Blue Chip Journal - June 2019 edition

LEADERSHIP
Who dares, wins
The call for courageous conversations with clients
The financial planning industry is
evolving, and clients are increasingly
expecting conversations about
more than just the returns their
investments have achieved.
As life happens and circumstances change,
we as planners are expected to adjust and
plan accordingly. Our products and services
are no longer a once-off investment but a
fluid process that’s adjusted to match the
many life transitions and goals of our clients.
I believe that the core focus of financial
planning needs to be understanding the
client’s relationship with money.
Clients desire an interpersonal
connection
To establish the interpersonal connection
that our clients expect, our value proposition
needs to change. It is by engaging in brave
and authentic conversations that we extract
meaning and begin to familiarise ourselves
with the history, values, defining experiences
and future goals of our clients. Financial
planning is not an event, it’s a relationship.
It’s about supporting our clients through
their financial and life journey.
Becoming daring leaders
The challenge is that we need to change the
way in which we show up with people. Money
conversations are brave conversations. It’s
about facilitating deeply vulnerable topics
that often involve emotions such as shame,
fear, anger and sadness. We need to feel
more comfortable engaging at this level if
we want to stay relevant in our clients' lives.
I have identified four key skills that we as
financial planners require to keep up with the
changing demands:
• Reinvent our offering to clients through
thought leadership.
• Facilitate poignant discussions tapping
into deeply vulnerable topics.
• Establish deep interpersonal connections
to serve clients, which involves being
daring leaders – as opposed to armoured
leaders.
• Pursue personal growth and development
to be better equipped to help clients reach
their full potential.
These skills all relate to one word – courage,
or, what Dr Brené Brown calls Dare to
Lead. Brené Brown is a research professor
at the University of Houston. She has
spent the past 20 years studying courage,
vulnerability, shame and empathy, and most
recently completed a seven-year study on
courageous leadership. She is the author of
five New York Times bestsellers: The Gifts of
Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong,
Braving the Wilderness and Dare to Lead,
which is at number one on The Wall Street
Journal and Publisher’s Weekly.
It is these skills, encompassing vulnerability,
living our values, braving trust and learning to
rise, that will revolutionise our industry and
take us to a place where we serve others, not
ourselves.
My personal journey of courage
I grew up in a family that was dysfunctional
where money and power was concerned.
I have been driven to pursue my financial
independence and vowed early in life that
I would never give anyone the power to
control me with money.
My dysfunctional money psychology
has shaped many life decisions, financially
and otherwise, and motivated me to start
a journey of introspection. Understanding
how my relationship with money shaped
my life was a very personal and vulnerable
process that forced me to work through my
innermost emotions.
This was the beginning of my growth
journey. I realised that I could only live my
purpose if I understood who I really was.
Given my personal struggle with money,
I was intrigued by the world of financial
planning and intuitively knew that you
cannot separate people from their money.
With
the certain
knowledge
that I belonged
somewhere in the world
of financial planning, I enrolled
for a Postgraduate Diploma in
Financial Planning (2007). I became a
Certified Financial Planner® and joined
Chartered Wealth Solutions in 2008. I was
convinced that traditional financial planning
missed the essence of how people view
money differently; that they have unique
relationships with money. My path became
clear: I wanted to empower people to
transform, to put money in its proper place:
as an enabler.
Meeting Mitch Anthony
I discovered Mitch Anthony when I read
The Next Step by Roy Diliberto and realised
that I had found someone who shared my
passion and philosophy around holistic
planning. John Campbell, Barclay Hoar and
60 www.bluechipjournal.co.za