Markets are unpredictable. How we treat people is not.

Every morning before my son goes to school, I give him the same advice:

Learn a lot. Have fun. Listen. And be kind.

Before he plays a sport, the message changes slightly:

Play hard. Give your best effort. And be a good teammate.

He cannot control whether he is the tallest, fastest or strongest player on the field. He cannot control the officials, the opposing team or every bounce of the ball.

But he can control how hard he plays. He can control the effort he gives. And he can control how he treats his teammates, coaches and opponents.

The more time I spend in investment management, the more I believe the same lesson applies to our industry.

Trust Starts With How We Treat People

During a recent episode of Views from 6,230, my guest Matt Halloran said something that stayed with me.

Matt explained that a significant part of his success and influence came from having a proven method, distributing his ideas effectively and, most importantly, being kind and generous to people.

That led us into a conversation about something that should be obvious but increasingly feels overlooked: being nice matters.

Investment management is built on trust. Clients trust advisors with their financial futures. Advisors trust asset managers with their clients’ capital. Firms trust their employees, partners and technology providers with their reputations.

That trust may be supported by performance, expertise and experience, but it is built through human interactions.

Are you genuine?

Do you listen?

Do you follow through?

Do you treat people with respect when there is nothing immediately in it for you?

Do you say please and thank you?

Kindness, graciousness and courtesy should not be differentiators. Yet, increasingly, they are.

What We Can, and Cannot Control

Investing is an exercise in accepting uncertainty.

We cannot control the direction of the stock market. We cannot control earnings, interest rates, inflation, economic growth or geopolitical events. We cannot guarantee that every investment decision will work immediately—or at all.

What we can control is our preparation.

We can control the quality of our research, the clarity of our communication and the effort we give our clients. We can control whether we listen carefully, respond thoughtfully, acknowledge when we do not know something, and respect our emplyess/colleagues.

We can also control whether we are kind, courteous and gracious, especially when markets are difficult and emotions are elevated.

Just as I tell my son that effort and attitude matter regardless of the final score, investment professionals should remember that their value is not determined solely by the latest performance report.

Clients will remember how you made them feel when markets were falling.

They will remember whether you returned their call, listened to their concerns and explained what was happening without talking down to them.

They will remember whether you treated them like a person or an account number.

Kindness Is Not Weakness

There is sometimes an assumption that being successful requires being aggressive, self-promotional or relentlessly competitive.

Matt offered a much better perspective. He does not approach the industry with a scarcity mindset—the belief that someone else must lose for him to win. His philosophy is essentially: put an arm around people and find a way to win together.

That does not mean lowering your standards or avoiding difficult conversations. You can be direct and still be respectful. You can challenge an idea without belittling the person presenting it. You can compete intensely without treating every relationship as transactional.

Being kind does not make someone less ambitious.

It makes that ambition more sustainable.

Markets are cyclical. Products fall in and out of favor. Companies change. Careers take unexpected turns. The relationships built through genuine generosity and mutual respect are often what endure.

Technology Makes the Human Element More Valuable

Our conversation was primarily about artificial intelligence and its growing role in wealth management. But one of the most important conclusions had very little to do with technology.

AI can organize information, prepare meeting summaries, identify opportunities and give advisors more time. It can help someone remember that a client’s child received a promotion or that a family member is going through a difficult situation.

Technology can provide the reminder.

The advisor still has to care.

As AI makes information and technical capabilities more widely available, genuine human connection may become even more valuable. Expertise will remain essential, but knowledge alone will not create a lasting relationship.

Trust requires competence and character.

The View From 6,230

Markets will always give us plenty to worry about. There will be another inflation report, another Fed decision, another market selloff and another investment trend demanding our attention.

Those things matter. But they are not the only things that determine success in this industry.

We cannot control the markets.

We can control our preparation.

We can control our effort.

We can control how well we listen.

And we can control how we treat people.

Being knowledgeable may open the door. Being reliable may earn another conversation. But being kind, gracious and genuine helps turn those conversations into trust—and trust into lasting relationships.

That sounds like a pretty good investment to me.

My full conversation with Matt Halloran explores how artificial intelligence can help financial advisors build better practices, strengthen client relationships and create more time for the things that matter most. Watch it now.

Be sure to like and subscribe to the Views from 6,230 YouTube Channel.

The Week Ahead

Be on the lookout for our next episode of Views from 6,230, where I sat down with Ethan Powell, Principal and CIO at Brookmont Capital Management, to discuss catastrophe bonds and how they help insurers transfer tail risks from natural disasters while offering investors potential income and diversification.