Before I’ll tell you what a PSNIOR is, I’d like to tell you a short story about a flea trainer. Because a financial planner can be as successful as a flea trainer. Successful as in meaningful, happy and satisfied. I’m serious.
Do you want to know how to train fleas?
You train fleas by putting them in a jar with a top on it. Fleas jump, so they will jump up and hit the top over and over again. As you watch them jump up and hit the top, you will notice something interesting. The fleas continue to jump, but they are no longer jumping high enough to hit the top. Then, and it’s a matter of record, you can take the top off and though the fleas continue to jump, they won’t jump out of the jar. I repeat, they won’t jump out because they can’t.
The reason is simple.
They have conditioned themselves to jump just so high. Once they have conditioned themselves to jump just so high, that’s all they can do.
What is a PSNIOR?
Financial planners are often like fleas. They start out in life to help their clients to achieve what they want to achieve, to bring happiness to the world, to be meaningful. Initially, a planner’s dreams have no limits but, along the roadway of life, he bumps his head and stubs his toe a few times. He has to deal with regulatory issues which don’t contribute to the potential a financial planner has: to be meaningful.
The planner is negatively influenced by the rule-making force whoes most important job is to prevent something bad will happen instead of inspiring planners to fulfill their greatest potential.
Regulators make rules because of bad experiences in the past. As a result these rules come from a negative approach (don’t do this, because that might happen again), impose requirements that are outdated, oldfashioned and incomprehensible, and keep you off the ‘real’ work.
As a result planners become PSNIOR’s.
A PSNIOR is a Planner who is Susceptible to the Negative Influence of Regulators.
A PSNIOR listens to negative thoughts who give them excuses for failure instead of methods of success.
And that costs you a whole lot of time, energy, and joy. And worse, it deters and restricts you to make your financial planning business matter.
Why do regulators have a negative influence?
If you’ve ever watched series as the Game of Thrones or The Tudors (which are epic stories about life in the Middle Ages) there’s always an important role for the king’s counselor. In times of peace the counselors don’t play any role of importance. But when there’s fear, the king heavily relies on the advice of the king’s counselor. But what does the King fear? He fears treason, he fears that his army will be slaughtered and he fears the conquer of the realm.
Now think of the role of politicians (the King) and the rule-makers (the King’s counselor) in the financial services industry. There is fear everywhere. Fear that advisors not obey to their rules (treason), fear to being sued (being slaughtered) or fear to lose control (conquer of the realm). Politicians have to make important decisions to avoid those dangers. So they trust on the specialist in avoiding dangers: the rule-makers.
But who do the king’s counselor and the rule-maker truly serve?
Do they serve the realm by really caring for the people of their kingdom?
Or do the king’s counselor and the rule-maker serve themselves by fueling fear so that they remain necessary in the eyes of the King?
Before answering this question, you might want to know that in the serie Game of Thrones the king’s counselor is a eunuch. A eunuch is a man who’s castrated for political reasons.
Now, is it a coïncidence that the king’s counselor has no balls?
I’ll leave it to your imagination.
So the question is: do you choose to be a PSNIOR who obeys the eunuch or …
DO YOU CHOOSE TO BE A FLEA TRAINER?
A flea trainer is a person who jumps out of the jar.
Flea trainers are not influenced by the PSNIORS of life. They clearly understand that you can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.
Flea trainers don’t tell people when do get off……they show them how to get on. In short, it’s a philosophy of life that makes a difference in those who adopt it.
Flea trainers have the right mental attitude and understand the power of emotions.
Statistics about flea trainers
Despite the overwhelming evidence that supports the importance of the right mental attitude and power of emotions, educational programs and regulatory forces (or eunuchs) virtually ignores or is unaware of this vital factor in our business.
Ninety-five percent of financial planning education is directed at acquiring facts and figures with only 5% of our education aimed at “feelings” or attitudes.
These figures are truly incredible and distressing when we realize that our “thinking” left-brain is only 10% as large as our “feeling” right-brain. It gets worse.
A study by Harvard University revealed that 85% of the reasons for success, accomplishments, promotions, etc. were because of our attitudes and emotional intelligence. And only 15% of our technical expertise.
Simply stated this means that we are spending 95% of our educational and regularatory time and dollars that are responsible for 15% of our success.
We spend 5% of our time and finances developing that part of us which accounts for 85% of our success.
And this doesn’t take into account the happiness and enjoyment factors.
Why are financial planners meant to be successful?
Here are some facts:
– financial planners are – by far – the most educated advisors in the financial services industry
– financial planners have – by far – the toughest permanent education requirements
– financial planners almost always have a natural born drive to help people
– financial planners aren’t in the game to sell products, they sell happiness, meaning and peace of mind
– financial planners have the tools to help people
Yes, the regulatory tsunami is flooding financial planners with rules, compliance and laws.
But does that keep you from jumping out of the jar?
YOU GET TO CHOOSE
Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right ~ Henry Ford
To motivate each other, I believe it would be highly inspiring to answer the following question:
What do you do to jump out of the jar?
Please, leave your answer here below in the comment field. Thank you very much.
Together we can make financial planning matter.
To your success,
Ronald Sier
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