It is important to remind the community we work with of something vital and profound. We are not in the "more" business, we are in the "relationships with money" business. So as we move money to the center of our conversations, we have to question our proper functions. (Am I the only one that thinks we put too much emphasis on money management and its attendant details? How well did that work for us when everything hit the fan?)
Using hyperbole to talk about our professional destiny is no crime. Thinking small in the face of our many problems is no virtue. The world needs us to show up as best we can. It's easy to play small, but small isn't going to cut it. People are hurting. People have lost jobs and equity. They thought their lives were under control. They were wrong. Businesses, portfolios and personal lives are imploding.
People are discovering that money cannot be relied on for long-term security. Even the pursuit of "enough" money is chimerical. Responsible people who have spent decades developing sound savings habits have gotten clobbered.
The less responsible people, those who have followed bad habits and self-indulgence, have seen chickens coming home to roost so big they seem to have ingested steroids. Unprecedented social and individual demands are being placed on money. If today is bad, what about those unfunded promises/liabilities for tomorrow?
This financial crisis is big. It cannot be dismissed by jokes and mockery. It is going to take understanding and adaptability. Somebody needs to help the folks understand. Somebody needs to help people think this through creatively, courageously and constructively, the somebody being the CFP practitioner. If not us, who?
Obviously, the financial services industry has abandoned its claims to any sort of moral standing. Who could trust
it or its $88,000 carpets? Sales organizations turned their backs on the public's health, safety and welfare with derivatives, subprime, arrogance and self-indulgence. Now the courts have told them that real advisors must make disclosures.
Who is left that can be trusted is us-and that is real, not hyperbole. Who is left is a group of people that have moved toward increasing accountability, acceptance of fiduciary standards, dedication to client service. They look into the future to understand what people's demands will be. "Stepping up" is how we roll.
It is time for financial planners to fully grasp our essential intangible. It is time to grow up, play big and see ourselves on a world stage. As Marianne Williamson said, your playing small does not serve the world. (Can I get an "amen"?)
Yet we continue to dither with trivia. We continue to spend our energy fiddling with trifling details and middling gimmicks while ignoring big picture issues that touch everybody's lives.
Have we grasped the role that money plays in our culture? I think not. Do we understand it? Again, I think not. Not me. Not you. Not Fed chairs, Treasury secretaries, hedge fund managers, the late, great sub-species known as investment bankers or mutual fund managers. Try thinking about our current money dependency in terms of history. The reliance on money instead of people for most social and physical infrastructure is essentially a post-Civil War phenomenon-less than 150 years old, a mere flick of time.