For the next two weeks, the world’s eyes will be on the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Inevitably, we’ll focus on those  who excel and pull away from the pack with multiple medals, the brightest stars in a constellation of athletic talent.  

These days, simply appearing on the Olympic stage is a huge accomplishment. But watching the Olympics isn’t just about athletes achieving their goals.  There are also nine important lessons for financial advisors looking for guidance and inspiration on hitting goals of our own.

Lesson one: A plan for success

The first necessary element  and foundation for Olympic athletes is a plan of action that clearly spells out the path to the podium. Thirty or forty years ago, you could show up with talent alone and aspire to medal – today it takes dedicated effort and a clear plan of action to even have a chance of winning.

Having a plan of action is just as important for individual investors.  In times past, when life spans were shorter and the average male retired at 65 and died at 70, a retirement plan wasn’t all that important. Planning for today’s thirty year retirement has changed the rules of the game - just like Olympians, individual investors need a well thought through strategy to hit their goals.

This is just as critical for advisors. At one time, advisors could realistically expect to do well just by showing up.  That world is gone forever.  And yet an appalling number of advisors don’t have a written plan that lays out their mid and long term goals and how they’re going to reach them.

Just like athletes with Olympic aspirations need a written plan to have the prospect of gold, if you’re serious about the business, a written plan is the price of admission for even the hope of excelling.

Lesson two: A long term view

Last Wednesday’s New York Times contained a story on Canada’s ambitious plan to “own the podium” in Vancouver and emerge with the most medals.

For many Canadians, skier Nancy Greene Raine, 1968 gold and silver medalist in St. Moritz, still epitomizes Olympic success .

 In a recent interview, Nancy Greene said that at one time Canada’s Olympic team could hope to compete by planning one Olympic game ahead and investing heavily in athletes. For Vancouver, the planning began eight years ago – that’s the only way a smaller country could hope to have a chance to “own the podium”.

Advisors need to adopt a similar timeframe in thinking about their businesses. Yes, one-year plans are important, but if you really want to excel, you need to look out three to five years and to make investments today that will only pay dividends in the long term.

Lesson three: Hard work and commitment

The all-time leader in winter medals is Norwegian cross-country legend Bjorn Daehlie, who won eight gold and three silver medals over three Olympics in the 1990s. The first time he tried, Daehlie failed to make Norway’s junior team, but through relentless dedication to his training and sheer hard work, he improved year after year after year.  Daehlie still holds the record in one common fitness test and is considered the greatest cross country skier of all time.

With similar perserverance, Canada’s speedskater Cindy Klassen won five medals in Torino, the most of any competitor.  She’s said  “To succeed, every practice has to count, every step, every push on the ice.”

When it comes to building your business, a constant quest for improvement and a strong work ethic are just as important. Some people are attracted to the business by the financial rewards and the prospect of independence – what they don’t always see is the hard work it takes to achieve these rewards.

Lesson four: Taking risks

To win at the Olympics, you can’t afford to play it safe. That’s true of the speed sports like skiing and speed skating – and equally true of sports like figure skating, where athletes such as Germany’s Katerina Witt and Great Britain’s Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won gold by pushing the artistic limits and taking chances on their program.

The same applies to advisors.  To excel, you need to get out of your comfort zone and take measured risks   – whether it comes to hiring additional staff earlier rather than later, investing the time to position yourself against a key target group for the future, spending the money on a computer solution that will streamline operations in your business or repositioning your business to meet emerging needs.  Avoiding risk of any form is a prescription for middle of the pack performance for Olympic athletes – and equally so for advisors.    

Lesson five: Resilience

With its focus on sports such as skiing, skating and sliding, the Olympics are replete with stories of remarkable comebacks from horrific injuries. Perhaps none was more extraordinary than Austrian skier Herman Maier. He was dubbed “the Herminator”  when he recovered from a spectaculour crash in the downhill at the 98 Winter Games to come back and win two golds. Subsequently, a motorcycle accident almost claimed his life – and once again he came back to dominate international competition.

There are lots of times when it would be easy for advisors to get discouraged. It can relate to periods of tough markets such as we’ve just been through. It can be losing a great prospect that you thought you had in the bag or having a good client leave for a  reason beyond your control, perhaps moving to another city or being lured away by stories from a golfing buddy about great returns from his broker. Just as Olympic athletes need to work through setbacks to reach their goals, sometimes advisors need to reach deep to bounce back from disappointments.

