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27. 3 Essential Skills Every Financial Advisor Needs to Master Client Psychology · Planning & Beyond® - Where financial planning meets human understanding

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're looking for incongruence.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: So when their words maybe don't match their body language or their energy, and you're staying curious rather than immediately just jumping to solutions.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: This kind of whole body awareness creates what researchers call attunement, which is a state where you're truly synchronized with your client's experience.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the show where financial planning meets human understanding.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: As an exceptional financial advisor, you know that financial planning is about more than just numbers.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's about giving clients the clarity they need to align their money with what matters most, which is why each episode is designed with that goal in mind.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: You'll learn how to uncover the psychology behind client decisions and gain insights and behavioral strategies needed to create deeper, more meaningful client relationships.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: You'll discover techniques for navigating emotional client situations drawn from conversations with leading industry experts in behavioral finance, psychology, communication, and more.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's mastering discovery meetings, handling sensitive client conversations, or understanding what is truly keeping your client stuck, you'll walk away with not only strategies that you can use in your next client meeting, but also the confidence to do so.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, hi.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: I should probably introduce myself.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Ashley Kwame, a therapist who somehow wandered into the world of financial behavior and kind of decided to stay.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: My mission is to help you bridge the gap between financial planning and human understanding.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because remember, finances don't have feelings, but your clients do.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let's dive in.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the podcast where financial planning meets human understanding.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Ashley Kwamey.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you're new to the show, then welcome.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I am so glad that you are here.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been with us since season one, since the beginning, then thank you for coming back.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Your engagement and feedback have been absolutely incredible and directly shaped what we're going to be bringing you for season two.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: As we kick off this new season, I want to take a moment to just acknowledge something that I've observed in my work as a fractional financial behavior officer.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's a growing recognition that the technical financial expertise alone isn't just enough.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Your clients are coming to you with complex emotional relationships about money, intergenerational patterns, psychological barriers that can't be solved with a spreadsheet or portfolio allocation alone.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Season two is designed to bridge that gap.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to get really practical, like really practical.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Throughout this next season, you'll hear our new how-to series where I'll be modeling specific conversations and techniques that you can implement immediately.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: We'll continue bringing you expert guests.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about that.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: These guests are experts in the field who are advancing not only just the field of financial planning, but also financial psychology and advisor well-being.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps most excitingly, I'm going to be introducing what I call case consultations.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And case consultations are where real advisors will be joining me to work through actual client scenarios.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be walking through the psychological dynamics at play and how to navigate them as a financial advisor.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: But before we dive into all that's going to be coming out for season two, I want to give you something that you can start to use right now.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Today, we're going to be focusing on three essential skills that I believe you and every advisor need to have in order to navigate client psychology effectively.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: These aren't just nice to have soft skills.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're foundational competencies that will transform how you connect with and serve your clients.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: These three skills form the backbone of everything that we're going to be exploring this season.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And by the end of today's episode, you'll have specific techniques that you can start to implement in your very next client meeting.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so let's start with the first essential skill.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And this one may come as a surprise to you because I hear a lot of not just advisors, but practitioners as well say that they think that they do this really well already.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you do, no judgment, maybe you do, but there might be a few tweaks here that you can learn that you can make that will improve this skill.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so what is it?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to leave you hanging any longer.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: The first essential skill is what I call strategic listening.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, most of us have heard about active listening at some point in our life.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you might know active listening as maintaining eye contact, nodding your head, reflecting back, maybe what you heard the other person saying, using eye statements.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And while, yes, okay, these techniques, they have their place and they're not bad.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with them, but they are actually quite limited for the complex emotional landscape that financial conversations require.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the problem with traditional active listening.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: It focuses primarily on the words being spoken and your response to those words.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Research shows us, though, that nonverbal sensitivity shows us something crucial.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that is professionals who are trained to notice and interpret nonverbal cues have significantly better client relationships and outcomes than those who focus only on verbal communication.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: When we expand our awareness beyond just the words that are being said, to include things like tone, body language, energy shifts, we gain access to the full spectrum of what our clients are actually experiencing.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is what I call strategic listening.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I call it strategic listening because it's intentional, it's comprehensive, and it serves a specific purpose, which is to understand not just what your client is telling you, but what they're experiencing in real time during your conversation.