On the Unique Space Advisors Co-create with Clients
Clients are people you serve. You are in a state of care for them. Being in a state of care involves listening, speaking, and delivering information in a way they understand and makes them feel seen and heard. It also involves noticing what's happening for them internally so you can gently and skillfully help them with what they need even if they aren't articulating what they need (here's evidence supporting the need for more training around these important skills).
What this looks like in real life depends on how the client is showing up in the moment and how you are showing up in the moment. In other words, what it looks like in real life is contingent upon what's occurring in the shared space created by you and your client in the moment. Mostly, it depends on you.
The Contents of the Shared Space
Each time you walk into a room, jump on virtual call, or speak to someone on the phone, you have a way of being. That way of being is influenced by your thoughts, sensations, emotions, and even sound. The state of your nervous system is anywhere from checked out to alert to anxious or panicky, and you might not have any sense of that or what to do about it. You might be hungry, ruminating about something that happened yesterday, in pain from overworking at the gym, or over-caffeinated.
And then there's the other person and everything they bring to the moment, and whether or not they're conscious of their way of being.
What happens when they meet?
What happens depends on how aware and prepared you are in the moment. And that can change. And when it does, again, you might not be conscious of the change. Here are some possibilities at that point:
Maybe you're focused, calm, and prepared to meet whatever comes your way.
Maybe you're not, and you don't realize it.
Maybe you're not, and you do realize it, and you know how to get yourself focused and calm.
Maybe you're not, you're aware of that, and you don't know how to focus and calm yourself.
If you are half of the contents of a unique, shared space, which of the above do you want to be?
What you can do.
Fortunately, there's a lot you can do to show up as an invitation to connect and exhale. You can train your attention and create habits that promote connection. You can increase your mental and emotional flexibility. You can lead with curiosity and compassion.
You can learn how to identify how helpful your nervous system is as well as what emotions you're experiencing, and you can learn how to work with both of those momentary realities.
We're fond of saying Connection is an inside job. So is helping. We can help others, without saying a word, from the inside, with our way of being.
Join us to learn new ways of being, thinking, and relating.
We've designed learning experiences that will stretch your mind, challenge your mindsets, and deepen your capacity for being with your own discomfort and the discomfort of others. You'll track your progress and feel for yourself the difference between being able to create a fleeting change in your state of mind and body, and being able to create a way of being that acts from wisdom and compassion.
If there are flourishing financial advisors in 10 years, it will be because they provide something AI and social robots won't yet be able to provide—a well-regulated nervous system that's in a state of care and capable of connecting with compassion.
Make 2023 the year you step into the Future of Financial Advice and differentiate yourself while boosting your well-being with a combination of Relational Neuroscience, mindful awareness practices, and the expansive power of futures thinking.
PS-You might want to double click on the above page from Mindfulness for Financial Advisors: Practicing a New Way of Being, as it's chock full of myth-busting and answers to questions about mindfulness and the neuroscience of connection.
Looking forward to seeing you in 2023!
