The toilet roll is an appropriate icon for the coronavirus.
Like our confidence, we take our toilet rolls for granted.
Until there are none left – all grabbed by fear.
The same fear that steals our confidence.
Add in the terrible elements of our social media habits, as Prof Scott Galloway suggests, it’s clear that the coronavirus mayhem is illustrating how badly the world is reacting to the globe’s first real social media epidemic. Many don’t know how to react.
The facts about the coronavirus seem to resemble a tranquil peak of a panic iceberg with invisible depths making real holes in global economies.
Schools and offices are closing, stock markets are tumbling, needed shipping containers are lying idle, and white-collar workers are being urged to work from home whilst blue-collar workers don’t have that choice.
What can we do as financial advisers?
What we are paid to do.
Advise.
Crisis
People suffer crisis all the time.
We’re human.
Some are visible, capturing the headlines and seemingly stopping the whole world – the coronavirus.
For many a few months ago, it was the fires. For many more, it is still the drought.
But like the common flu kills more people, so too the common crisis. The real ones that don’t make headlines which can maim or even kill our confidence.
When families break up.
When health is lost.
When life seems out of control.
When tragedy strikes.
When livelihoods are threatened.
When depression takes hold.
When trusted relationships fail.
When stuck in our own real crisis, regardless of its origins, the last thing we need is our handheld social media machines driven by advertising clickbait promising more headlines to worry about and products with all the solutions.
When we have less capability to recognise our best next steps, when our own complexities outweigh our confidences, we need advice.
That’s why most financial advisers became advisers in the first place – to advise.
To them, “best interests” is not a compliance term.
It’s a way of professional life dedicated to serve their clients through the crisis of confidence life throws at them, however minor or major.
Don’t get distracted by the toilet roll headlines, they’ll come and go.
Now, more than ever, these times serve to remind us of the value of advice.
What do you reckon?
Photo credit: @frankistackpool.art
ABOUT JIM STACKPOOL
For over 30 years Jim has influenced, coached, and consulted to accounting & financial advisory firms across Australia. His firm, Certainty Advice Group specialises in growing professional advice firms offering comprehensive unconflicted advice. He has created Australia’s highest and only ACCC/IP Australia Certification Mark standard of comprehensive advice – Certainty Advice. He is also an author, blogger, and keynote speaker.