At its core, positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living. In other words, it seeks to understand how we can flourish in life. And hey, who doesn’t want that, right?

My recent podcast guest, Dr. Martin Seay of Kansas State University, researches how we can apply the concepts of positive psychology to the financial planning process. And it makes sense because if all we do as advisors is help people make more money with no improvement in their well-being, then what good is that?

Parallel Paths Intersect

Interestingly, Dr. Seay’s field and financial planning have both gone through evolutions in recent years. The traditional model of psychology focused on treating people who had problems or disorders, such as depression or bi-polar, in the hope of returning them to a more neutral state. But positive psychologists like Dr. Seay want to help people who start from a position of strength to move to a higher plane where they flourish in life. It’s about helping healthy people reach a higher level of meaning and well-being.

Likewise, financial planning is evolving toward putting the client’s life at the center of the conversation, not their money. This dovetails nicely with the fundamentals of the Return on Life philosophy pioneered by my business partner Mitch Anthony. Just as Dr. Seay and other researchers have found that there’s more to life than being healthy, those of us who’ve embraced life-centered planning believe there’s more to the client-advisor relationship than helping rich people get richer.  

Rather, it’s about using tools, assessments and more effective human-to-human dialogue to help clients achieve a better relationship with their money and get more clarity on their life, so they can use their money to live their best life possible right now. 

New Tools For New Thinking

Dr. Seay told me that one of the most exciting developments in positive psychology is that the research has finally matured enough to start providing tools that financial advisors can use.

A key element of positive psychology is Dr. Seligman’s Well-Being theory, which states that people will flourish in life if they have achievement in five areas:

• Positive emotion—spending time on activities that make us feel good.