Help Your Clients Conquer Financial Shame, Bestselling Author Urges Advisors

“For me, that is the most important part of the work that we do as financial educators or advisors is to help people move past the shame. Because if you can do that, the solutions, not only will they take, they will stick, because I’ve had people make similar mistakes again, and that’s OK. But because they’re no longer ashamed, they go right into the solution,” she said.

Aliche encouraged financial professionals to encourage those they work with to be “paper towel” people — to focus on helping people clean up the mess rather than criticizing them over how they got into it.

Aliche draws on her experience as a preschool teacher and her own missteps to help people open up about their financial mistakes.

“You have to create an environment of nonjudgment, of kindness. And if you feel comfortable sharing some of your mistakes, like, ‘I actually understand because when I was XYZ age, or my daughter also went through …’ Sharing something of your own journey, whatever you feel comfortable with, makes people realize that they are not alone,” said Aliche.

“Because that’s really what people are struggling with. They think that they are alone in the mistakes that they’ve made. And if you can share with them, even if it’s not your stuff, you might say, ‘Ten years ago, I had a client that filed for bankruptcy, that XYZ, and now they’re flourishing.’ And so, offering up something to let people know that they are not alone in their journey is one of the best things that you can do.”

When Aliche starts working with people, she asks them to tell their story, “because people want to get it off their chest, like, how did we get here?”

While Aliche at one point studied to be a financial advisor, she decided, on suggestion from her mentor, to take a different path. “I wanted to be able to speak a little more freely,” she said.

Image: Shutterstock