Journal of Financial Planning: February 2019
To honor the Journal’s 40th anniversary, throughout 2019 we are highlighting key research, articles, and interviews from the archives.
It was 1990. The CFP® designation was not even 20 years old. Dick Wagner—a J.D. who left law to pursue the calling of financial planning, published the article, “To Think…Like a CFP” in the Journal. In it, he challenged fellow CFP® practitioners: if we want to be recognized and respected as real professionals, we must “think” as professionals. He argued that this required developing a professional identity, a tradition, and a common way for planners to view themselves.
Wagner’s 1990 article inspired a succession of articles that, collectively, are an essential anthology for understanding financial planning as a profession and defining what it means to be a “financial planner.”
Planning pioneer Elissa Buie had just received her CFP® certification in 1990 when she read Wagner’s article. She carried it with her for years. It inspired her.
In the July 2000 issue of the Journal, Buie asked: is it time for this profession to start “To Feel…Like” in addition “To Think…Like a CFP”?
Progress had been made since Wagner challenged readers in 1990, but why was it still difficult to define financial planning and a financial planner? The answer, Buie suggested, was because the emphasis on thinking without commensurate attention paid to feelings had led to uncertainty.
“When your thoughts and your feelings are at odds, you feel tension, pain, fear,” she wrote. Fear was holding the profession back.
“I submit we’ve done a grand job so far of taking on the challenge “To Think…Like a CFP,” Buie argued. … “We are now faced with further challenges. We must accept the challenge to embrace our calling. We must integrate what we do with who we are. … We must remain true to financial planning and not just its component parts.”
Almost another decade later, Jeanne Robinson, CFP®, and Charles Hughes, CFP®, asked: what does it mean to act like a CFP? “It means always putting the client’s interests first. Period,” the co-authors wrote in the April 2009 issue.
“If enough practitioners act instinctively and in unison in the client’s interest, a culture and a reputation will emerge,” they wrote.
And in the November 2011 issue, Elissa Buie and Dave Yeske challenged planners once again—this time, to learn like a CFP by adopting an evidence-based approach to financial planning. To do so, they argued, practitioners must stay abreast of new research, be able to read and critically evaluate that research, and partner with academics to identify research initiatives.
—Carly Schulaka
To Think, Feel, Act, and Learn Like a CFP Essential Anthology
- “To Think…Like a CFP” by Dick Wagner (Jan. 1990)
- “To Feel…Like a CFP” by Elissa Buie (July 2000)
- “To Act…Like a CFP” by Jeanne Robinson and Charles Hughes (April 2009)
- “Evidence-Based Financial Planning: To Learn…Like a CFP” by Elissa Buie and Dave Yeske (Nov. 2011)