People have been complaining about politicians as long as there have been politicians. I do it now and then too, most recently after Social Security claiming rules were altered. Without so much as a mention or a word of public discussion, the rug was pulled out from couples about to put their plans in motion.

My complaint about Social Security sure seems justified to me, but few people see their complaints as unjustified. In a free and democratic society, disagreements will be plentiful.

Every four years we get to disagree about who should hold the office of President of the United States. Let the craziness begin.

So far, the crazy has been entertaining. Saturday Night Live loves it. Both the lack of drama on the Democratic side and the slew of candidates on the Republican side provide plenty of opportunity for laughs.

Of course, electing a president is no laughing matter; it's quite the opposite. It is the very seriousness of the issue that will change the mood of some of your clients. The closer we get to Election Day and the narrower the field becomes, the higher the anxiety.

The progression from “We’ll see how it goes” to “If they win, we are all doomed!” is hardly a phenomenon unique to 2016. The cast of characters changes, but the result is the same. Some clients become convinced that the election of someone they don’t like will cause tremendous problems and send the country in a horrible direction.

I respect my clients’ right to their opinions and assume they did not come to their viewpoints lightly. My clients are intelligent, well-educated, hard-working people. Still, with all the noise generated during an election cycle, some of them get so worked up over politics, they feel compelled to make changes to their finances. 

Sometimes this is just a matter of wanting to do something so they feel in control. Sometimes it is a preventive measure stemming from a fear of what the election results will do to them. Regardless, it is a short-term maneuver that runs contrary to their long-term plans.

Do not wait for the conventions to start talking to clients about this. Right now, most people are calm because the competition lacks intensity, but that will change.

Both parties want to nominate someone who can win. This is likely to result in a fall campaign season in which clients can envision their favorite candidate losing to someone they don’t like.

Now is the time to engage clients in as rational a conversation as possible about how the noise can increase their anxiety. When someone says something obnoxious, it will get coverage. This is done deliberately. Campaigns want to fire up their supporters and media outlets want ad revenue which is dependent on ratings and circulation numbers. The campaigns, commentators, pundits and analysts will seek to make as much noise as possible to stand out.  

If you want your clients to be levelheaded and rational, you should be levelheaded and rational yourself. To that end, I try to remind clients of some things, and the earlier in the election year I have these discussions, the better.

First, I can’t guarantee that a client’s gloomy prediction won’t come to be. Bad things do happen and we have had some bad presidents. The next administration may produce one of these nasty tenures. Because of this, I do not try to convince them that their scenario is wrong unless it is a really off the charts oddball story.

Second, I ask clients to think of a lousy presidency and describe all the bad things that happened. The favorites seem to be Presidents Nixon, Carter, George W. Bush and Obama.  

From there, I like to talk about what businesses were doing during the time mentioned. Times were tough, but they didn’t just close shop. They sought profits even if profits were tougher to come by. They innovated. They streamlined. They adapted to the conditions of the times.

Then I ask the client, “Then what happened?” Most readily admit that better times always follow bad, eventually, and usually faster than people think at the time. The adaptations allowed the strong to survive.

I’ll then point out that all four of those presidencies have something in common besides the awful things we recounted earlier. The S&P 500 hit an all-time high during each of those respective administrations. This is true of almost all presidencies, actually.

As bad as things got economically, politically or socially, it was never long before the markets were historically better than ever. More to the point, these highs were reached in far shorter periods of time than a typical client’s investment lifetime.

It isn’t all about the markets, of course, but a presidential election induced market drop is a common fear.

We say the President is the most powerful person in the world, but when it comes to sound long-term financial planning in a capitalist society, presidents just aren’t that powerful.

Think about it. How many presidents did NOT have an enormous incentive to have a growing economy and good markets? Despite this, we still have recessions and bear markets. It is actually quite likely that the economy and/or financial markets will perform poorly after the election. Fact is the markets do lousy quite often. There has only been one year since 1980 in which the S&P 500 didn’t drop 5 percent or more during the year. The average intra-year drop has been about 14 percent. Ten percent corrections, have occurred in more years than not.

In most cases, to blame these drops on the President, one needs to take an indirect path. The President can definitely exert influence, but the economy and markets are simply too complex for a U.S. president to drive their behavior in the straight-line way the fear mongers suggest.  

Statistics and facts can help sometimes when people are relatively calm, but if you wait until the intensity amps up, they may fall on deaf ears.

Market history is just one aspect of my discussions with clients. I also make sure we spend some time on the how the media portrays the contest. Most coverage is noise, but there are also important issues to address and legitimate journalists trying to report the conflicting sides accurately. Discerning the difference can be challenging.

People crave control. Uncertainty usually increases the cravings. One thing clients control is what news they ingest and what they do after it is consumed. If listening to a candidate makes them nauseous, logic dictates they should listen to something else. Easier said than done. If your client can tune out the noise, that’s great but most people struggle with that.

I sometimes ask clients to look at things from a different angle. Instead of tuning out, have them try tuning in but in a focused way that helps. Such as? Well, if they are going to watch the news, have them look for things the media does to get the viewers hooked or things campaigns do to rile up supporters.

Have them watch for things like a tease before commercial breaks. Talk to them about fund-raising tactics. Most importantly, have them note how the reporting affects their mood. Often they become less susceptible to getting riled up, see the media’s breathless coverage as less informative and more noise making, and the rhetoric can become less scary.

If people can proactively identify the attempts to stir their emotions, they may be more likely to keep their emotions in check.

In cases where the emotions have already been stoked, I have had success providing a sense of empowerment and control by revisiting the financial planning process. Clients can’t control whom others vote for, but they can control how much they save and spend, how long they plan to work, the amount of their intended bequests and whether they will be speculators or investors. They, not politicians, choose the goals and priorities for their family.

These are big picture issues that endure long past anyone’s four or eight-year terms. By following the initial planning with a “What if?” discussion, we can lay out a plan of what we will do should the market experience a big drop or rise. Knowing what they will do ahead of time can make the event less traumatic and increases the odds they will follow through.

Our firm’s trademarked motto is “A sanctuary from the noise,” and we take providing that sanctuary very seriously. Without the intensity the noise generates, clients would not bet their life goals on political opinions, but fear can cause people to do short-sighted things. With your help, they won’t make such bad decisions because of “Decision 2016.” (Cue logo and stirring, timpani-heavy theme music.)

Dan Moisand, CFP has been featured as one of America’s top independent financial advisors by Financial Planning, Financial Advisor, Investment Advisor, Investment News, Journal of Financial Planning, Accounting Today, Research, Wealth Manager, and Worth magazines. He practices in Melbourne, Fla. You can reach him at [email protected].