Happy Client,

Happy Advisor

The Power of Helping Our Clients and

Ourselves Achieve Our Life Goals

Michael
Sakraida
Founder of the Financial Advisor Network (FAN)

1
Copyright 2019 ©by Michael Sakraida
For “Saint Diane”, “DrenMan”, Dave B.,
and the many people who gave me
encouragement and happiness

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 Contents

Introduction 1
“If you're not making someone else's life better,
then you're wasting your time. Your live will
become better by making other lives better.”
Will Smith

Chapter One 11

Client Happiness
“Advertising is based on one thing — happiness.”
 Don Draper, Mad Men

Chapter Two 29

Happiness Benefits
“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but
of balance, order, rhythm and harmony”
Thomas Merton
 Contents

Chapter Three

Advisor Impediments
“Acceptance of what has happened is the first step
to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune”
William James

Chapter Four

Messaging and Servicing

“Here we are now, entertain us”
Kurt Cobain, Nirvana
Smells like teen spirit

Chapter Five

Client Meetings
“People will forget what you said, people will forget
what you did, but people will never forget how you
made them feel”
Maya Angelou

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 Contents

Chapter Six

Outside Partners
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and
intelligence win championships”
Michael Jordan

Chapter Seven

Referral Activities
“Every person is defined by the
communities she belongs to”
Orson Scott Card

Chapter Eight

Going Firm-Deep
“We’re all working together; that’s the secret”
Sam Walton

Notes
Index
 Introduction

“If you're not making someone else's life better, then

you're wasting your time. Your life will become
better by making other lives better.”
Will Smith

Our Journey Together

This book is created as a journey that you and I will take
together, so you can benefit the most from the ideas and
processes that are shared. Your participation will help
you achieve the professional and personal success that is
possible with Happy Client, Happy Advisor. We will avoid
the mere entertainment reality of most self-help books.
Entertainment is enjoyable, but it doesn’t change our day-
to-day lives. This is because there are few, if any, movies,
TV shows, books, or songs that changed your life. I’m not
talking about moving you or changing your view on
something. Rather, I’m talking about an activity-based
transformation. Presumably the reason you’re taking
time out of your busy life is that you want to be a happier
and more successful financial advisor, not just read about
it. Your desire for change is why we have What We Can
Do sections throughout the book, and why there are
exercises for you to complete at the end of each stage, or
chapter, of our journey.

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 Introduction

The approaches and exercises in this book are not my

genius ideas or just theory. Instead, they are evidence-
based, coming from my 37 years of observing thousands
of advisors, and from behavioral-based and other studies.
The advisors I’ve observed range from those who are
struggling, working 60-80 hours a week, to those who
have annual net revenues of over $1 million, and work
under 30 hours. It also comes from my own trial and error
effort figuring out the most effective way to share the
lessons learned from both the struggling and the
successful advisors. My objective is to use the lessons I
and advisors have learned, to enable you to achieve levels
of happiness and success as a financial advisor that you
ever thought possible.

The title of Happy Client, Happy Advisor, is a natural

description of the focus of our journey. Throughout, we’ll
consider the importance of both our and our clients’
emotions and happiness being behind our successes, both
as professionals and as people. The quote, by the
American actor, rapper, and philanthropist, Will Smith,
frames the beginning of our journey. “If you're not making
someone else's life better, then you're wasting your time. Your
life will become better by making other lives better.” The
quote’s importance in terms of this book, is that it is by us
first having a focus on making our clients happy that our
own happiness will be a natural byproduct of our clients’
happiness.
Introduction

The Value of Psychic Rewards

Life has taught me that our true success as people
cannot be achieved unless we are happy during each step
of our journey. The oft used quote, “Money doesn’t buy
happiness”, addresses what happens when we don’t have
psychic rewards, just the monetary ones. In fact, in
Chapter 1 we’ll see that money can buy happiness, but
only to a certain point. We all know at least one very
successful person who is miserable. They hate their work
and most likely don’t think that they are making the
world a better place. They might even subconsciously
envy doctors, nurses, teachers, people in the military, and
first responders because they have a profound impact on
the lives of other people. Those who have both the
monetary and psychic rewards are happily successful
people.

