Between Now And Success

Are your multi-millionaire clients any happier than your merely millionaire clients? As your clients' net worth increases, have you seen a direct rise in their level of happiness? Have you ever felt frustrated that all your hard work on the financial side of your client relationships didn’t move the needle in their sense of well-being? Helping clients save, grow, and protect their money is a service that clients value and appreciate. But there is so much more you can do to help them beyond just the numbers. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being maximum life satisfaction and well-being, what if you could help your clients move from a 6 to a 9? Or even to a 10? Think about how that would add meaning to your work and satisfaction to your client’s life.   My recent podcast guest, Dr. Martin Seay of Kansas State University, researches how we can apply the concepts of positive psychology to the financial planning process. And advisors who incorporate Dr. Seay’s work won’t be drifting off course into “touchy-feely” t

Have you ever seen an advisor on TV or read a quote from an advisor and thought, “They should be talking to me; I’m just as smart as that advisor.” The fact is, that advisor may not be any smarter than you from a technical standpoint, but they may be more media savvy than you are. Now more than ever, money is news, twenty-four-seven. Baby boomers are retiring. Millennials have major money issues. Health care costs, Social Security, and Medicare are a constant source of political debate. The pros and cons of the new tax laws are still contentious. Cryptocurrencies could be bigger than the internet…or simply the next pets.com. And one group of pros uniquely qualified to weigh in on all these hot button issues is…You—a financial advisor. Recently I visited CNBC Studios in New Jersey and talked with Jim Pavia, award-winning journalist and Money Editor at CNBC Digital, about how advisors can get themselves ready for prime time.

Michael Chasnoff discusses how he grew Truepoint Wealth Counsel, his fee-only wealth management firm, to $3 billion in AUM and 750 households without any mergers or acquisitions.

Barron’s recently wrapped up the 2018 edition of the Barron's Top Independent Advisors Summit in Orlando. Whether you were in attendance or are looking to catch up on what you missed, today’s episode will give you an insightful snapshot of one of the most valuable get-togethers in our industry. My guests today are Bill Keen and Matt Wilson of Keen Wealth Advisors, a fast-growing RIA with more than $400 million in AUM. Bill also has his own excellent podcast, Keen on Retirement. Bill and Matt have attended the Barron’s Top Independent Advisors Summit and the wirehouse version for many years, so they have the perspective to connect the dots between the lessons from past conferences and where the 2018 summit is pointing. We talk about some of the key takeaways from this year’s event, the ongoing trend towards Life-Centered Planning, and how advisors can put these insights into action right now to grow their businesses.

John Hyland was unhappy. Fresh out of college, the big firm lifestyle of late nights and steak dinners had taken a physical toll. John felt unhealthy and out of shape.  At a tailgate party he heard some friends talking about Ironman races, how impossible they seemed, how no average person could complete one.  “I just had this a-ha moment in my mind,” John told me on a recent podcast. “I just had this moment of clarity and said to myself, "I need to do this."  John finished the first of eleven Ironman Triathlons in 2000. The lessons from that transformative experience didn’t just improve his health, it gave him a new perspective on how to transform businesses that continues to guide his company, Private Advisor Group. “I think it's just a great example of having a belief, having a goal and committing to it,” John says. Just like business, Ironman is not a short event. It doesn't happen in a day. It happens over years of training to get the results that you're looking for. But I think it's just that perfect exa

Historically, the financial advisory business has been about a story of numbers. Today, it’s about a number of stories, say Mitch Anthony. Of course, good advisors always knew that viewing our industry as a matter of number-crunching was just a fairy tale. And today, revolutions in technology and an aggressive marketplace have made that fairy tale ancient history. Instead, pioneers in life-centered financial planning, like noted author and speaker Mitch Anthony, want to refocus our industry on a different story: the client’s. How? By having better conversations that take place where money and life intersect.

If you are in the “inform” business, and not the “transform” business, you won’t be long for this business. Technology services are quickly chipping away at the value-stack financial advisors offer to clients. There may come a time when, “I turn on my phone and I say, ‘Hi, Alexa. Tell me what my bank account is today. Transfer $10,000 from Bank A to Bank B. Open a 529 plan for my kid. Then, rebalance my brokerage account.’ And tell me how I'm doing against my goal of buying this house,” said Lex Sokolin, Global Director of Fintech Strategy and Partner at Autonomous. In this near future world, you won’t need MoneyGuidePro, e-Money, or Advicent. Instead, “You have a more modern architecture, so you don't have a UI. You might have APIs that allow machines to talk to each other. Then, you can plug that into all sorts of chatbots for conversational interfaces,” said Lex. Lex isn’t describing some crazy sci-fi dystopia. Rapid advancements in AI, algorithms, chatbots and a host of other technologies is bringing plan

