Look through this list of common coping mechanisms to see if you can spot any of your favorites:

• Acting out: not coping – giving in to the pressure to misbehave.
• Aim inhibition: lowering sights to what seems more achievable.
• Attack: trying to beat down that which is threatening you.
• Avoidance: mentally or physically avoiding something that causes distress.
• Compartmentalization: separating conflicting thoughts into separated compartments.
• Compensation: making up for a weakness in one area by gain strength in another.
• Conversion: subconscious conversion of stress into physical symptoms.
• Denial: refusing to acknowledge that an event has occurred.
• Displacement: shifting of intended action to a safer target.
• Dissociation: separating oneself from parts of your life.
• Fantasy: escaping reality into a world of possibility.
• Idealization: playing up the good points and ignoring limitations of things desired.
• Identification: copying others to take on their characteristics.
• Intellectualization: avoiding emotion by focusing on facts and logic.
• Passive aggression: avoiding refusal by passive avoidance.
• Projection: seeing your own unwanted feelings in other people.
• Rationalization: creating logical reasons for bad behavior.
• Reaction Formation: avoiding something by taking a polar opposite position.
• Regression: returning to a child state to avoid problems.
• Repression: subconsciously hiding uncomfortable thoughts.
• Somatization: psychological problems turned into physical symptoms.
• Sublimation: channeling psychic energy into acceptable activities.
• Suppression: consciously holding back unwanted urges.
• Symbolization: turning unwanted thoughts into metaphoric symbols.
• Trivializing: Making small what is really something big.
• Undoing: actions that psychologically ‘undo’ wrongdoings for the wrongdoer.

The above list of coping mechanisms is (c) Davis Straker, http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/coping/coping.htm, and used with permission.

 This article was originally published in Curing The Unmet Needs Disease © Simon Reilly 2008

Can you, your business, your clients or family afford for you to be emotionally retired?  What do you think it’s like for your clients to work with you?  And, how much fun do you think you are around the kitchen table at the end of the day?

If emotional retirement hasn’t hit you yet, is it just around the corner at 40, 45, 50, 55, 60 or 65? 

The long-term solution for emotional retirement is address to your Unmet Needs Disease.

A short-term solution… purchase a journal and write down all of your successes, no matter how small.  Think back on the day, on the week, on the month, on the quarter and on the year.  Re-live each success and how they made you feel.  Re-light that spark in your eyes by reconnecting with what has gone well.

 This article was originally published in Curing The Unmet Needs Disease © Simon Reilly 2008

• The act of complying with a wish, request, or demand; acquiescence.
• Medicine Willingness to follow a prescribed course of treatment.

I have an entirely new level of respect for what financial advisors go through in respect to them remaining compliant as I had my own experience last week with resubmitting my Clear Your Roadblocks Speaking Presentation for CE Accreditation to Advocis via the new 2010 CLU Institute’s Practice Guidelines for Financial Advisors and Planners.

Yes! For an instant my needs of approval and worthiness triggered negative beliefs like “what if I don’t get approved?” and that started to fuel FEAR.

I remember reading somewhere that you can create a breakthrough from a breakdown.

A breakdown is because a system is failing and where there is no system, there will be breakdowns.

My friend and business coach Chris Barrow and I had a number of conversations last week about content and I’m taking a liberty to nick Chris’ byline; “all problems exist in the absence of a good conversation” to read “all problems exist in the absence of a good conversation and the conversation helps to create a system to eliminate the problem”.

I proceeded to go through my own process of breaking through my own roadblocks to compliance and reflecting on the above definition of compliance, came from the place of a willingness and wishing to be compliant rather than allowing my fear based mind making up a debilitating story that some patriarch on high was demanding that I be compliant because the work that I am doing may not be good enough.

Focusing on the latter would have just made my experience one thousand times harder and I would surely fail.

