Confluence Financial Partners — Podcast Title | Episode #

GREG:

97% of individuals with a mentor feel they are highly impactful and valuable. Imagine that.

(SOURCE: Moving Ahead, 2017)

Hello and welcome to the Imagine That podcast. I’m your host, Greg Weimer, founder, partner, and wealth manager at Confluence Financial Partners. Each month, we’ll explore new ways to help you maximize your life and your legacy and meet some extraordinary people along the way. So if you’re looking to get more out of your life today and legacy tomorrow, let’s get started.

We’re gonna discuss several things today. First, we’re gonna go over Darrin Grove’s story. If you’re a business owner, or you’re fascinated how businesses get started and grow, you should listen. If you’re really looking to improve and you want to benefit from the lessons that Darrin Grove learned as he’s created Truefit, you should listen. If you wanna understand the value and power of having an appropriate ecosystem, you should listen. If you want to think about building a business that ends up being bigger than you, and really creates a legacy, you should listen.

Darrin is the founder and CEO of Truefit, which is a really fascinating company. It is a software development company. And, you know, I heard someone say from Raymond James, a friend of mine, said software will not replace people, but people that learn how to use software correctly will replace those that don’t. And, and I just think, I think that’s what it’s all about. So, Darrin and I started talking and I just became fascinated with his story. So and then I started thinking, so we’re gonna lunch after this, cuz I’m hooked. Like it makes me, it makes me realize that. And we’re gonna talk about a lot of different things by the way. But, but, but I think this really gives us an opportunity to talk about how you can really make a greater impact.

So before I go any further and tell your whole story, because I’m fired up about it, let me back up and, and, and allow you to just give us. So it was the late nineties, right? You’re like a coder. So like, right. And you’re like doing code and by the way, I was a computer science guy in college, which

DARRIN:

Oh, nice.

GREG:

On, on the cards. Like we used to do the punch cards.

DARRIN:

We are kindred spirits and I, yeah, I do go back far enough to have done some punch cards.

GREG:

Right. I did punch cards. So I, I could program in Pascal, COBOL, Fortran, BASIC. But, but, but, but I can’t—

DARRIN:

We have so much in common already.

GREG:

—but I can’t spell. So, and I know I don’t even know how to turn on my computer anymore. So things have changed, but, but let’s back up. So you’re, you’re doing coding and then you say, aha, I wanna do blank. And you start Truefit. How does that happen? Cuz there’s so many people that wanna do it, they wanna do it and they don’t, so how do you do that?

DARRIN:

Good question. Good question. So to give a little more context you know, I’m a native Pittsburgher I grew up around here. I love Pittsburgh. And my family has really kind of followed the trajectory of Pittsburgh. So my grandfather was a steelworker. Yeah. And my roots are in manufacturing. So I grew up as a maker. I grew up in a maker family. So I, when I became interested in technology, I was very interested in making software products and that, so that was my expression. You know, my dad made copper tubing. I made, I, I made software. So it’s, it’s a little bit like the kind of renaissance of the Pittsburgh’s gone through from a manufacturing town to a technology.

GREG:

I get it. That’s cool. But it’s interesting. I’m listening to you say I’m a maker and then I’m like, yeah, but he also is a grower.

DARRIN:

Right.

GREG:

Do you know what I mean? So like it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a little, it’s, it’s a different thing.

DARRIN:

Right. So, to fast forward, I was, I was working for a local manufacturing company.

GREG:

Yeah.

DARRIN:

Penn United Technologies in Saxonburg. And working with a great startup software company on a manufacturing system that we were implementing there from a company called Lilly Software Associates. We found them as a startup and we implemented their software very early. And that started a long-term relationship with Dick Lilly and Dave Lane, who was the VP of development. And we started creating, we, we started working together on the product, even though I was a client, I was the closest to the people who were using the software. And so really understanding the frontline needs of users really understanding the usability of the product. So I was kind of their frontline guy and I started creating product with them. This is in the early nineties. And at some point in time, we decided we should kind of take this to the next level. And so I approached Dave and I said, Hey, what if I spin on a tech technology company? I build a team here in Pittsburgh. And he said, it sounds like a great idea. And Dick Lilly loved it too. And so that’s how Truefit started. I should say that my first pitch to these guys failed entirely. So I, I was doing some custom development work on top of their platform. They, they hated that. Dick was allergic to custom development and for many good reasons that I learned later in life. So he was right about that. He said, I don’t want you to do that thing that you pitched to me. What I want you to do is create a new distribution product for us, cuz they were focused on manufacturing and they wanted to grow and expand into supply chains.

GREG:

Did that discourage you at all? I mean, because I think, you know, you’re, you’re first. So, so at this point you have felt 100% of the time. Was there ever like, okay, this isn’t for me or it’s like, Hey let’s—

DARRIN:

No, not at all. No. I mean, it was, it was grounded in the relationship I had with these guys. It was an inspiring alternative. And it, it, it happened faster than you might think, right? Like I didn’t really pitch this as you would pitch an investor, the way a startup company would work today and get rejected. And it wasn’t like that. We were talking about how we would work together collaboratively and he says, here’s what I really want you to do. And I didn’t know anything about distribution at the time that was brand new to me. And over the course of you know, the kind of the first season of Truefit’s life, if you wanna think about it, the first five years of Truefit I learned how warehouses work, I learned how you know, product flows through a warehouse efficiently. And you know, we put a system together that was competing with the top-of-the-line warehouse management systems, systems like Red Prairie and High Jump and Manhattan.

GREG:

And I think that’s one of the myths with businesses. I think everybody thinks like the entrepreneur knows all the next steps. Right? And you sort of like build the bridge as you walk on it, right. I mean a little bit. I mean, and, and, and, and I think that’s one of the biggest myths out there and I, and there’s something refreshing about that. You and I, before we started the earlier today, we started talking about how, you know, you have to, you’re not how to pivot and you’re, you know, you have chapters, you have to know how to pivot. You have to know how to evolve. And then if you don’t evolve and pivot as a business, you become stale, you become redundant. You no longer, you become irrelevant.

DARRIN:

Right.

GREG:

So that was your first. And then, and then where did you go from there?

DARRIN:

So that was season one. And so we focused, we built a team. We focused on that product, that product was rolled out nationally. And then we realized, Hey you know, as a business, we have one big client and that’s creating a ton of risk for us. And we were not clear. It was not clear to us at the time, how to take the next step and diversify as a business, without competing. What we knew was manufacturing and distribution. We didn’t wanna, we wanted to honor our relationship with Lilly. We didn’t want to compete with them. And so we experimented for five years. The next season of life. I think of it as our kind of our teenage years, trying to figure out what we want to be when we grew up, we experimented with a bunch of different ideas of how to diversify. Most of it was implementing other people’s products, which never felt like us. It never felt like what we love. And so for five years we were kind of in the wilderness trying to figure that out and everything. We tried failed everything. We tried for five years in season two, failed.

GREG:

Resilience. I mean, total resilience. And then the other thing is like, when I hear you say five years, some listeners are probably going like five years! Cause because it’s actually going on. I mean, that’s—

DARRIN:

I’m a slow, I’m a slow learner.

GREG:

No, but I think no, but I think it’s key. I think so many people do not run an infinite firm and try to run it for 5, 10, 50. I mean, we’re trying to build a firm for 50 to 75 years. Yeah. So if you’re thinking 50 years out and you can experiment for five years, not a biggie. Yeah. But if you’re thinking I wanna liquidate now or, I mean, I wanna exit in 10 years and I gotta experiment for five, that doesn’t work. So it’s just the value of having a long-term perspective.

 

DARRIN:

Right. Right. Yeah. And I, I would say, you know, I didn’t know how long, I mean, I would say I always, I did have a long-term perspective. I, I, you know, I wanted to build a great company and we had set out to do that. And you know, we were kind of values driven. And so we had a lot of kind of good foundational stuff. But season two was discouraging mm-hmm at the end of that and, and what kind of got us out of that was a kind of a big decision that we made.

 

I decided that in order for Truefit to reach its potential, I was gonna have to stop coding cuz up until that point in time, I was in architect building software. I had to stop coding, which I loved.

 

GREG:

Get it.

 

DARRIN:

And I had to learn how to sell and I pivoted my career at that point.

 

GREG:

And, by the way that’s big — you don’t think coder, salesperson, right? I mean, there no offense.

 

DARRIN:

No, no, no. I, I get it. I get it. And, and you know, a lot of people think I’m weird in that, in that regard. Yeah. But, and it was not easy. I can say that. I can, it was not easy. It was the right decision looking back on it. And we didn’t have a culture of sales at the time. And I had all kinds of misconceptions about sales. I thought.

 

GREG:

I’m sitting thinking, I don’t even know what it is. And people would laugh hearing me say that. But for me sales is, I just, I just fall in love with what we do. And I tell everybody what we do. I fall in love and tell everybody about it. I don’t know. Like I don’t, I don’t even know how to ask for business. So like, I mean, it’s, it’s, I don’t. So what did that mean to you?

 

DARRIN:

I had, I had real bad stereotypes in my head and I think most of the company did as well. Cause it wasn’t just me, but I thought, you know, what salespeople do is talk people into doing something that they don’t wanna do. And a seasoned friend of mine, who’s a lifelong sales professional, very successful, said to me, you know, look, Darrin, and this was the aha moment for me. He says, look, sales is about helping people and you love to help people. And I was like, okay, like I get it. Like I get it. It took me a while to absorb that. But what I did at the time was I, I basically turned that relationship over the, the big relationship with software over to my number two guy. At the time I started with zero customers, zero revenue and zero idea what I was doing and decided I was gonna learn how to sell. And that was really the first time, honestly, that we did a lot of business in Pittsburgh. Mm-Hmm because the warehouse product was a national product. We were working with clients all over the country. Nobody in Pittsburgh, we’re 10 years in, nobody in Pittsburgh knows who we are.

 

GREG:

What year is this?

 

DARRIN:

This is well, it’s like 2007-ish.

 

GREG:

Yeah, I got it.

 

DARRIN:

Yeah. 2000, 2007-ish. We did some good work there. But the other ingredients that made that successful, I did a project. I worked with branding firm called Clear Brands. Brian Cubarney is a, is a genius. And Brian came in Brian’s superpower is he does organizational DNA testing. So he comes in and he like figures out what our true passion is. Mm-Hmm and he’s the guy that said to me, you guys love creating innovative products. Mm-Hmm you guys are product creators and really helping people innovate and figure out the next thing. And we were like, mm-hmm , that’s what we did on day one, by the way, way that’s that was back to our roots at the time. But we went through the desert of like trying to figure out what we wanted to be when we grew up.

 

GREG:

But those dots are so easy to connect.

 

DARRIN:

You’d think .

 

GREG:

Well, no, but no, but you you’re going like, okay all sales is, which I couldn’t agree more, is really trying to figure out how to help people. Yeah. And guess what? We create things.

 

DARRIN:

Yeah.

 

GREG:

That help people.

 

DARRIN:

Yeah.

 

GREG:

So this is like really cool. Darrin’s in the middle and make and connects those two dots.

 

DARRIN:

You’re, you’re yeah, hindsight’s so much, it’s so much easier to see that in hindsight than it did was at the time I, like I said, I’m a slow learner. So it did take me a lot longer to figure that out than I wish. So young people, cuz I’m a big believer in mentoring. We can talk about that in a little bit. But so when people are asking for advice, you know, like what’s the one thing that you wanna leave us with at the end of this,

 

GREG:

The one thing is there’s not one thing.

 

DARRIN:

Yeah. but, but one of the things I will say to them is learn to sell. My son’s working on a little startup project. I’m working with him now actually. And I, I said, man, if I would’ve learned, when I was your age, you know what you’re learning now, about selling, truth, it would’ve like gone a lot faster. Let’s put it that way. So it took me years and years to learn how to do that. And then season three for us was, you know, this is, think about it 2007 is when kind of mobile technology came.

 

GREG:

And how many, how many associates did you have then?

 

DARRIN:

Probably mid-twenties.

 

GREG:

Okay. Yeah.

 

DARRIN:

I would say.

 

GREG:

So now you have it in people. Yep.

 

DARRIN:

Yeah. So, so think about what was happening technically in 2007, that was the beginning of the kind of the mobile technology boom, right. And we had been early to the game in mobile and so we started creating mobile software products, apps. Everybody wanted an app; we heard all kinds of crazy ideas. It’s interesting.

 

GREG:

So we feel like apps have been around forever apps started like, like really, we didn’t download.

 

DARRIN:

Yeah, 2006, 7, 8, 9.

 

GREG:

That’s fascinating. Right.

 

DARRIN:

Yeah. So if you think about again, what was happening then Apple was driving user experience design. Well, we were a team of engineers. We were very engineering centric. And so we spent the season three creating awesome mobile and web solutions and, and kind of starting to learn about user experience design and the importance of creating value for users, the importance of research. And we had hired a couple people, but then I, I we had done some projects with a local design firm called just design that was run by a guy named John Beck and to make a long story short, we really loved working together. We saw the value of kind of joining forces. John approached me and said, Hey, we’re thinking about kind of restructuring. We’d like to join forces with a larger firm. We think that might be you. And so that ended up with our very first and only acquisition mm-hmm in 2014 the kind of the end of season, season three, with John and I joining forces and us starting to integrate the practices of design and engineering, which are turns out to be really, really critical and important.

And so season four for us was about creating these really high performing cross-functional product development teams. So combining user experience, design, product management, mm-hmm architecture and engineering and quality testing. Today we work in cross-functional teams that have all of that, those ingredients and we’ve tuned up those teams over time to have, you know, just the right ratio. So we have six teams across the company today and that team can start with a concept for a new product and out the other end comes a successful commercial product.

 

GREG:

By the way, that that could be a whole podcast because we work in teams here and getting the right personalities, the right expertise. You know what? I don’t want to make this a commercial anyway, but like our Investment Advisory Committee, we have, we have financial advisors that are practitioners, the physicians. We have people that work in the lab, CFAs, CFPs, that, that, that don’t work directly with clients. And then you have leaders from, from our business and you put ’em all together and you get a cross-pollination. Usually a team is made up of similar people. So just all investment people, all practitioners, you know, so that the lab people never really see a patient, you know, whatever. So it’s having that right team. I think there’s a whole getting the right people in the room is, is a, is a big part of the win.

 

DARRIN:

Right. And we’re take a different approach than a lot of companies take with this, which is kind of part of the success. So we were really tightly integrating these teams. So designers and engineers were working very closely together to make sure we understood the problem that the product intended to solve for whom you know, who the user is, making sure they’re creating value for the user, but then understanding what it takes to actually build it and bringing those things together. So the needs of the user, the needs of the market, the needs of the business, and kinda what it takes to build this because software products are very expensive to build. So you can’t just design anything and build it. You’ve gotta create efficiencies so that you’re using capital wisely. Right? And that’s one of the things we really work closely with our clients to do is making sure that they’re making the right investments in the software and that they’ve thought through their business plan. Mm-Hmm so that when we build this product, they it’s gonna be successful in the market. And they’re going to grow it into a successful business. Almost everybody we work with is either starting a software company or starting a software line of business within an existing company.

GREG:

Yeah. And that’s where we are. Right. We’re, we’re having lunch after this. And, and that’s what I wanna talk to you about. I think, I think the opportunity to have we’ll never get away from, and, and never is a strong word. And I’ll say it again. We will never get away from understanding the relationship is key, but we can enhance and improve that relationship with proper software. And effectively, I heard you, you know, help, help a lot more people. Right. And so our we’re really looking forward as a, as a potential customer at some point to be able to do that. And, and I just think it’s, I, we’ve been, we, in fact, we have an, we have an offsite next week where we’re all gonna get together and, and start to brainstorm about what some of those products would be.

 

DARRIN:

Yeah. But it’s grounded in the belief that great software helps people thrive. Right. That’s kind of the core of it, which is exactly what you just said. Great software helps people thrive. That’s what, that’s what motivates us. That’s what we’re passionate about applying technology so that it improves people’s lives. It makes the world better.

 

GREG:

It feels like we’re there. Like it. I, I like, I wanna know, 20 years ago there was so much technology. Now, the technologies evolved. In my opinion, too, as I sit here with an iPad, and I notice you didn’t bring one in. So it’s interesting. The technology guy is just off the cuff. The software is so good right now, but I feel like it does now, now for me, and for us, it feels like now it needs to be customized for our business.

 

DARRIN:

There are so many different applications for it. I, I still think there’s so much potential for technology. If you look at where technology has come, even over the course of you’re in my career, like you talked about punch cards at the beginning of this right now think, you know, that, that, you know, we carry around in our pocket more power than it, you know, than the Apollo space mission had on their flight to the moon. You know, that’s crazy. That’s, that’s pretty awesome. And we’re only just scratching the surface mm-hmm of, of the potential. So if you look at, you know, we talked a little bit about mobile and kind of the mobile era now that is ubiquitous. Like everybody has a phone in their pocket.

 

GREG:

Okay. So listen to the dinosaur ask the question. When you say mobile?

 

DARRIN:

An app, an app running on your phone. Okay. Got, or, or a mobile experience that I can, I can interact with my product on the go. Now not let me say this. Not every product needs to be a mobile product. There are products, there are jobs that you do at your desk and a browser’s the best place to do those jobs. But for very many applications, there’s a remote component. I wanna be able to do something when I’m on the go.

 

GREG:

Yep.

