To continue my example, when I learned that the flight was cancelled (the negative event), I had a choice regarding what I could say to myself.  One option is:  "Oh, that's just great...now I won't make the meeting, everyone is there expecting a rousing keynote, they’ll be disappointed and the meeting planner for the conference will be so angry at me that she’ll never book me to conduct a program again."

Such a negative, self-defeating statement would immediately activate the nervous system necessary to deal with life-threatening situations, my brain would conclude that I was in an emergency and my body would react accordingly.  My blood pressure would rise, my anxiety spike, and my behavior might become irrational…all resulting from my worried perception of a situation over which I had no control.

You do have control over your self-talk. This is really important to remember.  Although we are creatures of habit, we can learn to change any habit that causes stress for us. In fact, in her wonderful little book, Change Almost Anything in 21 Days, Ruth Fishel describes research that shows how quickly people can change their stress producing self-talk, if they are serious about doing so.

Back to my example, suppose that when I learned that the flight was cancelled, I said to myself the following:  "It is what it is! This is really unfortunate and I feel badly that I will not be there on time, but it is absolutely beyond my control.  I will phone the meeting planner right away and see if she would like me to find a substitute speaker who is based in the city where the conference is being held.”

Also, I could have suggested, “Perhaps we can postpone my keynote until the last day of the Conference, when I will definitely be able to get there.”

If these possibilities were not acceptable, I could have even suggested that, “I can do the keynote through a tele-conference via Skype, for example. That way, with the audience all situated in the meeting room, I can arrange to do the keynote by interactive television and have a dialogue, etc.”  I could even have used this example with them when I discussed how their self-talk always determines their emotional, attitudinal and behavioral responses to dramatic events, over which they have no control!

Bringing this example into the everyday realm of the financial advisor, consider an example one of my recent coaching clients shared with me.  He got a message from his assistant that his least favorite client called and sounded very angry about how poorly the last product/equity he recommended was performing.  The client wanted his advisor to call him as soon as possible.

Again, this potentially negative event does not have to be stressful, depending on the self-talk in which you engage.  For example, you could say to yourself: “I hate it when this client calls.  He gets angry whenever the market dips and he always blames me.  I would like to dump him and suggest he find another advisor, but he is a high net worth client and I hesitate to let him go.”

Just imagine how your stress and anxiety will spike if you give yourself that message.

But, remember, you have choices.  You could tell yourself that you will use the active listening skills (which I will teach you in an upcoming Dr. Jack’s Advice for the the Advisors segment) to allow the client to vent, empathize with his frustration, and once he is calm, remind him how you went over the risks with him when he purchased the product/equity and that this dip in the market is like all past dips---temporary.  Explain to him that your overall strategy in helping him manage and expand his wealth takes these unpredictable market dips into account and the strategy is still viable. Gently point out to him that patience will prove to be his most valuable learned skill, etc.