So I set about the process of gleaning into the new 2010 CLU Institute’s Practice Guidelines for Financial Advisors and Planners and reacquainting myself with the Advocis Best Practices Manuals and I’m very happy with what I am creating.

The process is allowing me to make sure that I align with industry standards and in the process I have realigned my content, re-written content and created new content and I am on a roll creating even more content.

Here is the content that I am working on under the banner of a new presentation.

The win is this creates content for; coaching, blogging, speaking, article, e-newsletters and a new book called;

Clear Your Roadblocks To Practice Management;

Overview

1. Introduction – Simon Reilly

2. What Is A Parable?

• Parable Example
• Parable – Interest Matrix

3. Why Don’t Advisors Have A Business Plan & Marketing Plan?

• What Are Your Expectations For 2010?
• How Many Have a Vision, Business Plan And 90 Day Goals?
• Values Are The Missing Link
• Clear Your Roadblocks Scorecard
• Recession Is A Choice, What Is Yours?
• The Foundation Of Your Business
• Planning Process – 90% / 10%
• What Are Your Values?
• Why Are Values Important?
• Values Are The DNA Of Vision
• Why Is Vision Important?
• How Unmet Needs Impacts Your Business
• Why Motivation Doesn’t Work
• What is the Unmet Needs Disease?
• Is it a value or an Unmet Need?
• Unmet Needs and the Law of Attraction

4. Business Plan

• Define Your Values
• Create Your Vision
• Create Your Business Plan
• Create Your Succession Plan
• Build Your Budget Cash Flow
• The Sales Activity Calculator
• Set 90 Day Goals
• Pay Attention To Project & Time Management
• Measure Your Progress
• Hire The Best
• Attract A Junior Advisor
• Delegate & Communicate With Boundaries
• Create Your Organizational Structure
• Keep On Building The Best Team
• Quarterly Review Meetings
• Engage Your Clients With An Agreement
• Receive Fee For Service
• Customer Service & Customer Relationships
• Eliminate Conflict

5. Marketing Plan

Understand & Create Your Marketing Funnel

1. Personal Marketing
2. Promotional Techniques
3. Target & Niche Marketing
4. The Marketing Engine

1. Personal Marketing

•  Understand Marketing Vs Selling
• Your Personal Brand
• Your Tag Line
• Find Your Center Of Authenticity – Your Elevator Speech
• Find Your Center Of Authenticity – Your Parable
• Value Proposition – The Referral Card
• The Unique Selling Proposition – The Referral Card
• Segment Your Clients
• Asking For & Receiving A Referral
• Prepare To Attract High Net Worth Clients
• Uncover Client Testimonials
• Cultivate Strategic Alliance Partners
• Implement Social Networking To Receive Referrals By Association
• Cross Sell & Create Your Life Insurance Parable

 2. Promotional Techniques

•  Direct Mail
• Telemarketing
• Seminars
• Tradeshows
• Concept Launches
• Newsletters
• Printed Marketing Materials
• Media Exposure Through Interviews And Articles
• E-Mail To Contact Target Markets
• Internet
• Community Involvements Networking And Referrals By Introduction
• Association Marketing Networking And Referrals By Introduction
• Working With Strategic Alliances

 3. Target & Niche Marketing

•  Target Market Or Niche Market?
• Find A Problem That Needs Solving
• Create A Solution Through Your Marketing, Products & Services
• Brand Your Solution
• Make A KEDO Offer To Become A Client For The First Time

 4. The Marketing Engine

•  Develop Articles For Publication
• Produce A Newsletter With Ease
• Create A Web Site
• Web Marketing Simplified
• Publish A Blog
• Create A Speaking Folio
• Speak To 10,000 People Within The Niche At Association And Corporate Events
• Receive And Publish Speaking Testimonials
• Get Published By A National Publication Within The Niche
• Develop Strategic Alliance Partners
• Attract Sponsors
• Create CDs, DVDs and a Showreel
• Create Relationships With COI’s
• Master Viral Marketing
• Write & Publish A Book

