Right now as I write, I'm sitting on a plane, about to take off, bound for Brisbane, Australia, to complete the final two site visits (of the six I had to do) as part of the judging process for the 2015 Adviser of The Year (That I'm fortunate my company Zurich sponsors). I'd wanted to record the journey of the judging process (and the semi finalists) in a blog in a similar way to the Million Dollar Round Table diary I kept in June of this year.
Alas, time not only escaped me, but I also could not find the appropriate words to do the advisers who had opened up their businesses (and their hearts) to me, justice. Such is the serious that I approach this role with and the care that I believe one must take throughout the process.
As I reflect now, however, I can't help but think how much I miss being an adviser.
This may seem a strangely "out of touch" comment, especially considering the media, regulatory and self imposed scrutiny that our profession is facing and the significant changes for advisers and insurance providers that are set to be implemented in 2016. I am however neither out of touch (I have spent countless hours with advisers discussing the changes, and even more time modelling the financial and advice consequences to consumers of the changes) nor overly romanticising the advice profession. Rather I am appreciative of the value that financial advisers add not only to transforming the lives of their clients in the most positive of ways, but also how dramatically they protect the community (that includes you, our bureaucrats, our politicians) from a heavy burden from having to cater for a populace ill prepared for life events.
It is something like the Adviser of the Year judging process that makes you realise how deeply financial advisers care for their clients.
Now that feeling of taking a client to a place where they feel secure, where they have a solid foundation to build towards their personal dreams and they have "the freedom to say yes" (thanks to Chris Browne and Rising Tide for that one) is something I dearly miss. However I can do it no longer. Just like I do with the Adviser of the Year entrants, I did with my clients, and I become heavily emotionally invested in their story and journey. It is something that financial advisers do daily, and when you do so with so much passion there is no room to do things by halves. For me it was emotionally devastating to lose a client through death, something which I had prepared them and their families for financially but something they and I were never, could never be emotionally prepared for. I miss my clients. I miss Grace, I miss Jaclyn and I miss Bob, clients who passed away in my final year of advice. I miss Annette and Gary, clients (who I still see) thriving with their family and their life plans : I miss that weekly check in we had. I hear the stories of the Adviser of the Year participants and how deeply they are invested in their clients dreams and how much they have contributed to making those dreams a reality.
It takes skill to do this. Discipline. Courage. Process. Passion. It is what all the Adviser of the Year participants have.
I think of my sister, who is a doctor, a paediatric emergency specialist. I think of all the banged up kiddies she sees. The hundreds of thank you letters and cards she gets from parents, and I wonder what is in your make up that doesn't make you go crazy? What emotions she must feel? She tells me she detaches it when on duty, she has to. Then in her quiet moments she reflects.
For financial advisers, they don't detach. They are 100% of the time emotionally connected with their clients. I don't know any financial adviser who detaches emotionally when with a client (or afterwards for that matter). I see it in their meeting notes and given life in their staff. I see it in their client stories.
I wish I could do it again, but I cry way too easily. I'm so lucky that Zurich is so heavily invested in the advisers of the Adviser of they year and I get to stay connected through this process and then get to share via Zurichs education series all that I see.
So as a precursor to the new tools and presentations that will be delivered by Zurich post this 2015 journey, I say hats of to all the financial advisers who love their clients, who say to me they "can never imagine doing anything else, or ever stopping". Who in the face of ever changing landscapes, continue to deliver positive client outcomes that change an individuals life for the better, a families world for the better and make the communities they work in stronger, connected and spirited.
Take a bow.
