You can’t change them. You can’t fight them. They have no emotion. They have no investment in whether or not you succeed or fail. In fact, they don’t care if you live or die. It’s impossible for them to care about you because they don’t even know you exist. They don’t care about your background, your upbringing, your personal story, your personal tragedies, or your strengths and weaknesses. They don’t care if you suffer from depression, addictions, or were abused as a child. They don’t care about your race, your religion, your gender, your age, or your heritage. They don’t care if you grew up poor, middle-class or wealthy. They don’t care how unique you are, how special you are, or how important you are. They don’t care how much potential you have. They don’t care how much you are loved by your parents, your grandparents, your children, your spouse, your friends, your pets, or how much you love them back. They don’t care if you are attractive or unattractive, healthy or unhealthy, fit or out of shape, able-bodied or disabled. They don’t care how smart you are, how experienced you are, or how much you care about helping people. They don’t care if you are having a bad hair day or a no-hair day. They don’t care if your house burned down, your spouse left you, or your dog died. They have no interest in your needs, your wants, your goals, your aspirations, or your values. They don’t care about your religion, your faith, or your beliefs. They don’t care how much value you bring to your community or how much of a difference you are making in the world. They are not mean or malicious. They have no agenda. They don’t have any emotional capacity to be concerned about anything or anyone. They are what they are. The Laws of Success. Universal Truths. Natural Laws. Please don’t shoot the messenger. None of this is my idea. It is what it is.

There are simply Universal Truths and Natural Laws that exist for every Financial Advisor who chooses to be successful at acquiring and serving clients.

To whatever degree you choose to deny, resist, or fight Universal Truths and Natural Laws is the degree to which you will fail to achieve your potential. Whatever time and energy you expend to change them or resist them is wasted time that you will never get back.

Surrender to these laws and you will immediately experience more inner peace. Embrace these truths and you will move to a higher level of professional success and happiness in life.

Commit to developing more skill, more confidence, more emotional fortitude, and more discipline in each area described above and you will soon be enjoying far greater results.

And, remember, don’t shoot the messenger. None of this way my idea. I didn’t get a vote either. I’m just trying to help and do the best I can on my journey… just like you.

- Must have the skill and confidence to engage people in conversations that could lead to the next step of them potentially doing business with you. These can be with people you already know, people you meet in the course of your everyday life, or referrals. The result of these conversations must be enough appointments on your calendar to yield enough clients to make your business successful.
- Must have the skill and confidence to conduct an initial client interview where you establish a bond of trust and the outcome is that a high enough percentage of these people hire you so your business is successful.
- Must have the skill and confidence to answer any question any prospect, or client, could ever ask at any time.
- Must have the skill, confidence, and resources to create a plan of action that gives your clients the highest probability to achieve their goals.
- Must have the skill and confidence to articulate how much you charge, what they get, and that it’s a good value for them.
- Must have the skill and confidence to set the right price for your services so your business is successful and your life works.
- Must have the skill and confidence to give advice to clients about the necessary action required for them to achieve their financial goals in a way that inspires them to act.
- Must have the skill and confidence to conduct regular, productive progress meetings with your clients so they stay on track to achieving their goals.
- Must have the skill and confidence to have crucial conversations with your clients when they become “their own worst enemy” and want to do things that are not consistent with them achieving their goals.
- Must have the skill and confidence to build and lead your team of the Technical and Administrative Subject Matter Experts necessary to deliver on your promise to your clients. (The Rule of 168 mandates that there is not enough time to do it all yourself.)
- Must have the skill and confidence to conduct referral conversations that generate referrals.
- Must have the skill and confidence to make follow-up phone calls and engage the people, to whom you have been referred, in constructive conversations that could lead to the next step of them potentially doing business with you.
- Must develop the skill and confidence to recognize high pay-off activities, fill your calendar with high pay-off activities, do the high pay-off activities, and delegate or drop lower pay-off activities.
- Must develop the emotional fortitude and discipline to develop these skills and confidence.
- Must be willing to learn these skills from others if you were not born with them.
- Must develop the emotional fortitude and discipline to consistently and repeatedly implement the skills and confidence that produce results both on the days when you feel like it and the days when you don’t feel like it, regardless of events out of your control such as what’s happening in the market, the economy, or the world.
- Must document the processes and systems that will be repeatedly used to acquire clients, serve clients, and lead the business.
- Must generate enough business revenue, so after paying your business expenses and taxes, there is enough money left to pay for you to live a good lifestyle now and enough money for you to fund your future goals, such as your own financial independence. In other words, you have enough money to get and keep your own financial house in order.
- Must develop the ability to produce these business results in a reasonable amount of time per day, week, month, and year in order for other important aspects of your life to get the attention they need and to be enjoyed. Ie: family and friends, health and fitness, fun and recreation, spiritual growth, mental health, philanthropy, etc.

