Financial Dna - Discovering Your Unique Financial Personality For A Quality Life

We all know that successful long-term advisor client relationships are built on trust. The question is ... are we as advisors trustworthy?. There are many levels and dimensions of trust and it can be examined and discussed in many ways. Trust is not just about character, it can simply be about how we act or come across to another person. In the same setting with the same actions, one person may trust you and another may not. So to develop trust with different people you will need to adapt your behavior to meet them on their terms. In our work of mentoring people based on behavioral styles we teach that for a client (or any person for that matter) to trust you, then the FIRST STEP is for you to trust yourself.

Many people say that they are a good listener. If you are, is it natural or learned? What are your conversations like? The reality is that many of us are not naturally good listeners. In fact, for many of us we were not born to listen rather to set the agenda. Associated with this trait is the natural tendency to assume or hear what we want, to reach our goals. This will be even more true for a dominant person where such behaviors are very hard-wired in. Please do not take this as a judgement as it is you. You will no doubt have many strengths and this is just a consequential struggle, which can be managed with some recognition and heightened consciousness.

Have you ever been asked a question and then said "aha"? I now get it. Wow, that question has really crystallized some thoughts for me. If you are an advisor, can you recall asking your client that powerful question which gave them an "aha" experience? Just imagine how liberating that would be if you asked such a potentially life changing question of someone you are interacting with. By asking the question, the trust in you really accelerates and interestingly for the person also, trust in themselves. Their decision-making confidence really increases. This is priceless in any way you want to measure it. I have to admit some of my close friends, mentors and business associates have asked me these types of questions. Frankly, such "aha" triggering questions are a major reason for why I am doing what I do today.

I am often asked by advisors "Do I really need to do a profile? I already know my clients". Then some clients (i.e. investors) may say "but I already know myself" or "over time I have seen these behaviors come out". However, whether you are an advisor or client, this begs the questions ... "How conscious are you of the people you have relationships with? Are you really noticing when there is connection or when expectations are not being met?" I often ask advisors, "Are you sleep walking through the advisory process?", meaning you may know your process well, you have all the steps and procedures and you have learned to follow your intuition with clients. However, are you really picking up all there is to know about the client?

I was having a discussion with an executive coach about how you remain comfortable when having a potentially difficult conversation. There are a lot of theories about this and to some degree everyone will do it differently. One of the interesting thoughts that arose was that the course of a conversation can go in many directions and you will not necessarily know how it will turn out. All possibilities can exist at one moment. You need to remember you are not the only party to that conversation. What the other person says or how they react or their tone of voice can totally change the outcome. Their reaction may ultimately trigger you to move in another direction. This has been true for me in a number of difficult conversations that I have had.

Wherever I have gone this year more and more advisors and people at large are talking about living a "life on purpose". Advisors are saying to me, we are having deeper conversations with clients about purpose. These conversations are becoming the core of how they help clients find fulfilment and make more discerning decisions. There is also a ground swell of people in all walks of life wanting to have a life with more meaning and they are starting to engage in discussions about their purpose. To me this is very exciting. I believe people can truly develop and build a quality life once they get close to their purpose and have the courage to start living it.

Are you one of the majority of people who finds it hard to make changes to your life? Do you actually want to make changes in your life? Do you know how to make changes in your life? Do you know where to start? In my work as a Wealth Mentor, (which involves a blend of being coach, trainer and advisor) helping people make changes to the way they work and live is a big part of what I do. To be honest, I have had to make many big changes personally to be doing what I am doing today. Becoming aware of a deep passion to educate others to become more empowered to make better financial decisions has been a catalyst for me making many changes in my life. Clearly there have been other changes that I have made at times, such as losing weight or getting fitter, that have not always been directly tied to a passion. But even then, those changes were made in the broader scheme of improving my overall life and enabling me to better live my passions. I believe discovering your passion is an important first step because it

One of the financial advisors in a group asked me whether everyone would go through Financial DNA. The answer is potentially yes. We have had people with very little wealth and some with over $1billion go through the process, and all of them have been greatly liberated by the personal knowledge they have gained. This triggered the response from one of them, "Well if I was super wealthy I wouldn't bother, I would be out of here. I would have my financial freedom". Such a comment raises many questions and issues which cannot all be addressed right now. But my response was: "Well do you really have financial freedom with super wealth?". Many wealthy people are in actual fact prisoners of their wealth. It brings a whole new set of financial complications, let alone the personal issues. I mentioned that it is not always a life on easy street with these people. So perhaps financial freedom at this level is not really the dream?

So, what does money mean to you? There has been a lot written on this topic from many different angles. My sense is that this is a topic of thought that has always been there for many people but not necessarily at a very conscious level. For some, they may even find it very confronting and others may query its importance. Others are more interested in how much they can have and not so focused on what it means. Today, in our wealth mentoring work we are providing guidance for many people to find the answer to this question. The question is important because it goes to the core of who you are and what your life goals are, and consequently your financial goals. I do not believe you can make committed decisions and ultimately build a quality life until you know the answer to this question and are comfortable with that answer. The journey of discovery will be life shaping and fun. The great thing is that the answer is different for all of us and so whatever money does mean to you, it will become foundational for

Many people have commented to me recently that one of the powerful messages I deliver, is the reality that every financial decision is driven by a life issue and every life decision has a financial consequence. In essence, life and financial decisions are totally integrated. Therefore, when doing financial planning it is absolutely vital that you understand what drives your financial decisions. To me, the primary driver is your financial personality, or what we call your Financial DNA. Your financial personality is in essence your natural born behavior shaped by your environment, experiences and education. Or we can break it down into behaviors, passions, values, beliefs, purpose and knowledge. All of these factors make up who you are and in their own way fundamentally drive your life decisions and consequently your financial decisions.

