Why are an increasing number of financial planners choosing to work with a coach?
Is coaching for financial planners something that could help you accomplish your most important goals and realise more of your potential?
Read on to discover why coaching works.
Many years ago, I was attending a local Personal Finance Society meeting and the speaker that afternoon was one of the most successful financial planners in the UK.
I knew him personally, and a few years before he had generously shown me around his business and how he ran it. The work his firm did for clients was of the highest standard and the business was brilliantly well run.
At the PFS meeting, he shared his approach and said:
“I put 80% of my success down to coaching and if you don’t have a coach then you’re a mug!”
Perhaps not the way I would have put it but what he was alluding to has been echoed many times by successful business people:
“The one thing that people are never good at is seeing themselves as others see them. A coach really, really helps.” Eric Schmidt, Google CEO
“Everyone needs a coach. We all need people that give us feedback. That’s how we improve.” Bill Gates
“Coaching helps you stop the crazy mind chatter in your head that tells you all the time that you’re not good enough.” Oprah Winfrey
Why does coaching work?
There are many reasons coaching has become the development tool of choice for an increasing number of financial planners. Just some of those are:
1. What you pay attention to expands
Working with my own coach I find that there is always something useful to explore. I may want to look back at a previous session with one of my own clients, aspects of my business where I get stuck, or new projects I want to work on.
That regular laser focus always helps to raise your game to new levels. For instance, without this, it is so easy to procrastinate or stay at the same level without much improvement.
2. The flashlight and the mirror
As a financial planner you are shining a bright light on your client’s life and their finances, and mirroring back to them what you see.
This can be enormously powerful and when you have your own coach doing it with you, you become much better at doing it with your clients. This increases the impact you have and the value of the work you do.
3. You grow as a person
Most people spend their entire lives thinking pretty much the same thoughts over and over. Familiarity is the strongest force in the human personality and unless you are challenged you tend to keep repeating the same behaviours (and getting the same results).
4. You stop self-sabotaging
We all have a kind of internal thermostat. You get to a certain level of success and can then begin to feel overwhelmed, so back off.
At Wimbledon tennis tournament this week eighteen-year-old Emma Raducanu did amazingly well to reach the fourth round. Yet she pulled out of the match because she was emotionally overwhelmed.
She is so young and such a talent I am sure it will just be a blip. At the same time, this is one of the reasons people hire a coach. Your coach sees beyond your perceived limitations and stays with you while you break through to hit new heights and avoid staying in your comfort zone.
5. Quality of life
Many financial advisers, whilst creating success for themselves in their career and financially, experience far too much worry, stress, and over-work. They suffer from the great western disease of “I’ll be happy when… “. Happiness always seems to be out in the future somewhere.
We forget that life is lived now, not in the future. One of my favourite teachers, Dr David Hawkins said, “If you’re not happy here and now, you will not be happy there and then.”
It can seem paradoxical but when you stop being so driven and relax into life, you have a bigger impact on your clients, create more success, and enjoy doing it.
Can coaching for financial planners really help your career?
It can seem difficult to face our fears and ask for help. It may seem easier to do nothing because we tell ourselves that things are ok, even when we know we can do a lot better. Click here to read ‘Are you sharpening the saw?’
Working with a coach can be one of the most rewarding things you ever do. You grow as a person, discover you are far more capable than you may have thought and accomplish more whilst doing less.
P.S. Want to know more? You can check out my personal programmes by clicking here.
If you would like book a complimentary coaching conversation, please email me at john@clientcentredadvisers.com
