Turn Those Frowns Upside Down

Since there is nothing your clients can do to change the markets, however, why should they force themselves to get a daily dose on agony from the media? Remind them that much of the financial media is really "investment pornography." They're not in business to help people to achieve their long-term goals; they're in it to make money for their shareholders, and will inflame and exaggerate every bit of bad news to get people to tune in. Encourage your clients to read publications that give a thoughtful, balanced perspective on the markets.

Replace Negativity With a Positive Vision

Many people spend enormous amounts of time worrying about the future, projecting their worst fears onto the coming years and creating anxiety and stress for themselves. You can make them happier by helping them alter how they think about the uncertain future.

Many clients do not understand our free-market system and how securities markets behave, so they are easy prey for the media to scare the living daylights out of. When you explain to them the historical perspectives on the market and how markets truly work, you can help them project a more optimistic scene onto the unknown future.

The best way to do this is to help them envision themselves looking back at this period and seeing that it was just a blip on the radar of a market that always–eventually–goes up. By helping them create a positive vision of the future based upon the realities of how free markets work, you can replace their fear and dread of the future with happiness and positive visions of the future.

Three Hints for Happiness

Beyond the questions of how to react to market performance, it's important to help clients look at the other factors that contribute to–or detract from–their happiness. There are three things that researchers have discovered were common denominators of happy people, and, fortunately, they are things over which your clients do have control. With your encouragement, your clients can modify their behavior to increase their happiness.

#1: Surround Yourself With the Right People

Happy people surround themselves with people who care about them and whom they care about. Encourage your clients to spend time every day with people who make them happy. Get them to focus on the positive feelings these people bring, and discourage them from hanging out with people who whine, complain, or otherwise create bad feelings for them.

Ed Diener, a psychologist who studies happiness, says, "Our findings suggest that very happy people have rich and satisfying social relationships and spend little time alone relative to average people." People are major mood-influencers, so remind clients to choose relationships that empower them to be happy.

#2: Enjoy Your Work

The second thing that researchers found made people happy was doing work they felt was meaningful and was a good match for their skills.

Most people think that if they "tough it out," when they eventually retire, they'll be happy. But if they enjoyed their work, if it provided meaning and a sense of accomplishment, they wouldn't want to retire. In fact, many people retire, and when they go back to work just to keep busy, they finally find the right work that truly satisfies them.

Encourage your retired clients to find some way to contribute that gives their life meaning and purpose. It should be challenging enough to keep them growing and learning. In today's market, some people who retired may have to go back to work, but this could be a good thing, if they see it as a way to feel useful while they are supplementing their income. And if your clients are still working, help them design their jobs so that they get more happiness from them.

#3: Enjoy Your Environment

The third common denominator of happy people is that they enjoy their environment. This means everything around them on a daily basis: their home, neighborhood, commute, office, and city. Many people live in a place they don't like for a job they don't like, working with people they don't like. Encourage them to change their environment; it could have a dramatic impact on their happiness. If your clients like their environment and the people they associate with, and they have meaningful work, who cares what's going on in the market? They are going to be happy every day, because they have taken control over the important things in their lives.

This is one of the most difficult markets the world has ever seen. We need bold new strategies to serve clients in a market that is making them dazed, confused, anxious, and fearful. By taking a lead from our colleagues in the psychology field, we can help them in a meaningful way regardless of the market conditions.