The session today ignites my own personal passion, a passion that I feel blessed to be able to share with you. Why? Because I know of, and I have seen firsthand, the impact that implementing just one of the ideas that I will share with you will have on your life, your practice and, ultimately, your clients.

Sharing these insights and seeing the impact that I know these will have is what bounces me out of bed in the morning and puts the fire in my stomach!

So before I begin, I would just like to share with you a story, because I think it is really important for you to understand how these eight principles came about.

It was about three years ago, and I had been invited to the offices of one of the leading financial services firms in the U.K. As I sat in the reception, for a very brief moment I had a sudden crisis of confidence. I had no idea what I was doing sitting in the reception of what I understood to be one of the most successful firms in the country. Publicly, it seemed to have it all sewn up. It had a great advice team, a great support team and amazing clients, all of which was proven by a glass cabinet full of industry and professional awards.

So what was I doing there? I was a coach, a consultant drafted in to help make things better, to help them work more effectively and, ultimately, implement absolutely groundbreaking best practices into their business. I felt like it had been some kind of mistake.

However, my assumptions were soon shattered into a million pieces when I sat down with the partners and started the meeting, like any other, with a simple question: “So how are things?”

Well, the response to my simple question literally blew me away. For the following 90 minutes, they literally shared with me every issue, every pain and every ineffectiveness that existed within their business. All I could do was sit in total silence, which is a challenge in itself for me, but I rolled with it.

I could see that each issue they were encountering in the business was slowly, but surely, sucking every last ounce of energy and life out of each one of them. Because, let’s face it, you know as well as I do that they did not come into financial services to have to battle these debilitating challenges. This is not what they signed up to do.

I let them continue, and the issues kept coming, challenge after challenge after challenge. After not too long, I started to connect the dots; I started to identify that every single challenge that they were facing I had seen before, and I knew exactly how to fix them.

I found myself writing down eight keywords. These were:

1. Purpose
2. Plan
3. People
4. Protection
5. Proposition
6. Price
7. Pitch
8. Platform

These were eight magic words, and the second after I’d written them down, I knew I’d cracked it. I knew I had stumbled across — and when I say “stumbled,” I mean after 17 years in this business — and had finally realized what firms needed to do to fundamentally change the way they ran their business.

But I let them continue. Plus, this was like therapy to them, and who was I to come between three financial advisors and a good moan?

When they had finally finished, I stood up, walked to the front of the meeting room, thanked them for sharing their many challenges and said, “Let’s fix them!”

I grabbed my pen and wrote the eight magic words on a flip chart. For the next 30 minutes, I proceeded to map out every single one of the challenges they had shared to one or more of these eight words. You see, these words represented the root cause of the problems that they were facing, and my approach has always been to identify what’s really causing the problems before spending any time, effort or money fixing the symptoms.

It was at this moment that I knew I had found a magical cure.

You now know the context, so let’s quickly run through what I want you to take away and share with your teams, and even your clients. None of this is exclusive to you; it’s shareable and that’s what makes it even better.

If you take away nothing else, take this:

• Find your purpose, reignite your passion and unleash your power
• The 8 Proven Principles for Perfection — learn them, love them and live them
• Collaboration is the difference between surviving and thriving
• Everything is just better “by design”
• Treating the symptoms is madness; treating the cause is genius

I need your help!

Many who know me know that I am on a one-woman mission to change the world, and it is my belief that those who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who will do it.

But that is no easy feat for a 5 foot 1 inch Little Miss WOWW! So please help me share the love. Help me spread the ideas and insights that I share with you today as far and as wide as we can go. I encourage you to go back to your businesses and share your thoughts, ideas and challenges with your team and/or your colleagues.

Change and my role

The best thing about the future is that it hasn’t happened yet. The even better thing about the future is that when it does happen, it is going to be one day at a time.

There is nothing as sure as change — it’s part of life. Those who embrace it will be rewarded with a more enjoyable journey to achieving their true potential, both personally and professionally.

However, it is no coincidence that contained within the word “challenge” is the word “change.”

You know better than most that there is a tidal wave of change heading straight for you. One thing for sure is if you want to thrive, you need to be right at the top of the wave, embracing every opportunity to change along the way.

