Financial Services & Recruiting academyrecruiting on 07 Nov 2008 12:00 pm
Your success depends on what happens in your house, not the White House
This is definitely not a political post - if you haven’t noticed, we stay away from that area entirely here.
What we do write about is helping you achieve personal success, in particular by becoming a financial advisor. And that’s what this post title refers to - your personal success.
Things have been decided, we now know who has been chosen to be our next President, and many are naturally wondering what the future holds and how that will affect them.
I’m not sure where this quote originates, but I know I’ve heard Dave Ramsey and Dan Miller repeat some variation of it many times for several years now:
“Your chances for success are not determined by what happens in the White House, but by what happens in YOUR house.”
That runs directly counter to many people’s thinking, which is why Dan and Dave repeat it so often. Now, they aren’t living in some fantasyland or saying that decisions made in Washington, DC have no impact. But what they are saying is that ultimately what happens to you is dependent on you, and if you’re counting on Washington to make you successful (or unsuccessful), you’re focusing in the wrong place.
They’ve also said that they will certainly review their businesses and make course corrections as necessary - that’s something they already do all the time, and naturally recommend that you should do the same with your career or business. But the gist of their argument is this - if whatever you were doing before the election is affected that drastically by the outcome of the election, then you were in the wrong business or career to begin with.
No question in my mind that’s the case with being a financial advisor, too. Where you go to work might be different, and how you do business as an advisor might be different, but nothing has changed so much that it should keep you from becoming a financial advisor.
I mean, think about it - have you ever seen a time where people were more in need of sound financial advice than they are right now?
On the other hand, if some outcome of the election has changed your mind about being an advisor…well, maybe it wasn’t the right career for you to begin with. And that’s OK - better to know that now than several years down the road.
So, while the nature of the business will change, the firms with openings might change, and many other factors may change as well, as I’ve said all along - if you truly want to become a financial advisor and have the right skills and aptitude, you can become one.