I help advisors in many ways, including through my

Financial Advisor Network (FAN) group
(fanresoruces.com) that is both on and off LinkedIn, and
my advisor and advisory firm coaching help. My work
never ends, because so many of the advisors I encounter
aren’t happily successful. They either are missing the
success, the happiness, or both. It is OK if you
instinctively are your nodding your head right now in
agreement. Most of us have non-success and non-happy

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 Introduction

feelings creeping into our daily thoughts. This is because

we often think that our struggles with winning the advisor
trifecta – more clients, wealthier clients, less work – is
because we aren’t working hard enough, or we are poor
salespeople. We also may wonder how the top advisors
in our community can make it look so easy. Jealousy
might even cause us to say, “it must be because those
advisors were lucky, or know the right people”. Such
thoughts are a sign of frustration on our part. This could
come from our feeling that we are in a trap of life’s design
– we want to improve our lives, but we don’t have the
time for it. And for those of us who have the time, we are
paralyzed by our own fear and ego. The fear mostly is
related to our concerns about what could go wrong to our
advisory businesses if we make change. For example, we
worry about the damage a new version of ourselves
might have with our prospects and clients. This fear
causes us to make rationalizations behind not changing
ourselves and how we work with our clients. The ego
causes us to focus on us, not our clients. It also makes us
take on work that we’re better off having others perform.

Start with a Powerful Philosophy

The advisors who want me to help them become
happily successful often want to jump right into
techniques, activities and schedules – also known as the
 Introduction

strategies and tactics. But first we need to have the right,

powerful philosophy to guide us with these strategies
and tactics. The wrong philosophy leads to the wrong
strategies and tactics, which takes us further away from
becoming happily successful.

Following Will Smith’s quote, our success will come

not from being great at selling, but having our clients feel
great about themselves. If our clients feel great about
themselves and view their investment program as an
extension of themselves, they will be happy. If they are
happy, they are more likely to have a successful wealth
management program. If our clients associate their
happiness with our help, they will give us all their money
and be fierce referral machines for us. And we will be
happy successful because these happy clients mean less
work, and we will have a greater sense of purpose and
fulfillment. Happy clients, happy advisors.

Our approach won’t be linear, but circular. It is not

starting with having happy clients first, then us being
happy. And it isn’t us being happy first, so our clients can
be happy. Instead, we’ll use a process and culture where
our clients’ and our own happiness become stronger
through helping each other. But I thought the Happy
Client, Happy Advisor, Happy Client title was too long and
confusing, and would require a long subtitle.

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 Introduction

While the actions for our and our clients’ benefit start
simultaneously, the happy advisor only can come from
having happy clients. Like with the development of any
skill, the circular benefit for advisors and clients increases
with time.

While the client/advisor processes and benefits will be

circular, our journey to being happily successful will be
linear, just like a hike through the mountains. Each stage
effectively must be completed before moving onto the
next. This is not a journey where you will relax and enjoy
the view. Instead, you will need to walk with me, and
complete the exercises before moving onto the next stage.
At the risk of being redundant, just reading about this
journey is entertainment (noun - the action of providing or
being provided with amusement or enjoyment.)

Behavioral-Based Advisor Growth

This book is an advisory businesses’ take on behavioral
finance. As you know, behavioral finance delves into
why investors make the financial decisions that they
make. Unfortunately, these emotion-based decisions –
the result of fear and greed – make most individuals and
institutions make bad decisions at the worst times. These
bad decisions make it difficult for investors to be happily
successful.
 Introduction

Trying to help people become more successful often

causes strong pushback – if not outright anger – from
them because it is a very personal and scary journey
they’re being asked to take. None of us wants to admit
that we are doing something wrong. Especially as
advisors, the ego that gave us the confidence to obtain
clients, is now blocking us from acknowledging our self-
imposed business and interpersonal limitations. And our
fear mechanism causes us to look for reasons not to follow
a new approach. I’ve learned to accept that some/most
will be offended or upset at least once during their
journey with me. Hopefully the exercises will help
reduce the instinctive pushback, or anger, with some of
the ideas set forth in this book (and reduce the nasty
emails to me).

