Are You A Joy-Killer? Thoughts for Financial Advisors

Last week, Joe Bullard, band announcer, cruelly engaged in a hard go of joy-killing in front of 13,000 fans, calling the beautiful Alabama State University Honey Beez “the new face of Ozempic.” A lively group of happy dancers cheering on their team is about as joy-filled as you can get, and of all the comments Bullard could muster, he chose to voice a negative joy-stomper.

We can learn from that kind of unnecessary unkindness. As financial advisors, we are more than just technical experts; we’re counselors, psychologists, and confidants. We wield more power over client emotions than we might realize. We’re not superheroes, but the advice we give has weight. Our words, especially at crucial moments, can crush or encourage. 

What Is A Joy-Killer?

My brother-in-law, a Harley-riding, long-haired son of the '60s, gave me a decades-old Grateful Dead t-shirt he’d worn to many Dead concerts across Wisconsin. Wearing it to a Saturday brunch, I was in a gloriously happy place, feeling emotionally free and joyful and safe, and I said to my friend, "I love this special shirt! My brother-in-law actually wore it to Dead concerts!” 

The person said, "That's not special." 

I deflated. I'm sure they meant that it wasn’t special with an Antiques Roadshow kind of specialness. I couldn't get money for it; it had no bankable provenance; it was faded and holey; it had probably been bought on the cheap at Menards, not actually at a Dead concert. 

So, the friend spoke the truth and wasn’t meaning to be unkind. But the words weren’t necessary and would have been more appropriate at a different time in a more relevant setting — like maybe if we were contemplating its price to sell at a consignment store.

Defining the Term Joy-Killing

That incident made me reflect on the anatomy of joy-killing and led me to ask myself if, as a financial advisor, I had ever done that to a client. I hope not, and I don’t want to do that to anyone, client or otherwise. For future interactions, I made a list of questions to run through before I put in my two cents in response to a person’s revelation:

• Is it true? 

• Does it matter? 

• Can it wait? 

How to Avoid Joy-Killing as a Financial Advisor

Here’s an example of how you could use these questions in your capacity as a financial advisor: your clients say they would feel so gratified to pull $20K out of their retirement account to help a troubled adult child pay off high credit card debt and get back on a better financial footing. A knee-jerk response, regardless of how adequate a client’s retirement portfolio is, might be “No! They got themselves into that mess, and they need to get themselves out.” 

Let’s run through the questions you could ask yourself before you speak.

Is It True? Before you respond in a neutral or negative way to someone who is happy and excited about something they want to share with you, ask yourself if the thing you want to say is actually true. 

Some things are easily identifiable as true. If a fire starts behind someone when they're happy and having a super awesome day, you must “kill the joy” of that happy person by saying, "There's a fire starting behind you.” You know it's true.

But some things are more of an opinion than a hard and fast truth. In this case, if your wealthy client with more than enough cash to live well in their 90s comes to you with a confident parental love and the committed desire to pay off $20,000 of a beloved child's credit card debt, is it really true that the child needs to get out of the problem by themselves? You may believe that adult kids need tough love, not a bailout. Telling your client "That's wrong, parents shouldn’t pay off their kid’s credit card debt; kids need to learn financial responsibility,” isn’t a fact. It’s an opinion. In this scenario, I agree with Nick Maggiulli, who makes the case that helping adult children when they are in their early years of building wealth can make a bigger difference than waiting until you die to give them a big inheritance.

Does It Matter? Is it really important that you tell someone that they looked better with their hair brown than blonde than brown? I mean, is that really, really important to say even if it is true that they do look better blonde? Sometimes it matters. If you see someone who's backing up into a cliff while taking photos, it's important to tell them. But some of the things we say to people really don't matter in the context of important things.

In our example, if your clients have plenty of money for their own retirement, it doesn’t really matter if they spend it on a trip to Italy or a new bathroom or a child’s credit card payment.

Can It Wait? If it is true and it matters, ask yourself if it’s necessary to color their happiness by speaking right now. Could it wait until a more appropriate time than in the middle of a joyous or important story they are sharing with you? 

If it is true and does matter, you could hear them out on the difficulties the child has had and their worries about it and encourage them think a bit longer about the action they want to take. You could commiserate and tell them you’ll review their accounts and get back to them tomorrow with ideas. You could respectfully listen to them and mirror that love back to them. Then tomorrow, you could explain the reality of their holdings and maybe make alternative suggestions. If you're working with someone who is ready to act at the moment, you would have to do a bit of immediate joy-killing. But most of the time, it can wait until a less open and emotional time. 

Caring Too Much

Most joy killers aren’t hateful people. They crush joy because they are trying to keep their clients  — or their loved ones — from doing something that could hurt them. Plus, there’s the worry that someone who is overly happy or emotional is flying too close to the sun and is going to get burned. The comment isn’t uttered out of meanness, especially with a parent or a financial advisor, but out of deep concern. 

Joy-killing can hit your personal life. When you joyfully create something that you present to someone who matters in your life — bake a cake, record a song you wrote, write an article, sew a dress, replace the stator in the golf cart — and they say “Yup” and turn away, it dampens the joy. Sure, you created it for your own joy, but it still doesn't feel good when an important person minimizes it.

With Open Arms

In football, the refs impose heavy penalties for roughing the kicker. When a kicker punts or tries to knock one right between the goal posts, he is fully outstretched, his legs and arms up and out in a position where he is particularly vulnerable to injury — a position reminiscent of total joy. His body is open and free; he’s living hat kick in unmitigated flow with the universe and absolute concentration. That's what it's like when a person is in a state of joy, of feeling like everything in the world is aligned, everything is good. The sentimental T-shirt you're wearing, the deal you just closed, the run you just completed, the presentation you just nailed, were so exciting to you and made you so happy in a deep way that you were unguarded and showing that openness at that time. And it hurts to the core when someone accidentally or deliberately dashes that joy with a comment designed to negate it.

Joy Amplifying

I think joy-amplification is where it’s at. In my example above, to be able to reassure and rejoice with loving parents that they’ve got plenty of money to pay off a child's credit card debt represents all that is good and exciting about being a financial advisor. To say, “You worked so hard all your life to protect your kids and help make them safe and happy, and you did all the right things to allow you to help them right now, and I’m so happy for you,” is one of the most awesome things I can say in my job.

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