I am proud to have been instrumental in creating and establishing the new frameworks for regulatory, operational and client servicing best practice in the U.K. While doing this, I made one of the most amazingly simple discoveries — if you want to thrive as a business, you need to start thinking and acting like a business.

Now is the time to not just survive, but thrive! To do this, you need to be firing on all cylinders; our batteries need to be charged and the barrel loaded and ready to feel like we have literally been shot out of a rocket!

But there is a but, and it is a big but!

The past few years have not been smooth sailing. It has been tough; no one has had it easy. This is why your purpose — and what you are trying to achieve — has to be greater than the pain you are going to feel getting there.

But all I can say is that, as uncertain as the future may be for many of you, the truth is that if you want to be in this business, you have to start behaving like a business and striving for “WOWW/Best” in everything that you do!

Tired

I’ve been working with financial planners and business owners and their teams for over 20 years and have had the opportunity to work with some of the professions’ greatest firms, but it continues to amaze me how hard you make it for yourselves.

Have you ever felt like this, even though you are successful, even though you feel like you have it all under control? [visual]

I know that, more often than you should, you drop your head in your hands with frustration because you can see so clearly where you want to be, but you just don’t know how to get there. Well, this is not uncommon.

Who here works by themselves, with no direct support? I don’t know how you do it, and quite honestly at times neither do you!

I am sure you often have moments like this — it’s understandable. But can you imagine if you have a team and you still feel like this?

This has to stop, and it has to stop right now!

Challenges and principles

The place we have to start, and the thing that I need you all to do over anything else, is to go back to your business with your eyes wide open. I need you to see your business through fresh eyes, fully aware of what is going on. What will you see? Well, if you are looking in the right place, you will see that you spend most of your love, effort and resources focused on “doing the business,” not “on your business,” distracted by putting out fire after fire, trying to deal with issues and problems as they arise. It seems never ending at times.

I need you to stop, take a breath, take time out to look at what you are doing and why. Look at the root cause of all the problems and issues in your business. It won’t be easy, but it’s essential!

I speak with advisors and planners every day, and it is remarkable how driven and dedicated to delivering amazing outcomes for clients they really are. But you continue to be prevented from doing so because of eight, as I see it, key challenges that quite honestly are strangling you and your business — and you will see that I haven’t even included compliance.

These are the seven pains:

1. Buy-in
2. Leadership and direction
3. Skills and resources
4. Service delivery
5. Financial clarity
6. Tools and systems
7. Communication

Lifestyle business versus business business

So one of the immediate challenges we have to deal with is whether you run a lifestyle business or a business business. Now, asking this question assumes you know the difference, so let me clarify.

A lifestyle business is one in which 100 percent revolves around you, your lifestyle, your family commitments and your social schedule and is ultimately limited by your own personal drive and motivation — in fact, so much so that if you were taken out of your business for any length of time, all of the work would come to a halt, and, ultimately, your team members would lose their jobs. Put another way, the decisions that you make for and on behalf of your business are made to satisfy or to improve one thing and one thing only, and that is your life. For example, the owner of a lifestyle business would be reluctant to move the office because the current office is close to his or her home, even though it may not be the best spot for clients or for attracting new prospects. Or the decision would be made not to host a seminar in a key and affluent part of town, as you don’t really need any more clients, and you don’t want to work any more hours than you already are. Sound familiar?

But a business business operates much differently. Rather than decisions being made solely in the best interests of the person who leads it, decisions are always made for and on behalf of the best interest of the business as a whole, regardless of what those decisions are. Think about where you are on the scale of it all being about you and it all being about something that is way bigger than you alone. I know firms that are battling with this every day, and this is the one thing we have to fix first. It doesn’t matter which way you go — you just need to make the call. Living in limbo is no good for anyone. No one wins, and it’s your job to decide what you really want. Once you make the decision, every decision you make thereafter has one job to do and that is to take you and all who share your journey one step closer to achieving what you want. However, you have to live and breathe that vision with crystal clarity, like your life depends on it.

You may very well be on a journey, a journey from where you are now to where you want to be. Remain focused; don’t get disheartened when you feel you are constantly putting out fires. The most successful practices and planners stay focused regardless of the challenge. The biggest and most important challenge that you will constantly have to battle is to stay focused on your destination.

Now, let me plant a seed in your minds before we dig deeper.