A New Key Value Statement

In the first stage of our journey, you’ll quickly see that
we’ll be tearing down many of the very pillars of being a
financial advisor that you most likely were taught early
in your advisory career. For instance, you’ll see how your
prospect should be doing 90% of the talking when you
meet with them. This takes a lot of practice. One advisor
I helped – now making over $1mil a year in fees, while
working under 25 hours a week – said it best, when he

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 Introduction

exclaimed, “I used to have 45-minute prospect meetings

where I did all the talking, about how smart I was”. Now
this advisor has 2-to-3-hour prospect meetings, where the
prospects talk 90% of the time, and often need tissues
because they fully bare their souls to him. His new clients
are significantly wealthier, quickly hire him, give him all
their assets, and refer anyone they remotely care about to
him. Again, we want a key value statement that creates
the advisor trifecta – more clients, wealthier clients, and
less work.

To repeat, none of our journey’s stages are based on

concepts that I created. Rather, they came from my
lifetime of observations, lessons, and personal and
professional failures and successes. They came from me
observing many happily successful advisors, and even
more struggling ones. They came from me talking with
many clients of advisors. They came from non-advisors
who are much smarter than me. They came from
academic and other research. And they even came from
philosophers and poets. What I did was put the journey
together in a way that I hope will effect change – the result
of that change being where we, and our clients, are
happily successful.
 Introduction

Emotions, Our Clients’ and Our Own

I’ve had advisors tell me, “I don’t get how getting all
touchy feely with clients can transform my advisory
business!” I even had one yell at me, “what does how a
client of mine came to their wealth have anything to do
with the financial plan I put together for them!” Through
our journey, you’ll understand how such a view
undermines the ability for us, and our clients, to be
happily successful. This is because we cannot separate
our money from our emotions. We are told at a young
age not to talk about money – along with politics and
religion – in polite company. Money represents so
many different and personal things to each of us: years of
hard work; luck; setbacks; freedom; a legacy; the work of
a parent or grandparent; responsibility for keeping it; and
countless other feelings. Now add how people want their
lives to have meaning, by having a positive impact on
their family, friends and community, and there is a lot of
emotions tied up with that client’s money. Imagine that
client having a conversation with you that results in them
feeling better about themselves, having a better
understanding of themselves, having the peace of mind
that comes from knowing that they and their investments
are in good hands, and the joy of potentially having a new
best friend?! This will give this client such a powerful
and positive feeling, that they will give you all of their

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 Introduction

assets, and they will make it their life’s mission to get new
clients for you.

This is not a journey with a beautiful waterfall for you

to enjoy at the end of a long and strenuous hike. Instead,
it will give you the great view of the waterfall throughout,
and hopefully it’ll be enjoyable. Because your new
approach is heavily based on human behaviors, you will
spend the rest of your life with a focus on improving your
soft skills. Think of hard skills as learning the lines of a
play, and soft skills as being able to perform those lines
so well that the audience is moved. Fortunately,
experience has shown me that there are ways you quickly
and confidently can have happily successful clients, with
you quickly being happily successful, yourself.

What isn’t included in this book is as important to you

being happily successful as what is included. Our
journey won’t include the ways we can be better at asset
allocation or investment selection. These are technical
skills that all should have ourselves, or that we outsource.
Nor will this book include manipulative tactics, and
clever phrases and pitches. As you’ll see in our journey,
that is because these tactics – heavily promoted to us by
others – make our Happy Client, Happy Advisor goal
extremely difficult.
17
 CHAPTER ONE
Client Happiness

“Advertising is based on one thing — happiness.”

