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When you give clients advice, sometimes they ignore it. Though vexing, it is an important reminder that you are their financial advisor and not their financial commander.
I’ll explain why clients behave this way – and you’ll understand how I chose the title of this article when I do – beginning first with a short anecdote from my previous career as a professional musician.
My colleagues and I would spend a great deal of time analyzing “the composer’s intentions.” We practically deified those long-dead European composers, and some of my colleagues built their careers around the notion that they were the foremost experts on how this composer or that composer wanted their music performed.
When I got around to writing a few musical plays myself, and took on the role of “composer,” I assumed the same highly deferential dynamic would re-manifest itself, with me in the role of composer deity. I confess to being more than just a little eager to get this going. I liked the idea of being venerated. And it seemed simple enough. After all, if Mozart were alive, wouldn’t everyone be calling him up to ask him how to perform his Requiem? So for several years, whenever my plays were rented, I sat eagerly by the phone, waiting to be worshipped.
Boy was I wrong.
I’ve been renting out my stage plays for over 25 years now, and not once in all those years has a stage director or conductor ever called me to ask my input on how my pieces should be performed. In fact, in those rare instances where I took the initiative and offered my input, these folks were generally resistant to what I had to say – sometimes even downright hostile.
My observations of all this genuflection to composers had missed the key point – these guys were all long-dead. Turns out all this deification was really just a dodge – it was a clever way to invoke the gravitas of famous composers to justify and buttress the musician’s own personal interpretations. Since the composer was dead, it was not likely that he would offer much in the way of argument. How convenient.