6. Clear Your Roadblocks

• I follow a written 5-year vision and business plan and I always have enough time. 
• I am fully satisfied with the amount of money I am making. 
• I feel naturally excited about my work and I enjoy the selling process. 
• I am getting many great qualified referrals
• I am getting many new high-quality clients. 
• I have branded my business and I am focused on a niche market. 
• I am focused on profitable products & services. 
• I do what I love to do and have a hiring system to delegate everything else. 
• I manage my business relationships extremely well. 
• I always celebrate my successes, learn from my setbacks and I am achieving my true potential as an advisor. 

So why is it that they’re getting:

Lack of focus
Not enough money coming in
Loss of motivation
Failure to ask for referrals
Too many small clients and small products
Administrative “busy work” that takes all their time
Conflict and disputes with clients, partners, management, associates and staff
Beating themselves up

Once you understand the link between Unmet Needs and the Law of Attraction, it’s pretty simple to see why. 

“From the moment Simon was introduced to our conference, I simply knew that he was the one who would coach me to awaken the energy within myself to advance my practice and my life to where I have always felt it should be.” – Philip Hauser, CFPP, Sterling Mutual Funds Inc., London, Ontario

 This article was originally published in Curing The Unmet Needs Disease © Simon Reilly 2008

In this case, you don’t have an Unmet Need, it has you.  It is time to wake up.

Earlier, I quoted John Kehoe, author of Mind Power, who tells us “thoughts are real forces.”

Are you saying, “I don’t have enough time,” “There is too much to do,” or, “I’ll never get it all done?”  Whatever you believe, you are right, because that is what you will attract.

What if you were to adopt the belief, “I have an abundance of time for anything that I am committed to doing,” instead?

The fact that we are electromagnetic beings isn’t really a secret.  Every first-year physics student knows that.  What is now coming under very careful study however is the realization that what we are feeling at any moment causes the emanation of vibrational waves.

These waves match up to corresponding tones on a piano keyboard.  For example, if the vibrations generated by your current emotional and thinking state are below “middle C” on the piano, they are associated with negative emotions and beliefs.  And, the lower they go, the slower the vibration and the more negative they are.

If your vibrational waves correspond to middle C or higher on the piano keyboard, they’re higher and faster vibrations associated with pleasure.  The higher they get, the more excited they get.

That piano is us.  Take even a tiny bit of fret or worry, and you’re down below middle C.  Take unbridled hate, and now you’ve dropped down into the arena of very powerful, long, slow vibrations.

Another way to demonstrate the physical effects of expressing our values (positive feelings and beliefs) versus our Unmet Needs (negative emotions and beliefs) comes from the scientific study of the emotional response of water.

Masaru Emoto, author of The Message from Water (http://www.hado.net/), and his team, experiment with water samples exposed to music, spoken words, words typed and taped to glass containers, photographs and long-distance thought messages.  Their amazing photographs of their crystallized water samples show just how greatly water is affected by positive and negative stimuli.  That includes, of course, the water inside of us – anywhere from 50 to 75% of an adult’s total body weight.

An advisor invoking the positive side of the Law of Attraction will:

• Offer his or her expertise (versus prospecting or trying to sell)
• Take a genuine interest (versus trying to build rapport)
• Set a selling target of twice the quota amount (versus trying to meet quota)
• Seek to serve (rather than persuade or cajole)
• Seek to educate (versus trying to sell)
• Come across as graceful and professional (versus being pushy)
• Expand the potential customer’s vision, expectations and goals (versus touting features and benefits)
• Be motivated by the improvements to their clients’ lives (versus their sales numbers)
• Gain most new business via referrals (versus advertisement and promotion)
• Generate new interest continually (versus marketing and prospecting in cycles)

Once you understand the link between Unmet Needs and the Law of Attraction, it’s pretty simple to see why. 

