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When you cook, do you follow a recipe precisely or adapt it as you go? My wife uses the second approach. She will make something extraordinary, and when I ask if she wrote down what she did, she has no idea. She tastes, adjusts, and adds a little of this or that. I am the opposite. Give me a recipe, and I’m fine; just don’t ask me to be creative.
That’s probably why, in my long-ago first sales job in real estate, I initially relied on the decision tree the manager gave me. “If the client says this, go here. If they object, go there.” I tried to memorize every branch. If a customer said something that wasn’t on any of them, I had nothing.
You have probably sat across from someone like that, maybe an insurance agent reading from a script or a financial advisor going through a standard questionnaire without looking up. You can feel the difference when someone is rigidly following a recipe rather than listening to you and responding to your needs and concerns.
Beyond Tool-First Training
The difference matters when someone is handling your financial life. Most advisor training works tool-first. You learn the exercise, practice it, and repeat it until you know the recipe and master the skill.
Breanna Blaney, founder of the Anya Institute and creator of the Integrative Wealth Advisor certification, uses a different approach to train financial advisors. Before her students learn any client-facing tools, they spend months doing their own inner work, examining their own relationship with money and their own blind spots. Only then do they learn the techniques. “I teach people how to cook,” she says, “not what the recipe is.”
When I introduce the emotional side of money to my financial planning students at Golden Gate University, the most common reaction is shock that it was never part of their formal education. “This is hard,” they say when I ask them to sit quietly with their own thoughts for a few minutes. If it is that hard for them, imagine how difficult it is for a planner without that practice to guide clients through their money issues.
Getting on the Balcony
Jacob Moreno, the founder of psychodrama, used the phrase “getting on the balcony” to describe rising above the action to observe what is actually happening rather than reacting. A financial advisor on the balcony asks better questions, notices what you are not saying, and does not flinch when the conversation moves past the numbers. Blaney’s description for this is, “I’m looking at you. I’m seeing you first.”
In practice, that means the advisor does not default to running you through the same sequence of questions, exercises, or rote processes they use with every client. They will not rush past the emotion to get to the spreadsheet. If you need to talk about why you cannot bring yourself to sell your late parents’ house before you can discuss the tax implications, an advisor who has done their own work will follow you there.
Signs of a Great Financial Cook
If you are looking for a financial advisor, here are some clues that someone knows how to cook rather than just how to follow a recipe:
- They ask about your life before they ask about your portfolio.
- They listen and clarify before they offer advice.
- They can sit with a difficult subject without changing it.
- They have examined their own relationship with money before trying to guide yours.
For a financial advisor, having a recipe book of skills and processes is essential. Just as important is knowing when and how to tweak those recipes to give clients the service and support they need.
Rick Kahler, MS, CFP®, CFT™, CeFT®, is the founder of Advanced Wellbeing, a Rapid City, SD-based financial therapy and coaching group. He is a recognized thought leader in financial life planning, co-author of nine books, and a 2026 inductee to the Financial Therapy Hall of Fame.
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Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.