 Don Draper, Mad Men

The Pursuit of Happiness

When I worked directly with investors, I ran a prospect
meeting with one of the more senior partners in my firm
sitting in. He told me afterward that my presentation was
well thought out and based on sound logic, and then he
said to never to do that again. Instead, I should have
painted a picture where working with me and our firm
would have made that person happier, by us meeting
their emotional needs. Well, I tried not to make the same
mistake twice, especially with a senior partner who could
be very strong in his observations of people. This was the
start of a journey that brings us to this book about our
primary role as advisors - us helping our clients be happy.
Oh, and by the way, I didn’t close that prospect, which
was no surprise to my senior partner!
 Happy Client, Happy Advisor

There are two reasons why appealing to our prospects’

drive for happiness is so vital in our advisory businesses.
First, happiness helps our clients overcome the main
reason most individual and institutional investors fail to
get anywhere near market returns, their emotions! (more
on this in Chapter 2). The second reason for appealing to
our prospects’ happiness is that it is one’s first and most
powerful need. The fictional Don Draper character’s
quote, “Advertising is based on one thing - happiness”
wasn’t a lucky stab by Mad Men’s writers. Instead, the
show had a person with extensive advertising experience,
Josh Weltman, as their series advertising consultant and
co-producer. In an interview, Mr. Weltman noted that
people usually think that advertising is “a trick to get
someone to buy what you are selling.” Unfortunately,
this is an approach taken by many advisor sales managers
and coaches. Mr. Weltman further noted, “It’s much
more a process of discovering why a particular group of
people buy something.” In the advisor’s world, it is about
the specific things that each of our prospects and clients
want not just from their investments, but from their lives.

To further this point, I believe it wasn’t just literary

flourish, when Thomas Jefferson included happiness, as
in, “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the
Declaration of Independence. This is because the
Declaration was a sales tool, for winning over the
Colonists and for eliciting the support of other countries,
like France, to help them. Remember, at that time it was a
scary thought to go against the British. They owned the
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 Michael Sakraida

seas, had many well equipped and trained soldiers, and

had a reputation for brutally putting down any
insurrections. To help allay this fear of the British, with
both the Colonists and potential allies, the Continental
Congress had an aggressive effort to have as many of the
Colonists read the Declaration as possible. The
Declaration was effective as a sales tool, because it
appealed to people on a very basic and powerful
emotional level – hence, “the pursuit of happiness”.

Elements of Happiness
If client happiness is so important for our advisory
sales and service efforts, it is natural for us to want to
know about its key elements. Countless philosophers,
scientists, and advisors have tried to understand the key
elements behind happiness. In The Republic, Plato
asserted that those who are moral are the only ones who
may be truly happy. It seems that, with Plato, the
happiness is a by-product of being moral. Albert Einstein
had his own theory of happiness, "A calm and modest life
brings more happiness than the pursuit of success
combined with constant restlessness."

Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Albert Schweitzer, said,

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key
to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be
successful.” Maybe this is what my father, who was an
employment expert, was thinking when he told a teenage
me to have a job that I enjoy, and where I successfully can
help my staff, and my clients. Dale Carnegie wrote, “It

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isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or
what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It
is what you think about it.” These quotes set the stage for
a review of the key elements of happiness, for our clients,
and us.

1. Money helps, to a point

The reality for us is that most, if not all, of our clients
have passed the point where their income helps them
with being happy. In fact, their income levels probably
are having a negative impact on their happiness. One
study has the North American level of annual income for
a person’s happiness at $105,000 ($210,000 for a family).
The people surveyed who were earning more were less
happy than those at that income level. This study said
that as people make more money – our ideal clients, of
course – the higher their workload and stress levels, and
the less time they have for enjoyable activities. This study
means that the wealthier our prospects and clients, the
more they are drawn to an advisor who can help them
with the pursuit of happiness.

I know someone who fits the scenario of wealthier

people having forces that cause them to be less happy. He
has his own business, calls all the shots, and takes home
over $1 million a year. For years he was miserable. Each
time when we talked and he complained about his life, I
thought, “how can you be so unhappy with all your
money?!” Then he brought on managers, and he had
more personal time – and less stress – to really enjoy life.

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Now he is much happier, but our conversations aren’t as

much fun for me.