 

DARRIN:

And so we think through that, and we help people that have the experience, the, the, one of the big trends that we’re seeing now is connected devices, right? So the internet of things, devices, appliances hardware in our world will be connected. So we’re working on a really several really interesting connected device projects. You see this a lot in, in healthcare with medical devices being connected you’re seeing it more and more in consumer with home products being connected. So medical device hook up your pacemaker, whatever, he’ll keep your, you know, heart monitor and the doctor looks at it and you’re at home, or, you know, I’m, I’m you know, I’m diabetic, I’ve got a monitor that monitors my glucose and sugar. I, I can see that on my app. I can use that to help manage my health—

 

GREG:

Right, Children’s Hospital, by the way, they, they, you know, they can, they can remote. So, because they’re so used to looking at children and being with children and being with children that have heart issues, they can then remote into the other hospitals and go on rounds and check heartbeats, et cetera.

 

DARRIN:

Yeah. We did a, we did a really interesting product years ago with a couple of doctors who had physical therapy practices. And it essentially you know, these guys are, they’re top shoulder surgeons. They operate on mm-hmm quarterbacks and pitchers and those kind of guys. So after you have shoulder surgery you, instead of going to a physical therapy office and signing up for all in-office appointments, they would hand you an iPad and some wearable sensors, and the iPad would show you how to do your exercises correctly. The sensors would track you doing them in real time, and this is pre COVID by the way. So if you think about remote physical therapy in the world of the pandemic, you can go like, wow, that was yep. Insightful. But so they would have people doing their exercises at home, but all the data would be tracked and, and the user would get real time feedback about whether they’re doing it correctly. And the physical therapist would have a dashboard to see all their patients, you know, who’s green, who’s yellow, who’s red, who needs attention and needs a call and needs to come in and learn how to do it better. And who’s fine. And recovering well. And are our plans of care actually working? And are they effective? Which if we tweak it, which plans of care are more effective than others? So you can do a lot of things with a solution like that, applying technology to physical therapy. So that was a fascinating, connected device product that we worked on for, for a while.

 

GREG:

Yeah. Again, I see it happen at Children’s and it’s interesting how COVID has accelerated it. Right. So now all of a sudden telemedicine is, wasn’t doing well, now it’s doing great. You know, as we sit here today, there’s four of us. And I don’t think we could have done this three years ago. Right. We couldn’t have, I mean, there’s four of us in this room and then I’m looking on the screen. There’s another, I don’t know, three or four on the, on the screen, which remote. Right? In Zoom. So it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting. We would not have been, I don’t, we would’ve done this three years ago. Everybody would’ve been in the room so, or, or whatever. Yeah. It’s just a different world. Okay.

 

DARRIN:

So connected devices are big, but to touch again, without going down the rabbit hole of, of what meta’s all up to VR and AR is a very interesting trend that, that we’re, is, is gonna have a big impact on our lives. And so we’re paying very close attention to VR and AR, starting to do some R&D in that world. It’s, it’s, it’s nascent, it’s still early for that technology, but that is going to really influence our lives over the next 10 years.

 

GREG:

For our listeners that have no idea what that is.

 

DARRIN:

Oh, sorry.

 

GREG:

And the guy from Johnstown across from you .

 

DARRIN:

So virtual reality is, is what so VR. Yeah. Virtual reality is you know, what you’re seeing in gaming, but now in a lot of applications, so industrial training applications, medical surgical applications virtual reality has a lot of like really interesting applications. I’ll give you, I’ll give you one I’m involved in a, in a venture fund that just invested in a, in a company that does language learning. And so what’s the best way to learn a language, Greg?

 

GREG:

Go to the country.

 

DARRIN:

Go to the country. Right. Okay. So talk about a really practical application of virtual reality. What if I could go to a country or it’ll least be put in a context, like a restaurant where, where we’re speaking Spanish and I’m learning, trying to learn Spanish, and I have to order a meal and I have to pay my check and I have to do all these things. So the company does that. I think that’s an interesting application of virtual reality. And, you know,

 

GREG:

That’s, that’s amazing how many possible.

 

DARRIN:

That’s a metaverse idea that I think is actually practical. I think there’s a lot of metaverse ideas that are kind of—

 

GREG:

Yeah. Yep. Got it. But I don’t know, it’s, your business is fascinating and it’s you wanna talk, I mean, our business certainly is evolving, but, but yours is really interested in, you know a lot of opportunities. So now let’s back, let’s back up because we went over a lot of stuff. Now let’s talk about how we can, you know, help people from your experiences. So like, if, what are some of the things you learned? I mean, I, if you wanna touch a little bit on the pivot and the importance of seasons, and I heard you say something about mentoring, like these are real concepts that are evergreen. They, you know, that that probably need to be talked about.

 

DARRIN:

Yeah. It, it, it’s been interesting to look back over the time because this year we’re celebrating our 25th anniversary in February. Yeah. 25, 25 years. So that’s roughly five seasons of life. And, and we didn’t set out to like, these have these nice, neat five year, like that wasn’t part of the, that wasn’t planned. That just kind of happened. But we found that we’ve kind of reinvented ourselves every five years, and I think it’s really important to pay attention to how you need to evolve. And you need to kind of look for the next level and have a vision for that and be willing to be a lifelong learner. You have to continue to learn as technologists. It kind of comes with a territory, but, you know, then there’s all kinds of things like, you know, going from engineering to sales, where it’s like, I didn’t set out to learn that, but it’s what the business needed at the time. And so that’s what we’re gonna do.

What I’m doing right now is like right now, this month is starting to shift my attention from learning sales, to learning marketing. And it’s a whole world that we honestly haven’t figured out yet. We’re not really great at marketing. And I would say we don’t have a clear idea of how to do it in a way. That’s awesome. I mean, this podcast is a great marketing tool and similar to some ideas that we’ve had but kudos to you for kind of figuring that out and integrating it into how you go to market. So, so I’m, I’m a student, I’m all of a sudden, a student of marketing and I’m learning and I’m working with a coach and I’m but it’s a whole thing for me to learn. And I don’t know anything about it.

 

GREG:

Isn’t it fun? I, I find it’s, I find people that are like you, right. You’re always trying to figure it out. I find that fascinating. And, and what I, what I, what I, what I observe are intelligent people are always trying to figure it out. When I’m with people that think they have figured it out, it makes me crazy frustrated. I, they know it, they got it. Like there’s people in our business. They have it figured out I’ve been in the business for 36 years. I’m still trying to figure it out. By the way podcast. It’s not like I sat down to figure it out. Someone had asked me to be on a podcast five years ago, six years ago, seven years ago. I had no idea what it was. I come into the room. I’m like, what are we doing? And now that, then next thing you know, we have a podcast. It’s just, it’s, it’s also just being open to opportunities, but, but there is a real, the lifelong learner is key. And then knowing when to pivot, you know, we, we have evolved and we have evolved and we always say, oh my gosh, we are so much different than we were five years ago. And, and that is not to criticize what we were doing five years ago. It’s just, we’re gonna say that again in five years from now.

 

DARRIN:

Right.

 

GREG:

But, but knowing when to pivot and continue to learn is key, right?

 

DARRIN:

Yeah. It’s, it’s really ingrained pretty deeply in the Truefit culture is continuous improvement and kind of thinking about how we can always be better. That’s where the team construct came from. Yeah. That’s where I, I joke that, you know, our process is called Idea Launch it’s how do you go from an idea to a, to a finished product, a successfully successful commercial product. And I joke that we’re on like Idea Launch 7.0. You know, like we’re, we, we keep evolving it and we’re about to go through another cuz we keep learning. And you know, when we do something like integrate design and engineering, it changed the whole thing. We had ideal launch before design, but when we put those things together and we started working with integrated teams, that process went to the whole next level.

 

GREG:

Right.

 

DARRIN:

Super, super important. The value we’re able to bring to clients has grown substantially over that, over that time, because we have been learning about design. I’m an again, I’m an engineer. So I, I tend to jump to solutions too quickly. So John, John Beck, our director of product design, it is always like, Hey, let’s stay focused on making sure that we’re solving a real problem. It’s like, and, and that is a fun journey and a kind of a frustrating journey, because like you said, you do bump into those people who, you know, have deep domain expertise and they think they know what this product needs to do. And the journey that we take them on is to really validate some of those things. But also, we point out that, you know, a lot of those things are assumptions that you’re making that we should validate. Right. And sometimes we do run into scenarios where like, they think, oh, the product needs to do a, B and C. And we talk to users, we learn from the market and like C is really important, but a, like nobody’s gonna use that. Right. And so that is when I talk about like really being smart about investment of capital.

Those are the kind of things that we learn with people learn with our clients that saves them money in the long run. Because while I’m, I’m thinking of one, one client in particular who had this idea, you know, a, B and C, and like through the research, we found out that like, nobody’s gonna use a right. And it was kind of his pet feature. And he could, he could have been really upset about that or really depressed that his product vision wasn’t gonna come to reality. But I was like, I just saved you like hundreds of thousands of dollars of building something that nobody’s going use building the right product is way more important than building the product that’s in your head. So how do you discover what the right product is to build? And that’s the journey that we take people on. That’s what Ideal Launch is.

 

GREG:

As I listen to you, the integrity comes through. Clearly you understand your business, clearly it helps your client make a, a great decision, but you know what else I’m sitting or thinking, you know, I wanna work with people that think about our problems and come up with solutions even when we’re not together. My guess is if you’re at the Penguin game and you’re working with Confluence, you’re still thinking about right, you have an active mind and, and do you know what I mean? It’s like people, I, I think, I think that’s why people work with us. I mean, we continually are thinking about our clients. It’s not just the hour that we’re with you and you could just hear you listening. You’re always, you, you know, you have a very, a very active mind, very growth mindset.

So you’ve built an incredible firm. Let’s talk a little bit about outside your firm. Cause I also know you mentioned me mentoring and I hear people talk about mentoring. I hear people talking about network mentoring, networking, and really, I think being in the right ecosystem right. Is incredibly important. Right. And, and, and so let’s talk about how you built and by the way, for the listeners, think about your ecosystem. It is so challenging to be successful if you’re not in the right ecosystem. Right. I mean, if you want, you’ve gotta be around people like Darrin, you gotta be around people that are, that are thinking you gotta be. So how did you build that ecosystem?

 

DARRIN:

That’s interesting. Looking back on it, I, I, I had the privilege of starting out in a really strong ecosystem. So Penn United as a company was run by a group of leaders that were just fantastic. I mean, they were, they were trying to build a great company. They were integrating their faith and their work life. I learned a lot about that back in, back in those days. And so when I started Truefit, I kind of was, felt like I was a little on my own because I had been mentored by these guys. And I was in my, in my late twenties. I started Truefit when I was 29. At that time, I said, okay, I there’s a couple guys I wanna meet. And I started showing up downtown and I, I, I met, I chased down a guy named Fred Federoff. Many people from Pittsburgh will remember Fred. He was the, he did so much good for the city. He’s kind of an elder statesman of Pittsburgh. He passed on years ago, but I wanted to meet Fred. And I, so I chased him down at a seminar and I invited him to lunch. And Fred became a mentor of mine for 10 years. 10 plus years until his last day. He was, he was, he, I learned so much from him, a lunch with Fred was intense. He would just ask you questions the whole time, but they were such the right kind of penetrating questions and really made you think.

And so I’ve had a, over the years, I’ve had a series of relationships like that. Jay Roy, who was the president of federal home loan bank was a mentor of mine. We had lunch regularly for many years. I, I really credit a lot of the person that I’ve become to these guys. I get it, Bruce Bickle, another great. He was a, he was at PNC. Yeah. For a while. Bruce is an amazing, amazing guy. Some of these guys are still with us, some of these guys aren’t anymore, but these are, I think of these guys as the elder statesman of Pittsburgh. And I had the privilege of learning from them for many, many years. And big part of who I’ve become is, was very dependent on that and was shaped by them. So I think it’s always important to have people that are kind of older and further down the path.

And I would take the hardest questions of the day. I mean, being a leader is really, really hard and I there’s always a problem to solve. I, I was on a phone call right before I come over here, solving very hard problems about a, you know, a deal we’re doing with a large global company, being a leader is hard and you need to be able to have those conversations. I think it’s also important to have peers, kind of peer mentoring. So people that are in the same stage of the journey in the role that you’re in. So for probably two decades, I’ve had a monthly dinner with a group of CEOs. We all kind of see the world the same way, have the same belief system all in various stages of our journey as CEOs, but we have dinner every month. And I, that’s a kind of a wisdom council that I go to and I ask hard questions and I get good feedback. There’s, for-profit people, nonprofit people. There’s you know, it’s a diverse group. All I would say like-minded, but it’s important to have those kind of those people, particularly if you lead a company because being a CEO can be a very kind of lonely post. So it’s important to have those relationships.

And then I, I think it’s very important to be investing in next generation leaders. I think that’s super important. So a, a good mentoring ecosystem would be having a few people older, wiser, further down the road, having a few people that are in your role and having a few people that are next generation that you’re helping to navigate their navigate their, their course. And so there’s several people that have reached out to me over the years and said, Hey, will you meet with me? I always say yes. Like I always say yes, sometimes those relationships develop and become strong. We, we become great friends and we, you know, our families get to know each other. Sometimes this is one or two meetings and then you know, that doesn’t develop and that’s okay. You know, that’s, that’s, that’s fine. But I would say, you know, if I wouldn’t have chased down Fred, my life would’ve been poorer as a result of not having Fred’s influence. So if you’re a young person, I encourage my boys to do this. If you’re a young person, like find people that you wanna learn from and invite them to lunch and be prepared and ask them really good questions and see, see how that develops. So that’s been big for me as a, as a leader, as a Pittsburgher, it’s been, it’s been big.

 

GREG:

I think it’s essential. I hope everybody hear like, I, I, I, I’ve been blessed and privileged. I worked for American Funds for like 20 years. And so I was around some of the, you know, the best thinkers in this business. And I benefited from that for young people. Don’t be afraid to make that call. That one call can make a huge difference. In fact, today at 2:30, I’m meeting with a, I think it’s a junior to senior in college. He’s actually interning with a competitor and wants to come over. And so he set up a 2:30 meeting. And so it’s Friday afternoon, I’ve got 2:30. And so I’m gonna meet with him. I had someone else, you know, message me on LinkedIn. He was at Deloitte in in DC. And he was, he, I was in Florida, in Naples at our house. And I saw, I got a message coming in. He wants to get together. And I’m like, I wasn’t doing anything. I was watching TV outside by the pool. So I’m like, okay. And so here, he he’s working in our South Hills office, but here’s just a visual for all of, if you’re, and I know you, you said you, you, you, you went to a seminar. If you are at a seminar and the person on stage is someone you wanna meet, don’t walk to the exit, walk to the stage.

 

DARRIN:

Sure.

 

GREG:

It is amazing to me. Yeah. It’s amazing to me, like there’s a hundred people there and people are like, oh, I’d really like to meet that person. And then they walk to the exit, have a about you up on stage and say, hi, I’m Greg. And you’d be surprised how they respond, cuz no one does it.

 

DARRIN:

Right. Yeah. No, it’s, it’s, it’s critical. I always encourage people to make the ask. Right. Like make the ask.

 

GREG:

Wonderful. And then, you know, just a segue to the, the final part of this, you talked about the next generation of leaders and you know, you’ve created something bigger than you, which is, you know, which is I’m sure rewarding and, and fascinating and helpful humbling, a lot of and humbling and, and difficult. There’s always a problem to solve. I’ve told my wife for 30 some years, don’t worry next year will be easier. And she just laughs at this point, cuz it’s just not how it goes. Yep. But talk about your business. What do you think of when you think about your legacy?

 

DARRIN:

We spent a lot of time thinking about this. When we started the company, we started with a set of core values. You know, Jim Collins talked about the importance of core values and built to last. And I had read that in the early nineties. And so I, it was a value system that I learned at Penn United and that we started the company with. So when I started Truefit, I said, you know, here’s what we stand for. And people were, some people were like, that’s awesome. I want to join. And some people were like, not for me, that’s okay. But we were clear about our values. Recently within the last couple years, we’ve gotten really clear on the vision of the company and you know, kind of met with the broader team and you, you can find this on our website, but the, the, the high notes are, you know, we really do believe that great software helps people thrive. We’re building excellent teams, impactful software, successful businesses to be a catalyst for the common good. So the ingredients, there are excellent teams, impactful software, successful businesses so that people can thrive. That’s, that’s kind of the, the pillars of the, of the vision.

And so we’ve been asking ourselves the question, how do we have an exponential impact? It is not our goal to grow Truefit as big as possible. That is not, that is not the goal. In fact, you know, we think there’s some cultural limits because our, the culture of the company is so important to us. And as you grow, the culture changes. So I see all the time I would put us in a category of wanting, I think we’ll grow bigger than we are today, but I would put us in the category of being intentionally small to keep a super strong culture. But the question still remains. How do you have an exponential impact? So for example, let’s just take excellent teams. We’ve spent a lot of time making sure that our teams are constructed correctly, making sure that they’re working well, that they’re healthy, that people are taking that, that people are able to be effective. You know, it takes a lot of, you know, relational oil to keep a good team lubricated, right? So, so we, we’re very attentive to that.

And now we’re starting to have clients ask us, Hey, you know, we see how effective these Truefit teams are. Can you help us kind of grow our own team? And we have clients that are building teams that look exactly like a Truefit team in their company. So that’s, that’s a way of having an ex exponential impact because it reaches outside of our, our walls and really helps our clients be more successful. That was a key component by the way of the hard problem that I, you know, the call before this, that that was a key component of that conversation. How can we help these guys really be successful by helping them grow a team—

 

GREG:

With software?

 

DARRIN:

Right?

 

GREG:

So software, you know, personality, they analyze personalities, put the right diversity together.

