The only thing that disturbed and confused my peace of mind was looking at the business section of the paper.

We have an expression on Vancouver Island about the weather which might have been stolen from New Foundland … if you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes and I’d like to offer the same expression about the economy and here are my reasons why.

Saturday’s Business Section of the Globe and Mail included the headline; North American recovery slows – A slump in the US export market could hurt Canada, economists warn.

Then a scan of the latest news on my Crackberry on Monday to find headlines that are enough to raise the dead (why do I bother … because I’m addicted like the rest of you to CNN – Constant and Never ending News); Stocks Roar Into August, DOW gains 200 points and Europe Flies High.

Going back to the Globe and Mail’s site on Monday to get the link to the “North American recovery slows” story reveals more positive news; U.S. manufacturing sector expands in July and At the close: Stocks hit 10-week high and Optimism drives copper to three-month high.

Then again A new BlackBerry: RIM’s last shot makes me wonder if I should finally get out of the dark ages and get a 4G iPhone and have the latest technology for 5 minutes … Ha! That is a good one. Think you have the latest technology? Wait five minutes.

So now that 5 minutes has gone by, this latest news is all out of date so what to do?

One thing I know for sure it is August and if you didn’t commit suicide after August of 2007 when the early tremors of the sub-prime mortage crisis started the media frenzy of Mediageddon to convince you it was going to be Armageddon, you will know that three years have now passed and you are still here and the sun is still rising.

August is a time for rest and relaxation where we will all flock to the beach to ready for September when the real New Year begins when we can re-engage the economy with “recovery” because the sky didn’t fall and no matter how imperfect you might think the system to be, we didn’t fall into the abyss.

So I’m back to journaling to create my own peace of mind because this is what creates the space for my own economic certainty which leads to continued recovery.

• Speak at Sun Life in Toronto
• Meet with the Sales & Marketing Manager of an MGA Firm in Toronto
• Meet with the President of a Life Insurance Company in Toronto
• Speak at the BFG Financial Conference in Niagara Falls
• Take some time off in Niagara Falls and visit with family in Niagara Falls

Happy to say that Laura will be joining me for this trip!

I did create some Free Time this weekend after disconnecting from work @ 3pm on Friday after delivering a Leading Advisor Coaching Program Workshop to a group of committed financial advisors at Desjardins Financial Services in Victoria.

Still this is not enough Free Time as it is rare for me to work on weekends and I am using this Blog to sort myself out because I am feeling stressed about time.

Back to Desjardins … There will be more to say about my work with Desjardins Financial Services in Victoria in the coming months but I want to take a moment to thank the Managing Director, Rohini Kapoor for the opportunity to work with her again. I feel very honoured for the opportunity to work with Rohini and her team of committed financial advisors in their quest to achieve their goal to attend the Desjardins Sales Conference in Istanbul in 2011. I felt especially honoured when Rohini asked us all to take a break from the workshop to have our pictures taken for the newspaper and when the photographer asked me for my title, Rohini replied; Desjardins Financial Services Victoria Personal Coach.

So even though some of last week was a Buffer Week, a week to work ON the business versus IN the business …

• Monday – Buffer Day
• Tuesday – Buffer Day
• Wednesday – Focus Day – One On One Tele-Coaching
• Thursday – Buffer Day – Prepare Leading Advisor Coaching Program Workshop for Desjardins Financial Services in Victoria
• Friday – Focus Day – Deliver Leading Advisor Coaching Program Workshop for Desjardins Financial Services in Victoria

Where did my time go last week?

Obviously my time went into One On One Tele-Coaching and Desjardins Financial Services and a small part of the balance went into a Planning Meeting with Laura and the rest went into a letter to Advocis regarding CE Credits for my speaking presentations and I’ve been working on this wonderful CE Credits project since March with hundreds of hours invested.

A big part of why I am working today is because I am behind on my One On One Tele-Coaching follow up E-Mails and I have to pack. My stress is related to “I always complete my One On One Tele-Coaching follow up E-Mails within 24 hours” so last week was rare.

Last week was also rare in that BC Hydro installed a new set of hydro poles that runs the length of our subdivision and they had to shut the power off on Thursday so our office was essentially closed last Thursday.

