A financial advisor who built a large practice and independent branch has channeled an early self-help classic to create a brief manual on the mental side of succeeding in the profession.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based Horizon Financial Group CEO Pete Bush published his fourth book, "
As the entrepreneur behind a Cetera Financial Group-affiliated network of 79 advisors in 14 states with $6.5 billion in client assets under administration, Bush likely could write a much longer book about investment strategies and the business and management techniques he has learned over a career spanning more than 35 years in the industry. Instead, he wrote a 64-page text on the emotional clarity and conviction he says help the top advisors gain and serve clients.
"While some come into this profession for purely selfish reasons, you will not rise to the top rung of success, fulfilment, respect and purpose without focusing on the needs of others — the support they need, the outcomes they desire and their need for guidance and leadership," Bush writes. "Financial advisors are among the few professionals who stand at the intersection of money, behavior, family and the future. Done properly, this work is deeply human work."
The below email interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
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Financial Planning: Why has "As a Man Thinketh" been so important to your life and work, and what made you decide to adapt its lessons to a book for financial advisors?
Pete Bush: James Allen's little book has probably influenced me as much or more than any other book I've ever read, and I have found some of its messages to be foundational to more recent works by other authors. I've read it dozens of times and have given away more copies than I can count, especially to younger people.
Its basic premise is so simple that it's easy to overlook, that what we think of as "our lives" ultimately becomes the visible expression of our inner thoughts. I found that to be true not only in my own life, both good and bad by the way, but in the careers of hundreds of advisors I've known over the past three decades. I've watched advisors with similar intelligence, similar resources and similar opportunities produce dramatically different outcomes. The difference was rarely technical knowledge. It was mindset. It was discipline. It was how they thought about themselves, their clients, adversity, leadership and possibility.
During the pandemic shutdown, I was reading the book again and actually had the thought, "I wonder what James Allen might say to advisors if he were a speaker at an industry conference today, or what might he write in today's world if he were speaking directly to entrepreneurial financial advisors?" I made a note of it where I keep something akin to an idea journal and thought about it on and off over the past five or six years. Then, earlier this year, I committed to giving it a shot to see how something like that might land.
As I say early on in the book, this isn't intended to improve upon "As a Man Thinketh," but I hope that it honors it by applying its timeless principles to a profession that has an extraordinary opportunity to change lives. The truth is that the quality of an advisor's business rarely exceeds the quality of their thinking.
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FP: It's a book for financial advisors, but there is almost nothing in the book about investing. Why not, and why do you think there is a public perception that people hire financial advisors to pick stocks and generate the biggest portfolio gains?
PB: Because investing isn't the profession, it's just one tool within the profession, one spoke in the wheel of how advisors help people.
Sure, there are portfolio managers, analysts, researchers and other seats in the profession that solely focus on managing money and generating returns, and those folks rarely, if ever, meet with the end client. But if I asked a hundred clients why they value their advisor most, I don't think many would begin with portfolio performance. They would talk about things like confidence, perspective, accountability, guidance, team support and problem solving — helping them weigh their options and make difficult decisions or keeping them from making emotional mistakes, helping them retire, helping them sell a business, helping them navigate a spouse's death or care for aging parents. It's all in there.
Our industry sometimes underestimates its own value by talking primarily about investments. Investments are a critical element because they end up paying for what a client wants. But clients don't hire us because they can't buy an investment on their own. They hire us because life is complicated with many variables and reaching all of their sometimes competing goals can seem overwhelming without a guide to walk alongside them through it all as a voice of reason. Nearly every decision has some sort of financial implication in need of being thought through logically, not emotionally.
The irony is that the longer I've been in this profession, the more I've realized that our
The best advisors aren't really portfolio managers as much as they are professional thinking partners. People may think they hire advisors to outperform markets, but
After 35 years in the profession, I believe much of the public still misunderstands a lot about financial advisors. Yes, we manage money. We do, with a goal or end in mind. But that's not what changes lives. We stand beside people during some of the most consequential moments of their lives. That's a much bigger responsibility than selecting investments.
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FP: You write that you are speaking to "entrepreneurial" advisors. What is the meaning of an "entrepreneurial" advisor, and how would you describe an advisor who isn't entrepreneurial?
PB: I love this question! To me, an entrepreneurial advisor isn't defined by independence, what channel they are in or their ownership structure.
Instead, it's a way of thinking. Entrepreneurial advisors see themselves as builders. They're building a business, certainly, but they're also building systems, teams, culture, future leaders, intellectual property, client experiences and, ultimately, something that can outlive them. Oftentimes, they start with nothing like I did — a couple of securities licenses, an ambition to succeed and help people, but with zero clients on day one. Quite literally, many have built their businesses from the ground up.
A nonentrepreneurial advisor often sees themselves primarily as someone with a job who services clients or accounts. Again, it's not the structure they are in, but maybe they are in a bank, brokerage or even an independent office as an employee advisor who has all the credentials, knowledge and willingness to be very good at what they do, but they have no obligations or responsibilities in running the overall business. Nonentrepreneurial advisors tend to have a different relationship with risk than their entrepreneurial counterparts.
An entrepreneurial advisor, on the other hand, processes career risk differently and puts it on his or her shoulders, versus relying on the efforts of others for their results. They see themselves as someone creating an enterprise that continually creates value for clients, team members and future generations.
That doesn't
That's a very different mindset. A practice depends on you. An entrepreneurial enterprise eventually serves people without depending entirely on you, so it can continue to take care of the clients and families who have chosen you —
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FP: What else should financial advisors and other wealth management professionals know about this book?
PB: I hope they understand that this isn't another practice management book. There are already many excellent books on marketing, investments, productivity,
This book is really asking, "Who are you becoming while you build your business?" Because eventually every business becomes a reflection of its owner. From the clients, to the team, to the culture, to the community footprint it creates, to the people who become the leaders of it. All of them tend to mirror the person at the center.
I think James Allen understood that over a century ago, long before financial planning even existed. I think if he were delivering a keynote at one of our conferences today, he might very well say, "This isn't a book about becoming a better financial advisor. It's a book about becoming the kind of person who naturally becomes one."
I simply wanted to remind advisors that before we can shape our clients' futures, we have to be intentional about shaping our own. If the book causes even one advisor to think differently about the calling they've chosen, then it has accomplished exactly what I hoped it would.