What we can do - With the money part of happiness,

there are two ways we can hold out hope about helping
our wealthy prospects to be happier. First, many of them
are part of the increasing trend of self-directed investing,
especially the younger ones. Despite the online tools that
are heavily promoted, these investors still need to commit
some of their valuable time, while having sole
responsibility (with the stress of not knowing what we
don’t know). We can offer these prospects the same kind
of relief as the millionaire I mentioned above - more time,
less stress - along with a program that adds the most
value for our clients’ investment programs (more on this
in Chapters 2 and 4).

It is interesting – OK, perplexing - that there are so

many wealthy people who are self-directed investors, yet
they spend money on lawn care, cleaning, home repair,
and other services. Why? They’ll probably say that the
time and hassle of doing those tasks themselves isn’t
worth it. These same wealthy people also go to
yoga/workout classes, therapists, local religious leaders,
career coaches, resume writers, golf and/or tennis pros,
and others. Why? They’ll probably say that these people
give them different perspectives and helpful techniques
for them to be better and happier. Yet, they feel some

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online app will enable them to successfully and happily

handle their investments?!

The second way we can help our clients with the

wealth-based happiness challenge, is we can have added-
value help for them to enjoy their lives more (more on this
in Chapter 7). I wouldn’t be surprised if you are thinking
of other ways you can help your prospects and clients
with their wealth-based happiness challenges.

1. Trusting & Supportive Relationships

The Harvard Study of Adult Development shows that
relationships are important for our happiness and health.
We naturally are social creatures, where we are happy
with healthy relationships. In fact, we’ve been brought
up with forced solitary moments as a form of
punishment. One such solitary punishment for me were
detentions after school (yeah, I had detention a couple of
times) where I had to stay silent and couldn’t interact
with others.

Northwestern Medicine stated that people in healthy

relationships tend to:
• Listen to each other
• Communicate openly and without judgment
• Trust and respect each other

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• Consistently make time for each other

• Remember details about each other’s lives
• Engage in healthy activities together

This is a high bar for us to gauge how many healthy

relationships, or valuable friendships, we have. Going
back to Don Draper, the fictional Mad Men advertising
executive, the power of relationships for one’s happiness
is so great that many commercials show people having
fun moments with their friends or loved ones while using
or consuming their product. Wine commercials show
gatherings of friends having a good time, so that people
subconsciously make the connection between their brand
and happiness. A wine commercial with a solidary
person certainly would generate a less happy connection
on the viewer. Even Dos Equis’ most interesting man in the
world knows the importance of friends, especially women
friends – stay thirsty for happiness, my friends.

The challenge with the ideal relationships we’ve

reviewed, is that some of our wealthier clients don’t even
have enough healthy relationships for a wine
commercial. Yes, they have many friends and
acquaintances. The struggle with the above noted
healthy relationship standard, is that those who are senior
managers and business owners feel there are business
dangers to having such relationships with their
employees or direct reports. Then there is the limited free

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time with which many people struggle. And there is the

problem of a smaller pool of people with similar means.
Without being snobby, wealthy people find that some
less-wealthy people are jealous of them (causing
problems with no judgment) and some other less-wealthy
people might be viewed as fake friends, who are more out
for some financial help than true friendship.

What we can do - With the relationship part of

happiness, there are ways we can help our prospects and
clients. First, we can become their trusted friend, but only
if it leads to it in a natural, non-forced way. We can say
how many of our clients turned into very good friends.
We’re not promising that we’ll be bestie’s, just saying that
it has happened with other clients. This eliminates any
pressure on prospects who don’t want to be our friend.

The second way we can help our clients with

relationships is to have activities where they can meet and
get to know fellow successful people. Of course, these
aren’t promoted as “make a friend” events. They are
opportunities for fellow successful people to meet and
enjoy each other’s company (more on this in Chapter 7).