I believe that when we are born, we have the parameters of our potential set. Put another way, we are born with what we are born with. Some of you may disagree, but I know for a fact that each one of us is born to live 24 hours in every single day. And it is only what you strive for and what you choose to do in each and every single one of those seconds, minutes and hours that makes the difference.

So let’s make a promise to walk out of this room and into our amazing lives and make it count. Let’s pack every last waking moment full of WOWW!

What does “WOWW” mean to you?

So we all want some WOWW in our lives, but what does “WOWW” actually mean? It’s such a personal word, and it means different things to different people, but before we start, I would like to share a story with you that involves a taxi and a limousine.

So I do lots of traveling. I’ve been looking to visit some amazing countries and share my passions and energy with many professional planners across the world. While this sounds glamorous and exciting, it is also tiring and, of course, takes me away from my family in the U.K. You learn a lot about yourself when you travel alone, your likes and your dislikes, and after all of the excitement of the conferences and workshops has died down, you have a lot of time to think and reflect about your life and yourself.

It was 2015, and I was nearing the end of a three-week speaking tour across Canada. In those three weeks, I had seen more of Canada than most Canadians, but I was tired. It being October, it was cold, and as I arrived at the Montreal airport late one evening, I was looking forward to jumping into bed. I was tired from so much flying, plus I was so over dragging around a suitcase full of shoes.

As I walked into the arrivals lounge, I started to look for directions to a taxi. I headed out following the ground transportation signs, and there it was, the longest line I had ever seen waiting for the taxis. My heart sank. So picture this: It’s late; it’s raining; it’s freezing cold; I have two full suitcases bigger than me; and I’m on the verge of killing somebody because I’m so tired! All I want to do is get to my hotel and lie down, and then I spotted the sign of all signs: “Limousine.” Now, for a split second, a thought went through my mind: Was I worth a limousine? You have to remember that, at this point, I had no idea how much it was going to cost me to get a limousine. But as I investigated further, as I walked toward the exit sign posted “Limousine,” I could see the line to my left of, say, 100 people all waiting in the cold, in the dark, all waiting for a taxi. For that split second, I decided that yes, I was in fact worthy of a limousine, no matter the cost.

I walked straight to the front. There was no line — I was the only person in the airport that night who felt that they were worthy of riding in a limousine to their destination.

As I walked to the exit passing all those people to my left, I walked straight to the car and was greeted by one very happy and helpful female driver. She passed pleasantries and asked how my day had been, how far had I traveled and where it was that I was going. My first thought was, My goodness, this is going to cost me a lot of money. I went with the flow as she kindly handed me a bottle of water through the seats and a phone cable, and she encouraged me to plug in my phone to the music of my choice. Now panic really started to set in. It was at this point that I thought I didn’t have enough Canadian dollars in my bag to pay for this wonderful trip.

I leaned forward and said, “OK, so tell me how much it is going to cost me to ride in this limousine.” And it was her response that made me realize everything that was wrong with our own personal perception of our own personal self-worth. Any guesses? She said, “$30.” $30 — was that it? So the deepest question in this instance was this: Was an hour of my life worth $30? $30 not to have to stand alone in a cold, dark line, waiting for a taxi with 99 other people? You bet it was!

Let me ask you this: In your life, which line are you in? Are you in the taxi line standing there in the cold, alone, waiting for things to move along just a little bit quicker, trying to save $30? Or, are you cruising along in a limousine, riding in comfort in the company of others who are happy to be there, drinking filtered water and listening to your favorite tunes?

It’s your time to choose because there is no way I have the power and the energy to give you a WOWW business if you cannot take responsibility for having a WOWW life.

It’s true our relationship with WOWW starts with the relationship we have with ourselves. It starts with the level where we see ourselves — are you in the taxi line or the limo line?

Let me ask you a question, and I want you to go with the first answer that comes to mind: When I say the word “wow,” what word springs to mind?

So here is the thing — it doesn’t matter what word you came up with. The important thing is that it is your word — your WOWW word, the word that encompasses for you what WOWW looks like!

I would encourage you to ask the people you work with, and those in your life, the same question: “When I say the word ‘wow,’ what word springs to mind?”