This article was originally published in Curing The Unmet Needs Disease © Simon Reilly 2008

The grandson listened, then looked up at his grandfather and asked, “Which one will win?”

The grandfather replied, “The one we feed.”

The Universal Law of Attraction states that we attract whatever we consciously or unconsciously give our attention to - whether we want it or not. 

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung gave serious study to the idea of meaningful coincidences and concluded that there are no coincidences.  He called this phenomena synchronicity and believed that it is as natural a principal as cause and effect. 

You’ve potentially got two powerful phenomena working against you.  First, your Unmet Needs are fueling your negative emotions and negative beliefs.  Second, the Law of Attraction kicks in as you attract further challenges with money, conflict, rejection, struggle, suffering and time consuming tasks and people. 

When you deal with your Unmet Needs, and identify and express your values, the accompanying positive feelings and positive beliefs will attract positive experiences and events. 

This article was originally published in Curing The Unmet Needs Disease © Simon Reilly 2008

As a values and behavioral analyst, when I start working with new clients, I produce a 37-page report identifying their values and their behaviors.  Time and again, I see how surprised people are because they had no idea what their values were and they weren’t conscious of their behaviors.

I help them to see that their values and behaviors are actually in conflict.  It’s like having one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake.  It’s just not going to work.  You can’t propel yourself forward, and what’s more, your entire guidance system is off.

Remember, your values will stay unexpressed and even unknown, as long as there are Unmet Needs in the picture.  That’s why motivation and personal development fails.  You can’t slap an, “I’m happy,” affirmation on top of an Unmet Need and expect to live out that value of happiness.

You also can’t get rid of Unmet Needs by drinking, drugging, eating, partying, shopping or gambling them away.  These are all different versions of the same misguided attempt to get what you really need (safety, approval, recognition and belonging).  It won’t work and you will only attract more conflict, rejection, struggle, suffering and time-consuming tasks and people. 

Most advisors, and people in general, do not know the difference between a value and an Unmet Need.  Politicians, for example, may stand on a podium and tell us about their “family values,” and then a few months later we’re watching them give a press conference trying to explain a sex scandal.  The thing is, they might have truly believed in those values at some level, but their family values were in hiding while they chased after their Unmet Needs.  It happens to many of us (just not necessarily on television).

Look at money, for example.  When negative emotions surrounding money are an expression of your Unmet Need for safety, as in, anxiety and fear combined with negative beliefs of “I will never have enough money,” you will continually attract uncertain situations and people.  You’ll feel anxious, edgy, fearful, hesitant, jittery, nervous, panicky, reluctant, restless, scared, shaky, skeptical, suspicious and uneasy about money.

When positive feelings about money are an expression of your value of abundance, the process of attracting money flow effortlessly and you feel confident and hopeful about your prospects.  You focus on the positive beliefs that, “There is an abundance of business,” and, “There is an abundance of currency.”  You continually succeed and accomplish great things, while attracting successful situations and people.  You feel alive, amazed, animated, appreciative, blissful, cheerful, comfortable, confident, delighted, ecstatic, encouraged, energetic, enthusiastic, excited, exhilarated, fascinated, gleeful, glorious, happy, inspired, joyful, loving, optimistic, peaceful, radiant, satisfied, stimulated and wonderful.  When is the last time you experienced these feelings?

This article was originally published in Curing The Unmet Needs Disease © Simon Reilly 2008

Many behave like sales people struggling to get the next sale so that they can survive another month riding the ups and downs of an emotional roller coaster for with out a vision, business plan and budget cash flow there is nothing to aim for, only survival.

I’ve been using a budget cash flow ( BCF ) for years as part of the vision, business plan and budget cash flow big picture planning process.

To me a budget cash flow means a 12 month spreadsheet that starts out with the opening cash balance, less all expenses including taxes, plus income, plus projected profits equals ending balance carried forward and so on. This process helps me to get honest about what my ending balance will be in the months to come … but was I being totally honest?