Lesson six: Seizing opportunity

For athletes to win gold takes talent and hard work but there’s often also an element of luck involved – the trick for athletes is to maximize the impact of skill and minimize the element of chance. Having said that, winning athletes know they can’t ever eliminate the role of luck entirely – all they can do is position themselves to capitalize when the chance presents itself. As the old expression goes, luck occurs when preparation meets opportunity.

For instance, in the finals of the 1000-meter speed skating competition at the Salt Lake Olympics, Australian Steven Bradbury was trailing when a collision wiped out US favourite Apolo Anton Ohno (subsequently of Dancing with Stars fame) and the other leaders.  By being opportunistic, Bradbury claimed the first winter Olympic gold of any athlete from the Southern Hemisphere.

The same principle applies to financial advisors. You can have a great plan – but you still need to be adaptable and flexible and open to opportunities that present themselves.

In an article last summer, I wrote about an advisor in a mid sized community in which the biggest employer announced layoffs on a Friday. This advisor spent the weekend going through the company’s termination offer and pension plan and also talking to an accountant and lawyer she knew.

The following Wednesday, just five days after the layoffs were announced, the three of them were offering lunch time and after hours workshops at a hotel across the street from the company’s office. She filled the first session by asking a client who worked for the company to email invitations to people she knew.  Word of mouth took over from there and his advisor spent much of the next six weeks focused against this, with great results.

 That’s an example of seizing an unexpected opportunity. Click here to read the full article on capitalizing on corporate downsizing: http://clientinsights.ca/article/turning-corporate-downsizing-into-prospecting-success

Lesson seven: Teamwork

Today’s Olympic athletes are supported by a phalanx of trainers, nutritionists and psychologists. For instance, U.S. skier Lindsay Vonn travels with her “vonntourage” of two trainers, a ski technician and her coach (who conveniently is also her husband.)

While there will always be individualists - New Hampshire gold medalist Bode Miller raced independently for two seasons before rejoining the U.S. ski team last October – even athletes who race in individual disciplines almost always operate as a team.

In the same way, it’s essential for advisors to have the right team behind them. That team can be your assistant and associate, it can be your branch manager, it can be resources within your firm or externally, it can be other advisors in your branch who you meet with on a regular basis. Whatever the composition of your team, in future few advisors will be able to succeed on their own.

Lesson eight: Confidence

There have been many upsets at the Olympics, but perhaps none greater than the 1980 U.S. hockey team’s “Miracle on Ice” defeat of Russia for the gold medal.

Crucial to their success was coach Bob Johnson. Johnson drove the team hard in practice but he also instilled confidence.  “Bob made us believe we could win” one player said “and that conviction carried us through the moments of doubt along the way.”

Advisors need the same conviction to achieve their long term goals. In any long path, there will inevitably be disappointments – a sense of realistic optimism and confidence are critical to carry us through those periods.

There’s a growing body of research on strategies to maintain confidence and optimism. Click here for an article on research by Martin Seligman of University of Pennsylvania, who outlined some specific strategies to stay positive in his book called Learned Optimism. http://clientinsights.ca/article/developing-an-optimistic-outlook

Lesson nine: Perspective

After winning gold and silver during his Olympic career, Norwegian speed skater Johann Koss founded Right to Play, with the goal of using sports to foster development and improve the lives of children in some of the most disadvantaged parts of the world. Many Olympic athletes have embraced this charity - at the Torino games, American speed skater Joey Cheek donated his gold medal bonus to Right to Play.

After his win in the 500 metres, Cheek said: “I do a pretty ridiculous thing, skating around in tights. But because I skate well, I have a chance to bring exposure to bigger things I’d like to pursue.”

This inspired Canada’s Clara Hughes to make a similar donation , even though  Canada’s Olympic program didn’t give athletes medal bonuses and the money came out of her own bank account. Hughes invited Canadians to match her contribution – and Right to Play saw an influx of donations as a result. Winner of a gold medal in speed skating and one of only four athletes ever to medal in both the winter and summer Olympics, last Friday Hughes carried Canada’s flag into the Olympic stadium.

Advisors can borrow some of that perspective from Johann Koss, Joey Cheek and Clara Hughes.  Like Olympic athletes, it’s easy to become fixated on doing what it takes to succeed – but it’s important not to get so caught up in our own goals that we ignore the broader world around us and the other things in life that bring us satisfaction.

For the next couple of weeks, we’ll all be glued to the screen and cheering our athletes on.  While doing that, though, we may want to reflect on the important lessons we can take from the Olympic example to achieve important goals of our own.