It is especially important in your teams because if WOWW for you is awesome, amazing or whatever, and for your team member it’s compliance, process, standards, you have a mismatch. Because you’re all fired up trying to deliver these amazing standards to clients and to everyone around you, and they think hitting this compliance regulatory benchmark is WOWW, you can see where we have a mismatch. And mismatches mean problems.

Now answer this question: If I asked you to describe your life and your business, would you use that word to describe them? I’d say it’s probably unlikely!

The future you

Before we can turn our attention to your business, we need to take a look at you and your life. For many of you, you are your business! So forget that you are financial advisors because to me — right here, right now — you are men, women, husbands, wives, sons and daughters. Let me ask: Is your life how you want it to be? Are you happy?

Do you ever wake up in the morning, living the life you live, and genuinely have no idea how you got there?

Have you got where you are today by accident or by being totally switched on and intentional with every decision that you make?

I would suspect that the former is true. I have no idea how it happens, but one day we wake up and find ourselves right here sitting in this room, and, honestly, we have no idea how we got here! We find ourselves doing the jobs that we do, surrounded by the people who just happen to have crossed our paths, living the life that we have created totally by accident.

So, what can we do about it? Well, we have to embrace the concept of The Future You.

If what I believe is true, if when we are born the parameters of our potential are set — and because our businesses are simply an extension of who we are — we first need to focus a little bit closer to home. It’s time for you to focus on you, not your clients, not your business and not even your families and friends. On you!

This is probably one of the most important conversations that you will ever have with yourself. You can’t WOWW anyone before you start WOWW’ing yourself.

I created the concept of The Future You after what, at the time, seemed to be a simple encounter with a financial advisor, an MDRT member at the Philadelphia Annual Meeting in 2013.

I was in the bar at the hotel, and I got to chatting with an advisor from Vancouver. We were chatting about business and life in general, and he asked me if I was happy. And, honestly, I was totally stumped. I was like a deer in the headlights. I knew I should just say, “Yes, of course, why wouldn’t I be?” But deep down in my heart of hearts, I knew that the real answer to that question was no. So that was the answer that I gave. Never mind my life was WOWW; I wasn’t even happy! And it scared me. I had an amazing business, fabulous clients, a beautiful home, a partner I had been with for 13 years and a beautiful 3-year-old daughter. What was there not to be happy about? My whole life and my happiness had been totally thrown open for question, so I decided at that very moment that if I wanted to have the life that I deserved and that I wanted, I needed to make some big changes … and fast! It was time to start shaping my life by design and not by accident.

According to Paul Dolan, in his book “Happiness by Design,” true happiness comes from the perfect balance of purpose and pleasure. If you are doing something that is totally pleasurable but has very little or no purpose, then you won’t be happy. If you do something that is totally purposeful but not pleasurable, you still won’t be happy.

And I was so out of balance!

It was at that very moment that I realized that it wasn’t just one area of my life, personally or professionally, that wasn’t making me happy — it was all elements of my life. I soon realized that all elements of my life were connected; my personal and my professional life were hard-wired together, and I knew that it was going to take more than a fairy godmother and a sparkly dress to fix this one.

I knew this was down to me; it needed to be me — no one else was going to be able to pull this one off. I wanted to change the world, but first I had to change me.

So why am I telling you this, and why is this so important in a presentation that is supposed to be about having a WOWW business? Well, you see, you can’t have a WOWW business, and you can’t WOWW your clients and those around you until you are WOWW’ing yourself!

And as they say when you get on an airplane, you have to put on your oxygen mask before helping anyone else.

Now let me introduce The Future You.

We all have an age, or a point in time, when we want to be able to sit back, take a big, deep breath and say, “I’m a total success and I’ve made it — my life is exactly how I want it to be.”

It could be a birthday or a time when your children are out of your hands, or it could even be the point at which you retire — the point is, it doesn’t really matter when it is, but we all have a date.

Would you agree?

Take a piece of paper, and write down the date or the age that you want to be when you feel you have made it, when life is perfect.

Now, I want you to imagine that you can create The Future You — a future you who has total freedom, no restrictions, no worry. You are totally free to be who and what you want.

Get your date, imagine we are on the eve of that date or event and ask what The Future You would look like:

• Physically: General look — weight, skin, waist, hair, fitness, muscles, energy, diet (eating), wobbly bits? Firm bum and sparkly eyes?