In the past failure to create a budget cash flow was because of my unmet needs of safety and security and these fueled negative beliefs and negative emotions causing me to not to want to look at the bottom line because I was too afraid … why bother looking, I’m too afraid at what I might see so I better keep working and working and working not realizing that attraction was working in reverse of what I truly wanted because I was pouring negative emotions into negative beliefs that “I am not safe”.

I now believe that I was fooling myself by putting projected profits into the budget cash flow.

This years budget cash flow included the changes of taking out all the projected profits and linking a sales activity calculator spreadsheet to the bottom of the budget cash flow so that I could see the true ending balance if no more sales were made and a good, better, best ending balance via the sales activity calculator spreadsheet.

This is a very sobering process and causes one to face reality very quickly.

While it is clearly painful to look at what might happen if activity is not taken, the pain passes and what is left is our natural inherent ability to create the necessary action to meet and exceed the financial goals that we want to achieve.

It is important to get clear on the necessary action and a sales activity calculator looks like the following;

• calls per hour
• x conversations per hour
• equals prospect bookings per hour
• x hours of calling
• x days per week
• equals prospect bookings per week
• x weeks prospect calls made
• equals prospect bookings per month
• x closing ratio
• equals sales bookings per month
• x average income per sale
• equals total income from sales

The sales activity calculator can be applied to prospecting for anything and in our case it is speaking to attract coaching and workshops because without the speaking, we will not have the contacts to create the clients for the coaching and workshops.

The sales activity calculator is another sobering experience because it causes one to get very honest about what they need to be doing with their time.

The next paragraph is worth repeating;

While it is clearly painful to look at what might happen if activity is not taken, the pain passes and what is left is our natural inherent ability to create the necessary action to meet and exceed the financial goals that we want to achieve.

Then you go to work and then serendipity goes to work at the same time to honor your courage to clearly look at the bottom line, the necessary activity, for being honest about what might result from a lack of focus & procrastination and to be honest about what you must do with your most valuable asset, your time.

As I said, if we don’t speak we will not fill our prospect funnel for coaching, workshops and other speaking opportunities.

So we went to work using our speaking marketing plan approaching decision makers at Associations, Brokerages, Career Agencies, Life Insurance Companies and MGAs.

Then serendipity went into affect. Kind of like what one of my clients said to me after I showed them how to identify and get their unmet needs met; “I don’t know what is happening, prospects that I have been calling for ten years are calling me!”

Serendipity is the effect by which one accidentally stumbles upon something fortunate, especially while looking for something entirely unrelated. - Wikipedia

We didn’t accidentally stumble upon serendipity, serendipity came calling in the form speaking enquires coming in from the internet and from a speaking agent.

I often joke that we wake up unemployed every morning and it is true.

Every year for the last four years we have completed 32 financial advisor speaking presentations and every year we start off with the same goal, at first not having a clue where the speaking presentations will come from and we diligently do our work on our vision, business plan and budget cash flow … and then we go to work.

This year 32 financial advisor speaking presentations appeared to be even more challenging because we realize that we cannot continue to go back to the same speaking opportunities because in the speaking producer’s mind, the audience has already seen Simon. Simon wants to say that the audience needs to hear the message a number of times before they get it but you can’t fight city hall so new pastures must be found.

Three cheers for Laura who booked 5 new financial advisor speaking presentations this month from her activity and three cheers because serendipity came calling in the form of 2 speaking bookings coming in from the internet and from 6 speaking bookings coming in from a speaking agent.

These additional 8 speaking presentations are significant in that they include the first 2 financial advisor speaking presentations that have been booked by a USA company on USA soil and it is the first time we have been booked to do 6 financial advisor speaking presentations for a cross Canada nation wide series of events for an MGA firm.

Our goal is 32 financial advisor speaking presentations for 2010 and we have 16 as February 28, 2010, two months into the year and we are at 50% of goal and for this I am so grateful for the opportunity to continue to deliver our message.