I want to tell you about a 4-year-old who absolutely refused to step on the mat.
His parents were doing everything right. Cheering him on. Getting down on his level. Making it fun. They’d signed him up because he’d watched older kids in class and said he wanted to try. But the moment his bare feet hit the edge of that mat, something froze. He wouldn’t budge.
So we waited.
Sometimes they’re just not ready.
My own son grew up surrounded by martial arts. Our family has black belts. He was at the school nearly every day. We assumed he’d love it from the start. He wanted nothing to do with it. So we waited six months — and then one day, completely on his own terms, he stepped on the mat. Within weeks, he was a star.
I’ve thought about that story a thousand times since I became a financial planner. Because the exact same thing happens with money.
Parents come to me wanting to give their adult kids the financial head start they never had. Young professionals in their 30s know they should be doing something but aren’t quite sure what. Families in their 50s are finally ready to have the conversation they’ve been quietly avoiding for years. People in every season of life hit a moment where they’re ready — or they’re not yet.
The job isn’t to force it.
The job is to be there when they are. And to know the difference.
“The job isn’t to force the mat. The job is to be there when they are.”
So What Exactly Is a Coachvisor?
It’s not a word you’ll find in a financial dictionary. I made it up — because nothing that already existed quite described what I actually do.
A Coachvisor is part financial advisor, part coach. And the distinction matters more than it might sound.
A financial advisor gives you information, builds your plan, manages your accounts. That part is table stakes. What separates good planning from great planning is everything that surrounds those things — understanding who you are, what you’re really after, what’s holding you back, and how to actually help you get there.
Good coaches understand the X’s and O’s on the field. Great coaches build a caring relationship with their players that allows them to draw out their best performance. The knowledge matters. The relationship is what makes the knowledge useful.
I spent 20 years coaching martial arts students from age 3 to 73. I worked with gifted athletes who could have competed nationally. I worked with students with special needs who earned their black belts through more effort than most of us will ever fully appreciate. I worked with 45-year-olds discovering discipline for the first time and teenagers finding confidence they’d never had.
Every single one of them had a different journey. A different timeline. A different set of things that made them want to quit — and a different reason to keep going.
Financial planning is the same.
Your Journey Is Not Someone Else’s Journey
The financial planning industry loves universal rules. Max your 401(k). Pay off debt before you invest. Keep six months in cash. Buy term and invest the difference.
Some of those rules are useful starting points. None of them are right for everyone in every season of life.
In martial arts, a training plan for a 16-year-old competitive athlete looks nothing like a training plan for a 40-year-old learning confidence. Even their goals are completely different — one is chasing a world championship, the other may simply want to feel capable in their own body. Both deserve a coach who actually sees them as an individual, not one who runs the standard curriculum on whoever walks through the door.
My coaching approach depends entirely on their vision, their goals, their personality, and their character. Adjusting how to talk to them, what to emphasize, how to challenge them. There isn’t one plan or one right way. What matters most is understanding the person in front of me.
As a Coachvisor, that same principle drives everything. Understanding you matters more than any strategy I could hand you. Your plan has to fit your life — not the life of a hypothetical client in a textbook.
That’s not soft philosophy. It’s practical. Generic advice applied to a specific situation often does more harm than good.
WHAT THIS LOOKS LIKE IN PRACTICE
Before we ever look at an account balance or run a projection, we spend time on what we call Courting the Topic. What do you actually want from your financial life? Not what you’re supposed to want — what do you genuinely want? We identify your Key Value Drivers — the things you’d fight for if you had to choose. Family. Career. Financial freedom. Health. Purpose. Adventure. Once we know what you’re building toward, every financial decision has a clear filter.
Structure Is Where Discipline Actually Comes From
Most people think financial discipline means willpower. White-knuckling through spending decisions. Grinding toward savings goals by sheer force of intention.
That’s not how discipline works. Not on the mat nor with money.
In martial arts, we teach discipline through structure. Every class starts the same way. Students bow at the door when they enter and when they leave. It sounds small — it isn’t. That bow is a mental switch. It signals: we’re here now, we’re focused, we’re in training mode. The structure creates the discipline. Not the other way around.