• Mentally and emotionally: Are you calm, steady, patient, more present, more focused, less distracted, have more time to ponder and think, more time to plan? Do you just want to feel happier? Are you letting go of the past?
• Professionally and reputation: In the industry, the local community? Internal (friends/family) within your team — what do you want people to say when you are not there? This doesn’t happen by accident. How much do you want to work — how many days?
• Relationships: Family, friends, team, with yourself? Key people of influence — do the list and make the magic happen. Who brings out the best in you? It’s not how you feel about them. It’s about how they make you feel about yourself. Who are the most important people in your life? Have a strategy so that they know how much you love them. Which people have most shaped your life, and do they know?
• Free time: Holidays, how much, travel, sports, fitness, and with whom?
• Environment: Home, office, location, country, second property? Are there jobs in the house or office that need finishing?
• Financially: Are you personally paid? Is there money in the bank? What do you want to do with it? Help the children? Luxury treats?
• Skills: Hobbies, music, sport, knitting, skills? Not just professional, but any big achievements you have. What skills and capabilities would you like to develop in your life?
• Charity and spiritually: Church, local community, charity, time or money, or something else?

So why is this so important? Well, when you are happy, the people around you are happy, your business is happy, your team is happy and your clients are happy.

And when you are happy, magic starts to happen!

Passion and love

I love this quote — it came up on my Facebook timeline some years ago:

“Why be ordinary when, with passion and belief, you can stand out from the rest and be extraordinary!” — Bhupinder Anand

The magic happens in that tiny little space between ordinary and extraordinary.

The magic happens when you are doing something that you love. Our passion and the energy that ignites it is infectious; it’s contagious; and people love to be around people who are oozing love at every turn. When you are doing something that you love, either personally or professionally, your eyes light up — it’s your body’s natural reaction. You can’t control it, and it’s in those timeless moments when the ordinary turns into the extraordinary.

Financial services are a labor of love. You and your team have to love this business almost more than life itself. It is not a profession that you can join halfhearted — it’s all in, or don’t be in it at all.

The 8 proven principles for perfection

Now, if I look at all of your businesses and your role within them, most of the time you are financial planners; you think like financial planners and you behave like financial planners. The problem is that you or your bosses also run your businesses like financial planners and not as business owners. Here lies problem No. 1.

It is important that, in order to behave like a business, you have to start thinking like one. The first step to doing that is to appreciate that there are eight key areas of every financial planning business exist that equally need your time, love, effort and resources.

Now, let me remind you of the eight areas:

1. Purpose
2. Plan
3. People
4. Protection
5. Proposition
6. Price
7. Pitch
8. Platform

There are some obvious areas that benefit from the lion’s share of your time, effort, love and resources.

We spend huge amounts of time focusing on our clients, our proposition, our advice process and what we charge and for what. Then, of course, the next big area is, how do we pitch? How do we share with the world what we do and the magic that we can bring?

But I don’t have time to dive deep into all eight, so I am going to focus on the Top 3, which I feel have the most impact in the shortest amount of time. What are the biggest “passion killers” in financial services today?

1. A lack of purpose
2. No plan
3. A team full of not enough or, worse still, the wrong people

Start by focusing on these three key principles, and you will be well on your way to the root cause and the heart of the matter. Which brings me to my next key point.

We need to stop focusing on the symptoms of our challenges and problems and start focusing on fixing the root cause of the issues. If we do this, then the likelihood is that these issues will never be issues again and will probably, as I have seen in the past, fix other issues too.

Let’s take a look.

Your purpose

Personal and business “why.” The key is to understand why you get out of bed in the morning.

Let me ask you why you get out of bed every morning. Is it for the money? Is it for the fun? Or is it because you simply can’t think of anything else to be doing with your life? It doesn’t really matter why you get out of bed in the morning. The truth is, what’s most important is that you do. As we know, this profession is a calling; it is a labor of love. We have a duty of care to our clients and all those around us. The question is, Don’t people around us know why we do what we do? Or do they just think we do it to the money? Every financial advisor and planner I have met over the years has a story, a story about how he or she came into this magical business, stories about how advisors overcame adversity and challenges and why they carried on. Sadly, many of the stories will never see the light of day. If what the experts say is true, and people don’t care what you do, they only care why you do it, then why would we keep these stories secret? I could look at every single one of your websites, social media pages and online profiles, and they will all pretty much say the same. What you don’t tell me is what’s underneath — the motivation, the drive, the passions, the innermost important parts of the people they call their advisors.