I’ve long said that there are many ways to be successful as a financial advisor. My guest today, Steve Cassaday, founder and CEO of Cassaday and Company, Inc., is a perfect example. His main marketing plan is a throwback to the 1990s. He spends hundreds of thousands of dollars per year doing high-end dinner seminars for a carefully selected group of people. And when they become a client, he creates a comprehensive financial plan for them but he does NOT use financial planning software to do it. Steve Cassaday and I talked about how he’s grown from $44 million in AUM to the #12 ranked advisor in Barron’s list of the Top 100 Independent Financial Advisors and $2.7 billion in AUM. We also discussed the principles that guide his business, how he explains the firm's value proposition, the service differentiators that his firm delivers that are above and beyond what most firms do, and the marketing strategy that has added about one billion in new assets and is still working today.

My guest today, Dr. Eliott Berkman, is a tenured Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon, where he directs the Social and Effective Neuroscience Laboratory and conducts field-leading, federally-funded research on goals, motivation, and behavior change. He's also the Associate Director of the Center for Translational Neuroscience, and an author who writes about psychology and neuroscience for lay audiences, including in Psychology Today. We talk about the concept of the will and the way of goal pursuing, where the way is the set of cognitive skills, capacities, and ability that we collectively call the executive function, and the will is the motivational factors that propel the behavior. We also talk about how to increase our motivation and influence other people's behavior, the idea of flow states, and how that applies to achieving goals.

With the accelerating pace of technological change, how can you be sure you are making the right technology choices? What should your tech stack look like? One of the biggest changes in the financial advisory business over the past 10 years or so has been the rise of technology. Now, of course, technology has always been a part of the business -- as anyone who, like me, struggled with Advent Access performance reports in the 1990s can attest. But the accelerated rate of technology change in the last 10 years has been amazing. Unfortunately, for many financial advisors, the rate of change, and the number of choices available, has also been overwhelming. My guest today, Matt Sonnen, is the founder and CEO of PFI Advisors. Matt's firm works with billion-dollar breakaway advisors who are looking to set up their own firms. In our conversation, Matt and I sorted through the tech stack that advisors need to run a top-notch firm and compete in today's marketplace. We "name names" to help you figure out which companie

How long could your business survive without you? For financial advisors, I think that’s really two questions in one. Part one is a question of scale. Part two is a question of how you want to connect with your clients, build a sense of community, and run a modern advisory practice. Brighton Jones is one of the top fee-only wealth management companies in the country, and one of Washington’s 100 Best Companies to Work For seven years in a row. Brighton Jones also placed on Barron’s List of the Top 100 Independent Financial Advisors, and Forbes’ List of the Top 50 Wealth Advisors. And they racked up these accolades, in part, while the CEO was on a year-long jaunt with his family that covered 35 countries. My guest today, Jon Jones, is the CEO of Brighton Jones. We talked about how he prepared his company to run without him for a year, why financial advisors should put more focus on revenue and less on AUM, and how his firm divides up responsibilities between business development and advising clients to achieve

If you could come up with 3 words for this year, that would drive your actions and keep you on track to make this your best year ever, what would those 3 words be? For several years now, I’ve begun the year by identifying 3 words that will set the course, give me direction, and totally excite me as I move through the year. I write these words at the top of my Daily Focus sheet and look at them daily throughout the year. The premise is simple. Pick 3 words that motivate you, remind you, and guide you on your road to making 2018 your best year ever. I encourage all of my clients and I encourage all of you to do this same exercise as it will help you stay focused on the most important outcomes for the year. In today’s post and podcast, I discuss my 3 words for 2018 as well as review my 3 words for 2017 and discuss how well I executed on them.

People often times know what they need to do to reach their goal, or know what the “right decision" is, but they still don’t do it. It’s that old knowing-doing gap idea. And much of the popular literature about how to create better habits and change your behavior, are, unfortunately, based on weak science. The good news is, there is solid scientific research on how to change behavior and stick with this new behavior...and we're going to discuss it in today's podcast. My guest, Sean Young, is on the leading edge of this research. Sean is Associate Professor at the School of Medicine at UCLA, a Wall Street Journal best-selling author, and Executive Director of the University of California Institute for Prediction Technology and the UCLA Center for Digital Behavior. Sean's new book, "Stick With It," details a "scientifically proven method for changing your life -- for good."

Can I interest you in my new cryptocurrency, BelayCoin? You can use BelayCoin to pay for the services of my company, and every transaction is verified and recorded in the Ethereum blockchain. And over time, the value of BelayCoin may rise to reflect how in-demand my services are. Now, don’t go running for your credit cards – I’m just kidding. I haven’t actually set up a system like this. But if I did, would I be crazy, or ahead of the curve? On today's show, I sit down with Jim Dowd to find out. Jim is the founder and managing director of North Capital, the leading provider of prime brokerage and technology application services to power financial marketplaces. North Capital also has a Reg D offering called Proof Ethereum, and they intend to invest most of its assets into Ether, which is the value token – the cryptocurrency – that is used on the Ethereum blockchain.