 

DARRIN:

Well, I mean, keep in mind, we’re building products for other people, right? So we’re building a product that you are gonna own. Right?

 

GREG:

Right.

 

DARRIN:

So what, what, what do you need to maintain that product? Well, what do you need to grow that product? Software requires care and feeding, all software is never done. Right? A lot of people think, you know, I’m gonna build this thing and then it’s gonna build a set of features and it’s gonna be done. That’s not the way software works. It’s not the way the world works because everything’s always changing. So there’s, you’re gonna need to be adding new features over time. So it’s part of the educational process that we work with clients on, is helping them to understand that software’s never done that this is a, it’s got a life to it. You have to continue to work with it, the world of technology’s changing and you, can’t just, it’s not a static thing. It’s very much a dynamic evolving thing.

 

GREG:

Yeah. And in our business, it, it, so it feels like the standard is you solve a problem like that, right? Like mean now you solve a problem for a company, you solve a problem for a family or an individual. I think the next, the next level is you solve a problem. They haven’t even considered like that. That’s right. I mean, so you, like, in working with you with software, my understanding of what we need on software is probably pound comparison to what, you know, the software could do for our business. Right. And so it’s for, and say for, same for us, I mean, if a client wants to just buy some investments, you know, a lot of people could do that, but, but there’s another level of helping them maximize their lives and legacies. So it’s a different level.

 

DARRIN:

Right.

 

GREG:

And so, you know, I’m, I’m sitting here looking at my iPad. I never sat there and thought, you know what? I really would like, I would like an iPad because it, iPad didn’t exist. Right? So, so for you, I would think the challenge in like our lunch and meeting with me, it’s like Greg thinks what he, he knows what software he needs. Greg has no idea. How does Darrin create a vision that Greg hasn’t even thought about?

 

DARRIN:

Right. So we, we see that as a partnership that we have with our clients. We have created hundreds of commercial software products over 25 years. And so we’re bringing all of that perspective.

 

GREG:

Yeah.

 

DARRIN:

All of those ideas from multiple industries. So our, our portfolio is very diverse. We work in healthcare; we work in energy. We work in manufacturing. We, we work in a variety. So getting insights from all those different places, you know, connected device. We talked a little bit about that. Yeah. I don’t know if there’s a connected device for financial services. Maybe not, but you know, we’re, we’re, those are the ideas that we’re using through a partnership to help create a product that will create new and exciting value for people. Right?

 

GREG:

Yep.

 

DARRIN:

So that’s, that’s, that’s what, that’s what makes my job so fun because I get to have those conversations every day.

 

GREG:

You say fun. Like, I, I love your passion. I mean, I, I love that. I love that you run the, the, the business on values. I, I, I, I find your vision, fascinating. Your passion comes through. I mean, I’m sure it comes through on the podcast in person. It really comes through also. So thank you.

 

Thank you for being a leader. Thank you for being a leader in the industry. Thank you. In your industry, thank you for mentoring young people, as you, as you mentioned. And, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting to talk, hear you talk about pivoting and resilience and you’ve created a wonderful business and it sounds like there’s great years ahead. So thank you so much. I really, really do appreciate the time.

 

DARRIN:

Oh, you’re very welcome. It was an honor and it’s you know, let’s continue the conversation.

 

GREG:

Let’s do it.

 

DARRIN:

I’m I, like I said, it’s, it’s, this is a very fun conversation. I love doing that. And I’m looking forward to learning more about your business.

 

GREG:

I look forward to our conversation. Thanks, Darrin.

 

DARRIN:

Thank you, Greg.

 

GREG:

Thank you for listening to the Imagine That podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode and welcome you to reach out to Confluence Financial Partners with your questions and comments. If you’d like to hear more episodes, head over to confluencefp.com/podcasts, or find us wherever you get your podcasts.

Confluence Financial Partners — Planning an Extraordinary Retirement | Episode #24

How do you cap off a lifetime of hard work? With many people retiring healthier, heartier and wealthier than generations before us, retirement can be a chance for adventure and an opportunity to make the most of the next chapter of our lives. In this episode, host and Confluence Financial Partners CEO, Greg Weimer, introduces us two people living out an extraordinary retirement. Meet Pat and Michelle, a couple whose skillful retirement planning has given them the freedom and flexibility to follow their feeling hearts — all across the U.S. You’ll hear about their travels and adventures — and learn how they brought their dreams to life. For anyone who has ever considered following a different retirement path, don’t miss this episode.

Greg: Hello, and welcome to the Imagine That podcast. I’m your host, Greg Weimer, founder, partner, and wealth manager at Confluence Financial Partners. Each month, we’ll explore new ways to help you maximize your life and your legacy and meet some extraordinary people along the way. So if you’re looking to get more out of your life today and legacy tomorrow, let’s get started.

At Confluence Financial Partners, helping people maximize their lives and legacies is truly one of the most rewarding things we do. You know, if you think about it, to really enjoy your life, we need to figure out how to go through transitions well, and cuz we all have transitions in our lives and really navigating from one part of your one chapter of your life to another chapter of your life is really an art. And I have had the privilege of getting to know Pat and Michelle. Pat Gaunt and Michelle Bergeron have been friends of mine, we were just trying to figure out when, since the early nineties we’ve known each other and it’s been so much fun to watch these two friends go through transitions together and as a couple. So Pat, Michelle, welcome to Imagine That podcast.

Pat: Thank you for having us.

Michelle: Thanks Greg. Great to be here.

Greg: So the first time I met them, yes, I worked with, I worked with Michelle and that’s how I got to know Pat. I watched you both be road warriors and travel, not for enjoyment, right? Not for enjoyment at all. And then I’ve also watched you. We’re gonna get to like how you can really like love your retirement and think differently about it. They’ve helped me think differently about my retirement. They’ve inspired me, but, but let’s start with cuz I think the first chapter was you two were road warriors. Do you wanna just give a little color and talk about how you both traveled and how you stayed connected while you were in different states?

Michelle: You know, we actually met on an airplane on a Sunday night when I was starting my week and Pat was ending his. And so that was sort of the beginning of our relationship. We both for, oh, over 25 years pretty much full time. And we spent lots of time apart with little time together, but it was something that was a part of a lifestyle that we had chosen, that we knew would be for a finite period of time that we planned for to ultimately allow us to do what we’re doing now and that is have other interests and other things that have been filling our lives.

Greg: Do you wanna just talk a little bit about, as you are traveling into different states, how you knew it wasn’t permanent and that was important to you?

Pat: Greg, for us, it was, it was really a means to an end. We knew that when we left on Monday morning, we typically wouldn’t see each other until Friday night. And we just knew that was the lifestyle that we had chosen really, because it was a means to an end. We knew that by, you know, sacrificing other elements of our lives and, and traveling and working hard during the week that that would enable us to have successful careers. It would enable us to plan for our financial future and you know, to eventually, you know, reap the benefits of that, which is what we’re doing now. We’re very excited with the things that we’re doing now.

Greg: But that root Pat, what you just said, that root of what you just said is really important because one of the things that happen when people don’t transition well, their job becomes their identity. That does not mean— I watched you two, you two put it all on the field and worked a hundred percent. I mean, I watched it. You guys were totally committed, but, but you knew that there was something greater out there, but you still gave 100% to your careers.

Michelle: Yeah. It was, it was very exciting. It was something that we planned for. We knew that the careers that we had chosen were gonna require us to spend a lot of time doing them without a lot of extra time to do other things that many of our friends and people did, but it felt like it was worthwhile. So we planned financially so that we could be fully independent, hopefully by the age of 50. We achieved that sooner. We were very, very fortunate to then allow us to take the next step and take a look at the list of things that we had put together, of things individually and things collectively that we had always wanted to do, but never had the time for. So it was a really exciting transition to be able to venture out into some other things that we had not had the time to experience.

Greg: So Michelle, do you remember we were in a, I don’t know if you were in the room or not. We were in a room; it was Los Angeles. I won’t say the person’s last name, but his name was John and he got up in front of the group and he said, here’s why I’m retiring. And he said, he, when he travels, he sees people walking by him and they, I forget how he said it. And he said, they’re smiling and they look happy. And I just want to go figure out what they’re smiling about and what’s making them happy and I’m gonna go do that.

Michelle: I remember it well. And I think it was very inspiring. And in fact for us, we were very fortunate in our first year of retirement. We met some new folks who have now become our closest friends and they made a comment to was that really stuck and resonated. And they said that, to them, the whole idea of a fulfilled life was to follow your feeling heart. And to Pat and I, that really meant doing things that brought joy, excitement, enthusiasm, passion, and fulfillment. And it really got us thinking about what the next steps were. And so there were things that we had, as I mentioned planned to learn to do together. We learned boat and RVing and scuba diving and things just to name a few. And then it gave us chances to do things individually that were things that had been on our bucket list for a long time. And so it was an opportunity to do things that we just didn’t have time for before. And given the fact that we never know how long we’re gonna be on this earth, it seemed like we needed to take advantage of as much as we could now, while we still could.

Greg: When did you start? So if you said like this is the retirement date, this is the moment it all happens. How far back before that, did you really start to plan?

Pat: Geez, I, early on in our marriage and particularly with Michelle’s background in in fin, in the financial world really from 1991, when we got married, that was a really big part of our plan was, you know, proper management of our finances and, and saving for the future. And because neither one of us really identified ourselves that, you know, we are what our job is to us. It was, it was a means to an end, although we were passionate and we loved what we both did at the end of the day. And I’ll just speak for me, is it that wasn’t who I was in total as a person. So it was really, you know, we’re gonna make these sacrifices, we’re gonna work hard, we’re gonna travel and in our jobs, but at the end of the day, it’s, it’s really the means to the end. And so it really goes back to early on in our marriage of saving for the future. And, and that allowed us to dream big, thinking about the future that we knew that, you know, we, we had a proper financial plan and that allowed us to continue to dream. And as the years went on, we were able to dream bigger because of those those plans and, and sacrifices.

Greg: I think what you just said, that it’s interesting how many people don’t, they don’t really plan their life or, or, or they have like a dream of what they were like, like what they, they, they have a dream of what they want their life to be. They have this dream but they don’t have a plan. So I see people that can think of 30,000 feet and can dream. I see people that are pretty good at living their daily lives. I don’t see a lot of people that match their daily activities with their dream. And, and the fact that you guys started dreaming about it earlier and actually putting plans together, I think that is a huge lesson for people listening that should not be taken for granted. So, so I think that was one lesson you just said, Pat, the second one is you, you were all in on your careers, but you didn’t let it define you.

And, and whether you see it happen with executives like you guys were, or whether you see it happen with athletes, right? I mean, you become Joe from the Steelers. And then all of a sudden number 34 is no longer on your back. And now you’re just Joe and you don’t know how to behave as Joe. So it makes the transition so much harder. I’m not surprised to hear you say the things you say, because it’s allowed you guys to transition into a wonderful next chapter of your life. And I think, for people listening, those nuggets are life changing. And, and, and, and now there were some, there were some intervention and some coincidence, divine intervention, whatever, whatever you may, whatever, whatever you may wanna call it. Tell everyone about the September 11th event, tell ’em on September 11th. What happened? I think that is just beyond consequ— beyond coincidental.

Michelle: 9-11 was an extraordinary, it was just an extraordinary day in that it was an odd day that we both took a cab to the airport. Pat tending intending to go to Dallas. And I was intending to go to San Diego. We were both up in the air when the FAA downed all planes, given what was happening in New York and in other places around the country. And it turned out that we both landed in Dallas and it was a very, as you can all know, and remember, it was a very, very scary time getting off the airplane, seeing the televisions on with buildings that were blowing up. And of course, knowing that each of us had been in the air and wondering where the other was. Fortunately within an hour, we were able to find each other and get together despite phones not working and everything else.

And like many people we spent the next few days glued together. In this case, we were holed up in a hotel trying to figure out how we would get home, watching everything on television. And I believe for both of us, I can say that it was really a, an earth-shattering event that got us think even more about the important things in life and what we really wanted to do with the rest of the time we had on earth. So we had talked previously about, you know, the age of 50 was when we were planning to be financially free, but we also decided at that time that if things weren’t as fun as we had hoped they would be, or if the world was that we needed to make sure that we adapted to make our time here on earth. Exactly what we hoped it would be. And so it was it was a very sobering time and something that was, I think, very instrumental in us helping plan our next chapter.

Greg: And, and the unusual part, you guys were both living, if I remember, you both were in Atlanta, then you, you guys lived in Atlanta.

Michelle: We did.

Greg: And, and you were in a hotel in?

Michelle: Dallas.

Greg: Dallas, Dallas. Yeah. So what’s the chance of that. Like, here you go. You’re both, you’re both grounded and you’re both grounded at the same airport in Dallas with time to, you know, contemplate the importance of accelerating your dreams, which I think is just really, really interesting. The other thing about September 11th, I think about this a lot and I don’t know why. I mean, it just, it feels like to me, in some ways it was yesterday and Michelle, I think it was you that just said like you, we just don’t know how long we’re going to be, going to be on this planet. And I feel like September 11th was yesterday. And when you think about that, that was 21 years ago, roughly 21 years. And so then I look at my life and I say, okay, it’s 21 years went like that. Like, just like that. And if that’s how much longer I have to have energy and passion and live my dream, it gives you a sense of urgency. And I, I don’t think we have to be impatient, but it gives us a sense of urgency to show how, you know, everybody talks about how fast life goes, but I don’t think we hear it.

And so we don’t really embrace every minute and understand, you know, when we look back, are we gonna say like, you know what, just like you did in your career, but in your, in the next chapter of life, did I leave it all on the field? Did I really do everything I wanted to do? So, so here you are, you’re realizing you’ve planned for this your whole life. You’re deciding to go onto your next chapter of your life.

Tell us about how you transitioned from flying all over the place, business. Did you detox? Was it easy? You know, what did you do? I mean, what did you do to all of a sudden become, Hey, we think we’re gonna buy an RV and drive down the coast. Like, like that, that’s a . I mean, by the way, that’s the kind of calls you get when you’re friends with Pat and Michelle. Hey, you know what, the boat thing, we’re gonna talk about all this, but like, like the boat thing, we’re gonna not do the boat thing for a while. We think we gonna do an RV and it’s like, Hey, you know, we’re in Oregon, we’re looking at the Carolinas. You know what we think the Carolinas would be cool. So it’s just like so much fun to be your friend. So how did you transition from, you know, the business executives to, and I don’t want to, but a little bit of a free spirit like you guys are, and I love that. How’d you do that?

Pat: That, Greg, to answer your question for me, it was, it was an easy transition. I loved my career. I loved the people and the companies that I worked with, but I always dreamed about that next chapter in life. And so I had things that I was ready to jump into and devote more time and energy to, from motorcycling, to mountain biking, to fly fishing, to leisure travel, as opposed to business travel. And so to me, it was just one chapter closed, another, another opened up, and it, it allowed for more adventure, more, more travel developing new and different friendships being able to have a more balanced life in terms of the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual components, and to get those more in alignment. And so all in all, for me, it was, it was a very easy transition.

I never identified myself as the person that had a particular job title or particular job responsibility. And so it was, it was a little easier for me to, to let that go, you know, with a great deal of gratitude, but also looking forward rather than in the rear-view mirror. And, and that has served me well over the last bunch of years since. And I always say, you know, once you retire, you’re not retiring from life. You’re just retiring from, from a job. And there’s other challenges. There’s other adventures. There’s other things to learn and do and dedicate yourself to.

Greg: People look at retirement like death. I mean, it’s like, well, I gotta be all in cash when I retire. It’s like, really? You’re retiring. You’re not dying. Like you’re retiring. You don’t need to get all cash just cuz you’re going to retire. But Michelle, what was the, what was the transition like for you?

Michelle: You know, it wasn’t as easy as it was for Pat. He had retired two years prior to me, I had made a commitment at work that I would stay for a two-year assignment and two years to the day is when I retired. But it gave me, listening to Pat every day and all of the activities and things that he was doing, gave me an opportunity to really flush out more what things interested me. I found the issue was more of how to slow down because I was so used to having a schedule out four to six months, just like you, Greg, where you knew you were gonna be on what day and doing what at which time. I started to just completely book myself, which at first worked fine. So the week after I retired, I went because I was very, I’m very interested in mind, body movement modalities, and so I went for two certifications for four weeks for the beginning of my training. And then Pat and I went on what was planned as a four-week National Park tour while we were out, we realized that why did we have to come home? I, we had just put constraints on ourselves and realized we didn’t need to. So we stayed out another few weeks, but for me it was just more, more of a, of slowing down. And I think taking some of those steps by looking at some of our interests and then traveling started to allow me to be more present and slow down from the pace. So much so that, that now we wonder kind of how we did it all back then. It’s been extraordinary.

Greg: Yeah, it is. It is. There’s an addiction to busy. And it’s an ego filling thing. It’s an addiction to busy. Okay, so now you’re deciding you’re in Atlanta, you’re ready for your adventure. What do you do to decide what you’re gonna do, where you’re gonna move? What’s the first adventure?

Pat: Well, the first thing we did when we both retired is we bought a plant and we joke about that and it sounds silly, but when Michelle and I were traveling all the time, we never had plants or pets or you know, so if I wrote a book on retirement, the first chapter would be titled, Time to Buy a Plant. And so we, we laugh about that. That’s

Greg: That’s cool. That is really cool.

