Jennifer Risher, author of We Need To Talk: A Memoir About Wealth, once told me in a podcast interview that when she and her husband, David—an ex-Microsoft, ex-Amazon executive, now CEO of Lyft—became fantastically wealthy in their early 30s, there was just one person with whom she could unburden her unexpectedly mixed feelings about their new status.
Their wealth advisor.
“Our advisor was the only one we could talk to. There was a space where talking about money was sanctioned,” she said. “So he became our friend and our therapist and our counsellor.”
Risher, of course, is not alone in seeking to unload the emotional baggage of wealth within the safe space of an advisory relationship.
An astonishing 91 per cent of high-net-worth individuals say they experience emotional strain due to their wealth, according to a report from UK-based Nedbank Private Wealth. And 79 per cent want guidance on how to manage their emotional biases, especially regarding significant life events and personal transitions.
Advisors understand that clients are seeking more than financial strategy. But are advisors ready?
Some are not. “I just can’t see myself having those conversations with my clients,” one advisor recently told me. Others are quietly eager to deepen and broaden their client conversations and seek guidance on how to do it.
But first, advisors should take a look inward.
What’s your money story?
What biases might you be bringing into client meetings that you aren’t even aware of? And how might these be playing out in the advice you provide, or your own sense of value in the partnership?
For most people, money beliefs and patterns operate below our level of consciousness. They were formed before we opened our first bank account. And, yet, they show up in subtle ways that can be stumbling blocks to deeper client connection and transformation.
Clients can sense when you are feeling uncomfortable, inauthentic or subtly judging them. And at the ultra-high-net-worth level, clients are hyper-attuned to power dynamics, control and trust.
The best place to start is with your own money story.
- Do you find yourself judging a client’s spending choices?
- Do you see luxury as excess, or expression?
- Have you ever felt envy or resentment toward inherited or unearned wealth?
- When a client clearly has enough money for 10 lifetimes, do you dismiss their fears and anxieties as irrational?
- Have you ever felt inferior in the presence of ultra-wealthy clients?
Questions to ask yourself
Here are a few self-reflection prompts to build awareness of your own relationship with money. I recommend journaling your responses over time, as memories will start to resurface as you begin the process of bringing focus to your money scripts:
- What messages (spoken and unspoken) did you receive about money in your home while growing up? How does this show up in your life today?
- What messages did you receive about wealth and wealthy people? Is there alignment or conflict with the work you do?
- What were your parents’ or parental figures’ patterns with money? In what ways have you repeated, rejected or refined those patterns?
- What financial behaviours in clients cause a reaction in you, and what might that reveal about your relationship with wealth?
Then ask yourself:
- How did I arrive at my beliefs about wealth?
- Are they true?
- Are they serving me and my clients?
- What else might be true?
Know that this is not a one-time exercise. It’s a professional and personal evolution. The goal is awareness, not perfection.
Why perform this work? When you bring your own relationship with money into the light, you become more conscious and intentional about your patterns and responses—and less likely to react to triggered emotions that you don’t fully understand.
You will develop greater understanding and compassion for clients’ behaviours—the good, the bad and the contradictory. As behavioural finance expert Morgan Housel has said, “All behaviour makes sense with enough information.”
Clients can sense when you are feeling uncomfortable, inauthentic or subtly judging them.
You will be better equipped to listen with compassion and meet clients where they are at, rather than trying to fix them, judge them or persuade them with spreadsheets and logic.
You’ll also feel more comfortable opening the door to conversations that invite in the awkward, the celebratory and the fearful aspects of handling significant wealth, recognizing that there are no right answers, only real experiences. The more open conversations you have, the more insight you’ll gather—and the better equipped you’ll be to help other clients feel normal in what they’re facing.
This is the intangible value that few advisors offer. Those who do stand apart.
Like Jennifer Risher, clients feel a deeper connection to such advisors and, it can be reasoned, experience a higher level of satisfaction, trust and loyalty.
While I am undoubtedly biased, I imagine that a decade from now the integration of wealth psychology into family offices will be as common as Monte Carlo simulations are to financial plans today.
To further that analogy, you wouldn’t deliver a financial plan without understanding a client’s full picture. Why deliver advice without understanding your own?
After all, the wealth you help others steward starts with your own.
In my next article, I’ll share some common money patterns associated with wealthy individuals—what they may reflect underneath, and how advisors can begin to recognize them in their clients and themselves.
Kelly Willis Green is a wealth coach, speaker and podcaster whose mission is to help high-net-worth individuals develop clarity, purpose and peace in their relationship with their wealth. She is the creator and host of the Serious Coin podcast, which explores the financial, emotional and lifestyle benefits and challenges of wealth. www.kellywillisgreen.com
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