The To Do List for this week looks like the following and I am feeling overloaded wanting to get as much done as I can today.

• Plan Week
• Pack For Week
• One On One Tele-Coaching follow up E-Mails from last week
• ID COI Sales Prospects for follow up
• Monday’s Blog
• Cardio
• Review Budget Cash Flow Report
• Delegate Tasks to Tiffany for the week
• Live Meeting Preparation
• Sun Life Power Point Preparation
• BFG Power Point Preparation
• July E-Newsletter
• Empty My Mind / Debrief Week At End

But wait a minute, what about my Free Time Blocks for this week? How many hours of creative time do I have?

Honestly, I am no different than my clients and we can at times pour lots of time and energy into certain projects which in my case was CE Credits and disconnect from others leaving ourselves feeling over whelmed with the mistaken beliefs that we have too much to do and that we will never get it all done.

With going from PT to ET and my office calendar being set up in PT, I like to use a TIMANAGER week at a glance time management system to give me the big picture of my time management.

So after plotting out my sleep, personal time, exercise, travel, coaching calls, meetings, speaking presentations and business dinners and coming to the realization that Laura and I have two days on our own in Niagara Falls … here is the free time that I have this week;

• Monday – 8 hours
• Tuesday – 2.5 hours
• Wednesday – 5 hours
• Thursday – 4.5 hours
• Sunday – 6 hours ( optional )

Total; 20 – 26 Hours

By free time I mean creative time when I am not committed to coaching calls, meetings, speaking presentations and business dinners … loads of time to complete the projects that I am working on … ahhhhhhhhhh – so having said all of this I’m practicing in Stephen Covey’s Quadrant II of Time Management … thanks for listening.

So today’s work is reduced to;

• ·         Plan Week
• One On One Tele-Coaching follow up E-Mails from last week
• Pack For Week
• ID COI Sales Prospects for follow up
• ·         Monday’s Blog
• Cardio
• Review Budget Cash Flow Report

I have loads of free time to work on;

• Delegate Tasks to Tiffany for the week
• Live Meeting Preparation
• Sun Life Power Point Preparation
• BFG Power Point Preparation
• July E-Newsletter
• Empty My Mind / Debrief Week At End

They got out leaving the engine running while they went into the convenience store and the commercial closed with the camera zooming in on the keys in the ignition with the TV announcer saying “don’t make a good boy bad – prevent car theft”.

This came to mind when I asked a prospective client; “when is the last time you did an employee review with your assistant?”

Quarterly Review Meetings

Step 1

Advise your team members that you are planning to do individual Quarterly Review Meetings with them and you are inviting them to participate. 

Step 2

Schedule the Quarterly Review Meeting with each member of your team.

Step 3

Advise each team member that you would like their input in advance of their Quarterly Review Meeting with you and you would like them to prepare in advance by;

• Reviewing their job description with recommendations of additions and edits
• Answering the questions;
  • What do they like best about their job?
  • What do they like least about their job?
  • What changes do they recommend?
  • In what area would they appreciate training?
• Bring the above answers to the meeting in writing

Step 4

Conduct the Quarterly Review Meeting with each member of your team by inviting their input to;

• Reviewing their job description with recommendations of additions and edits
• Answering the questions;
  • What do they like best about their job?
  • What do they like least about their job?
  • What changes do they recommend?
  • In what area would they appreciate training?

Make notes

Step 5

After your team member has provided their input, ask permission to offer your feedback by;

• Reviewing their job description with recommendations of additions and edits
• Answering the questions;
  • What do you like best about their work?
  • What do you like least about their work?
  • What changes do you recommend?
  • In what area would you recommend training?

Invite the member to make notes and request that they send you the notes in writing after the meeting.  This will help the team member to integrate the agreed up on actions.

Step 6

Agree upon specific action steps.

• Engage Your Clients With An Agreement – in development
• Receive Fee For Service

I’m speaking at The Million Dollar Round Table Annual Meeting in Vancouver, BC @ 3:30pm, June 15^th so please come and say hello.