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Strategic listening is what I often refer to when I'm teaching as a whole body experience.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: It means that you're using all of your senses and awareness to gather information.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're noticing what you see.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're noticing your client's posture, their facial expressions, their gestures, where they look when they talk about certain topics.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're hearing not just their words, but their tone, their pace, volume changes, where their voice catches or speeds up?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're observing their energy.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that might sound like a weird kind of therapist-y thing here, but energy is something that you can observe and it's valuable data.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do your clients seem to shrink into themselves when they start talking about debt?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do they become animated and light up when they're talking about their children's future?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Do they fidget when the topic turns to retirement?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I used to notice when I was doing couples work, and I could tell when a client would start to get nervous or anxious, is because their leg would start to shake so bad.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that was always an indicator to me that there's a lot going on physiologically within that client.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I needed to pay attention to what that information was telling me.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the crucial part that separates actually this form of observation.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're also noticing what you're not seeing and hearing.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a pretty, pretty big thing here.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes we focus on what is actually happening with our clients?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: What are they saying?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: But noticing what they're not saying is just as important.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: What topics do your clients gloss over quickly?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: What questions do they deflect?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: When do they suddenly become very still or very animated?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: What financial areas do they seem to avoid altogether?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let me give you an example here.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I was working with an advisor who had a client who will call Sarah.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sarah's the client.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And Sarah kept saying that she was, quote, totally fine, right?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: We know that, we hear that a lot.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sarah was totally fine with their retirement timeline that they had laid out.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: But every time that they discussed it, the advisor and Sarah, she would cross her arms, she would lean back in her chair, and her voice would get slightly higher.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: She'd also quickly change the subject to ask about her adult daughter's 529 plan.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: The advisor initially took her quote, I'm fine at face value and kept moving through the technical aspects.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: During a consultation coaching session, when we looked at this client scenario and we looked at it through the lens of applying strategic listening, we realized that Sarah's body language was screaming anxiety.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And her deflection to her daughter's education showed where her real emotional energy was focused.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: It turned out that Sarah was deeply, deeply entrenched in this feeling of guilt about not having saved enough for her daughter's college years earlier.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And now, like many clients, she was trying to quote, make up for it by prioritizing her daughter's graduate school funding over her own retirement security.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: The retirement conversation that she would have, it triggered a lot of shame about past financial decisions.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so she would deflect then to an area where she felt like she could be a quote, good mom.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's something else that's pretty important about strategic listening.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that comes from research within motivational interviewing.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: You have to resist what Miller and Rollnight call the quote, writing reflex.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I've talked about the writing reflex in some of my work, if you've been following me, but the writing reflex is our natural tendency to immediately jump in and fix or correct when we hear something that's concerning or when we feel like we can be helpful.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: When Sarah kept saying that she was, quote, fine with retirement, the writing reflex would be to immediately launch into education about retirement security or show her projections of maybe why this approach may not quite be the best.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: But strategic listening requires you to stay present, keeping your observations high and resisting that urge to immediately problem solve.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's be honest, this is a really hard thing to do for many, many of us, right?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because we want to be helpful.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: We want to be helpful for our clients.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And also, clients are paying us for solutions, right?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Whether that's within therapy, within my line of work, or that's within yours, within financial planning, clients want solutions.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so that urge, while it's really natural, it is important to be able to distinguish when it's appropriate to jump in and offer solutions and when it's important to just listening.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: The research on this is actually really fascinating.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And studies within therapeutic communication show that when practitioners resist that writing reflex, and instead, when they stay curious and observant, clients are significantly more likely to identify their own concerns and motivations.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: In financial planning, this can translate to clients becoming more aware of their own financial behaviors and more invested in solutions because they're discovering them rather than having them be imposed.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so what does this look like?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe a little bit more practically.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: When you're in a meeting, you're simultaneously tracking multiple streams of information.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be overwhelming, let's be honest.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're tracking the content of what the clients are saying, how they're saying it, what their body is doing, what topics they approach or avoid, and what your own gut senses telling you about their emotional state.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're looking for incongruence.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: So when their words maybe don't match their body language or their energy, and you're staying curious rather than immediately just jumping to solutions.