Pat: Because you can, you can start like, wow, now we can actually have a plant. We can actually have a pet. We can actually do some of these things that were always put on the back burner. And those that back burner then becomes the front burner and that’s what makes it so exciting. And we’ve been in Atlanta for, for 20 years, you know, we had traveled in our careers all over, I think at last count, I think Michelle is one state ahead of me. I’m at 46 states and Michelle’s at 47, if I remember that correctly, but we finally just opened our, opened ourselves up to where do we wanna go? Where, what do we wanna do? What kind of exploring do we want to do? And early in my career, I had lived in Colorado for a couple of years and loved living out west and really tried to talk to Michelle about the lifestyle of living out west.

And so we, we just decided to take a road trip and we headed west visited Sedona, Arizona, and some of the surrounding areas and fell in love with it. We ended up buying a home there. We spent two years there and that was really the first time we had given ourselves permission to live place that was not dictated by our jobs. And also knowing full well that if we’re gonna move here, it doesn’t mean we have to be here the rest of our lives. And that was such a freeing feeling for us that, you know, Hey, we, there’s something here for us to, to learn, to enjoy. There’s wonderful people to meet. Sedona is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. And but we knew that after we spent a couple of years there, if that wasn’t where we wanted to be after that, then we were gonna take that experience and those memories and we were going to give ourselves permission to look elsewhere.

And that’s really what we did. And that’s what we’ve continued to do is that as we’ve made these, these decisions in terms of getting into boating or getting into RVing or living in other parts of the country, that that’s great for now, what we make the best decision we can with, with what our interest and desires are now. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t change and, and do other things in the future. And to me, that’s been one of the most freeing things about being retired is giving yourself permission to try new and different things and to make course corrections along the way.

Greg: There’s a life lesson in there. Also. I think it’s, I think it’s a big thought, not all decisions are permanent. I just watched, like I watched college kids think about where they’re going to go off to school or high school kids thinking about where they’re gonna go off to school. And it’s so much pressure on these kids. And there could be more than one great decision. And if you, and if you go and there’s a better place for you and the, and you can change, but I think so many people look at decisions like one-and-done, can’t change it. It not only leads to potentially bad decisions, stress, it can paralyze you for making any decisions. So I think it’s just so cool that you guys are like, okay, this is a great, this is a great spot for us now, but it doesn’t mean we’re gonna be here forever, you know, and I’ve watched you guys keep doing that and it, and it’s it, I can, it, I can’t, cause I’m just not like that. I can’t imagine I can’t imagine how freeing it is. How about you Michelle? I mean, what, how did you think about it?

Michelle: Well, you remember Mark Freeman made a comment of Yogi Berra’s comment, When there’s a fork in the road, take it. No decision is permanent. And we’ve just found that you can, when you, when you veer off and just do what feels right for you at the time, there are all kinds of adventures that you can have and different people that you can meet and different experiences. And that’s what we’ve also found with the various hobbies that we’ve done, you know, as we got into boating and met all different kinds of people who have talked about all of these other places that we need to go and experience that we’ve been able to do. So, and now that we’re thinking of leaving Oregon, where we’ve been for nine years now, and we’re talking about the next spot, we have all these other places to consider. If we wanna continue boating or do we wanna go some of the places where we can RV more to, or to, you know, other states that are of interest.

Michelle: And so it’s just incredibly freeing when you just allow yourself that flexibility. And again, it was a complete turnaround from what we did in our careers, because everything was always pre-planned in terms of where you went to, where you were going to be, and everything was always scheduled. And to now have the flexibility to wake up and say, Hey, what do you feel like doing today? Or I really like this place that we’re visiting, just like we recently did, we set out for what we thought was gonna be a four to six, six-week trip, and we’ve been gone for over four months. We just got home. I mean, it was really exciting. So it’s, it’s been great. And it’s been a learning process. Again, for me, who was so used to being scheduled for my entire career, but it’s been a blast.

Greg: So, so you, you were gone for four months and you took your RV, right?

Michelle: Yep.

Greg: And how long did you, how, when did you buy the

Pat: RV? Well, we bought this RV in October of last year and you know, with, with all the crazy, with all the craziness that’s, that’s been going on.

Greg: So I love that. Wait for, for, cuz I don’t know when the, I don’t know when this will air, like they were gone for four months in an RV and they’ve only owned the RV for like six months. Is that about right?

Pat: Yeah, that’s it.

Michelle: Yep.

Greg: That’s, that’s the part that like most people, you say that like casually, most people are like, wait, wait, wait, what? They’re gone for four months. Like they must do that every year. No, that’s just this adventure. I, I remember— and by the way, Michelle quick on, on Mark Freeman, this is another life lesson, Mark Freeman, Michelle and I had the privilege of working with him and he was such a smart guy and a great presenter. And, and remember he said the biggest obstacle to a good investment is the expectation of a perfect one. And you can change that with everything, right? Let’s go back to decisions. The biggest obstacle to a good decision is the expectation of a perfect one. And so like, you’re saying, okay, let’s do the RV, right. It it’s a good decision. It may not be perfect forever, but we’re going to enjoy it for the last four months.

Pat: That’s absolutely right. And, and once Michelle and I stopped listening to our self-imposed limitations is when we really started to experience more joy more fulfillment because you know, you just, you, you, you lead with your heart in, in these kinds of decisions and you know, what’s going to, what’s gonna give us the greatest joy. What’s gonna give us the greatest fulfillment and you lead with your heart and if it feels good in your heart, then you know, it’s the right thing to do at that moment in time. Doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind down the road. It doesn’t mean you can’t, you know, take that life experience and what you learned from it and apply that elsewhere. And, and that has been one of the greatest things is just pushing that those self-imposed limitations aside and saying, Hey, let’s, let’s do this. Let’s have fun.

You know, we bought our RV last October and with the craziness that’s been going on in the world the last couple of years and travel restrictions and we have two wonderful, beautiful dogs that we love to have with us all the time. And it was a great way to, to get back on the road from a leisure point of view and to experience new places and new people and to kind of bring our house with us. And we set out on a four to six month, or four-to-six-week trip and we were gone 130 days and , and we, we got home a couple days ago. And it’s like, we couldn’t believe we were gone that long, but it was a lot of time that was just filled with joy and adventure and meeting new people and giving ourselves permission just to, to follow our feeling heart as far as what felt good for us at that moment in time.

Greg: I just wanna add some color to this. Cause I’ve also watched you, you guys, as you’re going through your adventure, you’re incredibly logical. Like, I’ll give you an example. Like what I remember with, with you guys have the boat and then you have the house and you’re saying, okay, like, we’re looking at how much we’re enjoying the boat. We’re looking how much, what the resources the boat takes. We’re looking how much, how many resources, the, you know, what the resources you allocate towards the house. And I remember you saying, like, it doesn’t feel like we should have this house. And, and, and maybe we should make a change with a house. And, and so it’s, it’s making the decision. You’re free to make the decision, but it, but it doesn’t mean you don’t, you aren’t always learning from the experience and then maybe navigating and making it a little bit better.

And that, and I think that’s what’s unique that you’re always just trying to figure out, you know, how do you maximize your enjoyment? So, you know what, I, think’s fun. I remember the conversation and this is probably you guys like really were, you know, loving adventures. I was in an airport. I was in Naples. I was talking to Michelle. And, and I remember Michelle, I dunno if you remember this conversation, but you’re like, Hey, we’re thinking about a boat. And remember, and I’m like, you’re thinking about a boat. So tell me about the boat. And, and it was just like, it was, it wasn’t, some people buy a boat. You weren’t — this was about a lifestyle. This was, and, and, and tell ’em about how you thought about, tell our listeners how you thought about why you did that in that part of your life. And what was that about? How long did you do that, three years? Is that about right?

Michelle: We actually, actually started boating on a lake when we moved to Atlanta. Pat and I were both there for our careers and it wouldn’t have been a place that we would’ve really chosen to live. And so we were trying to find something that in the small amount of time that we had together, that we could learn together, that we could enjoy. And so we started boating on Lake Lanier with smaller, well, maybe it wasn’t such a small boat because we started sleeping on it and learned how to live in some small quarters. And we did that for a number of years. And then when we retired and left Atlanta, we thought our boating days were done. And so we bought an RV, we went and traveled places. And then we decided that that wasn’t really what we wanted to do. So we sold the RV and we were looking for the next adventure.

And we went to Seattle because we now had the free time available to us. And a friend had said that there was a great concert that we should go see for Kenny Chesney. And so we drove you know, a day’s drive to Seattle to see the concert. And we just decided to stay a few extra days. In staying a few extra days, we started seeing all the marinas with these really big boats. And we started to question where these boats could really go. So we started stopping in and talking to people and realized that we could go all the way to BC. And ultimately, we could go all the way to Alaska if we chose. And that seemed really exciting to us. So we started researching and talking to you about finances and gee, if we do this then and what, just how exciting that could be. And so it has been an extraordinary time for us. We have had an absolute blast with the boat. Had it not been for things happening with COVID and everything else that shut a lot of things down for us, we would probably still be doing it. But then at the same time, it’s been really fun having swapped out and now doing the RV. And who knows we may boat again, we would love to, and we’re looking at a way to possibly do both. So we’ll, we’ll see what happens next,

Greg: By the way, for, for folks listening also, and this isn’t a commercial, this is a plea to maximize your life. Your financial plan should be organized around these adventures. So, so I think so many people have this flat line idea of I’m gonna save my I’m gonna retire. I’m gonna make X. X will. I’m gonna, I’m gonna take X outta my portfolio. X will never change. And it, you know, whatever, and I’m gonna die at like 94.2 years, whatever that is. And, and that’s just not life. It should be way, that’s just a calculator. You don’t need a financial advisor to do that. What you really should be thinking about is, okay, so wait a minute, if from 60 to 78, I’m gonna really go, I’m gonna really have more adventures probably than 78 to 88. You, you should think about that in your plan and you should allocate differently and we don’t need to go deep into it.

But I would just say to people that— make sure the exciting thing of your portfolio, and by the way, the exciting thing for us is helping your portfolio support your adventures. And so if you don’t have adventures in your portfolio, I’d say you’re missing something. If you and your family like to go to Hilton Head for every year. And that, and that’s really special to you, I would ask why you’re only going one time. Let’s make sure that your financial plan really supports the adventure of your life. So you can maximize your life and legacy here. Here’s one of the things that I’m telling you, I know I couldn’t do, I don’t know how many people could. Tell, and I know the website, I think you said it doesn’t even exist anymore. Tell people about how you thought about the, you got on the website and how you picked one of the locations where you actually moved to.

Pat: Back in 2012. We had been in Sedona for a couple of years and really enjoyed our time there, but we were ready for some more adventure. We had started to put down roots there, but then we realized that perhaps that wasn’t the best place, long term for us. The summer, the weather in the summer was, was a little too extreme for us. So Michelle had found this great website and where you could go online, and we did this independent of each other, and you could answer a series of questions. And I think there were like 20 different questions. You could answer about your interest in life. What, you know, if you like the outdoors, what kind of weather do you like? What kind of travel do you like? What, you know, all kinds of lifestyle questions.

And Michelle and I went online and did that independent of each other, and we printed out our results. And then we sat down and we pulled out a map of the United States, and I’ll never forget this. Michelle had a pink highlighter and she, on the map, highlighted every area, every town on this map that had come out from this survey that was recommended from the survey. And as, as fortune would have it, I would say probably 70%, probably 70% of the areas, we had had both come out on our survey results, which made it a lot easier. And then from there we got in the car and we hit the road and where we decided to visit several of these areas along the way. And all of them were on the Western part of the United States. We ended up finding Bend, Oregon, and that’s, we fell in love with it.

And I, we didn’t make it to the rest of our stops on the map. We just fell in love with Bend, Oregon. And, and then that’s how we ended up in Sisters, right outside of Bend. But it was really, it was just, we looked at it as another adventure that, we love Sedona, but Hey, there’s more out there for us to experience. Life’s too short. Let’s get out and experience some other areas. And we’ve been here almost 10 years now in Sisters, Oregon. It’s been just a wonderful place to live. We’ve had some really wonderful adventures and great memories here, but we also started reconsidering, looking back on our lives, what have been the best memories, the most significant memories of our lives. And we found that most of those memories really centered around adventure and trying new things, going different places new hobbies. And so now we’re, we’re once again, kind of reassessing, you know, do we need to have a big home base in Sisters, Oregon, or can we downsize this physical component of our lives and spend more time enjoying adventure and travel while we’re physically able to do it. So that’s kind of where we’re headed right now. We don’t know where it’ll take us, but we’re just gonna, we’re kind of following our feeling heart as we’re embracing this, this new chapter.

Greg: I’m encouraged by this. I think it, I think it it’s inspiring because so many of us are hesitant and I may even use the word fearful of trying new things. And so we all wish we went and, you know, they talk about in your death, people talk about they, they, they regret things they, they, they should have done not the things they’ve done. They wish they would’ve done more. Lessons learned. And how, how long have you guys been, been retired again? It’s been how many years?

Pat: I retired in ninet— in 2007.

Greg: And, and Michelle, when were you?

Michelle: Two years later.

Greg: If you guys could give lessons learned, you know, folks listening, you guys have had great adventures. What are a couple bullet points that you would encourage people to really think about as they plan their adventures?

Pat: Well, for me, the older I get, the more precious time becomes certainly, and in time we don’t know individually how much time we all have left here in this physical form and my advice or my thoughts would be to enjoy every day, embrace every day, embrace adventure, embrace change, embrace new things, look back on your life and, and pursue those things that give you the greatest joy, the greatest pleasure. Certainly not suggesting that the decisions that we have made in terms of travel and places we lived is the right path for, for anyone else. But for us, that’s what fits, that’s what works. But don’t impose limitations on your views, on your life, on your, on your decisions, to experience life in your own personal way, whatever that may be.

Michelle: And for me, I would say, find what it is that inspires you aside from your career. What other things really fill you with joy and love. And, and for us, it’s being together and having our dogs with us and having adventure, but everybody’s got other things that are exciting and that fill their heart. And to me, it’s do those things. Now. We don’t know how much time we have. And so live every day as if it’s your last and think about the, the adventures, the fulfillment, the excitement that you can have, and the enthusiasm of trying something new, you know, sometimes trying something new is a bit scary, but the scariness always comes up with much better, at least in, in our opinion, with, with wider views of things. Bigger experiences. A whole lot more fun. And we’re, we’re just loving it. That’s what I would say.

Greg: So what are the, some of the things you think about when you make these decisions?

Pat: Well, I can say that as, as we made these, these life decisions that, you know, certainly the financial component is a big part of, of many of these decisions in terms of where you’re gonna live and what hobbies you’re gonna enjoy. And, you know, our process has been to follow our feeling heart, but then we also have to, you know, make wise financial decisions. And we haven’t made any of these large decisions, where, where we live, or, you know, a boat or an RV or whatever, without looking at our financial plan and can that accommodate our, our interests and desires moving forward.

Michelle: I would say given my financial background, I’m always the one thinking, wait a minute, can we afford this? I love Pat’s comment that he says often is, which is dream big, and let’s just throw it against the wall and see if it sticks. And so, you know, we can kind of come up with these great ideas and thoughts and ways to have enjoyment and spend our life and do something really big. But then we have the ability to do a back check, to see whether or not they’re really is a potential to do so, still safely allowing us to have the comfortable retirement.

Greg: You guys are inspiring. Pat, Michelle, we are honored to have a front row seat to watch your adventures.

We appreciate the friendship and you are, you are truly inspiring. I have a couple notes and I’m just gonna do bullet points that, that that I heard you say: one, career. Have balance, have hobbies. It’ll make you better. Don’t let it define you. Two, have a life plan. Think about what you want your life to really be and plan. Decisions — now some are, but many are not permanent. So just enjoy that it could be a good decision. It doesn’t need to be a perfect decision, but it may just be a great decision for that moment. Four. I know we hear it, let’s listen into it. Life is short. Life is short. Let’s challenge each other to maximize our lives because it’s short. We use the example of September 11th. Unfortunately it goes quickly. And then the last thing, Michelle, is one of the last things you just said, and that is try something new. At the end of this podcast, the thing we could do is has everybody just try something new that you’re really going to enjoy. We would all have more enriched lives. So Pat, Michelle, thank you so much for the conversation today. I think we will all have a little bit more enjoyment in our lives because of it.

Thank you for listening to the Imagine That podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode and welcome you to reach out to Confluence Financial Partners with your questions and comments. If you’d like to hear more episodes, head over to confluencefp.com/podcasts, or find us wherever you get your podcasts.

Confluence Financial Partners — Broglie Box: A Conversation About Mental Health | Episode #23

Greg: Hello, and welcome to the, Imagine That podcast. I’m your host, Greg Weimer, founder partner, and wealth manager at Confluence Financial Partners. Each month, we’ll explore new ways to help you maximize your life and your legacy and meet some extraordinary people along the way. So if you’re looking to get more out of your life today and legacy tomorrow, let’s get started. Let’s make a difference. I’m here with Julia Broglie and this is this is fun for me. Interesting. And hopefully rewarding for a lot of people listening. I’ve known Julia since, we were just talking, since, but right, right. When she was going to be a freshman in high school at Peters Township. And so this I’m looking forward to, I’m looking forward to this podcast, please listen.

And, and I mean, what I’m about to say, everyone listening, let’s make a difference together. There’s a problem out there.

It needs our attention. And forward this to other people and let’s spread the word. Let’s create a positive virus and let’s make a difference. I’m gonna share with you a statistic. And if this doesn’t give you chills, I, I don’t even want to tell you, but, but here it is, suicide is the second leading cause of death for people ages, listen to the first age, leading cause of death for people ages 10 to 34. And the number one reason for that is mental health. And my guess, Julia Broglie is working hard to bend the curve on that. And we all need to band together, whether it’s about the stigma, it’s about the treatment, it’s about the reimbursement and it all

starts with a conversation. So today we’re gonna start with my friend, Julia, and I know she thinks of me as Mr. Weimer. What’s my name?

