The whole world loves a storyteller. You really don’t need more than a few sales ideas and stories to succeed in this business. Learn a few really good stories and tell them over and over again. The more success you have with these stories, the more you’ll be tempted to stop telling them. The more successful we become, the further we get away from the basics that made us successful in the first place. Don’t fall into that trap.

Take a good look at the people in your life you feel closest to. It’s important that you admire and respect those people, because that’s who you are. You’re one of them.

I have noticed on more than one occasion that Advisors who no longer feel compelled to improve simply stop being good at what they do. Slowing down is not the problem. Stopping is the problem. I see too many talented people fall by the wayside. They know they can do the job and knowing that seems to breed complacency. Mastering the job is just not enough. You have to master yourself. Don’t let anything stop you.

As long as there has been a stock market, it has been one crisis after another. Each crisis seems more horrifying than the last, if one is to judge crises by press coverage. The meltdown is perhaps and probably the greatest crisis yet. I have now spent forty years watching the market bounce back from problems and watching those Advisors who truly get it take advantage of those rebounds. It is becoming increasingly clear that the bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity.

According to the Sarasota Herald Tribune, the SEC has filed suit against a couple from Sarasota, Florida, a man from Rockwell, Texas, and a man from Omaha, Nebraska. In the suit, the SEC said the promoters claimed to investors that there was a secret government plan to stimulate the economy. As part of the secret plan, large, sophisticated trading firms would swap huge amounts of high-grade securities. Investors could put up the money for these firms to meet margin requirements. In return, the investors would receive returns of 14 percent to 70 percent per month. Per month. Not per year. Per month. The scheme raised $11 million. Fine, the defendants are bad guys. But don’t people who invest in these types of deals have lawyers or accountants to check out offers like this? I think we can assume that the higher return promised the more investors want to believe it. And the less they want to check it out.