The Compassionate Advisor™

March 10, 2009 by Simon

My friend Pat offers me some incredible insights and I asked Pat what is he doing for himself during these times and Pat’s answer was that he is providing himself and those around him with compassion.

Compassion;

a deep awareness of and sympathy for another’s suffering
the humane quality of understanding the suffering of others and wanting to do something about it

This inspired an idea.

Some believe that this is the best time to be a financial advisor because;

Trillions in assets will still be transferred in assets in the next twenty years
Opportunity lies in the estate and financial planning
Many financial advisors are emotionally retired and will leave the business
Government investment is going to reignite the economy

At the same time, we are all going through an economic winter and are all experiencing some degree of financial stress in one way shape or form … even if we are not we are all getting sick of Gloomageddon.

Speaking of winter … March 10, 2009 at the Harbor Air Seaplane Terminal in Coal Harbor in Vancouver – look how low the snow line is and it’s almost mid March.

For financial advisors, they are experiencing financial stress 200, 400, 600, 800 and 1000 times over depending on the number of clients that they have.

I am sure that most financial advisors have compassion for their clients.

Who provides financial advisors with compassion for the way they are feeling?

I introduced this idea in today’s financial advisor speaking presentation to Financial Management in Vancouver and I’ll expand on it in my presentation to Financial Management in Calgary on Thursday and in April’s Clear Your Roadblocks E-Newsletter.

The Compassionate Advisor^TM … sounds like a book title to me.

Things are just about back to normal as I am nearly finished with what has turned out to be a complete overhaul of my financial advisor speaking PowerPoint presentations so that I have fresh material for the rest of the year … then again, it is always a work in progress.

With three separate financial advisor speaking presentations to complete with hundreds of power point slides, the best thing to do was to story board them out on the dining room table to get the big picture.