Julia: Hi, Greg.

Greg: Oh, we did it. Yes. So small steps. So Julia, I hate to start so broad. I wish I could give you a, a, a more specific question, but I really want everybody to, to hear big question. Tell everybody your story.

Julia: Sure. How long is this podcast? No, I’m just kidding. I’ll keep it. I’ll keep it brief for the first question, but yeah, first of all, thank you so much for having me it’s conversations like this, very open, vulnerable conversations, real conversations that really drive you know, those statistics to become better. So I appreciate being here and having this conversation. My story, my mental health story really starts around the time that you and I first met, ironically. And when you met me, you probably saw a smiling face and someone that was super with sports and good grades and little did you know that I was actually dealing with a lot of what’s now been diagnosed as depression and anxiety since that young age. And I just struggled with these things in silence, because I was really embarrassed about them. I thought it was a personal weakness.

I thought it was something that I had to deal with on my own. And unfortunately that pattern continued through high school and college and even into my career after college, but what really changed my life? It was that my brother who was 18 months older than me, he also was struggling with the same things. And unfortunately at age 24 in April of 2014, Justin died by suicide. And that experience flipped my world upside down. It opened my eyes to the fact that I like to say it woke me up to the realization that I was most likely on the same path as he was, if I didn’t get some real help for myself. And then because my family was so open about his suicide and I started talking more openly about my own mental health challenges. What I found is that people were coming out of the woodwork, friends, family, like coworkers that were struggling, either struggling themselves too, or they knew someone that was. And so what we found is just, it’s so common for people to, to have these struggles. So that’s why I’ve dedicated my life’s work to helping people find the tools and the resources that I know are out there to help them help themselves.

Greg: I’ll tell you, there’s so much in there and it’s even hard to respond to, to be honest with you. But, and I wish we’d have done this on a video because I think people have this stigma of what mental health looks like, and it is just wrong. And you used the term struggling in silence during high school. You were probably at our house so many times and you’re right. You were the all-A student that came in and very active and, you know, and, and there was just a lot going on. And, and, and unfortunately that’s true of so many people. It’s so widespread. I, I was talking to a friend and he was talking about a high school in Pittsburgh. And he said, they, they polled the students. Two thirds of the students thought about suicide at some point. And, and I, I just couldn’t even believe that. And by the way, I remember where I was when I found out that your brother, boy, it was so unique back then. It was a, it was rare. And it, it, it is unfortunate how often we hear about that today. Unfortunately we hear about it way too often. So what could we have done? What should we have looked for when Julia was coming into our house and how could we have helped? And what should we have said back then?

Julia: Well, I think, you know what you said, first of all, about it being a shock to everybody with my brother, it, it was a shock to us that like, it was a shock to the community, I think because like, hi, you know, like me, he also on the outside, it seemed like he was thriving in life. And, you know, so I always like to say that depression and suicidal ideation doesn’t discriminate. So you could seemingly have it all in the world, but you might be affected by these things. And I think, you know, and the statistic also is that every 40 seconds, someone in the world dies by suicide. So although, you know, you think, oh, this could never happen to me or anyone that I know, the reality is that on that statistic, every single person will, will be affected by this.

Unfortunately, unless we do something about it.

But I think the first step, to answer your later question about ‘what could you have looked for?’ is I, because of stigma, because I thought no one else is going through this, except for me. So I need to just suck it up and I need to just deal with it on my own. And I should be embarrassed about it because I thought no one else was going through it. So if those students were polled at, at your friend’s high school, and there are so many students that were feeling the same way, I think just opening up the conversation about mental health. And it’s like, there’s this graphic that shows two people struggling with the same thing, but they’re both silent about it. But if, if somebody mentioned, oh, I’m struggling about I’m struggling with this. Then the other person is more likely to start talking about it.

And those people are both more likely to get help faster. So I think just, you know, for any like parents out there, you think, oh, this could never be my kid, but just opening up the conversation. And the reality of, Hey, one in five people will be affected by a mental health challenge. And even if you’re never diagnosed with a mental illness or a mental health condition, there are going to be curve balls in everyone’s life and different stressful situations and where your mental health is challenged and your, your state of mind is challenged.

And so just having those conversations, I think will encourage those that are struggling to be more comfortable to speak up and ask for help

Greg: The picture of you having like two people. And they’re struggling with the same thing. I used to have a, a large group of folks that, that would work for me some capacity, and I would learn what’s going on in their lives. And I just thought, now it obviously is very confidential, but I actually thought like, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could put at one table to dinner, everybody that someone in their family committed suicide, another table, everyone that’s dealing with, because, because it wasn’t, it’s not unique, unfortunately. And so so the first thing is what you’re saying is, let’s talk about it. Because like you, the more I’ve been talking about this a lot, the more you talk about it, the more someone’s like, you know what, my son, my daughter, my, my wife, you, you shouldn’t suffer in silence anymore. Let’s talk about it. That’s the first step. Fair.

Julia: Totally agree.

Greg: So that’s big, right? You just talk, you open up the conversation and you eliminate this stigma.

Julia: Yeah. I mean, I remember people in, in our circle after my brother died asking us if people ask us what happened, what do you want us to say? And my parents and I were like, what? Like Justin, my brother had a mental illness and he had his brain had an illness that convinced him that the world would be better off without him.

Greg: Wait, say that right there. Cuz I think you said that to me last week. And first of all, I couldn’t agree more. Like people don’t say that when someone has diabetes or a heart attack and I look at this as like, it’s unfortunate. It was, it was a brain attack. Yeah. Right? So like it’s, it’s a mental, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a mental illness. It’s a, he has a, he has a illness that, by the way, hope is on the way. I promise you hope is on the way for, for this illness.

Julia: People that, that have these suicidal ideations, they feel backed into a corner. They feel like they have no other option.

Greg: Well, you said that to me last week, you said, and, and, and you know, as the sister of, I know you were very, very close with Justin, they convince themself that the, the current state is the permanent state and the world and their loved ones would be better off without them.

Julia: They truly feel like a burden and they feel like they feel like there’s, there’s no other option. They’re backed into a corner when in reality, that is not the case at all. And if I will say, as someone who’s also experienced suicidal ideation that you just feel in the state of hopelessness. And I think that if anyone out there that’s, that’s listening. That feels that way. And I mean, it’s not that you want to die, it’s that you literally just want the mental pain to stop. And you feel like you don’t have a resource to go to. And especially, like eight years ago, when my brother died, it was very stigmatized. And now I think people, you know, are a little bit more open, but I can say with absolute certainty from all the research I’ve done in the last eight years, that suicide is 100 percent preventable.

And it is possible to go feeling like the lowest of the low to feeling like yourself again. And I’m living proof of that because I went from having suicidal ideation all through college, losing my brother to suicide, not knowing how I was ever, ever going to bounce back from that. And you find, I hate to use the word new normal, because with COVID, it’s kind of, you know, become this catchphrase or whatnot, but you, you find, you do find this new normal and you, with the right help and the right professional resources, you can feel like yourself again.

Greg: So Julia, if you could talk right now to someone listening and just with the amount of people that listen, someone is having suicidal thoughts. If you could say one thing to them, or if you could talk to them, what would that be?

Julia: So for me, I think I would tell them that it’s time to unsilence your pain. And there are several reasons for that. One is your pain matters simply because you do and by unsilencing your pain, you have the opportunity to feel like yourself again. And the people around you truly do care about you and they want you to be alive. And I think just reaching out to one person as scary as it might be, you would be surprised at the reaction that you would receive in a positive way. If you tell someone how you’re feeling, your network, your, your community, they’re going to respond, and they’re gonna try to help you. And if you feel like there’s no one in your community that you feel comfortable talking to, please reach out to me and I will get the help that you need.

Greg: Cause Julia, how long ago, if you, if I could be so personal, how long ago has it been that you’ve had those thoughts?

Julia: So the first time I had suicidal thoughts was definitely in high school. When it got really bad for me, it was my senior year of college. And I, only a couple people knew, my friend would, one of my friends would actually like break into my house to make sure I was okay. And I definitely had, after my brother died, it was hard to find hope again. But luckily I had, I immediately got professional help and so through therapy and medication and through my healing journey found all these other tools to help me through the grieving process. So it’s, it’s been, it’s been some time since I’ve had really dark thoughts like that, but I like to say that I’m constantly in recovery. It’s not like when you have, when you’re diagnosed with something like depression or anxiety, it’s not like it, it can just go away immediately. And sometimes it comes back. I still struggle with these things sometimes. But I I’ve built these tools that I have in my toolbox. I like to say to help me so that those periods of time aren’t as intense. And they, they get a little bit shorter. You know, like when I was struggling in college, I remember like six months of my life feeling really, really down. And now when I have these phases of depression, it might last maybe two weeks, which isn’t bad comparatively.

Greg: And now she’s dancing on Instagram, ready to be ready to be married soon. So

Julia: Yes, I’m getting married in like three, three and a half weeks.

Greg: So think about, yeah. So like when you’re in that dark, dark spot, you go from and, and listen, we’re all on a cycle, right. So it’s, it’s not straight up, but you have certainly done a lot of work to cope with your mental health. What are some of the things you’ve done? So I know you have some things you do to, to build some, some resilience in your life. What are those things?

Julia: Resilience, mental resilience is one of those things that you can work on every single day. And I like to say like, don’t wait. And for people, I like to say, don’t wait until a crisis happened. Like I did it to start building mental resilience—

Greg: Because people say, I feel okay now.

Julia: Yeah. But that’s when that’s when you should be working on it.

Greg: So let’s do that again, because people say, I feel okay right now. And so then, right? They stop the good habits.

Julia: Yep. That’s exactly when you should be working on it, because then you’re gonna, you get into this practice. It’s just like anything, you know, when you go to the gym, you don’t wait until your arm is broken and, and weak to start lifting weights. And when you do start lifting weights, you don’t lift the heaviest weight right off the bat. So just like your physical health, we should be treating mental health in the same way. Just like you go to your dentist every six months for cleaning, what is that for? That’s preventative. You don’t wait until you have the really, really awful thing to go to the dentist or hopefully you don’t. So basically when I, when my brother died and I started this healing journey for myself, what I, I was really curious. And I think it’s the engineer in me to like dive into the research.

And so I actually interview and talk to a bunch of mental health professionals and ask them, what are you recommending for people outside of therapy to help build their mental resilience? And then I also spoke to people who were resilient themselves and they’d gone through things and they’d come out on the other side. And what I found is that there were six reoccurring themes, and those are mindfulness, gratitude, relaxation, sleep, nutrition, and fitness. And when people were incorporating either some or all of those six themes into their either daily or weekly routine, they were more likely to be okay. When things, when life threw the, the curve balls as it inevitably will. So the six categories that we recommend to help build mental resilience are mindfulness, gratitude, relaxation, nutrition, sleep, and fitness. And if you incorporate one or all of those six elements into your daily routine or your weekly routine, you’re more likely to build mental resilience over time.

For example, mindfulness has been one that I really, significantly helped me, especially with my anxiety and the definition that I like the most of mindfulness that I think helps understand, people understand it the most, is to be mindful, you are becoming more reflective than reactive. So one simple tool I can give people for mindfulness is to fact check your thoughts. So they say that you have over 6,000 thoughts a day, and if you believed every single one of them, that would be very confusing. So for me personally, with my anxiety disorder, I was having really negative thoughts over and over and over again. And I felt like I was spinning out of control and I had no control over them.

Greg: Do you mean like worst case scenario thoughts? Is that what you mean?

Julia: Yeah. Worst case scenario thoughts, also telling me I wasn’t good enough, telling me I never deserved any help. My situation wasn’t bad enough, that I was so weak. I wasn’t smart enough, you know, all, all over and over again. And so, you know, like I, for, to be mindful is basically when that thought comes in, stop yourself and say, wait a minute, is this a fact, or is this something that I’ve, that maybe isn’t true? And so by just allowing yourself to pause for a second, then you can think about how you choose to react to that thought. Then it, it helps it, it basically just gives you space in between the time that you can say, like, should I believe this or not?

Greg: Because I guess if you’re telling yourself that, all day sooner or later, you do believe it. Right? And there, and, and by the way, this is, this is a very active person that is like, like, doesn’t look like any of the things she just said, it’s the antithesis of that. But, but you can still convince yourself of that. Right? So I think that I, I it’s, I would call it calling bullshit on your thoughts. Right? It’s sort, I mean, it’s sort of what it is. It’s like, but you can convince yourself that, especially at two o’clock in the morning, right. When you’re like, I don’t know why when you wake up at two o’clock, you tend to worry more, but so you, you fact check, you fact check.

Julia: Fact check your thoughts. Yeah. It’s so powerful. And even, I mean, like, even if you’re, if someone says something to you that might make you angry or might stress you out, instead of immediately reacting to it, by practicing mindfulness over time, you’ll find taking a pause and saying like, okay, how do I, how do I want to react to that situation? So it’s an internal exercise, and then you can start to ex, you can start to practice that externally as well. And it’s really super powerful.

Greg: You know, I was at, you mentioned sleep. I was at Western Psych and it is incredible facility in Pittsburgh. And it’s gonna keep getting better. Facilities in Pittsburgh are coming together to make a difference. And I think you’re gonna see Pittsburgh take a leading role. And hopefully the whole, you know, people find out more about that over time. Hopefully soon. I was trying to learn at Western Psych and I’m, I’m on a tour and I’m trying to learn about it. And I said, so tell me the research here, like what’s going on? And they said, we are finding that sleep is so powerful. And, and I’m like, sleep? Do you know what I mean? Like sleep? So talk more about that. Like, is it, is it the amount of sleep? Is it type of sleep and how do you improve your sleep?

Julia: Most people think sleep is this time that you’re not your body’s not doing anything, that you’re resting, right? Because rest is sleep. But actually sleep is the time that your body is almost, I like to say taking out the trash, so it’s restoring itself. And so that, that time that your body is you’re resting, but your body is busy at work. It’s so critical for our mental health and our physical health. I like to say everyone’s different. I mean, most doctors will probably recommend that you get on average seven hours of sleep, somewhere, you know, six to eight hours of sleep a night. But I think what’s even more important when it comes to mental health around sleep is to set a routine. So I find that if I go to bed at a different time every day, and I don’t take time to wind down before bed, so turning off electronics, like blocking out any blue light from screens, having a little nighttime routine.

So like making my tea or doing reading or journaling or something, if I just try to go straight to bed and I’m doing it at a different time every single day, and I’m not getting up at the same time every single day, I feel way off. And so we, we recommend definitely setting a routine and then deciding, you know, to prioritize your sleep and, and fit that in. And also take that time to wind down. Because if you’re waking up in the middle of the night, two o’clock in the morning worried about something, it might be because you didn’t give yourself ample enough time to wind down before you went to bed.

Greg: Yeah. Do you do anything to measure your sleep? Do, do you like the Oura ring or the WHOOP bracelet or anything like that?

Julia: I don’t have any of those tools, but I’ve heard such good things. I’ve been looking into getting an Oura ring actually.

Greg: Yeah. I’ll send you one. Done. So we’ll send you an Oura ring. I, I use an Oura ring and it’s amazing. So if you would drink a glass of wine at night, right? It puts you to sleep. If, by two o’clock, the sugar wakes you up, or pasta, like what you eat it, it really does affect your sleep. Or I go to bed at nine. So I go to bed like at nine o’clock, if it’s not, if I’m not bed at nine, o’clock like, it’s a really powerful, it’s like, we’re, we’re going out hard to 10 or something. I don’t know. But like, I go to bed at , but I go to bed at nine and, and it, it is amazing. And this ring tracks your sleep and I’m telling you when I don’t get the right sleep and my heart rate doesn’t lower, I’m, I’m not as crisp the next day. And for those people that are like, oh, I don’t need sleep. You know, I can only, I’m good with four hours, they are lying to themselves. They are, they’re running a marathon with no end. And they are not as crisp. So, so sleep. I think gratitude’s obvious, but you can’t, you can’t be stressed and be grateful at the same time. If it, like, I’ve read all the stats on that. True?

Julia: Yeah. And I think most people think, oh, well, what if I’m feeling like not grateful one day? What I like to do, I actually have, have a gratitude jar. I can actually show it to you.

Greg: Oh, I do too.

Julia: We sell them on Broglie Box. But yeah, every day, if when you are feeling super grateful, you can put something in the jar and literally watch your cup fill up. And the days where you’re feeling like I have nothing to be grateful for. Like, of course there is something, but we are anti-toxic positivity, so if there’s a day where you just don’t feel like writing anything down, go back to your jar and read what you wrote on the previous days. And it will, I promise you it will help you.

Greg: So I have a friend, he was going to, his family that were gonna write something in the gratitude box every day, and Eric, this is you. So every day they were gonna put something in the, the box and then, or in the jar, and then next year they’re gonna take it out and read it. Every day.

Julia: I love that.

Greg: Yeah. Isn’t that cool. But the, but the gratitude and you guys can watch another video we did on Wake Up to Gratitude. So of the other ones, what would you say, like have had, has had the biggest impact? Is it nutrition? Is it is it fitness? What is it?

Julia: Gosh, it’s hard to pick. I, I honestly weigh them all equally. So for like fitness, most people think, oh, I have to have this intense gym workout for me. Like getting outside and going for a walk is an absolute game changer. I don’t have to do like a 45 minute HIIT workout every day to feel the effects of fitness. It’s really just about moving your body and creating that energy for relaxation. Again, this is all unique to the person it’s like, do you actually schedule time to relax? Because as an entrepreneur, as a CEO of a company, I’m sure, you know, you can relate to this, that it’s hard with family obligations, with work obligations to actually schedule out time for yourself and what, what might be relaxing to you might not be the same for Mrs. Weimer. So sometimes, you know, you have to figure out what’s actually gonna work for you.