In the last 35 year, we’ve seen the following happen in the financial markets. The beginning of the great bull market in August 1982. The stock market crash on October 19, 1987. The technology bubble of 1995 – 2000. The bear market of 2000 – 2002. The real estate bubble of 2002 – 2007. The Great Recession of 2007 – 2009. The amazing, low-volatility bull market of 2009 – today. Two leading financial advisors have been through it all and on today’s podcast, we come to you live from Schwab Impact 2017.  We discuss what they’ve learned, share their insights on how to be successful going forward, and get the perspective from a Schwab executive on supporting and building excellent RIA firms. For 30 years, Charles Schwab has been providing services to independent RIAs and I was pleased to host a panel discussion at Schwab Impact 2017 in Chicago.

Imagine you’re sitting down with a potential new client for the initial discovery meeting. What do you see sitting across from you? Unfortunately, many advisors see a “prospect,” “dollar signs,” or perhaps “a million-dollar account.” The philosopher Martin Buber called this an “I-It Relationship,” in which one person objectifies the other. On today's show, Ross Levin explains the importance of "I-You" relationships, how to master the "slow things," and the story behind building one of the industry's most iconic firms. Ross Levin is the CEO and Founder of Accredited Investors Wealth Management, which is an RIA based in Minnesota, with approximately $2 billion in assets under management. Ross was the first recipient of the Financial Planning Association's Heart of Financial Planning Award, and the inaugural recipient of Financial Planning Magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award. He is truly an icon in our industry.

Financial advisors have a unique opportunity to make a real, immediate impact on people's lives -- if they're willing to break away from the old model that's only interested in improving return on investments. On today's show, RIA leader Seth Streeter explains how his firm not only delivers a first-class planning experience, but also helps their top clients "redefine wealth" and develop their "inspired life purpose." Seth Streeter is the CEO and founder of Mission Wealth, a leading wealth management company with about $1.6 billion in assets under management. Seth's team specializes in comprehensive financial planning and investment advisory services for high net worth clients around the country. Seth also helps people reframe their perspectives of wealth beyond just the financial so that they can enjoy a more balanced, impactful, and fulfilled life. And in 2016, Seth was asked to speak on the TEDx stage to share "an introspective approach to help you assess and transform your true wealth."

Mark Casady had a front row seat on the massive changes hitting our industry over the past 15 years of his tenure at LPL. Now that he's "retired," we discuss his career and the lessons he learned. During his 30-plus years in financial services, Mark likes to think his job was to be a classic "change agent." As chairman of the board and CEO for LPL Financial, Mark led the company through its IPO and grew it into the fifth largest brokerage firm in the United States. Today, you might say Mark is "retired," but he prefers to think he's in the middle of "Life 2.0," which includes working as General Partner and Advisory Board Chairman for Vestigo Ventures, a fintech-focused venture capital firm.

"Compassionate" isn't necessarily the first word that springs to mind when you think about the traditional financial planning model. But that's just another way that the old model is outdated. The shift in our industry from Return on Investment to Return on Life requires a new conversation between advisors and clients. Understanding your clients as people -- their goals, their fears, their perspectives, where they come from, where they want to go -- is the new step one in the discovery process. My guest today, Kurt Rossi, another "40 under 40" honoree by Investment News, has already transformed his practice by adopting this new model. Kurt is a CFP and the founder of Independent Wealth Management out of Wahl, New Jersey. He's also an award-winning financial columnist for the Times of Trenton and nj.com. His column, Financial Focus, can be read every other Sunday in the business section. Kurt also blogs at his website, bringyourfinancestolife.com, where he uses this compassionate approach to financial writing

You can get the mechanics of a financial plan right, but if you miss the "life" part, you're shortchanging your clients. A financial plan is a tool to help your clients live a happier, more fulfilling life. Consumers can easily get their money managed through the big national brands like Vanguard, Schwab, TD Ameritrade, Fidelity, and the Robo Advisors, without your help. A key value an advisor adds is in helping clients create a thoughtful financial plan, and understanding how they can use their money to live their best life possible. But you have to know the kind of life your clients want! That comes from engaging your clients in a robust discovery process like the kind offered by ROL Advisor. We don't want our clients to feel like they're just winning at investing -- we want them to feel like their investments are helping them win at life. My guest today, Lauryn Williams, is a four-time Olympic athlete, three-time Olympic medalist, and the first American woman to win medals in both the Winter and Summer Oly