One of my favorite lines: “Discipline is choosing my future wants over my current desires.” But here’s what most people miss — you don’t make that choice through angst every time. You build a structure so that when the moment comes, your environment makes the right choice more attractive than the wrong one.
Financially, that means systems that don’t depend on you being perfectly motivated every day. Savings that move automatically before you can spend them. A simple decision framework so you’re not reinventing the wheel every time a financial question comes up. A plan already in place so that when markets get volatile or an unexpected expense hits, you’re not making emotional decisions under pressure.
“You don’t need more willpower. You need a better structure.”
Making the Complex Simple — And Why That’s Actually Hard
The people who are most brilliant at something are not always the best at teaching it.
In martial arts, you see this constantly. Someone who’s trained for 30 years can execute a combination that looks effortless and impossible at the same time. Ask them to break it down and they often struggle — it’s become pure instinct. The real teaching gift is decomposing that complexity into pieces that someone brand new can grasp, build on, and eventually own.
Financial planning has the same challenge. And frankly, the industry often fails it badly.
Advisors talk in acronyms — RMD, QCD, ETF, RIA, IRMAA — as if everyone walked in already fluent. They accurately describe a situation but leave the client no clearer on what to actually do. They make the alphabet soup feel like a barrier instead of a tool.
When a student is overwhelmed — genuinely convinced a technique is above them, too hard, completely out of reach — and you find the right way to break it down, work through it together, and they land it for the first time with that look of pure astonishment on their face — that’s the moment I’m after.
The exact same thing happens in financial planning. When someone walks in convinced they’ll never understand their tax situation or their estate documents, and you find the right entry point and it genuinely clicks — that’s the work I’m most proud of.
Simple doesn’t mean dumbed down. Simple means the right explanation for the right person at the right moment. That’s a real skill, it takes time to develop, and it makes everything else you do together more useful.
And Sometimes — The Timing Just Isn’t Right
I want to say something most financial advisors won’t say out loud:
Not everyone is ready to start. And that’s genuinely okay.
I’ve had parents come to me frustrated that their adult kids won’t engage with the financial conversations they’re trying to have. They’ve done everything right — offered to help, made introductions, offered to pay for advice. The kids still aren’t interested.
What I tell them is what I know from 20 years on the mat: you cannot force readiness. Trying to push someone before they’re ready doesn’t accelerate the process — it often derails it. You end up with someone who associates financial planning with pressure instead of possibility.
My job isn’t to chase. It’s to be a consistent, credible presence so that when the timing is right — when the milestone hits, when the question becomes urgent, when someone is finally ready to step on the mat — they already know who to call.
That’s the purpose here. Not to convince anyone. Just to show up honestly so that when the moment comes for you, or someone you care about, there’s already a relationship to build on.
What Kind of Advisor Are You Looking For?
If you want someone to manage a portfolio and send quarterly statements, there are plenty of good options. That’s not what I do, and I’ll tell you that upfront.
If you want a real planning relationship — someone who starts by understanding what you actually want from your life and builds the financial strategy around that — I’d genuinely love to talk.
I work with families at every stage. Young professionals in their 30s building wealth and wanting a plan that fits how their life actually works. Families in their 40s and 50s navigating the complex middle — careers, kids, aging parents, the first real glimpse of what retirement might look like. People approaching or already in the empty nest season, finally with the time and resources to think about what’s next.
Whatever season you’re in, the approach is the same. Start with what actually matters to you. Build outward from there. Make the complex simple. Stay in it for the long haul.
That’s what a Coachvisor does.
READY TO HAVE A REAL CONVERSATION?
I offer a free 30-minute Financial Clarity Session — no pitch, no product, no strings. Bring your biggest financial question or the thing that’s been sitting in the back of your head. I’ll bring genuine answers and a real interest in helping you think it through. Reach out or connect with me on LinkedIn.
About the Author
Morgan Shank is a CFP® and 7th-degree ATA black belt. He serves as a Wealth Advisor at Morris Shank Wealth Management alongside his uncle Morris Shank, who founded the firm over 30 years ago. Morgan’s practice focuses on helping clients across all life stages build financial plans that start with what actually matters to them — and he brings 20 years of martial arts coaching experience to every client relationship. Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn or schedule a conversation.