And so it’s just so important to take that time, time to relax and, and recharge, and then nutrition. This, this is so I, I almost feel like we should change nutrition to consumption because nutrition, it’s so important. People think you are what you eat in the, in the physical sense, but you also are what you eat in, in the emotional sense. And so there’s several studies and I can send them to you on the effects of like, when I have a lot of caffeine, what it does for my anxiety disorder or when I have a lot of sugar, what it does for my anxiety disorder, also the opposite. So like there are foods that can help you help stabilize those things. So like GABA L-theanine, tryptophan, like all those things have been proven to help with if you’re dealing with anxiety disorder. So it, it is so important. You are what you eat. So consumption from a food perspective, but also from a social media perspective, you know, like if you’re consuming all this negative content all day, it’s gonna affect you emotionally as well.

Greg: So I’m listening to you speak, and there’s so much to learn there. It’s fairly straightforward. And, and there’s a whole debate in the country right now and what we should be teaching our children in school and I’ll read it again. It is it’s the case that suicide is the second leading cause of death for people ages 10 to 34. Right.

And so, like I think about, I have two great teachers that are daughters, Morgan and Elizabeth, they’re both teachers and it’s like: teachers, you just heard Julia, let’s include some of this in your classroom. And if we can help people understand the effects of sugar and sleep and being mindful and making sure you tell your story, you tell yourself a true story and don’t, don’t create facts that are just not true. And wouldn’t it be wonderful for teachers to do that. And, and you know what? I think over time would save some lives.

Julia: Definitely.

Greg: Just with, with better, just better habits. So, Julie, you’ve done a lot more than that. You’ve also created Broglie Box. And I, I, when I first, when I first heard about it, I, I was so impressed. And you really did dedicate your life to making a difference. Do you wanna explain the benefits and what, what, what Broglie Box is and the benefits?

Julia: Sure. Yeah. So Broglie Box is a dedication to my brother. Essentially what we do is we put together mental wellness, boxes and toolkits, and all of the products, tools, and resources stem from those six pillars of mental wellness, which I already mentioned. Our hope is that it’s, the boxes, most, most people send them as a gift to someone else, but we do have a portion of people that send it to themselves. But our hope is that whoever gets this box or gets this kit, or somehow sees box, the resources we have on our website, we want people to feel empowered in their health. We want people to know that they’re not alone and to feel a sense of inner peace. So the box itself, the items are really fun. So when you’re opening it, it feels really fun to get this box of stuff to help you take care of yourself.

But they’re all, it’s all tied back to those six pillars and rooted in, in some sort of connection to taking care of your mental health. So you can either pick from all the boxes on our website, or you can actually go on and build your own and pick the items that you wanna include. And my, my favorite product, we have these magazines, they’re more like resource booklets and they have articles, visual tools app recommendations, book recommendations, all from mental health professionals. And they’re really like an all inclusive little booklet, which is really great.

Greg: The, the products in the boxes, et cetera, are good for what age? Is there an age specific or is it general?

Julia: We have some student options and the student options are really geared towards high school and college age students. And then most of the other products, although some people get them for the family. So yeah, we don’t really have anything for kids just yet. Although nothing is not, it’s not age appropriate, but we keep getting requests to, to make some boxes for kids specifically. So that might be coming down the line as well.

But other than that, you can go on, you can, from one of our pre-packed boxes or you can build your own and choose items that you want on the website.

Greg: What a great idea. So leaders, I mean, business owners, leaders, we’re gonna get a box for everyone in our company. You know, parents, your, your children are, your young adults are in college. Maybe it’s a great way to open up a conversation about where they are in their mental health. And it goes back to how Julia start Julia started with you know, their suffering in silence. So it’s not only gonna help someone, but it also could open up the conversation.

Julia: Yeah. The box, the boxes are really, I mean, they’re helpful for people that are struggling and maybe you don’t know what to say to someone, but you want to show them support, but it’s also for the people who are doing great and you just wanna send them a box of things that will actually, it’s not a box of junk. It’s, it’s a box of things that can actually help people just to take care of themselves and have fun doing it. Like the mindfulness cards, for example, you can pull a mindfulness card every day and, and learn about it. And it comes in like a beautifully packaged box. So yeah, it’s fun.

Greg: You call her Mrs. Weimer, I tend to call her Lori. But she , but, but she got some, I mean, and she loves them. So she, I think it used to, you used to do it monthly or something like that. Right?

Julia: We used to do it on subscription, a quarterly subscription. And then with the pandemic we pivoted and now we have all on-demand boxes. And so like, you know, like you said, we have a lot of companies buying boxes for their employees or their team members and that type of thing, but yeah.

Greg: Okay. And this is Greg pushing Julia to talk about Broglie Box. That’s not why she’s here, but if someone wanted to, because I just think it makes a difference and it could be a small step, but for goodness sakes, as a step, if someone wanted to order a Broglie Box or put together a Broglie Box, I should— Broglie Box, I should say — what’s the website?

Julia: It’s BroglieBox.com, B-R-O-G-L-I-E-B-O-X-dot-com.

Greg: Okay. Let me pivot to, to, to another topic, because you said that you, you went and you found help and you, and you found a therapist and I know that that’s a hard thing, right? You have to find, it’s almost like speed dating. And so like if you went to a therapist, whoever’s listening and it wasn’t the right therapist, find another therapist, but don’t assume you shouldn’t be talking to a therapist. Is that fair?

Julia: Definitely. And I can see from experience that I probably saw four therapists before I found the right one. And it’s a very fr— it can be a very frustrating process, but it’s almost like dating where not every personality is going to click with exactly who you are. So I think just keeping an open mind, another tip is most people think that you have to book a first appointment , for the first time speaking with someone, but most therapists, if you ask them to do a 30 minute free consultation type of thing, so you can get to know them a little bit more, most therapists will do that. There’s also a website called mental health match that helps you get matched to a therapist based on your preferences and your insurance. So if you know that you wanna speak to a woman between a certain age or a certain ethnicity, you can check off all those selections and they’ll help you get you matched to someone that is within your preference. And then I always say, reach out to them and ask, if you can have a 30 minute conversation before you book a first appointment.

Greg: I’m convinced there’s better days ahead. And there’s better treatments and we’re learning more every day. Our country has proven that we’re not very good at handling a problem, but the good news is I think our nation is awesome at handling a crisis. And this has risen to crisis status. And with leaders like you speaking out and showing leadership and, and removing the stigma and with the great medical community coming together, I can tell you they’re coming together in Pittsburgh. I know they’re coming together in other cities. If you feel like you’re suffering in silence, there are better days ahead. There are better days ahead.

Julia: There definitely are. And I also just wanna give one last resource. If you text the keyword HOME to 741741, you can get connected 24 hours a day, seven days a week to a crisis text counselor, and that’s available at any time. So I would recommend saving that number to your phone because even if you might not need it, you might have a friend that will, and then you’re gonna be like, what was that number again? And so just having it in your phone is really helpful.

Greg: Can you, do you mind saying it again?

Julia: Sure. It’s 741741, and you can text the keyword HOME.

Greg: And when that, and when you do that, you have 24 access to?

Julia: A crisis counselor. So you’ll get connected immediately. That’s, it’s called Crisis Text Line. And so you get, you get connected to a trained peer crisis counselor at any time of day.

Greg: So, Julie, I think it’s important because you know, one of the things, and I don’t know that it’s a cause, but it it’s certainly it could help, it could hurt. Let’s talk about the effects of social media on mental health. Let let’s do the good, and let’s be fair. Let’s do the challenges and how we can control this.

Julia: The good news about social media, at least in the mental health world, is that people have been sharing a lot of their stories and there’s has a lot of awareness happening on there where people are sharing and it’s, it’s allowed it to spread faster. There’s this virality that’s happening. When someone shares something super vulnerable and people respond because they say, I feel the same way. So that is a good thing. And you can, you can reach a lot of people really quickly, which is great about social media, the down side is the comparison. There’s always gonna be people that you feel you’re not doing enough. You should be doing this. You should look like this. You should look like that. Or you’re missing out on all your friends are hanging out or there’s this concert that they’re going to, and you’re not there. That can definitely have a negative effect on our mental health.

Greg: Yeah. So my daughter was in, one of my daughters, that was in, when she was in college you know, Instagram, everybody’s having a great time. And she was at a party with some friends and, and they were bored. It was a horrible party. And they all stood up and took like a selfie of them, like, having fun. And she was like, oh my gosh, that’s it. Like, everybody’s gonna look at that thinking they were having a great time. Yeah. Having a horrible time. But if you compare yourself to perfect on social media, that is the negative.

Right. And everybody’s had a boring Friday night. Like it’s just, that’s what life is, but it doesn’t, you don’t, you don’t take pictures of boring Saturday nights.

Julia: Yeah, no one posts the bad for the most part.

Greg: No.

Julia: You know, post the, the, the negative and the boring. And a snapshot of a night, one second in a 24 hour day.  I mean, it’s just, it’s, it’s a false sense of reality, for sure. So just try to keep that in mind. Again, it comes back to that fact checking, you know, like, okay, did the, and then filters like, and face tune. I just learned about face tune and people can actually change the shape of their face and make them look skinnier and take their acne away and all this stuff. It’s like, it’s just, it’s just such a false sense of reality.

Greg: So let’s use it for the good, right. I mean, it’s here. It’s not going away. So let’s use it for the good, let’s use it as a resource. Let’s use it to be honest with each other, but just understand the risks of social media, because the amount of suicides have gone up and, and there can be a lot of reasons for that. But you do worry about the amount of face time children have right now on the screens.

Julia: Absolutely. I say like, you’re never gonna, it’s never gonna work to just take something away from people. And so for, for me, my recommendation is to just fill your feed with content that makes you feel good. Either makes you feel good or you’re learning something. So yeah, definitely, definitely fill your feed, do a feed audit. if you do wanna fill your feed with some more positive content please follow us @TheBroglieBox and we’ll be happy to brighten your day, hopefully.

Greg: Julie, I thought you were pretty special when I watched you grow up through high school, but you know, with the, the information you shared today, you’re even more special. Thank you so much for sharing.

Julia: Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Greg: Thank you for listening to the “Imagine That” Podcast. We hope you enjoy this episode and welcome you to reach out to Confluence Financial Partners with your questions and comments. If you’d like to hear more episodes, head over to ConfluenceFP.com/podcasts or find us wherever you get your podcasts.

Confluence Financial Partners — The True Meaning of Legacy | Episode #22

Greg: Hello, and welcome to the Imagine That podcast. I’m your host, Greg Weimer, founder, partner, and wealth manager at Confluence Financial Partners. Each month, we’ll explore new ways to help you maximize your life and your legacy and meet some extraordinary people along the way. So if you’re looking to get more out of your life today and legacy tomorrow, let’s get started.

Today, we’re gonna talk about legacy. And before you turn this off, because if I heard legacy, what is that? Boy sounds boring. Sounds complicated. From a practical matter, I was actually looking at the dictionary this morning and looking up legacy and some of the definitions, they are boring, but at the end of the day, it’s really a simple concept. And in the, and simple concept is our parents all told us when you arrive at a place, you always wanna leave it better than the way you found it.

You always wanna leave a place better than the way you found it. And folks, listeners, please understand at the end of the day, that’s your legacy, it’s your legacy. And, you know, Confluence Financial Partners, we pride ourselves in helping people maximize their lives and maximize their legacies. I think one of the things we do well is we don’t just look at your portfolios, a bunch of zeros and commas. We look at your portfolio and say, how is this gonna support maximizing your life and maximizing your legacy? So at the end of the day, your legacy is, did you make, did you make an impact? Did you make it a better place? So in thinking about today’s conversation, I thought about three words. And if you could just think about three words as it pertains to your legacy, I think it’ll help you be the architect of your legacy and they are Plan, Live and Give.

If you want to be the architect of your legacy — Plan, Live and Give. Let me go through ’em quickly. Plan. Why is that so important? You’ve heard these numbers over and over again, and we’ve shared ’em multiple times and I’m gonna read for you, to you just so I get it exactly correct. In a study of wealthy families, the Williams Group Wealth Consultancy found that 70% of well-to-do families lose their wealth by the second generation, by the third generation, 90%. I’ll do that again. You’ve heard these numbers before. 70% of wealth is squandered in the second generation, 90% in the third. Only way around that is you need to plan. It’s not only squandered giving too much of it to the government, but unfortunately, generations are not prepared. How do you get around that? You plan through estate, we have multiple estate tax attorneys.

We use, we act as point guard. We work with them with you to make sure that your money is passed to the next generation and the generation after that, the way you expect it to be passed along. Also, number one reason that that they’re squandered by the way, is lack of communication. We also help facilitate communication with your family. You know, I’ve said over and over again, we have a family meeting at the Weimer house. So we’d love to help you have a family meeting. Do you really talk about, at your family meeting, what your priorities are? Do you really talk about — oh, one of the things we’re doing right now, which I think is really exciting, we use something called Personalysis we’re getting certified in, where we can come in and we can help your family improve communications by understanding and learning the way each family member communicates differently.

So like ours is on Sunday. So if the Weimer kids are listening, we’re gonna, we’re gonna analyze how we all communicate. Maybe try to communicate a little bit better. And this is important because not only is it squandered, I think a lot of people, they say, well, this money to hopefully leave this bequest. And they think their children — I’m telling you this happens, we see it every day — they think their children’s gonna think this is awesome, but, but they don’t. Sometimes it’s not viewed as a blessing. Sometimes it’s actually viewed as a burden. So allow us to help you. Let’s put the right people in the room. And let’s make sure that we are helping you not be that statistic and avoid that and make sure that your children and your heirs, whoever they are, look at your bequest as a blessing.

And it really is, end up being a great legacy. And by the way, that’s all about planning. It’s all about planning and, and you need to work with advisors by the way, that are thinking 50 years out or a hundred years out. Like you have to be thinking, you can’t be thinking over about an advisor like it — you know, I guess it, it goes both ways. If you work with someone too young, maybe they’re not experienced enough. You work with too old, someone too old, they may not be here for your children in 50 years. So you have to make sure that when you’re planning, you’re planning on the right team of advisors, which is why that’s the way we do it at Confluence.

The second one was live, you know, spoiler alert: life and legacy. They overlap, right? Like it’s not about money.

Like it’s not all about money. Yeah. I talked about that first because it, you know, it’s such a huge responsibility to the next generation, but, but it’s more than just money. It’s also the way you live. If you think about your grandparents, God bless their souls. If you think about them, you think about your family dinners. You think, think about having dinner on Sundays, right? You think about maybe your vacations that you took together, a lesson that they taught you. A recipe that they passed on. I mean that with my mom and dad and my Nonna and Pappy, that’s what I think about. I think about when I would paint houses with my dad. I mean, that, that’s a legacy! That, that memory’s a legacy. I think about our whole family going on vacation. That’s, that’s one of the things we realized at our family, like a big part of our legacy is spending time together. You know, great Thanksgiving, it was a while ago, I get it, but great Thanksgiving. We were, we were on vacation, and we had Thanksgiving dinner by the swimming pool in Naples. Killer legacy. And now we were spending their inheritance, but I’ll bet you, they would rather have that memory than whatever amount of money they would inherit that’s greater than that. So really thinking about your life, the way you live, is your legacy. It’s not just the bequest. It could be your career. It could be the lessons. It could be the time. That’s your legacy, the way you live.

The final thing, Give. So many people just participate in checkbook charity. I think the real legacy is the difference we can make through philanthropy. And that needs to be planned and organized for. Do you have a donor-advised fund? Oh man. Is that a good idea just to get started with your family, because then in your family meeting, you can talk about like how you want that money to be managed. Guess what? That helps your children and the next generation think about how they manage money. Cuz they’re managing this donor-advised fund. The donor-advised fund goes on in time and it makes an impact on philanthropy. It should be part of the family plan, just not only money, like there’s this, there’s this guy, Father Mike, we’ll call him. And he’s man, what the difference he’s making. He has the, and I feel like this is a positive virus going on around the, around the world right now. He has people listening to the Bible over the next year and he’s reading the Bible over the next year. And I can’t — someone in the room is nodding — I can’t believe how many people, this guy, you wanna talk about his legacy? He has America listening to the Bible. I mean, holy moly, everywhere I go, the people are talking about Father Mike.

So anyhow, he’s changing the world. So if you think about your legacy, be the architect. Let’s make an impact. You’ve saved, you’ve worked, you’ve earned all of this wealth. This wealth is not just zeros in commas. This wealth is about making a difference and leaving the place better than when you found it, leaving your family better than when you found it. And, and at the end of the day, if you just think about: let’s plan together, let’s plan, right? Let’s make sure we have a plan. Let’s communicate with our family. Two. Live. Let’s really win every day. Let’s think about how we’re living and realizing whether, you know, you are leaving a legacy. You’re leaving a legacy. It’s, you know, and so, you know, just, just think about those memories and those experiences and those lessons and your career and that’s all part of your life.

And that’s part of your legacy. And then let’s think about how we’re really giving back. And let’s think about how we’re gonna bend the curve on some charities, you know, through other podcasts. We’re very passionate here about several charities. You know, we’re, we’re all involved in a lot of charities at Confluence. One of the ones I’m passionate about, I wanna bend the curve on mental health. I think it’s the pandemic that’s not going away and we all need to get together on that. So if you think about Plan, Live and Give — at the end of the day, we’ll make an impact. And my goal today was nothing more than help you think. To think about your legacy and offer our help in helping you be the architect of your legacy every step of the way. Thanks for listening.

