We all have them .... clients whose emotion gyrate with markets, who second guess decisions, who create grief and frustration among their advisors.

In the perfect world, we'd part company with all of these clients.

In the real world, short of cases where clients are outright abusive or completely erratic, that can be easier said than done.

Sometimes these clients bring substantial assets, on other occasions they're connected to other clients that we value ... and when you have bills to pay, it's unrealistic to tell every client who we occasionally find tough to deal with to take their business elsewhere.

So if we're stuck with those difficult clients, what can we do to make the situation more palatable.

I recently talked to one advisor facing exactly this issue.

A meeting with Joe

On the afternoon of a long day, he had a challenging meeting with a long-time client who always found something to complain about.

When he got home, his wife, who happens to teach psychology at a local university, asked him the automatic question:

"How was your day?"

He responded that he'd had a tough meeting with this client and ended up saying "I have to tell you, Joe drives me crazy."

To which she paused, thought for a moment and answered:

"No he doesn't."

This advisor answered in turn:  "Look, I was there, you weren't, trust me when I tell you Joe drives me crazy."

"Joe doesn't drive you crazy" his wife said.

"You allow Joe to drive you crazy."

Reframing an interaction

In recounting this conversation, the advisor said that he'd thought about this for a moment and realized that his wife was right, that while he couldn't control Joe's actions, he could control his reaction to those actions.

As long as he gave Joe control, then he was a victim of whatever irrational thing he might say or do.

By reframing this to add the two words "I allow", he fundamentally altered how he thought about his relationship with this client.

In 2000, there was a poll of authors to select the most influential books of the last hundred years.

On the list was Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl.

An Austrian psychiatrist, Frankl wrote about his experiences in a World War Two concentration camp - and wrote about what differentiated those who were able to maintain their resolve under horrific conditions.

His conclusion - whether people saw themselves as having some measure of control over their circumstances.

In his book, Frankl wrote:

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space there is the power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

The next time you deal with a truly frustrating situation - with a client, a staff member, someone at head office, perhaps even a family member - remember, you have two choices.

You can say "they drive me crazy."

Or you can say "I allow them to drive me crazy."

The choice is yours.

And that choice can have a profound impact on what happens next.