1. Connection with Community

For many wealthy people, their connection with the
community is limited to charity balls or events. While
there is some satisfaction, and some happiness, with
writing checks for this type of charitable work, it is more
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 Michael Sakraida

a shallow, or “drive-by”, type of community

involvement. For most, it doesn’t do a good enough job of
being connected with their communities. There are many
ways we can better connect with our community:
attending church, synagogue or temple; volunteering;
mentoring; sitting on charitable boards; attending local
events; and even patronizing local stores and services. It
is important to note that the community activities noted
here all are off-line. Online friends do not a community
make! We need facetime, not facebook, in order to feel a
sense of being part of a community.

The wealthier our clients, the more difficult it seems for

them to feel that they are a meaningful part of their
community. Again, time is part of it – but focus equally
is a factor. Most people don’t set aside time in their busy
schedules to determine ways they can help their
community and, in turn, feel more connected with it.
Another reason wealthy people are community
challenged is that many of those communities are very
large. Research shows that the larger the community, the
less connected – and happy – people feel. Look at the lists
of the best places to retire – they usually are smaller towns
with universities and plenty of social and recreational
activities. In short, it is easier to feel part of these
communities. Lastly, our clients who are commuters
have a difficult time feeling part of their community – less
time and focus.

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 Happy Client, Happy Advisor

What we can do - With the community part of

happiness, there are ways we can help our prospects and
clients. The first is that we can organize local volunteer
activities, in which clients can participate. These can be
“done in a day” activities, like what many local Junior
League’s perform (more on this type of activity in
Chapter 7). These activities should have a social element
to it, and they can help your clients develop more healthy
relationships! Another way to help your clients feel part
of their community is to start a mentoring program.
You’re sure to have many clients who are not only are
able, but willing to help their neighbors. Some examples:
helping poor children understand how they can get into
college and receive scholarships; helping homeless
people obtain jobs; helping battered women obtain jobs.
There are many other mentoring programs that are badly
needed in every community. Experience shows that such
community work not only helps you be happy, but also
results in more and wealthier clients for you (the bonus,
not the reason).

1. Self-Worth
Self-worth is about how one values their inherent
worth as a person versus valuing themselves by what
they do. Think viewing oneself as a good parent, a good
friend, a good boss, even a good citizen of the planet, vs.
viewing oneself as being wealthy. The important
happiness factor here is that when determining our self-

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worth, it is best to exclude the happiness-killing focus on

our successes and comparing ourselves with others.
Except for Jeff Bezos, there always will be wealthier
people, and/or people receiving more recognition, than
us and our clients. Self-worth often requires work, no
matter how strong the inherent value of each of us. We
tend to downplay our value and focus too much on our
imperfections – we’ll never be perfect. We can build up
our self-worth bank account in our heads through
helping our communities and beliefs or organizations
which transcend or are bigger than us.

A transcending self-worth belief could be God, an

organized religion, or humanity. With humanity, there
are many atheists who view themselves as spiritual. They
recognize the interconnectedness of all things, generating
feelings of transcendence and deep experiences of awe.

What we can do – The first way we can help our clients

with their self-worth is to get them to talk about their self-
worth-based feelings. We can ask questions like, “what
non-financial life lessons do you try to instill in your
children?” Or, “what non-financial legacy do you want to
leave your children and grandchildren?” I’ve seen
amazing self-worth-based conversations come out of this
simple question. These conversations typically result in
the prospect or client having a higher feeling of self-

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worth. Also, they will have higher feelings of self-worth

if you let them know how great they are as people. After
all, how often do we have people tell us that we are good
people?! Don’t be surprised if they dismiss your praise
with a comment about not being perfect. Of course, you
can tell them that no one is perfect, and that they should
feel good about themselves (more on this in Chapter 5).

1. Healthy Lifestyle
A healthy lifestyle isn’t just about eating right,
exercising, getting enough sleep, avoiding tobacco,
reducing stress, and drinking in moderation. It also is
about happiness and intellectual stimulation – staying
positive and curious, playing games that keep the mind
sharp, and having the belief that there is something to
learn each day.

The importance of happiness on our health is amazing.

It can lower our risk for cardiovascular disease, lower our
blood pressure, enable better sleep, improve our diet, and
allow us to maintain a normal body weight through
regular exercise and reduced stress. Yes, a healthy
lifestyle makes us happier, and being happy helps us
achieve that healthy lifestyle.

