When markets are crashing, the workload and emotional demands on you soar. You need to quickly reach your clients to provide an action plan that will protect them. The volume of client call-ins surges and these calls are packed with emotional intensity as you deal with client panic and their fears about dreams being crushed.
You can empathize because you’re also worried about your family’s portfolio, your business, and perhaps your company.
In the heat of this inferno, it is imperative that you take of yourself. You can’t take care of your clients if you are not attending to your own health and your emotional state. Here are a few reminders.
- Be attentive to your needs for regular exercise, a full night’s sleep, and healthy eating. These times demand that you be physically robust.
- Maintain balance with outside activities and family time. It is easy to be consumed trying to make sense of what’s happening in the markets around the world. Take time with your family, continue your coaching activities, and keep engaged in outside activities that affirm a positive perspective. If you don’t, not only will you will lose your perspective but you will begin to transfer your stress to your clients and your family. They need you to be calm and provide guidance.
- Intensify personal nourishment. Whether it is prayer, meditation, journaling, and/or inspirational reading, etc. Do more of what strengthens you, what helps you get more “centered”. These times will test you and you need to be internally strong.
- Be attentive to your limits. Limit the length of the “rounds” when you are taking an emotional pounding. If you finish a call that was emotionally draining, take a break. Go for a short walk. Give yourself a breather before you jump back into the fire. Yes, you need to reach out to clients to provide comfort and guidance, but you also need to be attentive to when you are exhausted.
You must attend to the person who has to attend to all your clients. That means you.