Five Tested and True Steps to a Thriving Financial Advisory Practice—Part 1

Develop the Right Mindset

Your first step to a thriving financial advisory practice is to develop the right mindset.

Andrew Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, Norman Vincent Peale and Stephen Covey have all written how your state of mind is the foundation of success.

Any financial advisor coach worth his salt will tell you it’s your mental attitude, emotional fortitude, life balance, and mastery over habitual behaviors that determines whether you have a thriving financial advisory practice.

This is the mindset you absolutely must create to:

• Earn the money you want to live the way you want by helping the clients you want
• Spend more time golfing, sailing or gardening and less time in the back room
• Enjoy your practice, enjoy your family, enjoy your life

Creating this mindset begins with creating your inspiring vision for your practice. Start with imagining your ideal financial advisor practice. Don’t worry about being realistic or practical. Put yourself in the mental state of a child at Christmas time. The child who dreams of having a pony even though living in a two room apartment.

Imagine your ideal practice in great detail. See it in vivid Technicolor. Hear in stereophonic sound what you and your colleagues are saying about your ideal practice. Smell the sweet smell of success. Savor its sweetness. And most importantly, feel how good it is. Locate where you feel that goodness in your body. Is it in your chest? Your head? Your whole body?

Never mind, for now, how you’re going to get there. Save that for later.

Begin with envisioning it two or three times a day. See it. Here it. Even smell and taste it. And most importantly feel it. Really, really feel it.

These feelings will inspire you, motivate you and guide you. Then you can start planning backward on how to get from where you are now to where you want to be.

In addition to your inspiring vision, you need to develop an optimistic, resilient personality that thinks positively and bounces back from setbacks.

How do you do that?

First develop a strong attitude of gratitude. All day long think of all your blessings and all the things you’re grateful for.

Develop these four daily habits:

• Write down three things you grateful for. Dwell on positive experiences.
• Focus on and write about one positive experience each day.
• Send one quick email thanking or praising someone you know.

Doing these mental exercises is like exercising a muscle. Just as a muscle becomes stronger and tougher, your mind becomes stronger and tougher. You bounce back from disappointments, frustrations and rejections.

Part of a good healthy mindset is having good healthy habits:

• Exercise regularly.
• Eat sensibly.
• Spend time having fun.
• Tell your family how much you love and appreciate them—often.

This step is the first step because it is the most important step. If you don’t have the right mindset, nothing else will work well.

Next week we will continue with the Five Tested and True Steps to a Thriving Financial Advisory Practice—Part 2.