Like with any kind of change humans try to effect, there

always are reasons not to exercise. I know that I am guilty
of this. If we are honest with ourselves, we know how to
overcome these excuses. Putting exercise in our

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calendars, having a workout buddy, walking more,

taking the stairs – the list is endless.

What we can do – We can help our clients have a

healthy lifestyle. Some advisors will have healthy
lifestyle articles in their newsletters. Or we can have
guest speakers talk about health issues at client
gatherings. We also can have exercise-based activities,
like a hike guided by a local professor of history or
geology (more on gatherings in Chapter 7.)

We can take an interest in what each client does to

maintain a healthy lifestyle – finding out about such
activity through our conversations with them. For
example, asking a client how their mini-marathon trip
turned out is sure to both make them happy, and create a
stronger bond between you and them. Yes, this is the
“Remember details about each other’s lives” from key points
of a strong and trusting relationship. Don’t be afraid to
put reminders in your CRM, to check in on your clients.
I know my own memory is lousy for this. They tell you
they’re taking a vacation next week, put in your calendar
to give them a call the week after they return. This also
applies to medical procedures, grandchildren visiting,
entering a contest, and many other activities which are
important to our clients’ healthy lifestyles.

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Current Happiness Challenges

In addition to the happiness challenges touched upon
in the above Elements of Happiness, there are two more
significant ones. These require special attention from all
of us, and we can help our clients overcome them.

1. Social media – Other books have done a great job

of covering how social media has become an all-reaching
and dangerous “un-happiness generators”. In fact, four
of our five key happiness elements – except the wealth
one - can be negatively impacted by social media. For
example, our self-worth can be lowered when we see how
much happier and wealthier our connections appear to be
(who posts the negative aspects of their lives, after all?!)

1. Politics – The politization of everything seems to

be complete. Our conversations with friends, comedy
shows, news, pop culture, and even science and
education have become politicized. The two sides of each
issue seem to be drifting further and further apart. This
creates anger, anxiety, frustration, ill-will, and other
feelings on both sides of each political divide – all this can
chip away at our and our clients’ happiness.

What we can do – First, we should keep our own

political views to ourselves until we know a prospect or
client has a similar perspective. This goes beyond just
someone saying they are a Republican, Democrat,
Independent, or Libertarian. Each political party has

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different camps that sometimes treat each other with the

same disdain as with those in the other parties.

We shouldn’t try to change the minds of prospects and

clients who have political views that they expressed that
differ from our own views. At best it will aggravate them
– at worst, they’ll be less loyal to us, and might even fire
us (yes, politics has become that divisive!) When I have
clients with the opposite political views as me assuming
I’m like them, I don’t correct them. I might say that I don’t
let my own political views impact the work I do for my
clients. Or I might say which points of their political view
that I can understand them having.

The only safe time to bring up politics with prospects

and clients is when talking about its potential impact on
the economy. Even then, it is best to have a disinterested
tone about these issues. Just state what is happening and
the impact it may have, and make sure that indeed it is
the truth and not shaded by our own political views or
biases.

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Exercises
Yes, in the Introduction I was serious about having
exercises at the end of each chapter. You did read the
Introduction, didn’t you? For this chapter the questions
for you to answer about happiness will be about you. The
best way for us to help our clients is for us to better
understand ourselves with each element of our help.

1. Both as an advisor and as a consumer, honestly

look at the ways the pursuit of happiness is part
of the sales messages you receive – list some of
them.

2. Do you know where each client falls on the

happiness continuum, where 1 is extremely
unhappy, and 10 is extremely happy? If so, list
your top 5 clients and assign a happiness # to
each. If not, do you think you should find out?

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3. With each of the 5 key happiness points, from a

personal standpoint, note the key positives and
negatives for each. Also, note what changes you
will make for each.

Money:

Relationships:

Self-Worth:

Healthy Lifestyle:

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4. In what ways has social media positively and/or

negatively impacted your happiness?

5. In what ways has the politization of most things

in life positively and/or negatively impacted your
happiness?

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