Knowledge. Shared Blog

October 2018

What’s Wealth Without Health?

Are you creatively thinking about your clients’ wealth and health? Guest blogger Dr. Heidi Hanna shares tips to shift from fiscal wealth to total life wealth.

You know that successfully managing money is more than just increasing numbers in a portfolio. Within those numbers is a unique life story for every client. For some, the goal may be to accumulate enough wealth to fulfill their wildest dreams. For others, it may be making a positive impact on their community and changing lives, or even creating a lasting philanthropic legacy for themselves. And for most, those numbers represent the essential and universal desire to be good providers, ensuring a comfortable life for their families.

Helping clients reach those goals is what drives us, and it’s the ultimate form of job satisfaction. But all too often, we see clients who achieve those goals at a significant and unexpected cost. They’re the ones who are so driven to succeed financially that they wind up losing sight of everything else. We see it all the time – that slippery slope between being a “success” and being a workaholic.

Unfortunately, too often the price paid for extraordinary financial wealth can be fractured relationships, personal dissatisfaction, and even compromised physical health.

Be in the Service of Total Life Wealth

As a financial advisor, you have the power to influence. Not just in financial decisions, but in important life choices. Your client relationship requires an extraordinary level of energy and engagement, as well as trust, which puts you in a unique position of being able to help guide them in the critical areas of life itself.

I call this the “Total Life Wealth” approach. It doesn’t mean you have to trade in your FA creds for a Ph.D. in psychiatry. It simply involves taking on a slightly different perspective. Yes, you are helping your clients reach a financial end goal. But you are also committed to helping them enjoy the journey, and ensuring that they are happy and healthy when they arrive at their destination.

In practice, “Total Life Wealth” can manifest in myriad ways. All it takes is some creative thinking. For example, when talking about retirement plans, expand the topic by discussing ways your client can strategically manage his/her own health and wellness in order to fully enjoy what they’ve been working so hard to build in their financial portfolio. When, in the course of your practice, you acknowledge life events and business or financial milestones, instead of the usual card and flowers, try sending a fruit basket with a note about the ‘power of the nutrients within to fuel further successes. Or, consider sending out pedometers as holiday gifts, with a heartfelt note about taking steps together for a happy, healthy and wealthy future.

Happy Client, Happy Practice

When you shift your focus from financial wealth to total life wealth, you are expanding your service from normative to stellar. You’re going beyond somewhat meager client expectations and contributing to their lives in a positive and very significant way. That makes them feel good – not just about their investments but about you. And when clients begin to rely on you in this way, and you realize that you’re making a big difference in the lives of your clients, as well as their families and everyone around them, that’s the true definition of total life wealth – for you and your clients.

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About the Author

As an experienced speaker, Dr. Heidi Hanna has been featured at many national and global conferences, including the Fortune Magazine Most Powerful Women in Business Summit, ESPN Women’s Leadership Summit and the Million Dollar Round Table. She is founder and Chief Energy Officer of Synergy, a consulting company providing brain-based health and performance programs for organizations, and the Executive Director of the American Institute of Stress.

Dr. Hanna’s publications include The New York Times bestseller The SHARP Solution: A Brain-Based Approach for Optimal Performance (Wiley, Feb 2013), Stressaholic: 5 Steps to Transform Your Relationship with Stress (Wiley, Jan 2014) and Recharge: 5 Shifts to Energize Your Life (Synergy, 2015). Dr. Hanna is a National Board Member for the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor, a Fellow with the American Institute of Stress, and she currently serves as editor of their quarterly publication, Contentment. Recently, Dr. Hanna created The Beyond Funny Project, a non-profit dedicated to providing resources and education related to the benefits of healthy humor.

Dr. Hanna holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from Penn State University and holds a master’s degree in mental health counseling and a Ph.D. in holistic nutrition.

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