can think more clearly for themselves and come up with their own answers. This is an excellent coaching book for financial planners because will teach you the components of a ‘thinking environment’ and provides many examples so you can relate in real life situations.  

5. The portable coach by Thomas Leonard

The late Thomas Leonard was a certified financial planner who realised that his clients wanted much more than technical advice about what products to buy. So, he evolved and began to help his clients become better, stronger, and successful in a more holistic way.

This book contains 28 strategies that provide an alternative and powerful approach for attracting success, and not burning out through chasing it.

6. Clarity by Jamie Smart

A huge paradigm shift is taking place in the world of psychology and mental well-being. This is resulting in huge numbers of helpers transitioning from more traditional coaching approach to coaching from the Three Principles understanding (which has been the foundation of my coaching for over a decade).    

Jamie shares this cutting-edge understanding in his book ‘Clarity’. It is packed with common sense and irrefutable wisdom.

7. Co-active coaching by Whitworth, Kimsey-House and Sandahl

I began to train as a coach over 20 years ago and this was one of the first coaching books I read. It goes deeply into the coaching process, covering essential aspects such as listening, questioning, intuition, and curiosity. It also gives you a whole variety of tools that you can use with your clients.

8. Effective coaching by Miles Downey

This is another coaching book I read early in my coach training and as part of the requirements for my professional certification. Although it is about coaching in the workplace it is still an excellent resource for tools, models, and guidance in the coaching process.

9. The advice trap by Michael Bungay Stanier

This is a great coaching book for financial planners because it helps you become more coach-like in your approach with clients. The author clearly recognises how the desire to give advice is often a hindrance to helping clients in deeper and more profound ways. It encourages you to be more curious rather than jumping in to fix problems as soon as you see them.

10. The coaching habit by Michael Bungay Stanier

Another book by the previous author. I have included it because even if you do not want to be a coach the approach in this book will make you a more effective professional. It is a highly practical way of becoming more curious and helping your clients discover their own answers.

So, there are 10 coaching books for financial planners and any one of them will give you valuable insights you can put into practice immediately.

Where do you begin? Just pick one, get yourself a copy and read it!

P.S. How do you become a great financial planner – not just good? Click here to read more.

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John Dashfield spent 14 years as a self-employed adviser. Since 2006 he has been a coach, mentor and author helping advisers create transformations in their business and personal lives.

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