Should you live by YOLO?

If you want to be a successful financial advisor, rethink the idea of “You Only Live Once,” also known as YOLO.

“YOLO is rubbish,” said Robert Young, a past MDRT member who’s now a financial services manager and industry speaker. You only have one life, so don’t mess it up. That’s what YOLO means. Success is not about instant gratification. It’s about prioritizing, he said at a 2018 MDRT Day in Singapore.

No. 1 priority to succeed

The top priority is clients and talking to them. “If you don’t have any appointments today, you might as well stay in bed,” said Young, who’s from Singapore. At least if you stay home in bed, you won’t spend any money, he said.

The financial planning business is about activity, and for that to happen you need to talk. “The more you talk, the more money you’ll earn,” Young said. When you’re not with clients, work on enhancing your skills.

Discipline and consistency

Watch the video with Robert Young.

Consistent activity keeps your income consistent, which helps balance your checkbook. It’s tough to manage your finances when you have one good year and then a bad year, Young said.

If you don’t feel like working, do it anyhow. “The key to success is the self-discipline to do what you have to do, when you have to do it — whether you like it or not,” Young said.

And while every advisor needs to earn an income to take care of themselves and their family, why they’re in the business is for clients’ well-being.

As an advisor, you have “impact, income and independence,” Young said. When everyone else is delivering bills at the worst of times or when people need savings for retirement, you deliver money.

See more from Robert Young in “How to qualify for MDRT year after year.” 

Listen to Top of the Table qualifiers Tony Gordon and Alessandro M. Forte, Dip PFS, in “A conversation: A journey to success.”