Motivation Beyond Money

Finding Your Personal Satisfaction Drivers

In our work over the years with hundreds of advisory teams, nearly every phenomenally successful team leader has shared ONE common attribute – a clearly defined objective as to what he or she wants from their career beyond mere monetary rewards.

Don’t get me wrong; we all want to be well compensated for our entrepreneurism, our labor and our diligent advocacy on behalf of our clients. But there must be a sense of some larger purpose in order to continually push us to go a little bit above and beyond.

"Sustainable growth and success are far more likely when what you seek to achieve is clear, important and personal to you as a human being."

Building an enterprise based on something larger than just profit will dramatically color the approach you take to building your team, the way in which you interact with clients, the strategy and tactics you employ to grow the business, and ultimately, the personal satisfaction you derive from your work.

Define your satisfaction drivers

Carve out some time where there are no distractions, and thoughtfully answer the following questions. Once you’re done, set them aside for a week and then revisit your answers to ensure they truly reflect who you are as a person.

1. What are the one or two things you would most like to create or achieve that would give you the greatest sense of personal satisfaction and happiness?
   
   
2. How would accomplishing those one or two things personally fulfill you?
   
   
3. Ten years from now, how would you like friends, co-workers, clients and vendors to describe you as a person and why are those traits most important to you?
   
   
4. What three values would you choose to guide all aspects of your personal and professional life if given the opportunity?
   
   
5. Beyond money, what do you most want your enterprise to provide you?
   
   
6. Assuming you had accumulated enough wealth for the rest of your life, would you still continue to run your firm? If so, why? If not, are there any changes that would make you reconsider and stay on?
   
   

Focus more on mindset than method

Numerous academic studies over the years have shown that success is roughly 80% dependent on mindset and only 20% dependent on method. Yet the vast majority of us spend most of our time almost totally enmeshed in the weeds of method. We continuously fret over process and procedure rather than stepping back and focusing on our own behaviors.

It’s the combination of our thinking and our beliefs that determine our behavior. And it’s our behavior – not the circumstances of our firm or external market conditions or any other factor – that most drives our business outcomes. Why do we make the choices that we make?

We all tend to look at the world and assume what we’re seeing is reality. But in truth, it’s only our perception of reality – perceptions that can quickly turn into limiting beliefs that restrict what we think is achievable and prevent us from moving forward. At ClientWise, a major focus of our coaching work with enterprise leaders revolves around dispelling these limiting beliefs before they can become imbedded in the organization as collective beliefs.

Like a virus, these limiting beliefs can quickly spread throughout your team and become collective beliefs. In his book “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There,” Marshall Goldsmith makes a strong case that there are a handful of workplace habits (e.g., negativity, clinging to the past, failing to adapt or embrace change) that tend to keep successful people and teams from making the next big leap forward.

It’s critical not only to achieving the Fully Designed Future® you’ve envisioned, but also to helping you find personal satisfaction in your work that extends beyond just financial rewards.

Coaching Questions from this article:

1. Aside from financial rewards, what’s the greatest enjoyment you get from doing what you do?
   
   
2. What about your partners and senior team members? Have you taken the time to explore and understand their motivations?
   
   
3. What actions can you start taking in order to shed some of your limiting beliefs and alter your behavior to create positive change?
   
   

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