Thank you for listening to the Imagine That podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode and welcome you to reach out to Confluence Financial Partners with your questions and comments. If you’d like to hear more episodes, head over to ConfluenceFP.com/podcasts, or find us wherever you get your podcasts.

Confluence Financial Partners — Meet Brian Ripley | Episode #21

Greg:

A large, nationwide study has found that teaching ninth graders to maintain a growth mindset towards learning can result in higher test scores. Imagine that.

(SOURCE: Nature, 2019)

Hello, and welcome to the Imagine That podcast. I’m your host, Greg Weimer, founder, partner, and wealth

manager at Confluence Financial Partners. Each month, we’ll explore new ways to help you maximize your

life and your legacy.

This is Greg Weimer, one of the partners of Confluence Financial Partners. And we’d like to welcome everybody to the “Imagine That” podcast, the goal of this podcast is pretty simple. Allow people to think and think differently maybe. And hopefully along the way, help people find something in the podcast that’ll help you improve. And today I think we have that with an associate and good friend of mine, Brian Ripley. And I think Brian, your story, and, you know, just hearing you talk about your, how you went from Charles Schwab to some national firms to Confluence and along the way you accumulated great clients that ended up being your friends. And it, I think for people listening, it’s going to show improvement, how to be persistent and persevere. And you’ve done that. I also think it shows the importance of relationships. You and I have known each other for several years.

And over time we just got to know each other and trust each other, and we didn’t try to rush it. And there was going to be a right time for you to be part of the team. We found that and mentioning our team, just, I think people will get to see the importance of culture. And, and if you’re building a company or you want to know more about Confluence, guess what? You’re going to get a peek under the tent. I don’t know what you’re going to say by the way, but I hope it’s a positive peek under the tent. I hope.

If you think about our relationship, the reason it connected with me, do you remember the first time, like, I think I sort of asked you out on a date and said like, Hey, we should talk more.

It was oddly enough,

Brian:

4th of July.

 

Greg:

The 4th of July! It was the 4th of July. We had a mutual friend. And so Brian has ended up being not only an associate but a good friend. I’ll just give you a little bit of background about Brian. He’s been in the business for 20 years. Brian has, he has a wonderful wife. Amy. Brian has six children. And it’s just been fun watching you with your work-life balance. So I think it’d be interesting for everybody to hear. And by the way, as you’re thinking about your career, you just kept getting better and better, and you like, you had some body blows, right? So if you could take everybody through like how you started and, and, and you joined us, you know, several months ago and by the way, his clients like you have great clients. I mean, they, it was great. It was really, it was interesting how much they trust you and how quickly they followed you. Why don’t you take it from Charles Schwab, first of all why did you join Charles?

 

Brian:

I was looking for a job, but knew I love this industry. Didn’t know where to get started. And my folks had invested when I was younger. My dad would read a number of the financial publications. And I thought, well, I think I know what I want to do. So I started out at Charles Schwab, got hired. It was the end of the dot-com bubble was the last class in, first class out. Experienced what it was like to be unemployed. Sent my resume out. Was, was living in the state of Indiana with a future wife, which was became Amy. And we moved to Pittsburgh, started with one of the big wirehouses. I cold called 200— It was like what I referred to myself as the Cold Calling Cowboy, because it was 200 calls a day. It was rejection nonstop. I came home, told her like, I want to cry. She’s like, well, you’re going to do it again tomorrow.

 

Greg:

Yeah.

 

Brian:

So, but, but no, it was a great experience.

 

Greg:

But a lot of people would have quit at that. I mean, you’re just like, that’s interesting. Cause I think some people see successful folks and they don’t, they don’t see the price you paid. Like, like that’s an important part. Right? They see Brian now he’s a very successful guy and, and they don’t realize that, Hey man, there are moments.

 

Brian:

Oh yeah. Perseverance.

 

Greg:

You want to cry. I mean that’s for real.

 

Brian:

Oh yeah.

 

Greg:

I remember when I was starting in the eighties, it was like some days I was like, oh, that was really good. Then other days I was like, what in the world am I doing? But you just keep learning. You keep trying, you keep working. And that was, that was, that was the Morgan Stanley days. Right? Is that

 

Brian:

It was, and I called my, I would cold call on tax-free municipal bonds.

 

Greg:

Me too! What year was that? Well, that was, that was,

 

Brian:

It was, well, it was 2001.

 

Greg:

Yeah. I, I used to cold call muni bonds and back then — municipal bonds — and back then, by the way, they were paying like 10%.

 

Brian:

Oh yeah.

 

Greg:

And it’s like, I have a 10% municipal bonds. I was like, I’ll wait. And people will be like, I’ll wait until it gets to 11. Oh, wait, lightweight. I will tell you real quick. So last cold call I think I ever made — then I, then I made a lot and then I hired people to do it. And then now, as you know, we, you know, it’s all referrals, but I remember making this call. And if you remember Brian, when you got to the end of your presentation and it should be like 30 to 60 seconds, at the end of the presentation, if you got the whole way through, like, it was really good. Right? And so I, I get to the end of the presentation and remember I worked for Butcher & Singer and this, this, this woman said, oh honey, that’s really nice of you to call. But my husband and I live alone, we could never eat that much meat. She stopped listening when I said Butcher. But that was, yeah, but it was different days, right? You just like really worked hard cause you really wanted to help people and find clients.

 

Brian:

Very true. But it was also to find clients that you could keep on the phone. And I hate to say this, but it became more of a game of “please let me get through my little spiel.” And it was, it was a powerful learning lesson from the standpoint of like, no one likes to take the word “no,” but it teaches you perseverance.

 

Greg:

No. So I, you, you’re, you are, you are a harder worker than I. I had a hundred paperclips on the left side of my desk. Every time I made a call, I’d move one paperclip to the right side of my desk. I wouldn’t leave until all the paperclips were on the right side. Then I get up the next morning and I’d take one by one and move it to the left side. And I just kept moving those paper clips back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. There was actually a mark on my desk. But that, that I wouldn’t go home until the paper clips got to the right side. So then you do that. So you’re doing the Morgan Stanley thing. And then then what happened?

 

Brian:

Amy and I were expecting our first and so I was somewhat terrified of quote unquote being on my own and decided to go to another firm kind of believe that all the things I was being told were going to happen, I was going to be partnered up with somebody and they were going to mentor me and take care of me. And only to find out that it was essentially the same firm without the same culture. So that was a —

 

Greg:

Big national firm, got it, I know what it is.

 

Brian:

And you know, what really rubbed me the wrong way was one day one of the, I was in the bullpen and one of the more senior folks walked by that had a corner office and said, oh yeah, well, this is basically our funnel system or our feeder system. And these people won’t be around. And that just really drove me nuts. To the point where I was like, you’re not getting any of my relationships, because to your point earlier, it is all about relationships.

 

Greg:

It is! But you got to make that like, so from municipal bond to relationship. Cause like, it was just selling municipal bonds. Now it’s about relationships and helping people maximize their lives, maximize their legacies. You know, it’s a whole different business. So unfortunately some people are still stuck, right back, back where it was wherever, 20, 30 years ago. So I wish we could just help people understand — that still exists out there. That still exists out there. And, and when you say, you know, “we’re different,” it’s so frustrating, but you have, you have a view of like how it really is different. I remember like, you know, you just have to believe in something greater than yourself. You have to believe that what we’re doing is, is, is helping, you know, it’s just helping people with a different life, helping their children?

 

And I remember when I was with my prior firm, American Funds, I used to wake up every day and I’d think — my, my, my, my mission statement was you know, I want to fundamentally change the way people think about investing their money in Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia. And if I do so appropriately, I will help people retire without worrying, become educated without limits. And like that motivated me. Like that got me going. And I talked to one of the old Southern guys that worked for American Funds at the time. And I remember I said to him, I said, Graham, what’s your mission statement? Like what’s yours? He said, “Aw Greg, mine’s sorta simple. I’m just trying to protect people from all the other bullshit that’s out there.” So, so, so I don’t know that our mission statement is protect people from all the other bullshit that’s out there.

 

Brian:

Hey, it works.

 

Greg:

But like, like, like, so why did you join? And I know I’m not looking for self, but like, I just want people to know as you get a peek under the tent, how, you know, like why, and, and, and, and if you want to say like, what you wish we would be able to do differently, Hey, we’re not, we’re not done getting great yet. So it’s okay to do that also, but you have a fresh perspective. Like what made you go from, you know, the last national firm in your career, and, you know, again, a very successful business and you decided to become part of the team of Confluence.

 

Brian:

I knew I didn’t want to be there long-term. And I was looking for a place, knowing my, that we have six kids and my youngest is three. I’m 45. And as I like to say, I’ve got another 25 years in me. I wanted to be at a place where I knew I wanted to be. Where I knew I wanted to come to work every day. And I think the biggest difference for me was I didn’t feel that joy in getting up in the morning. I felt joyful to work with my clients because, and I even hate to refer to them as clients, but work with the wonderful relationships that have been trusted me with, with so much. And the fact that I didn’t feel that same degree of support on the other side, to me, it wore on me.

 

And in many cases, I felt like I was in the boat by myself. And, you know, this is going to sound like a silly reference point. But if you’re in a boat by yourself and you’re rowing those oars and you stop one, you’re just spinning around and you’re doing circles. And I felt like I was doing circles all the time. It doesn’t mean I wasn’t doing a good job for the folks that entrusted me. It just, I didn’t feel fulfilled. I didn’t feel challenged. I didn’t feel motivated. I didn’t feel pushed. And I think, you know, one of the biggest things, and that’s why I think we’ve always hit it off is, you know, you think about a shared vision. I think you and I have a shared vision. I think for so many people that, that are here have a shared vision.

 

Greg:

Yeah. Shared like, yeah, it’s, it’s a shared belief system. And by the way, you need to, if, if you love this business or you love any business, if you’re, if you’re thinking about being in business, you better eat the business.

 

Brian:

Yeah.

 

Greg:

You better—

 

Brian:

You can’t fake it.

 

Greg:

You can’t fake it. Like, you know, some people say there’s, oh, there’s business. And then there’s personal. That’s BS. There’s just life. And it’s both the same. And so you’ve taught, you’ve done a good job of, and by the way, for people listening, it’s so about balance and balance is so misunderstood. Some people think balance is you just take off whenever you want. Or like, you know what I mean? That’s not balanced. That’s, that’s being, that’s, that’s not balanced. So but you know, you’ve done a good job of toggling and really just not working, not playing but living.

 

Brian:

Correct.

 

Greg:

So you, you know, you, you have really done a good job at that. And, you know, to be as committed as you are on the golf course, I saw you on the telethon and then, oh, by the way, this is no, but this is the balance part. Right? Right. So we are on number 16. I think we played, I played 16 holes and Brian has our caddy go get him a cart so he can get to his car so he can be back in Pittsburgh for his daughter’s Confirmation. That’s what it’s about.

 

Brian:

It is.

 

Greg:

So you, didn’t not show up to either. And you are present. Except for when you were on the phone on the golf course, which is, that’s, that’s a different issue. So—

 

Brian:

I can talk about that—

 

Greg:

Do it! Okay, go ahead, go ahead. Because this is important.

 

Brian:

Well it is. And you think about culture and one of the things that’s hard to articulate, what is a growth culture? Cause that was one thing I was really looking for, is I want to be at a place that’s going to challenge me, push me. But at the same time with the that’s always heading in the growth direction. Well there was an issue where I didn’t realize the timing of a very important securities-based loan and what was needed. Well, the client’s buying a business, needed, needed this line. And so Randy, who is, for all the folks that work at Confluence, they know all about him, but I think he’s MacGyver.

 

Greg:

Yeah. You know what yeah. He’s like MacGyver, you know, like we just have such, these people that say, and you, you, you, you can maybe comment on that. These people that say millennials don’t work real hard.

 

Brian:

No. Not here.

 

Greg:

Not here. Like if we, like we’ll text each other at nine o’clock at night. Right. And, and it’s just, it’s just how we are. But, you know, but if someone needs to be with their child in the middle of day, that’s cool too.

 

Brian:

Yes. Yes. And so while, while we were golfing and I had let them down, because I didn’t realize the timeline and, you know, back to the incredible responsibility, we all feel, well it was killing me. So we’re out there golfing. Having — supposed to be having a good time. And you know, I’ve got Randy typing in things so that they can be submitted and approved. All the while Randy’s working through the back office staff that he knows to get this done. And so what normally would have taken a couple of days was done literally in one day. And thankfully the wire went out today, which was a day ahead of when it showed up. So all because of someone showing dedication to what they want to do.

 

Greg:

And the client needed how much money?

 

Brian:

1.9 million dollars.

 

Greg:

So $1.9 million. I mean that, but, so I don’t know if he even told you this. So it was yesterday 3:52. I texted Randy: “awesome work for Brian.” He texts back: “two thumbs up, happy to help. I’m just glad RJR custodian came through.”

 

Brian:

Yep.

 

Greg:

So do you know what I mean, with that, that, that shows a growth mindset that just shows camaraderie and teamwork.

 

Brian:

Well, and I think, you know, most people, they look at a challenge and they’re like, oh my, oh, no. And that was the other thing. Thinking about the big wirehouses. No, there’s no direction of, okay, well that doesn’t work. Let’s go this other way. And that mindset is prevalent. You want to — don’t tell me no, help me come up with a solution so that I can help the folks out that have that, or have engaged me. And I think that is a big disconnect.

But back to your, your question about how that balance works, I think for me, it’s, it’s, we only have so much time on this earth. Every day matters. The goal was to get up every day and be better than we were the next day. And having six kids, that’s a tremendous responsibility. I don’t, Amy and I don’t want to be the parents that, you know, spend all of our time doing something and missing out on all those wonderful experiences. Now I will tell you a 17-year-old to a three-year-old it’s, it’s challenging right now. We’ve got two, two teenagers that I think they think I’m from Mars, nothing I can say can be helpful. I don’t know anything. So, and then you’re dealing with a three- and a five-year-old who were running around the church last night, I’m trying to corral them. And it’s like, okay, well, and everyone’s looking at us. There’s the Ripleys.

 

Greg:

So when we did at our house, we did a, we did a pool party for the associates and their families. And, and it was it was a relatively normal event. And then the Ripleys show up. It was like, bam, instant energy. It was so much fun.

And by the way, it is amazing that, notice how, like Brian just takes responsibility for, I misunderstood the process. Like it’s not really true, right. I mean, it’s like, it’s just, the process takes a little longer. There was no understanding of the brain. So, but, but you made it work. And one thing I can say about you is you are just kind, and, and you don’t, you don’t like, you’re just, you’re a good team player and you’re very, very complimentary of the staff. Well, thank you.

 

Brian:

Well, thank you. But I think the word team, I mean, in, my personal email, it’s Team Ripley, I mean, I think I’ve always associated with sports, being a great metaphor for life. And to me, we are one big team. And I think the fact that we pick each other up and you know, that to me was one part of this culture that I think you can’t, until you’re here, or you spend two years getting to know you and getting to know all the folks here, I think it’s hard to really for most people to say, okay, I can see myself there. But it was real easy here.

 

Greg:

Thank you. So let’s go back to the growth mindset, because, you know, I was, I was talking to someone recently and I said like — and it’s in a different podcast — I said, you know, what’s a trait of successful people, successful organizations. And he immediately said they have a growth mindset. And I think people talk about a fixed mindset, a growth mindset, and it can sound like it can sound like mumbo-jumbo. What do you, how do you like, like how, what are you when we talk about growth mindset and you see it work inside of here in your own life, how would you define that?

 

Brian:

I think it’s accepting the challenge. I think, you know, in Randy’s example or in Randy’s case, you know, you’re always wanting to get better. You’re not, there’s no obstacle that should prevent you from getting where you need to go. I think for me, growth would be just getting better every single day. It doesn’t have to be monumental leaps. That’s just what the mindset of every day, I’m going to do something today to be better than I was yesterday. And I think that that just compounds and keeps rolling and rolling and rolling. I think the other side of it is, you can also be somewhat discontent because you’re always trying to get better. So we talked, you and I talked about it yesterday. I mean, there’s a point where you got to smell the roses. And I think that’s one challenge that I have, is to take a, take a step back.

 

Greg:

Enjoy the journey, but understand that, you know, you got to keep getting better. And that’s where happiness comes from. It’s interesting. As I think about it, I, I, I think the best way to explain, with companies, I think you did a great job of explaining a growth mindset, but from a company perspective, you know, there’s a fixed versus a growth mindset. And I think by the way, growth is misunderstood. It’s just getting bigger and bigger, bigger — that’s BS. It’s keep getting better, better, and better. You’ll get bigger if you’re better, but, but just keep adding resources to get better and do a better job or better health. Or, and, and I’m not saying it’s, you know, you have to, like you say, get obsessed by better, but you know, you, you have to improve every day and just do a little bit better tomorrow than you did today.

 

And if you don’t, you become taxi. And that’s the example I was going to, you know, taxis had a fixed mindset. When you flew into New York and you were in LaGuardia, these people thought they had it licked. They, they waited in line. Their medallion cost a lot of money. They had no competition, it was taxi! Like taxi ran the deal. And then there was this, this group trying to get a little better called Uber. And Uber’s like, wow, if we could just change the technology, change the experience, right? Change the model. We can create something better. It could be the same with iPad. As I’m looking at my iPad, like, you know, Apple decided that this, this iPad thing could be really cool, and people would really love it.

