Under ideal circumstances, most people I treat would be less likely to shed their morality. Unfortunately, the financial services industry is not an environment conducive for maintaining morality.
There is a sense of oblivious bravado. Many of the many young FPs I’ve counseled openly acknowledge recruiting new clients under suspect conditions. They were desperate to do something, anything to get into the market, and frequently mislead gullible clients who would buy anything they sold because they trusted them, their financial advisor, their wealth manager. Titles are big on the Street. They’re designed to impress.
It is a cycle of voracious appetites, with the FP selling, selling, selling; preying on the client’s greed. Frequently market gains mask inferior management performance. The broker, in turn, is victim to the whims of his manager, locked in his own desperate, daily power struggle with top management “downtown.”
In one breath, the FP brags of his latest score or bet. In the next, he complains that his managers are constantly badgering him to sell a new product, a new financial instrument, a new stock. Some FPs will jump from firm to firm, dragging accounts with them often garnering good signing bonuses in the process.
One patient I counseled was prepared to literally put his own mother in any investment. In fact, during sessions he seethed about how he hated his mother and revealed how he wanted to squander her account, which he managed, hasten her demise and ultimate death, and collect a $5 million life insurance policy. I had to discharge this patient; his psychopathy was out of control.