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: This kind of whole body awareness creates what researchers call attunement, which is a state where you're truly synchronized with your client's experience.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And when clients feel truly seen and understood at this level, something really powerful happens.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: They start sharing their real story, not just the story that they think you want to hear or the story that they've been telling themselves.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so here's how you can start implementing strategic listening this week.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: First, in your next maybe, I don't know, two or three client meetings, try what I call a whole body check-in.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: So before you dive into the agenda, take a moment to really observe your client, notice their posture, their energy level, how they're settling into the conversation.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Are they rushing?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do they seem distracted?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do they seem like maybe they're not quite sure of what's going to be discussed?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Are they unusually quiet or animated?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just start noticing without trying to fix anything yet.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just notice.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Second, practice the incongruence scan.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I want you to do is to listen for moments when their words maybe don't match their body language or tone.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone says, I'm totally comfortable with this plan, but their voice gets tight or they maybe cross their arms, just make a mental note.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to address it immediately.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to just start building your awareness.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And third, resist the writing reflex for just 30 seconds longer than usual.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: When a client shares something concerning, instead of jumping in and going into solution mode, try saying, tell me more about that, or what's that been like for you?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Give them the space to share before you start problem solving.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: All right, that was skill number one, strategic listening.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, strategic listening gives you a foundation, the complete picture of what your client is truly communicating through words, body language, and what they're not saying.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: But gathering all that information is only half the equation.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: The second essential skill is knowing what to do with what you're observing, especially when you recognize that your client's emotions are driving their financial decisions in ways that may not be serving them well.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: All right, skill number two is identifying emotional triggers in financial decisions.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I see happening in advisory relationships a lot.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: An advisor recognizes that their client is making decisions based on fear, anxiety, uh, or excitement rather than rational analysis, but they don't know how to address it.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: They might think my client is clearly panicking about market volatility, but I'm not a therapist.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea how do I how do I handle this?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: How do I bring it up?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: The second skill is learning to identify when emotions are driving financial decisions and understanding how to respond appropriately within your role as a financial advisor.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with some research from the late great Dr.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Daniel Kahneman.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Daniel Kahneman's work on behavioral economics demonstrates that our brains have two systems for making decisions.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is fast, automatic, and emotion-driven.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's a second that's slower, deliberate, and analytical.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: When clients are operating from that fast emotional mode, which happens more often than we'd like to admit, let's be honest, they're making financial decisions based on immediate emotional responses rather than long-term rational thinking.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what's important for you as an advisor.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can learn to recognize when your clients have shifted into emotional decision-making mode and you can help guide them back to more thoughtful analysis without overstepping your professional boundaries.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, what does emotional decision-making look like?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you might notice sudden changes in their decision-making patterns.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: A normally methodical client might suddenly want to make drastic portfolio changes.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: A conservative client becomes obsessed with a high-risk investment that they heard about at a dinner party or on the soccer field from another parent.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: A client who's been steadily contributing to retirement suddenly wants to stop because they quote, need the money for something more important.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not just about dramatic changes.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes emotional decision making is more subtle.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: You might notice that every time you discuss a particular topic, let's just say life insurance or estate planning, that your client becomes dismissive or even changes the subject.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe they agree to everything in meetings, but then don't follow through on actions.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Does that sound familiar?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: The key is recognizing the emotional triggers that push clients into reactive decision making.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: So some common triggers might include things like major life transitions, market volatility, which many of you experienced this past year.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: It might include family pressure, health scares, or anything that threatens their sense of security or control.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing, though, that we have to remember triggers are highly individual.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: What sends one client into emotional decision making might not affect another client in the same way or even at all.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let me give you an example.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I worked with an advisor whose client, we'll call Jim.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Jim's the client.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Jim was a successful small business owner who had always been very rational about his financial decisions.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: But every time that they discussed succession planning, he and his advisor, Jim would either postpone the meeting or show up, but not really be engaged in the conversation.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: The advisor initially thought that Jim just maybe wasn't ready to start thinking about succession planning or retirement.