Mary Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. During her short life, she wrote two novels and 31 short stories. O’Connor’s best-known work, a novel entitled “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” was published in 1955. As a Southern writer, she wrote intentionally in a style that relied heavily on Southern history and culture and featured grotesque characters encountering violent situations. As a woman of Irish descent and Catholic beliefs, O’Connor wrote in such a way as to present the created world as being charged with God. Haunted by Him.
In April 1959, O’Connor wrote a letter to fellow writer, Cecil Dawkins. The letter contained this very personal revelation:
“The other day my Mother asked me why I didn’t try to write something that people liked instead of the kind of thing I do write. Do you think, she said, that you are really using the talent God gave you when you don’t write something that a lot, a lot, of people like? This always leaves me shaking and speechless, raises my blood pressure 140 degrees, etc. All I can ever say is, if you have to ask, you’ll never know.”1
Point: We are all constantly evaluated by other people who have their own experience, opinions, and ideas for how things should be done. If they have to ask, maybe we are not making our purpose clear.
What Makes You, You
As an independent financial professional (IFP), you provide advice and guidance to clients regarding investments, insurance, and other financial planning matters. You propose solutions and actions which align with your clients’ goals, you listen to their needs, and you act in accordance with their best interests.
You may be extremely prudent in the advice you offer, professional in your practices and methods, and knowledgeable in your areas of expertise, but there will still be people who will find fault with you or reject you as their personal advisor.
What kinds of criteria do people use with which to select an IFP? Consider the following:
- Professional Certification (CFP, CWM, CLU, ChFC, or CFA)
- Education (university degrees, Masters, etc.)
- Experience (including the path to becoming an IFP)
- Range of Services
- Specialization(s)
- Compensation Structure (flat or hourly fee, commissions, or a combination of both)
- Reasonableness of your fee(s)
- Investing Approach
- Transaction Based Service Model or Consultative
- Whether or not you serve as a Fiduciary
Beyond these important factors, there is something that generates the most important value of working with you: Your individuality.
Question: As an IFP, have you zeroed in on your personal definition of “success?” The foundation of your individuality is the “why” behind what you do and how you do it. The “why” dictates what you consider to be success.
Oughteries
In my faith tradition, God is Love. He invites us into a loving relationship with Him. The same tradition makes one thing utmost above all else: We are to love others. But human beings can be geniuses at taking an invitation from God and turning it into a burdensome obligation–what someone once described as “hardening of the oughteries.”
Oughteries can obstruct the essence of who a person is. A person might be driven by love, and yet behave as if following some set of rules, trying to live strictly by a standard of dos and don’ts. This person’s freedom is restricted by a “hardening of the oughteries.”
As an IFP you must abide by all pertinent regulations, maintain all the record-keeping standards, and at all times avoid serving your own personal interests ahead of the clients’ interests. In addition, every direction you recommend that a client takes, each product you recommend, and the decision trees you utilize when making recommendations, all come with guiding principles. These collectively create the oughteries of being an IFP.
Point: It is tempting to construct a practice as an IFP that is entirely defensive, or primarily built on maintaining the right boundaries. Doing so will eliminate the joy and wonder that you hoped to experience in the profession you chose.
Rediscovering Your “Why”
Something attracted you at first to the financial services industry. You felt driven to gain the proper certifications. You sat for exams. You studied the broad array of products. Your fulfillment came from something in particular at first. What was that driver?
Examples:
- A huge passion for helping people achieve the freedom that is true wealth. As James Clear (@JamesClear) wrote on X:
“Real wealth is not about money. Real wealth is: not having to go to meetings, not having to spend time with jerks, not being locked into status games, not feeling like you have to say ‘yes,’ not worrying about others claiming your time and energy. Real wealth is about freedom.” - Protecting widows and orphans. This was my reason for getting into the career of selling life insurance. It felt religious as well as fulfilling:
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.”
—James 1:27 (NIV) - Deploying an in-depth analytical ability across all areas of financial planning (cash flow planning, retirement planning, investment management, insurance planning, estate planning, and tax planning).
“Happiness comes from solving problems. […] Happiness is a constant work-in-progress. The solutions to today’s problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow’s problems.”—Mark Manson - Excelling at salesmanship. This is a key requirement for successful IFPs. There is an art to persuasion. There is, however, a higher goal than making a sale or getting a client to act. The joy comes from seeing the client’s life improved.
“Engaging people is about meeting their needs—not yours.”—Tony Robbins - Releasing native curiosity. Some IFPs delight in uncovering precisely what each client needs and therefore approach financial planning like detective work. They like nothing better than piecing together minute details, fashioning a road map to success, and wrapping it all into a comprehensive plan.
“I’m naturally curious, and I’ve always been driven by my curiosity. Curiosity gets people excited. Curiosity leads to new ideas, new jobs, new industries.”—Anne Sweeney
Point: The easiest thing is to let the work interfere with the joy of the career. The joy is rediscovered when you revisit the reason you chose to be an IFP.
Application—Serving As You Ought
Once you remember what it was that led you to choose a career in financial services, the next thing is to make your approach to business flow from that joy-giving purpose.
It starts with aligning your practice with transparency and authenticity.
Practical ideas:
- Clearly explain why a client should choose you as an investment advisor. Plainly lay out the training, certifications, experience, and successes you have had.
- If you are recommending an insurance product, pull out your own policies and demonstrate that you recommend what you also own.
- Enthusiastically explain how you choose specific investments to recommend to clients. What have you learned that can benefit them? Why are you oriented to specific categories?
- Willingly and honestly help your clients understand how your fees and the underlying costs might affect their investments. Use an example of a specific amount of investment to show how much will go to fees and costs and how much will be invested for the client.
- Exemplify accountability. Who can the client talk to if they have concerns about how you treat them or what they consider to be disappointing results?
- Reveal any past experiences of having clients complain, of being fined, or disciplined in any way. Lay out the facts. No one is perfect. Successful people attract detractors.
Summary
Flannery O’Connor’s own mother questioned the value of her work. You can be sure that people will look at what you do with dubious eyes.
If you love what you do, it should be evident in how you do it.
If you can stay focused on the reason for your career choice, and keep your work habits aligned with that purpose, you will be seen as authentic.
Do not succumb to the trap of oughteries. Yes, obey all laws, follow all regulations, conduct yourself ethically, hold yourself and your practices above reproach—but do not make all this effort the goal.
Flannery O’Connor knew who she was and what she was all about. She had no problem in explaining why she wrote the way she did. In an essay she described her use of the grotesque this way: “Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.”2
If you have read all the way to this point, I want to encourage you to practice the art of your profession with authenticity and transparency. Remain committed to the cause that attracted you to the industry in the first place, and don’t get distracted by the “hardening of the oughteries.”
One last piece of encouragement (again from O’Connor):
“Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better.”
Footnotes:
- “The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor,” page 326, edited by Sally Fitzgerald, published in 1979 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. ISBN 9780374521042.
- “Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction,” an essay by Flannery O’Connor, 1960.