Perhaps you can think of a few other “musts” in order to have a successful financial services business. This list truths will at least get you started.

Another such Natural Law is what I call The Rule of 168. There are only 168 hours in the week and your success and happiness in life are determined by how you choose to invest your 168 hours. This was not my idea. God did not confer with me when he or she decided how long it would take the Earth to make a complete spin on its axis or the time required for the Earth to revolve around the sun. It is what it is. Resistance is futile. Please don’t shoot the messenger.

Jack Nicholson’s character (Colonel Nathan R. Jessep) in the movie A Few Good Men delivered one of the most famous lines in the modern movie era, “The Truth! You can’t handle the truth!” I propose that life is better when you choose to handle the truth. Success is leaving clues about the truths required to be successful. Are you listening? Do you see them? Will you choose to handle the truth?

In another part of the interview Denis continues, “Few individuals can honestly say that eating a spinach salad generates the same immediate pleasurable sensation as eating an ice cream sundae. On most nights, it is immediately easier to go home and curl up on the couch instead of going for a workout in the gym. It is only in the long-term, after a lifetime of such choices, do the negative consequences rear their ugly head. My friend, who has lost a great deal of weight, said it best when asked how he, an intelligent, successful man, could have allowed himself to go through life so obese for so long, ‘I knew that it was probably going to kill me, but I also knew that it probably wasn’t going to kill me tomorrow!’”

Denis continues, “The key term we could all benefit from exploring is that of delayed gratification. We need to shift our focus from the pleasure that we will immediately get from the unhealthy choice, to the more fulfilling life of abundant health and energy that will surely come to us if we choose to make the healthy choice.”

And the same is true for making good business decisions, isn’t it? It’s easier to read an article about the market or the economy. It’s easier to do research about the next great technology tool. It’s easier to help your assistant do an administrative task. If you don’t ask for referrals today it isn’t going to kill your business. If you don’t make follow calls today it isn’t going to kill your business. If you don’t improve the value you deliver for your clients today it isn’t going to kill your business. If you don’t get more organized today it isn’t going to kill your business. If you don’t hire a great assistant today it isn’t going to kill your business. Etc, etc, etc. String those days together, however, and after a few years you find yourself smack, dab in the middle of mediocre-land. Mediocre production. Mediocre qualify of life. Mediocre clientele. Mediocre value proposition. My guess is that you didn’t enter this business intending to put down permanent roots in the heart of mediocre land.

So, what can you do about it? Take it one day at a time. The beauty of it being easy not to ask for referrals today is that it’s also easy to start asking for referrals today. Today you can make follow-up calls. Today you can improve your value delivery. Today you can get more organized. Pick one or two things and do them today. Today you can also stop doing one or more of the many things that do not move you toward your goals. And then you can do what you know moves you towards your goals again tomorrow.

And while you’re at it, feel free to do the same with your health and fitness. Make it a great day… today.

If your clients don’t defer to your authority and expertise, there’s a good reason, and it’s not them. Chances are, it’s because you’re behaving like a salesperson. Instead of communicating with conviction and earning your clients’ respect, you’re following the old “customer is always right” mentality. Even though your clients may have little or no financial expertise, you defer to them rather than take the chance of upsetting them and jeopardizing your insurance or mutual fund sale.

I spend a lot of time coaching my Trusted Advisors to tell the truth and be direct. At first, many argue, “I’m afraid of how clients will respond if I tell the truth.” I understand that. However, if you want to be a Trusted Advisor, you have to tell the truth—even when the consequences are less than desirable. Think about it this way: If you tell people the truth and they respond poorly, do you really want them as clients? Most people appreciate and respond positively to the truth; honest communication is a cornerstone for building trust.