One of the strategies that we use is Tiffany sends a weekly report of her activities so that we are helping her make the best use of her time.  This task also provides Tiffany with the opportunity to confirm all of the great work that she is doing.

Here is a copy of Tiffany’s Work Tasks May 24-28 2010.

Tuesday May 25^th

• Encountered an issue in Maximizer: tool bar missing
• Updated schedule with changes
• Sent client reminders
• Relocated furniture
• Called Sears about protection plan for appliances
• Had a 15 minute training session on creating new lists for Coaching GYM members in Joomla
• Canceled TW Weekly subscription
• Added users to AWeber for Newsletter subscription
• Sent fax

Wednesday May 26^th

• Checked email/messages
• Booked calls for two prospects from Advocis Westman
• Created Prospect files and updated white board
• Created new Coaching GYM list and ensured all active users were correctly added
• Sent Newsletter emails to Advocis Westman attendees
• Added users to AWeber for Newsletter subscription
• Typeset testimonials
• Completed travel cost/time analysis

Thursday May 27^th

• Sent welcome package to new client
• Sent WWOL to active Coaching GYM participants
• Completed Environmental 100 assessments- waiting on formatting details
• Left early for appointment
• Completed typesetting testimonials and sent for proofing
• Added users to AWeber for Newsletter subscription

Friday May 28^th

• Printed emergency forms
• Sent client recordings
• Created proof of postcards with custom text
• Printed CD labels
• Created Assessment report for client
• Put away files
• Called and rebook appointments
• Forwarded employee’s assessment to client
• Sent assignment reminder for first coaching call
• Sent coaching call client reminders
• Sent testimonials
• Ensured blogs were posted for Tuesday/Wednesday
• Added users to AWeber for Newsletter subscription
• Posted testimonials to blog, website and testimonials document.

Tasks to Complete

A

• June Newsletter- adding text and proofing
• Make speaking packages- after testimonials format is decided
• LinkedIn -waiting on education/past experience
• Decide LinkedIn strategy for new contacts/clients- asking to join Linkedin
• Maximizer Advocis Century Club List
• Cleaning up inbox with folders/subfolders- ongoing
• Adding users to AWeber for newsletter

B

• Environmental 100 document-formatting
• Copy PowerPoint from Simon computer onto one directory

Not A Priority

• Facebook for Leading Advisor
• Organizing books
• Amazon book list    

* * *

I’m speaking at The Million Dollar Round Table Annual Meeting in Vancouver, BC @ 3:30pm, June 15^th so please come and say hello.

So I seized the day or actually the evening of May 25^th when I was in Winnipeg to Just Do It and film a Vlog!

I was inspired to create a Vlog using a Flip Video Camera after I had a no show at an 8:30am meeting due to the death of a friend of the person that I was intending to meet.

So what to do … I wanted to follow up the meeting without too much time passing by.

At the same time, I was up that morning at 4:30am CT / 2:30am PT ( because my body was still on PT ) to get oriented for the day with two appointments in Winnipeg and then a 400km return drive to Brandon to speak at Advocis WestMan so by the time I go back to my hotel it was 7:30pm.

I was tired after a 15 hour day but doing the Vlog follow up was a must for me.

But at the end of the day, the show must go on and here is the e-mail that I sent along with the Vlog link;

Dear John Doe,

I’m sorry for the loss of your friend.

With respect, I took the liberty to create a short 3 minute video of what I would have offered in today’s conversation. What Makes A Great Financial Advisor Conference?

I’m hoping that we have the opportunity to be of service.

Simon Reilly

The thing I like about the Flip is I can easily film and seamlessly post the film to YouTube.

At the same time, when one does shooting from the hip they run the risk of getting these kinds of comments which I am OK with because I don’t have the energy or the time to produce studio quality video and what you get is Simon Live And Uncut.

* * *

You can do better than this – your presentation is great, the words compelling – but the video production looks very amateur.

Better on a decent camera and tripod with you looking less like you are staring down a drain.

* * *

Sweaty close talker in the corner of a hotel room? A bit creepy simon – but good content!

* * *

I’m speaking at The Million Dollar Round Table Annual Meeting in Vancouver, BC @ 3:30pm, June 15^th so please come and say hello.