Did you know that icebergs connect below the surface? Well people do as well. This is where truly lasting relationships are formed. So how do you get below the surface and connect with others? I am not just meaning a one sided conversation where you find out the other persons dreams and aspirations. How do you share some of who you are with them? What I am talking about is creating a safe environment for a Wealth Mentoring Conversation, which is by its very nature mutual. Why would a prospect or client, or for that matter any one else, start totally sharing who they are with you, if you do not reciprocate? I appreciate this is not the normal approach in a traditional advisory relationship, which by its very nature is somewhat one-sided. However, in a wealth mentoring relationship where you are building a long term relationship with the client to be their trusted guide, it is absolutely foundational. This is a key differential in building trust along with listening.

At the start of a radio interview, I was asked a fundamental question: What is the relevance of behavior to your wealth creation? In my view, your behavioral style is foundational to your wealth creation. When I use the term "wealth creation" I do not just mean money or financial wealth, it also includes your whole of life wealth. I adopt the approach that the correct place to start building true wealth in your life is from the inside. In essence, I have an "inside-out" approach to wealth creation.

What do you do when you have multiple passions? This is a great position to be in, particularly as many people do not lay claim to having one passion. If you do have multiple passions then in my view you are very wealthy in terms of having a quality life. Some may be surprised to know that Financial DNA is not my only passion. I add in the development of youths as another, then watching cricket (sorry not baseball!!) and other sporting activities, and wine tasting. The key is to work out how all of your passions can get squeezed into your busy life.....

In my last topic on engaging the client, I concluded with the comment that facilitating the Financial DNA profiles with your clients is easier than you may perceive, and does not have to take you away from being an advisor to a counsellor. There is no doubt this is a concern for some advisors particularly for those who have been more focused on the investment side of the business. In my training sessions, I often use the golf analogy, if you already have a good golf swing meaning you are a good client facilitator, then Financial DNA is putting a much better golf club in your hands. So we are not here to change your swing, just make the ball contact better and straighter, meaning have a more powerful conversation. I wish to be clear that the goal is not to convert advisors to being counsellors or defacto psychologists. Rather, our goal is to take a lot of the guesswork and assumptions about client behavior out of the client discovery process.

Interestingly, the most common question that we have been asked by financial advisors is: How do I get my clients to take the profiles? Will they do the profiles? I have been in the shoes of the advisor introducing the Financial DNA Profiles and fully appreciate the questions. Being honest, when I started down the track of introducing the Financial DNA profiles to my clients in 2001 and, before then asking more probing life orientated discovery questions, I did not necessarily expect such a process would be for everyone. Particularly in Australia where there is less personal openness than in the United States. There is no doubt that I was expecting resistance.....

Communication is a significant theme in Financial DNA and one that I am often asked to talk about. Certainly, it is a foundational starting point in all of our work with advisors and clients. How advisors and clients communicate is not only important to the quality of the relationship but also to the quality of the financial decisions that get made. What happens when the communication is poor is that people start making decisions around each other because the trust has been diminished. Also, poor decisions get made because the information has not been heard as intended. The same is true when couples, families, business partners and teams communicate.

January is traditionally a time to decide on a New Year resolution and then for most people, within a few weeks, to break it! Some manage to stay the course and succeed but most would agree that successful New Year resolutions are few and far between. Why do most people fail in achieving their resolutions? The reason is very often because they do not have a process for converting the resolutions to goals and then writing them down with an accountability framework. to find out more, please listen to this podcast, or visit our website - www.financialdna.com

In order to understand where you are going (in life and financially), you first need to understand who you are. And in order to understand who you are, you need to understand where you came from. Your values, education and environment all interplay in a complicated way to determine your financial personality, and understanding the impact of these influences is key to the self-discovery process. Whether you are aware of it or not, your values are a very important part of what drives your day-to-day decision-making. However, many people go through life purporting to have certain values yet these values do not correlate with the way they live their lives. How many people say they value family but spend little quality time with their children? How many claim independence as a high priority and then work in a job that is more like a prison sentence? In cases like these, it may be that they are not acknowledging or recognizing their true values. Or it may be that they are not really living their lives in accordanc

No one can deny the power of someone being passionate about something. We have all witnessed the all-consuming, potentially irrational attitude that is associated with a person pursuing their passion, whether it is their business, a religion, a sporting activity or the latest addition to the family. Uncovering your passion and then finding ways to incorporate that passion into your everyday life can be a difficult process. It can also be invigorating. Living with passion covers every aspect of your life so that even the most mundane acts become flushed with purpose. This is why understanding your passion is a fundamental part of the process of developing your financial plan. If you don’t know what drives and motivates you, how can you manage your financial resources appropriately?

Where is your life going well now? Are your business and family relationships aligned? What is the purpose for your life? Are you making committed decisions? How do you want to be remembered? Building a Quality Life is a continual journey. There is always a way to make your life better no matter where you have got to: whether it is having extreme financial wealth, being the President of your company, a sporting star or community leader. Ultimately, how well you synchronize all aspects of your life is the key. In particular, what we have seen is that you cannot separate your life and financial decisions. They are integrated. So how does one continually balance these choices?