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: But when we looked at Jim's situation through this framework of looking for emotional triggers, we realized that succession planning was triggering Jim's fears about losing his identity and purpose.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: His business wasn't just his income source, it was who he was, which is so common for many entrepreneurs, for many business owners.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: The rational side of his brain knew that he needed a plan, but the emotional side was in full stop resistance mode.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Once the advisor and I really looked at this pattern and we recognized it, the advisor was able to address it appropriately with Jim.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of pushing harder on the technical aspects of succession planning or really pressuring Jim and saying, you know that you need a succession plan, you need one, you need one, you need one.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: He started by acknowledging what a big transition this represented and asking Jim about the concerns that he had.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: This really shifted Jim from emotional resistance back to thoughtful planning, where then they could have a productive conversation about the real priorities.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Here's another pattern to watch for financial decisions that seem disproportionate to the situation.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, a client wants to drastically reduce their risk tolerance after a minor market dip, or they want to increase their life insurance by like 300% after a friend's unexpected death.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: These aren't necessarily bad decisions, but they are often emotionally driven rather than analytically reasoned.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Research on loss aversion shows us that people feel the pain of losing something twice as strongly as they feel the pleasure of gaining something equivalent, which means that when clients are operating from emotional decision-making mode, they're often making decisions to avoid potential losses rather than to achieve potential gains, even when the math doesn't support that approach.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Your role isn't to be their therapist, but you can help them recognize when they're in that reactive mode and create space for a more thoughtful decision making.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes this is as simple as just slowing down the conversation, asking open-ended questions, or even suggesting that they take some time to maybe think about major changes.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: The goal isn't to eliminate emotions from financial decisions.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, that's pretty much impossible and not really desirable either.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Emotions, they provide us with important information about our values and priorities, which is why we don't want to eliminate it from our financial decisions.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: The goal, though, is to help clients integrate their emotional responses with rational analysis.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: So they're making decisions that serve their long-term best interests.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: All right, here are three specific ways that you can implement this skill.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: First, create what I call decision temperature tricks.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: So when a client wants to make a significant change to their plan, especially if it feels sudden or dramatic, ask on a scale of one to 10, how urgent does this decision feel to you right now?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: If they say like an eight, nine, or 10, that's often that system one kind of thinking, that emotionally driven thinking.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can respond by maybe saying something like, It sounds like this feels really important.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let's make sure we're considering all the angles before we move forward.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: All right, second, develop your pause phrases.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so what the heck is that?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when you sense emotional decision making, have ready responses like that's an important consideration.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: What concerns you most about your current approach?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe something like, help me understand what's driving the urgency on this.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: These phrases really slow down the conversation without dismissing your client's concerns.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: All right, the last one: mapping your clients' emotional triggers.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Keep simple notes about what topics seem to activate strong emotional responses for each client.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Is it market volatility?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is it family financial dynamics?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Is it healthcare costs?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: When you know their triggers, then you can approach those topics more thoughtfully and create space for both emotional processing but also rational analysis.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: All right, that was skill number two.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about how to listen and observe.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then we talked about how to recognize emotions that are influencing financial decisions.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: But here's where many advisors get stuck.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: They gather all this rich information about their client's emotional, maybe even their psychological state, but then they don't know how to address it without feeling like they're stepping outside of their expertise or making their client uncomfortable.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that brings us to our third essential skill, which is creating safety in financial conversations.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: This might be arguably the most important skill of the three because without psychological safety, your clients will never share the real story.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: They'll never share the fears, the family dynamics, the past financial mistakes, or the dreams they're afraid to voice.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: And without the real story, even your best technical advice will miss the mark.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Psychological safety is a concept that comes out of research from Dr.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Amy Edson.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And she defines it as a belief that one can speak up without risk of punishment or humiliation.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in her studies of high-performing teams, she found that psychological safety was the single most important factor in team effectiveness, more important than talent, resources, or even leadership style.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you might be thinking, okay, well, that's great, but how does this apply to financial advisor client relationships?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: All right, here's the connection here.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Financial conversations are inherently vulnerable.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're asking people to share their deepest fears about security, their mistakes, their family conflicts, their most private dreams.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: If clients don't feel psychologically safe with you, they'll give you a sanitized version of their financial life.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll be creating plans based on incomplete or inaccurate information.