Simon Sinek has written a book called “Start with Why.” It’s a great book, and when I read it, I realized that I am motivated by something much more important than money. I realized that I am motivated every day because I believe that everybody has the potential to realize his or her true potential. However, sadly, most people will go through life merely scratching the surface of what they are capable of doing.

Our purpose has been my and my team’s motivation from the very moment we realized it — because we have all personally committed to changing the world one financial advisor at a time, even if, and it is likely that, we won’t see that real change until after our own lifetimes, but it drives us every day, and we are proud to tell everyone. They buy in to our mission, and they want to join us and play their own part in building a global profession that will one day change the world.

So, my question to you is, What have you given people to buy into? Have you given them, “We do financial planning! We can protect your families! We sell life insurance!”? Or have you shared with them your story, your mission, your vision and your dreams, which will get them excited and will encourage them to be part of something that is much bigger than themselves? This is the power of defining and then unleashing your purpose.

Here is ours: We believe that everyone has the power to realize their extraordinary potential and we are the powerhouse behind professionalism and operational excellence in financial services.

We set the standards; we live the standards; we are the standards!

It appears everywhere. It is on our company brochures, our business cards, our website, our social media and online profiles, and even on the bottom of our proposals. It is who we are, and it drives and motivates me and our team every single day. Why? Because it hits straight at the heart of who we are.

What is your message? What are you sharing with the world? What are you telling them that you do? And are you telling them why you do it? People don’t care what you do; they only care why you do it. That should be the only message that you are sharing with the world.

Your plan

How big do you dream? How big is your vision? How far dare you go? My favorite quote of all time is this:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.” — Marianne Williamson

As financial advisors and planners, you spend pretty much every waking moment shaping the lives of your clients. Because of this, I think the profession has a tendency to limit your ability to design and shape your own lives, future and potential.

But why? Well, I believe that the role of sitting down with your clients and mapping out their journey, encouraging them to think bigger and dream bigger, is exhausting. It is the most rewarding but the most challenging job in the world, and to do it effectively and fully you have to often put your own agenda and dreams aside.

This result is that your focus is on the next day or even the next week; it is often all you can handle. Some of you are encouraged to set yearly goals, yearly targets and objectives. Sadly, these are only focused around money. Why? Because it’s the easiest thing to quantify. You have either hit the target or you haven’t — there is no in between.

Let me ask you this: What goals have you set for your business? Have you actually set any goals at all? If so, do those goals make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck? Or are they simply focused around the money? This is always very interesting to me because every day I am told that this business is not about the money.

What are you striving for, and how far dare you go? Have you thought about the next one, two, three, four, five years? How about the next 25 years? Have you thought about where you would be professionally if we were sitting in this room 25 years from today? Where will you be, what will you be doing and what will you have achieved? It’s time to stop focusing on the immediate; it is time to push the boundaries, think bigger, go further and push to the next level. However, there is a caveat to this: Whatever your dreams and goals are, you will not be able to achieve them on your own. You are going to need a plan that is designed and planned within an inch of its life, which is executed beautifully, reviewed regularly and adjusted accordingly. How far are you prepared to go? How far are you prepared to push your potential? I know how capable you all are, and I know what you are all capable of achieving. I’ve seen — but only in those individuals and firms that see their vision with laser-like clarity. You have to see what you are trying to achieve and then surround yourself with the right people to help you achieve this.

So before you leave this meeting, set some goals — think big, think 25 years! Once you have those goals, think about what those goals will look like in 24 years, in 23 years, in 20 years, in 15 years, in five years and in two years, because only when you set the big goals can you work backward. This becomes your endgame.

Connect yourself to something that is way bigger than yourself. Once you do this, it will keep you and your team focused. It will prevent you from getting distracted by day-to-day nonsense that is ultimately attacking your lives and your businesses every day, distractions that are determined to stop you from achieving what you have set your sights on.

This is where the magic is unleashed. When you believe in something that is way bigger than yourself, when you know what you’re trying to achieve, you can make promises to yourself. You can set personal goals that, with every move and with every action, take you closer to achieving your endgame.

