Why Advisors Learn Soft Skills in Leaps, Not Steps

Derek Hagen, CFA, CFP®, FBS®, CFT™

“The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit.”

-Fabienne Fredrickson

Learning client-centered communication doesn’t follow a straight line. It feels slow – until it doesn’t.

Most financial professionals have encountered this feeling: you try out a new question, a new listening skill, or a new facilitation technique… and it just feels awkward.

Maybe you read something in a book or heard it in a training session. You understood it intellectually. But in real life? It didn’t quite land.

This doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It means you’re learning.

We tend to expect progress to be steady and incremental—like adding one more client call each day or increasing AUM step by step. But learning a skill like empathetic listening, or getting comfortable with open-ended questions, doesn’t follow that kind of path. Most of the time, it feels like you’re in a holding pattern… until one day, you get it. Something clicks. That “aha” moment arrives, and suddenly everything makes sense in a new way.

Most Learning Isn’t Linear – And That’s Okay

Our brains like linearity. Linear is logical. If I double the number of meetings, I might expect double the progress. If I prep four times longer, the outcome should be four times better. Even if the relationship isn’t one-to-one, we still expect some visible, proportional gain.

drawing of how we think learning is linear

But that’s not how communication skills—or most human-centric skills—actually develop. The real path to mastery usually includes long plateaus punctuated by sudden leaps.

drawing of how learning actually follows a plateau in the leap style

This mismatch between expectation and reality is where frustration creeps in. You’re practicing, showing up, doing the work… but it doesn’t feel like growth. Without awareness of how learning actually works, you may mistake progress for stagnation.

drawing of how we feel disappointed if we don't learn fast enough

In this short video, I share how learning the ukulele—and struggling with music theory—helped me realize that growth in communication skills doesn’t happen steadily, but in plateaus and leaps.

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Epiphany Moments Keep Us in the Game

Understanding the nature of learning helps us persist through the plateaus. If you expect slow and steady growth, you may give up too soon—right before the leap happens.

drawing of how we might give up on learning if we were expecting linear

And that’s the danger: giving up just before the insight. Walking away too early means missing the breakthrough—missing the skill that turns an average client conversation into a transformative one.

drawing of walking away from learning just before our next epiphany

The Path is Complex, Not Flat

Even “the idea of “flat-then-leap” oversimplifies it. Some phases of learning slope upward, others feel like setbacks. Sometimes the leap feels more like a clearing in the fog than a climb up a hill.

The point is: real growth is uneven. It’s not about perfect progress. It’s about staying in the process long enough for your subconscious to connect the dots so when the moment is right, your conscious mind can catch up.

drawing of learning isn't always about flat plateaus and leaps, but they could be up slopes or down slopes

Whether you’re learning how to reflect instead of redirect, to ask better follow-up questions, or to guide clients through ambivalence, expect it to feel clunky. That awkwardness is a feature, not a bug.

Every rep lays the groundwork for a future epiphany.

So if a meeting didn’t go the way you’d hoped, or if a new skill didn’t quite “land,” don’t scrap it. Stay in the game. That “aha” moment might be just around the corner.

In this short video, I reflect on how learning often happens in leaps—not lines—especially after events like the Financial Therapy Association conference.

FAQ: Learning Communication Skills as a Financial Advisor

Q: Why doesn’t learning communication skills happen in a straight line?
Because real learning involves plateaus and breakthroughs. Advisors often feel stuck before making sudden leaps forward as new skills click into place—especially in areas like listening, empathy, or facilitating change.
Q: What makes soft skills harder to master than technical skills?
Soft skills like reflective listening or supporting autonomy are relational and context-dependent. They require self-awareness, restraint, and flexibility—traits developed through practice, not just knowledge.
Q: How can I tell if I’m actually improving?
Look for subtle shifts: more client engagement, fewer awkward silences, or increased clarity in conversations. Growth often shows up in how clients respond, not just how you feel in the moment.
Q: What should I do when I feel like I’m not making progress?
Keep practicing. Just like with music or athletics, repetition builds familiarity. Many breakthroughs follow periods of frustration or stagnation—what seems like “no progress” may actually be preparation for a leap.
Q: Why is motivational interviewing (MI) often taught in stages?
MI involves both mindset and method. Advisors first learn to adopt the right spirit, then build skills (like OARS), and finally integrate these tools into natural, responsive conversations. Each layer depends on mastering the one before it.

Want to Learn More?

Money Quotient trains financial professionals in the True Wealth process and helps them implement the concepts into their practices. The first step is to learn about the Fundamentals of True Wealth Planning.

References and Influences

Adams, Scott: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big

Burkeman, Oliver: The Antidote

Clear, James: Atomic Habits

Fogg, B.J.: Tiny Habits