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Think about your own experience.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had a client who seemed to be holding something back?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they kept deflecting certain questions or their financial behavior didn't match what they were telling you about their goals.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Often this isn't because they're trying to deceive you.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: It might be because they don't feel safe enough to share what's really going on.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that may not entirely be your fault.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: That could stem from a lot of other past issues or history there.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't want to paint a picture that just because your clients aren't sharing with you, it means that you have done something wrong.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that's not the case.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about you.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes it might mean that the space between the two of you may not be safe enough for them to really share what's going on.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Creating psychological safety isn't about being a therapist, but it is about establishing the conditions where honest communication can happen.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: As an MFT, as a marriage and family therapist, I can tell you that the research on this is clear.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: When people feel truly seen and accepted without judgment, they naturally become more open and honest.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you may know that I kind of sort of like Brene Brown.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of sorta.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, really, really love Brene Brown and her research.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: She's done some research on vulnerability and shame that really provides another piece here that's important.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: She found that shame, which is the feeling that, quote, I am bad rather than, quote, I did something bad, is the enemy of honest communication.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: When clients feel ashamed about their financial situation, they will hide information.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: They'll avoid difficult conversations, and they'll resist recommendations that might help them.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you create psychological safety in financial conversations?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it starts with your own mindset.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: You have to genuinely believe that your clients are doing the best they can with the resources and knowledge they have, even when they're making decisions that seem irrational to you.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Usually there's a logic to it from their perspective.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: When I was in grad school, it feels like many moons ago, I was in practicum.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And practicum was that place and space where we are learning to be therapists.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: We are practicing being therapists.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I was in a cohort with a few other clinicians, grad students, and my professor, my practicum supervisor.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember a case.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't tell you the details of the case, but I just remember that several of us in this room discussing this case were like, oh my gosh, this client, what they are doing, just does not make any sense.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And my professor, my practicum supervisor at the time, I remember her saying, all behavior makes sense in context.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Your job is to figure out the context.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now that has stuck with me 15, 16 years later.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I truly believe that it's true.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let me give you an example here to kind of highlight what I'm talking about.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I worked with an advisor whose client we will call Maria.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Maria kept insisting she couldn't save more for retirement, even though her cash flow showed that she had plenty of room.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: The advisor naturally was kind of frustrated because Maria would agree to increase her contributions in meetings, but then never follow through.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: That might sound familiar for many of you.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: When we explored this through the lens of safety between the advisor and Maria, we discovered that Maria grew up in a family where money was extremely tight and her mother would hide any extra cash for emergencies.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: For Maria, having a large bank account balance felt emotionally safer than investing in retirement accounts that she couldn't easily access, even though she intellectually understood the math.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: The breakthrough came when the advisor stopped trying to convince Maria that she was wrong and instead said, it sounds like having that cash cushion gives you a sense of security.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell me more about what feels risky about moving that money to retirement savings?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: This shift, this conversational shift from trying to change her mind to trying to understand her perspective, trying to understand the context, created the safety that Maria needed to be able to share her real concerns.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so here are some ways that you can start to create safety in those relationships.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: First, normalize the struggle.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let clients know that financial decisions are difficult for most people and that having conflicted feelings about money is completely normal.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: You might say something like, most of my clients find retirement planning brings up some anxiety.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big life change.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Second, validate their concerns before offering solutions.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: When a client expresses worry, resist the urge to immediately reassure them or jump into problem-solving mode.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, acknowledge that their concerns make sense given their situation.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Third, use collaborative language.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of you should do this, try what would it look like if we explored this option?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or how does this approach feel to you?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: This positions you as partners in problem solving rather than this dynamic of expert and student.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, research from Dr.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Carl Rogers on person-centered therapy shows us that when professionals demonstrate what he called unconditional positive regard, UPR, essentially what that is, is accepting clients as they are without judgment.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Clients become more willing to examine and change problematic behaviors.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what's interesting about this is that when clients feel safe, they often start identifying their own barriers and solutions.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Going back, we talked about being curious, right?