This clarity of vison creates a new way of working and achieves success at a totally new level. It turns isolation into teamwork; it turns decisions into delivery; and it turns concepts into creativity.

Your people

We all have people in our lives; some we invite in and some we don’t. Some have been in our lives forever, and some have joined us along the way.

In your business, the quality of the people you choose to surround yourself with will be the difference between simply surviving and thriving.

People are an energy source. However, they can as easily drain your energy as be the source of it. So, who’s on your team? The third principle is “people.” Only when you know what you are trying to achieve can you start to think clearly about what type of people you will need to help and support you to get there. Only when you start to design your future business can you start to design your future team. You will be able to see clearly what skills, abilities and attributes you will need around you. At this stage in the design, focus on the roles, not the people. Think skills, think experience, think contribution and value. Then you can start to think about what personalities, behaviors and values you will welcome and those you will not.

Now, for those of you who already have a team, even if that team is just one other person, ask yourself, Are they the right fit? Do you have a square peg in a round hole? Due to their lack of skills and ability to pick stuff up, have you been trying to train them for 10 years in the hope that one day “they will get it”? Have you got people on your team who just don’t seem to buy in to what you are trying to do? People who just don’t seem to love this business as much as you do? People come is all shapes and sizes, and without an endless pot of money to pay for these people, there are only so many seats on the bus — and every seat counts.

A massive truth: You must never compromise! In fact, I would go as far as saying to ban it from your vocabulary. Don’t settle for people on your team who just haven’t got it, who don’t really care and who add little or no value.

I know what you are thinking: Is someone better than no one? No! When you have people on your team who simply can’t do the job the way it needs to be done, it just causes work for others. Worse still, there will be no trust in that relationship or relationships. They will never work out. You simply have to be brave.

Only when you know what you are trying to achieve can you start to build your future team. Now, I am predominantly talking about your business team, but what about your personal team? You family, your friends — they will all play a major part in helping you get from where you are today to where you want to be tomorrow.

The operating structure of a financial services firm is on the brink of big changes. We have researched and come to the conclusion that there are approximately 27 roles and functions in today’s professional practice. Each one of these serves as a vital cog in the wheel. If they are under skilled, incapable, overworked and under loved, the wheel simply won’t turn!

The role of the professional advisor or planner is changing, and that is seeing new roles such as paraplanning enter the sector. There are even bigger changes ahead. The sector is now no longer only about financial advisors’ or planners’ relationships with their clients. The life and therefore the relationship needs of every single person is changing, and, put simply, a professional advisor or planner cannot keep up. They need to be surrounded by a team of equally skilled, equally energetic and passionate people who are, in some cases, better at those “other” tasks than they are. This is the most important relay race you will ever run. So who’s next in line for the baton?

When you have built your relay team, you all know what part you need to play. You can be clear about what your objectives are, what you need to deliver, what you are responsible and therefore accountable for. Only when you run that race together will you win! This is the way to create a professional practice. You are no longer the center of the universe.

But there is a problem, and it’s a big one! You love control; you trust no one; and you think the only way to get the job done correctly is to do it yourself. Let me tell you — thinking like that will kill you. When you give up control (to the right people — I must stress that!), you unleash their power. You can’t do it all, and if you try to, the costs will be damaging to your health, to your relationships and to your life.

Be brave! Dive when you can see the rocks. Build a team that you are proud of, and let’s see how far you can really go.

Remember what I have said, and if you take away nothing else, take this:

• Find your purpose, reignite your passion and unleash your power
• The 8 Proven Principles for Perfection — learn them, love them and live them
• Collaboration is the difference between surviving and thriving
• Everything is just better “by design”
• Treating the symptoms is madness; treating the cause is genius

So, what next?

• Redo The Future You! exercise — share it with your team, your family and your friends.
• Decide on your ideal endgame.
• Define and design what “perfect” looks like in the eight key areas of your business.
• Engage your team and all those key people in your life.
• Continually strive for “best” everything!
• Constant questioning — how can you do things better?
• Inspire others to improve — uninspired people rarely do inspired work.

Michelle Hoskin has more than 20 years of experience working alongside some of the world’s most successful financial organizations. She is an internationally recognized author, speaker, coach and expert in identifying and designing international best-practice standards of operational excellence.