Keep Those Dreams Alive

Susan Clements

Executive Director, E-Myth Benchmark

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

–Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

Many years ago I was fortunate to be in the audience as Og Mandino, author of the book, The Greatest Salesman in the World, addressed an auditorium packed with sales professionals. He strode confidently across the stage––a picture of intention and vitality–– as he squared himself to the podium placing one hand on each side, leaned in and quietly waited for the cheering to die down. The first words he spoke were clear, crisp, and forceful: “Life ain’t fair; never has been, never will be.”  I can’t tell you what he said after that because I wasn’t listening; I was ingesting those first words. I will never forget them, and they have served me well in the years since.   

So there it is––life isn’t fair. There are no guarantees, things go awry, stuff happens, and we don’t always have control over how it happens. We can only control how we react and think about events, and how we allow them to impact our point of view about life. Many of your clients aged 50 and over have come face to face with the reality that their carefully laid plans have been drastically impacted: dreams they had for their futures are disappearing along with their assets. Left in the wake of those crushed dreams is a void that isn’t filling in as fast as it should. I’ll bet many of your clients continue focusing on those lost dreams. It’s time for you to step in and help them jumpstart their “dream engines.” Have any of your clients lost a dream or even the desire to dream? Are they afraid to dream for fear they’ll be disappointed…again?  Should how much money you have define the quality of your dreams? As a financial advisor, these are the questions you need to be thinking about! Your clients need you now more than ever. 

One of the biggest challenges you face as an advisor is how to support your clients and keep them going confidently in the direction of their dreams––which of course, you can’t do if they’ve “lost” those dreams. You can’t spend a dream, but you can share them, renew them, and change them. Connecting your clients with what lies at the foundation of their dreams for the future will enable them to replace old dreams with new. Dreams are our ideas of how we want to experience the future. Dreams involve places, people, values, activities, work, relaxation, and so much more. The opportunity lies in your ability to help clients break them down, understand what a dream truly consists of, and begin to build on that nugget of truth. In other words, help your clients discover what it means to have a Return on Life™ (ROL), not just a return on assets. Whether or not your clients have the resources to fulfill a certain dream, you can help show them that they can fulfill their dreams, even if those dreams change in shape or size. 

Living life to the maximum isn’t all about having loads of money––it’s really about living life to the maximum, regardless of your financial condition. Dreams aren’t set in stone. They change as much as your clients’ lives change. At the bottom of every dream is a desire for the future, a vision of what can be.  As an advisor, you need to understand the essence of that desire and the motivations that support it. That essence is what is important to your client today, not just in the future. If you connect your clients with the essence of their dreams, they will begin to live them today, and not wait until it’s too late. 

Your clients need you to reconnect them to what their life is about––not in the future, but right now. My guess is that both you and your clients will benefit from your efforts!

Susan Clements is Executive Director and co-owner of E-Myth Benchmark, a business coaching company specializing in coaching in the Financial Services industry and working with clients to create profitable turn-key business models. 

Susan and her team of business and executive coaches support clients to create results-oriented businesses through applying proven business best practices.  For more information contact Susan at sclements@e-mythcoaching.com or visit www.e-mythbenchmark.com.