The ClientWise Blog

Pat Riley said this.

If you know sports and basketball, you know Pat Riley. He’s a former coach and player. He’s now president of the Miami Heat. He’s regarded as one of the best coaches of all time. He’s also a superb motivator, and the source of many inspirational sayings, of which this is one of the best.

Of all of Pat Riley’s achievements, he is not a coach in the ICF sense, i.e. an executive coach credentialed by the International Coach Federation (ICF). Yet this quote pretty much sums up one of the cornerstones of ICF-based coaching.

Change!

When Bob Dylan wrote, “The Times They Are a-Changin'” in 1963, financial advisors were still referred to as the “customer’s man”. A customer’s man was essentially an order clerk who transmitted customers' orders, made sure that the orders were executed, and reported the execution to the customer when the trade was filled. Today, “customer’s man” is a quaintly chauvinist expression that does not nearly convey the roles, responsibilities and skillsets of today’s most successful financial advisors.

[My apologies to Bob Dylan. When he wrote that you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone, it is unlikely that he was referring to future changes in the financial services industry.]

A belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true.

Collectively, we hold some interesting beliefs:

• Earth’s orbit. In a Gallup poll, 18 percent of Americans indicated that they believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth. (See Copernicus.)

• Healthy eating. In a poll undertaken by Consumer Reports, 89.7 percent of Americans believed that they eat a healthy diet. (In actuality, 35.7 percent Americans are obese as defined by the Centers of Disease Control.)

It’s interesting and instructive to review the five most popular blog posts that ClientWise published in 2012. Reflecting a financial advisor community with a broad skill set, the most widely viewed posts parallel this panorama of interests.

Contrary to popular belief, lemmings don’t hurl themselves off cliffs. And the Fiscal Cliff is more like a hill. However, this hasn’t prevented the collective media from banging their persistent Drumbeat of Fear.

Warren Buffett is a creature of habit. He lives in the same house that he bought in 1958. He drinks Cherry Cokes daily. He buys great companies, and likes holding them “forever”.

Coaching is fast-becoming a recognized tool that guides successful financial advisors to achieve many, if not all of their aspirations.  However, as coaching has become more acclaimed for it’s benefits, the definition of “coaching” and what constitutes a “coach” has become blurred.

Every year, the list of Barron’s Top 100 Financial Advisors offers a snapshot of some of the premier financial advisors in the nation. Published in an issue of Barron’s in mid-April, this group of successful financial advisors, accompanied by a select group of 400 advisors hand-picked by their firms, assembles for the Barron’s Winner’s Circle for Top Advisors Summit. This year’s Summit is scheduled for Sept. 12-14 in Orlando, Fla.

“I am totally committed to having this conversation make a difference for you.”

As a leadership tool for elite performers, executive coaching among top executives within Fortune 500 companies is an accepted -- and expected -- best practice. I’ve seen studies that indicate that as much as 40 percent of high-achieving business executives have engaged a coach.