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when we apply curiosity, we're also giving and applying that safety there too.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: And just like with staying curious, if we're creating safety, clients will start to, as I said, identify their own barriers and those solutions for themselves.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: This doesn't mean, though, that you become passive or stop providing guidance.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: It means that you create the conditions, though, where your guidance can actually be received and implemented.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: When clients feel safe, they're more likely to trust your recommendations.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're more likely to follow through on action items and stay engaged with the planning process, even when it becomes uncomfortable.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know that was a lot going over those three skills.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: How are you guys feeling right now?
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: I know that maybe some of you are a little overwhelmed.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you are, that's totally normal.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can go back and you can go through a little bit more slowly those three skills, but let's bring this back down to earth for a minute.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: All right, here's what we just covered.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: We covered strategic listening, identifying emotional triggers, and creating psychological safety.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, these aren't just academic exercises and they're not just therapeutic interventions.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: These are skills that separate good advisors from great ones.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, they're skills that will make your job just easier and more fulfilling.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Think about it this way: when you can truly see and hear what's happening with your clients, when you can recognize the emotional undercurrents of their financial decisions, and when you can create an environment where they feel safe being honest with you, everything else flows from there.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Your recommendations land better, your clients actually follow through, those difficult conversations.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now they're opportunities for deeper connection instead of sources of stress.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want you to know though.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to master all three of these skills overnight.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Pick just one.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's paying attention to what your clients' bodies are telling you during the next few meetings.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's noticing when someone seems to be making decisions from an emotional place instead of a logical one.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's experimenting with being a little bit more curious and a little less advice-giving in your conversations.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, start small.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Start small, notice what happens, and then build from there.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the thing, and this is what we're going to be diving deep into throughout season two.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: When you integrate these psychological insights into your practice, you're not just becoming a better financial advisor.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: You're becoming the kind of advisor that clients trust with their real stories, their real fears, and their real dreams.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's where the magic happens.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what's coming up this season.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: I told you that we have our how-to series of episodes that'll be released or sprinkled out through season two.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: These how-to episodes, I'll be modeling skills in action.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you'll hear exactly how I might phrase or run a meeting or a conversation.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: So what we have coming up is how to ask about a client's money history without making it feel like an interrogation or a therapy session.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: In these episodes, I'll give you specific language for how to address these scenarios and things to be looking out for as well.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, with our guests, we're gonna be bringing on guest experts who are pushing the boundaries of what it means to provide holistic financial advice.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be talking about advisor well-being.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be talking about neuroscience of financial decision making, and we'll even be talking about all of the other things out there.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to spoil it, I don't want to give it away, but we'll be talking about a whole lot with some pretty fantastic guests.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: All right, those case consultations I mentioned.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is where everything really comes together.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we have real advisors, real clients, real challenges, and we'll be walking through how to apply everything that we're learning, all of the insights that can really help you to break through these barriers that have been keeping them stuck.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you have an interest in being a part of one of these case consultation episodes, you can email me at hello at beyondthefp.com and just put something in the subject line like case consultation interest.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we can coordinate a time to discuss and to chat further.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is just the beginning, my friends.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm genuinely excited about what we're building here together.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you all so much for tuning in and for allowing me into your ears and into your mind today.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you found value in today's episode, I'd love to stay connected with you.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: You can follow me on LinkedIn where I share insights, tips, strategies all about implementing financial psychology into your practice.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter at beyondthefp.com where we share resources and strategies that you can put into practice.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Don't forget though, most importantly, don't forget to follow the show wherever you get your podcast so that you never miss an episode like this one.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, my friends, finances don't have feelings, but your clients do.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going beyond.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining me on this episode of Planning and Beyond.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you found today's insights valuable and inspiring for both your practice and your personal growth.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Your feedback helps us reach more advisors like you who are dedicated to making a difference.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, tips, and to continue the conversation, visit our website at beyondthefp.com.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: You'll find articles, tools, and information about upcoming episodes designed to support your journey and practice.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: Stay connected with us on social media and never miss an update.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, the best way to grow is to keep learning and sharing.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going.