Americans are stressed. We stress about work, the economy, school, love, weight, Lost, even stress itself. Well, April happens to be National Stress Awareness Month — and Stress Awareness Day is on the 16th. To mark the anxious occasion, here’s a look at our angst in numbers.

Lots of people have a lot of great ideas but that is all they are is great ideas.

Writing down an idea creates an agreement for an action at a time to be determined.

Whether a time deadline is set out in writing or not, there is still an agreement.

I talked about and wrote about writing a book for ages and even made a commitment in my blog in the summer of 2007 to write the book that summer. The book did not get written. Reading my summer of 2007 blog at the beginning of the summer of 2008 gave me the added commitment to complete my agreement to write a book by the fall of 2008.

Ideas do not become a reality until they are written down.

The writing of the idea creates commitment to the agreement.

When there is an agreement, there is commitment and discipline to the action to be taken to have the idea become a reality

I’m reminded of the Apollo 11 Launch Commander’s voice … 5, 4, 3, ignition sequence start, 1, lift off, ladies and gentleman we have liftoff for the first manned mission to land on the moon! This was inspired by the famous JFK speech in 1962 … “we choose to go to the moon”.

The Saturn 5 rocket had many competing ideas in the form of celestial bodies that the rocket could have aimed at but the NASA team had a vision and one mission and that was to land on the moon. They had a great idea and it was written down and it was committed to action and success followed.

The experience of the completion of an idea is heavenly.

When an idea is not written down it is far more likely to be unfulfilled because it falls into a black hole.

Black holes are filled with despair, disappointment, judgement, justification, loss, mistrust and unfulfilled dreams.

Leading Advisor must constantly aspire to a culture of vision, mission, accountability, commitment, courage, discipline, fulfillment, honour, performance, responsibility, rewards and doing whatever it takes to think outside of the box.

We are getting busier and busier as demonstrated by an 88% increase in speaking revenue for the first three months of 2010 compared to all of 2009.

More and more ideas are coming in and all ideas must be written down or there is a good chance that they will be lost and agreements will not be kept.

I as the leader cannot take a chance on letting my memory take care of the valuable ideas that are coming in and the agreements that are being made. They must be written down.

I as the leader cannot take a chance on conveying my communications verbally … client and team communications must be clearly written down along with the required deadline for action.

The team is requested to follow through in advance of the deadline with a written communication to advise on the action that is being taken / was taken on the written request for action.

The team is requested to write notes during client or team communication and follow through in advance of the deadline with a written communication to advise on the action that is being taken / was taken on the verbal request for action.

Failure to follow through on agreements is not an option.

Failure will amount to ideas and agreements being lost in space.

Here is one manager’s question along with my reply.

Question

What are your three biggest business challenges?

1. Finding enough quality candidates 2. Helping senior Advisor’s raise their production 3. Being more effective and efficient

Reply

Please note that some of this is stating the obvious and some of it may not be so obvious which could reveal some hidden motivational strategies.

• Financial Reserves

• Networkable

• Attraction

• Referrals & Testimonials

• Year End Review

Financial Reserves

Does the financial advisor have a reasonably strong track record of financial planning in either their personal life or the life of their surrounding family members?

Networkable

Is the financial advisor networkable? On a scale of 1 – 10, how connected are they to these workable networks? What actions can they take to increase their participation in these groups to add value to the community and receive referrals at the same time?

• associations

• church

• college, school, university

• previous career

• sports

Attraction

What are the attitudes, behaviors, characteristics, and strengths that you want in a financial advisor?

The laws of attraction are absolute; you will attract what you focus on. Think of your best financial advisors and think about the attitudes, behaviors, characteristics, and strengths. Write these down as the more you focus on them, the more you will be able to attract, teach these qualities to other advisors and point out these qualities in other advisors. Use the philosophy from the One Minute Manager; “catch your people doing the right things”. For more on this please click the following link to Behavioral Marketing & Sales Characteristics.

