Individuals and teams at the top of any profession share certain characteristics. Yes, they work hard and might have interesting stories about how things just “worked out,” but there are habits and processes in how they make decisions that drive success.
What makes them tick? How do they run their practices and their lives, and what insight can we gain?
It’s for this reason we’re launching “a day in the life” of top-performing advisors. Like most advisors, we love to hear what others are doing, how they’re doing it, and why they’re doing it. That’s what stimulates my thinking about my own practice.
Too many professionals are focused on achievement-style goals: increasing their revenue, number of clients or some other commonly measured metric. Yet high achievers are habit-driven. Doubling the size of a business in the next five years is a worthy target, but does the advisor know what systems are required to handle that amount of business?
High achievers understand what they need to do currently—and position themselves accordingly—to be more productive in the future.
A key question is how much is instinctual, and therefore how much can be taught. It’s the subject of many motivational books, and yes, there are definitive steps we can take to improve efficiency and therefore achievement. But it would be hard to label anything a success if growth came at the expense of one’s family, health or anything else they hold dear.
We’ll speak with those who have broken the code and found the right balance, and as a result are making an impact on the people who work with them, their family and—importantly—the clients they serve.
While we cannot necessarily replicate what they do, we can modify and tailor it to our individual situation based on our understanding of why they do it.
The high achievers with whom we speak are hardly in a rush to hang up the phone. Quite the contrary, while it’s never about shining the spotlight on themselves, they understand that sharing their success makes us all better.
Some say success is often defined by the ability to say “no”; no to distractions and no to anything that isn’t in keeping with a laser-like focus.
We absolutely agree, but with a caveat. The reason they can say no is that they first understand when to say yes. They comprehend the difference between what’s important and what’s urgent, and they understand the best use of their time. If they say no without strategy or forethought, they’re simply freeing their calendar and wasting time. Think of it this way—living a healthy lifestyle by refusing to eat sugary foods is great, but fail to replace it with a healthy alternative and all we do is starve.
A healthy, high-achieving personal and professional life is our goal, and we’ll feature important conversations on the subject in the magazine and online at 401kspecialist.com. We can be reached at elite@rekonintel.com for those that would like to join the discussion.
Ross Marino, CFP, CPFA, CeFT is founder and CEO of 401(k) Rekon | Excel 401(k).
Ross Marino, CFP, CPFA, CeFT, is the founder and CEO of Advisor 2X | Excel 401(k) and Transitus Wealth Partners. He can be reached at rmarino@rekonintel.com.