Sam Bradford

I’ve been a lifelong learner of behavioural mindset and, in particular, behavioural finance. So, even when I worked in a bank, I was always fascinated with what makes people react to things or behave in certain ways. When James posted on LinkedIn that he was publishing his second book, I just reached out to him and said, “What are you doing? This looks great.” and he said, “Well, let me tell you.” and then one thing led to another and he asked if I would you like to be part of his very first cohort.

It’s important to understand clients’ emotions because everything that they do, all of their decision-making, is often led by their emotions. So, it’s really important that I understand what’s driven that behaviour and what perhaps was the emotion behind it so that I can help them understand it in the moment, and perhaps prevent them from making costly mistakes or make things happen that won’t be serving them and won’t give them the best outcome.

Yes, I did. What was interesting was that it helped me to notice things happening in their body language and their facial expressions, particularly when somebody isn’t being necessarily aligned with the words coming out in the way that their body language is showing, and then that little hint would help me to feel confident to ask a few more probing questions to uncover what’s really going on for them.

All of our reactions are based upon five major emotions that we have, and there are seven in total, but there are five major ones. And each one of those emotions gives a different expression on your face, and often there’s a reason, there’s a trigger to why you react in a certain way. So, for example, if you are feeling angry, the root cause of anger, which is one of the major emotions, is that something’s getting in the way of your goals. And when it comes to financial advice, often if someone’s getting angry around what’s going on with their investments, it’s because something’s getting in the way of their goal, and that could be that they’re not achieving for their loved ones what they’re looking to, or whatever it might be. So, it’s having the understanding behind it that’s been a really important benefit of being on the course.

What it’s allowed me to do is to be a little bit wiser as to why somebody is reacting in a particular way. So it gives me much more inner knowing and inner understanding, and I guess the way it’s changed me is to allow me to see a client’s perspective from a different viewpoint.

The benefit to the client is that I’m going to be able to uncover more for them and get to a deeper level of understanding for themselves.

The impact the training has had on me personally is that it has allowed me to have a better knowledge of why I react to different things as well. Whenever we learn something about human behaviour, we learn it in through the lens of what’s going on for ourselves. We think, “Oh, I do that because _____, and that’s why someone else might do that, because _____” so, I’ve learned that when I react emotionally to things, it’s because something’s happening that’s triggered that. So understanding those triggers has allowed me to understand why I react in a way, and it’s helped me with my relationship with my husband, for example, because I know why he reacts in a certain way. So it’s great.

James has got a really good training style. I think because he’s relatable, due to being a financial planner in the past, he’s got a working knowledge of what we deal with on a day-to-day basis. So, he’s very good at delivering and he’s really methodical as well, which I like, and patient; if you don’t quite get something, he’d be very happy to go back over something again. And you always feel like he wants you to succeed as well.

Yes, I would say it’s essential. This type of training is where we are going to make a difference in this profession. So, we need to have a good understanding of our own emotional responses, and as I said, that’s what happens when you take on training like this: you understand yourself, and then you can also help understand what other people are going through and why. Also, you become a better adviser through that shared understanding and authenticity and just wanting to make sure that they are making the best choices for them.