What are the positive beliefs, feelings and values that the best financial advisors exhibit? As an exercise, speak to your best advisors about these and in doing so you will help them to remember these inherent qualities that are within them. Ask your best advisors to write you a storey about a time when they were really challenged and they were wondering if they were going to make it through and how they used their positive beliefs, feelings and values to break through. As part of the exercise, provide them with the Values Inventory and Feelings Inventory and ask them what Values & Feelings did they exhibit? This exercise will help them to associate to the passion that runs within them. Please contact me for the Values Inventory and Feelings Inventory.

Referrals & Testimonials

Have each of your financial advisors make a list of their best clients based on; they like them, they have a strong association or business/corporate network, they have money;

Have the financial advisor ask their best clients the following questions;

• What do you like best about the products and services that I offer you?

• What do I do for you that you did not expect?

• (Write down the answers to the above questions – type set / grammatically edit them so they look – the next time you see the client ask them to proof/edit/change and for their permission to share their words with prospective clients that you are talking with. You will also get a huge hit of inspiration hearing and writing the words that your clients share.)

• What do I need to do to improve my service? (If there is a service requirement, complete it.)

• Who do you know that would appreciate the same kinds of products and services that I offer?

• Wait three seconds … Do you know what, most of the time, when I ask this question, a person does not have a person’s name on the tip of their tongue … but when I call back in ten days to two weeks, a person just like yourself will have crossed their path … would it be OK if I check back with your in ten days to two weeks?

Year End Review

Schedule a meeting in advance and ask your financial advisor to come prepared to answer the following questions … let them know that you will do the same in kind to prepare for the meeting;

• What abilities, qualities, strengths and talents did you exhibit in 2009?

• What do you believe were your biggest successes for 2009?

• How does that make you feel?

• What can you improve upon?

• What additional action can you take?

• What results will you create as a result of taking these additional actions?

The answer to the problem was given to me via an interview on Global TV with Michelle Borba about her new book called;

The Big Book of Parenting Solutions: 101 Answers to Your Everyday Challenges and Wildest Worries.

Michelle said something like;

“Don’t tell your child how smart they are; praise them for being hard working”.

Aside from the movie offending some Christians in the way that the film’s main character comes to  “positive truth” which he posts on what look like tablets and reads to the people; to me, there is one thing about the following synopsis from the film that is all incorrect.

“The Invention of Lying” takes place in an alternate reality in which lying-even the concept of a lie-does not exist. Everyone-from politicians to advertisers to the man and woman on the street-speaks the truth and nothing but the truth with no thought of the consequences. But when a down-on-his-luck loser named Mark (Gervais) suddenly develops the ability to lie, he finds that dishonesty has its rewards. In a world where every word is assumed to be the absolute truth, Mark easily lies his way to fame and fortune. But lies have a way of spreading, and Mark begins to realize that things are getting a little out of control when some of his tallest tales are being taken as, well, gospel. With the entire world now hanging on his every word, there is only one thing Mark has not been able to lie his way into: the heart of the woman he loves.

To me, all the characters in the film who are telling the truth in this alternate reality … were doubting, insulting, judging and making everything wrong most of the time and there didn’t seem to be a lot of “positive truth” about anything until Gervais’ character starting telling the truth with a positive spin on it.

Gervais’ charter discovered telling the truth with a positive spin on it after he discovered he could tell either a lie or a truth in the alternate reality of the film.

As soon as Gervais’ character started telling the truth, everyone started to feel happy and more positive which included Gervais’ character. He started to point out the positive with everyone he met and had a positive outlook towards winning the woman in the movie played by Jennifer Garner.

The other odd thing was that while all the characters in the movie were vocalizing their “negative truths” to each other; “you are fat”, “you are a loser”, “this product sucks”, “we are selling you this product even though we know it sucks” … and Laura and I are laughing – not at the doubting, insulting, judging and making everything wrong comments from everyone’s ego in the movie, but at the honest reality that a lot of this is what goes on in present day reality, not just in the “The Invention of Lying” alternate reality. At the same time, no one in the audience was laughing at a lot of the “negative truths” because in truth they are not funny and it may have been a sobering reality that these “negative truths” may be going on in their ego’s reality.

While I would not recommend that you run out to the theatre to see The Invention of Lying, it will sure make you pay attention to telling the “positive truth.”