And so a growth mindset is trying to anticipate what people need and providing it for them versus resting on your laurels because you’re some big national firm that, you know, is maybe not as nimble as they should be on behalf of the clients. And a growth mindset, I don’t know you, I challenge anyone that their happiest moments in life is when they’re improving at something. I don’t care if it’s your golf game, your health, trying to be a better chef, trying to be a better financial advisor. I promise you; you are happiest when you are trying to improve.

 

Brian:

I couldn’t agree more. I couldn’t agree more. I mean, I think there’s a comfort though in that fixed mentality, I think people become passive. They become accepting. I think, you know, especially in our business, they feel like they’ve plateaued and they’re just going to kind of ride it out. And to me, I think that’s boring. One and, and it’s not fulfilling to your point. It’s not—

 

Greg:

It’s the status. I mean, it it’s typical. It is so typical. I’m going to go play golf every day. I’m not going to get any better at whatever other aspect of my life. It’s just, that’s our industry. That’s a lot of industries and that’s unfortunate.

When you when we talk about our teams and we do work in a team environment and I don’t know, and, and not just on our teams, I think a lot of — but what makes a great team? When you say like, you know, I mean your perspective. Cause I think a lot of people say they have a team and sometimes that just means they have people on there— they don’t work hard anymore. And all the people around them do all the work. That’s sometimes what a team, you know, or like there’s great teams. And like, what do you, what do you think, just in observing, make for a great team?

 

Brian:

I know it’s going to sound boring, but a shared vision. Too many times, there might be one or two people that have an idea of where they want to go, but not everyone is bought on.

 

Greg:

Yeah.

 

Brian:

I think to me, I think when everyone works together, everyone’s better.

Greg:

Yeah.

 

Brian:

I think the other side of what makes a great team is you got to have people that know their role in that team and that are willing to work together to accomplish the greater good. It’s not about me. It’s about “we.” I think that’s, that’s probably the most simplified way. It’s interesting. I’m reading a book right now, “Chicken Runs at Midnight” and it’s a beautiful story about a coach that his daughter died. And but I’m in the, the portion where Barry Bonds, they’re in the locker room, it’s the Pirates in their glory years that when Leland assembled this beast of a team. And the thing is, they talked about when Andy Van Slyke came in, he changed the whole dynamic. Bonds and Van Slyke didn’t get along, necessarily, but they knew that they were better together than they were separately. And I think, to me, if people all have an eye on the prize, it’s a lot easier to get people to get on board.

 

Greg:

Yeah. And the differences actually make you stronger. You could be different, you can have a different approach, but you have to have the same goal. Right? So you, you act like it’s either — I think I, I think in this firm, it’s either get better, get out. If you’re not really wanting to get a lot better and you’re not really wanting to create something special on behalf of our clients, it’s just not a great place for you. But then it’s really important, and this is really important, and understanding each other’s personalities is key. Like, like, like, like Brian is a major — in fact, we have this thing that we use called Kolbe and, and, and we had Brian do it. And then he said, do you mind if Amy does it? I’m like, no, my family did it too. Let’s do that. It’ll help you to communicate even better together. And I said, spoiler alert: Here’s what your Kolbe’s going to look like. And, and, and just right in this way,

 

Brian:

And you nailed it. But I think, you know, to the depth of why we do what we do, if there are personality characteristics that one has, and they’re going to butt heads, we want everyone— back to the question. We want things to be complementary. And if people are butting heads, it’s defeating the whole purpose of trying to create something great. And the Kolbe, to me, helped flesh out what I kind of knew, but maybe he didn’t want to admit.

 

Greg:

And we hired a great new associate to work with you.

 

Brian:

Yes.

 

Greg:

Came from Deloitte out of D.C., a great new associate, and we made sure his style was complementary to yours. So then we actually had a strong team that could serve your clients.

 

Brian:

Yeah. And Sean, we’ve worked quite well, we’ve worked exceptionally well together. I’m impressed, his stick-to-it-iveness. No, it’s been great. But I think you having weeded out, kind of, the folks that may not have meshed well with me from the beginning, I think only ensures that this team that’s being built at a young age or infancy will only get stronger and bigger and become better. And I think the foundation was strong to begin with. And I think it goes back to, just like anything in life. If you build a strong foundation, you can start to add on top of layer, upon layer, too many people rush things, or they don’t see where they’re all going. And they, they, they may be driven by different things, but here the foundation was strong in my opinion, and it continues to get stronger. Right.

 

Greg:

And I think what most people would be surprised about is, we’ve, we’ve grown a lot. I’m very fortunate to have people like you join, but the truth is we could have grown a lot quicker, and it made the very, I think, important decision to say it could have challenged our culture. So we actually, at times pulled the reins. We had one moment in our, in our history where we could have a, we could have doubled. We could have doubled like really, really fast and it felt good, sugar high. And then Jim and I looked at each other, we were at Ruth’s Chris, Ruth’s Chris, we’re at Ruth’s Chris, downtown. And we looked at each other and we didn’t really say anything. We were with someone else. We just like, it was just, we didn’t, we didn’t say anything other than we both looked at each other and we both, you know, we didn’t need to say anything. We both knew it would have been too much, too fast. And we were down to the short strokes, and it would’ve been big news, but, and by the way, this other firm is phenomenal. Just wouldn’t have been right. It’s just, it would have been too much. So you can, you can also grow too fast. Right. You have to lay that foundation.

 

Brian:

But that is I think that’s part of the reason why I was, you know, you think about the two-year courtship you were interviewing me. Just see if my culture what I, what I would be if I would be additive to the culture here. And to me, I think that’s, that’s part of the whole process to your point. People can grow for the wrong reasons.

 

Greg:

Yeah. You’re one of us. Like there, someone else could also be a strong producer like you, and they’re just not right. Doesn’t make them bad. It’s just not right for us. If you’re not like really fired up to be in this business, you don’t have a passion for the business and love your clients and, it’s just not right. It doesn’t, whatever, whatever you do, you be you. But like, it wouldn’t be good for us. And so, you know, I mean, I don’t, we just wouldn’t to do it. And, and, but you, I mean, I, and by the way, I think people would be surprised — you tell them how long we negotiated over money.

 

Brian:

Oh, it was like less than five minutes.

 

Greg:

Yeah. So it was, and, by the way, it’s way, it’s more than we wanted to pay you. So— just kidding. But he said a number and, I just knew it, it didn’t, I didn’t even matter what, because I knew, and you knew we could trust each other. And that was it. Like we shook hands. It was, I don’t, it could have been five minutes, you know, I maybe. But we were like, it’s cool.

 

Brian:

Well, actually, it was probably like a minute.

 

Greg:

I think it’s right. Cause you said like, and I said, and it was like, okay, well it’s fine, whatever, what’s the difference? And we literally shook hands, and it was like, that was it. Yeah. And I’m sure it’s in writing somewhere, but it was like, is it?

 

Brian:

Ironically, so the day before I— about joined or the day before I joined, I called Ryan and said, Hey, Ryan, I know Greg and I agreed upon this. Can I have this in writing. He’s like, oh yeah. I’m like, can I sign it before I started? He’s like, yeah, yeah, sure. And then ironically, I got it, but I didn’t sign it until 2 weeks later.

 

Greg:

Yeah. But it was that fast. And, and, you know, there were, there were a lot of other people courting you.

 

Brian:

I talked to so— in two years—

 

Greg:

And some financially, in the short run…

 

Brian:

Oh, in the short run, yeah. Everyone kept playing the financial card. As if that was the primary reason. And then what, what they clearly demonstrated, they weren’t really listening to what was most important to me.

 

Greg:

Right.

 

Brian:

And I think that was, you know, money can be dangled in front of you. And it’s like, oh, wow, well, I could do this. And then you start to think, I was like, no, no, that’s not why I’m doing this. I’m doing this, obviously, I want to do well for my family. We’re not doing this for free, but I want to do it for the right reasons. And it’s not about, like you said, growing just to grow, it’s about being in the right culture, the right fit. So that you’re because — here’s the thing. What people fail to realize by dangling the carrot: If I grow, if we grow at a rate of speed that I believe that we’re capable of growing, all those conversations are for naught, it was a short-term thing. And so when Amy and I were kind of walking through the pros and the cons, we kept coming back to two years, five years, 10 years, 20 years, Confluence is always better. And a two-year period. What I mean, that’s, that’s like a blink of an eye.

 

Greg:

Financially, we’re very, very fair with everybody. It’s not like we are lowball anything. That’s why it was a short conversation — it was just fair. And it was obvious that it was fair, but that some like, and for people that are making decisions and for young people that are trying to decide, and for that are trying to counsel their children and grandchildren, please don’t make a decision based on short-term money. People come out of college. And the difference between job A and job B is $5,000. And in the whole 10,000. 15, same number. Over the course of their careers, the experience of that first job, what they learn on that first job, the mentors they have on that first job is so much more valuable than that 15, but I’ll talk to parents and they’re like, Johnny’s offered 60 or 70. And it’s like, same number. You’re like, no, it’s $10,000.

 

Greg:

And I’m like, No! It’s like the launch of Johnny or Susie’s career.

 

Brian:

The long game.

 

Greg:

It’s hard for people. It’s hard for people to see the long game. And I remember when I was at American Funds, we were talking about the most undervalued assets. One of the portfolio managers, who is brilliant, he said I know the most undervalued asset in the entire world. I’m like, okay, this is good. I’m buying it. He said that of a long-term thinker. And I thought, that’s it. That of a long-term thinker. Because if you think long-term the amount of the decisions — if you — by the way, a book to read, I forget the guy that wrote it. I’ll think of it, but it’s called the “Infinite Game.” If you remove time from the game and you, and you’re like, realize you’re playing the long game, we, and you are building this firm for our clients, children, and grandchildren.

(“Infinite Game,” Simon Sinek, 2019)

 

Greg:

And we will be here 20 and 30 years from now. And if we do it right, the pie will be big enough that we won’t have to worry about splitting it. That’s a growth mindset. You grow the pie. So you don’t have to fight about your piece. The fixed mindset is that the total is, is fixed. And so then therefore we have to argue over whether it’s this percentage or that percentage. It’s way better to just grow the pie so you don’t have to think about those things.

 

Brian:

Most people don’t want to look at playing the long game.

 

Greg:

And you got the wrong people, and you get the wrong people.

 

Brian:

Yeah.

 

Greg:

Like if someone joins for money, they get the wrong people, right? I mean, look, look at country clubs. They’ll do this deal where they get all these people for whatever reason. And then they end up with a bunch of people that they don’t really have a shared belief system with.

 

Greg:

They just want a cheap place instead of a nice place or whatever they want. They don’t, they don’t bring like-minded people. And that is the beginning of the end.

So we use this Kolbe index to help determine what your personality is. Is it action oriented? Is it process oriented? Are you really focused on fact-finding? And everybody has some component of all four. And there’s also, do you like to work with your hands? There’s some component of all four, but you have a dominant one. And what you try to do is if someone’s really process-oriented, you move, you, you, you match them up with someone more action-oriented because the, the person could be stuck in process, not bad, but you know, someone helps them take initiative. Someone that takes initiative needs the process.

By the way. In addition to that, we’re where there’s also something called Personalysis. And a couple of us are being licensed to take Personalysis. And the reason we’re doing that one is it’s better, not for business, but it’s better for individuals. So we’re going to be that we’re going to sit down with, we’re going to go sit down with families and our family meetings, and we’re going to help families understand how each other communicates. So then it’s easier for them to talk about money, because as we all know, the number one reason money is squandered is because it is: lack of communication. So if we can help families understand how each other communicate, effectively, and then we could help them communicate in general, but more specifically about money and hopefully make sure that they don’t they don’t, they don’t fall to the statistic that, I think it’s 70% of the money’s is squandered in the second generation, 90% of the third generation. So we’re working on that also, it’s called Personalysis.

 

So as we sit in this room, Brian, this is just one more thing I think of, you know, I think sometimes the way we do things, people take for granted and we collaborate a lot. So Tuesday mornings, we, we, we have a different type of meeting in this very room where we, on our big screen, I don’t know how many inches that thing is, but it’s the whole wall. We have our other offices where we communicate and we talk and we share, we share wow. Wow ideas mean like, how did you wow a client this week? Like, what did you do really special for a client this week? And we go through some other things.

You’ve been through a lot of other firms, what I don’t know, because other people are trying to create firms also. So what is it about that meeting?

 

Brian:

It was refreshing because I came in the meeting thinking it was going to be a short 10-minute meeting and it starts off with a wow and win, and I believe there was an event that weekend and oh, it was, it was coming up. It was after the Amateur. And you talked about how great it was. And but for me, it was the collaboration. People were all vested. Everyone was on the same page. Everyone chimed in. You could tell that everyone was, it was not to sound corny, but one heartbeat. Because everyone was, everyone was into it. And to me, I’ve been through too many meetings where it’s like, oh my gosh, get me out of here. You know, this is all fluff! What are we talking about? Only to come here and be thinking, okay, everyone’s not only participating, but everyone’s excited about it. Everyone’s on board. And it was genuine. I think people, you know, whether they were called in or not, but they were present, they were looking at their camera. They weren’t distracted by something else. And if, if I hadn’t been in a group meeting in six and a half years before I left the bank and there, it was like, wow, this is what it’s like to be in the boat with other people.

 

Greg:

Yeah. And we’re glad you’re in the boat, but you just mentioned something in passing. For those of you doing group meetings on Zoom and you’re, you’re, you’re trying to get collaboration: cameras on. It’s one thing, like, I don’t know, we stumbled upon that maybe a year and a half ago, whatever it was. And we’re like, okay, if you’re like, first of all, you know, everybody’s on that meeting. So it’s not like, an optional thing. Everybody’s on the meeting and cameras on. So, you know, if you’re in another office, camera on, if you’re in your office, camera on, and then I know we’re in COVID, but we do try to encourage as many people as safe, can safely get into one room. We like to be around each other. Because I’m, I’m gonna tell you right now, this whole “we can all work for home” as effectively, is a lie. It’s, it’s, it doesn’t mean that we need to be, can’t be more flexible and we don’t let people work, you know, maybe remotely every once in a while, when it, when their life causes them to do that.

 

But the collaboration, the culture, the training, this poor, next generation, not learning from the generation from before. It’s not as good. We’ve become, we, we, we have, we embraced it. I think because people think it’s just very, very convenient. But it’s not coincidence that golf rounds are at a record high at the same time people are working from home. It can’t be a coincidence. Some of our competitors are not allowed to see their clients and be in the same room with their clients. It’s, it’s mind boggling. It’s their money. They need to see you without a mask on. If you’re vaccinated, and they’re vaccinated. I’m not a doctor, but holy moley, let’s like, right? I mean that collaboration is everything.

 

Brian:

And then throughout this transition, if I wasn’t able to come here or I wasn’t able to see Randy or you or, or Sean, I think it would have been a totally different experience.

 

Greg:

Yeah.

 

Brian:

And the fact that as much as you can feel, someone’s, feel where they’re coming from on a Zoom in, unless you’re in the same room as.

 

Greg:

Yeah.

 

Brian:

It takes away the spontaneity of, Hey, I need your help with this. Or instead of pinging someone, waiting for response. To me, it just, it kind of goes back to the whole thing of, you’re not able to, to build the relationships that you otherwise would build unless you’re in person.

 

Greg:

Agreed. So gosh, I don’t want this to sound self-serving, I really don’t, but I want people to understand how unique the place is and because we want to help more and more people. Right now, we have 2,100 families. We can’t wait till we can fill up the whole Civic Arena or PPG Arena with families.

 

So let me, let me just ask you this. Cause you’ve been in the business like, you know, forever. A lot’s going on the investment business and, and, and, and I know you are, you are focused on the investment world and what do you think? I don’t know, like, I am  — didn’t prepare you for this, sorry — but you know, just speak from the heart. Like, what do you think clients should know? Not about us, but like right now, what are some of the things that you think clients should be thinking about? What are the typical mistakes clients make? And if you could say like, man, if all clients would just do this, they’d be better off.

 

Brian:

So many people don’t understand what they’re trying to accomplish. I think they are investing to invest. They get caught up in the quote-unquote what, what I mean with, with social media and the preponderance of investment material, that’s pumped out daily. I think people emotionally get caught up with all the things that are pumped out. And I think that takes them off of where they’re trying to go.

 

Greg:

Like, know what you’re trying to accomplish. That, that that’s like your portfolio should support your dreams and goals and mission.

 

Brian:

Yeah.

 

Greg:

And if you don’t know your dreams and goals and missions then you haven’t had a really good conversation with your financial advisor. That’s it.

 

Brian:

Yeah.

 

Greg:

Right? I mean, what do you think of gold? I think it’s gold. Like more importantly, how does it serve my goal?

 

Brian:

Right. And, and I think that is where people, they get caught up in the narratives and, and it’s unfortunate, but as we all know, back to playing the long game, investing is the long game. But you have to have a game plan that you understand, and too many people don’t either take the time or don’t want to take the time. With that, obviously there there’s the, the regular updates on where, are we on target with our goals and all that good stuff. But I would say for those that don’t have money, I think the biggest thing would be budgeting, understanding what you make, how many people do you talk to that have no, they have no idea what they, they spend. I think, you know, you, you can get away with it if you’ve got a lot of money, but if you don’t have a lot of money, obviously that’s a challenge.

 

Greg:

Or if you have a lot of money, there’s this balance between how much of it do you want to enjoy in your life

versus how much of it do you want to leave to your heirs.

 

Brian:

Yeah.

 

Greg:

Or give to charity? But there’s — like doing nothing is a decision. So some people should be spending more money. Some people should be spending less. Some people are really like maximizing their lives with their portfolios, through, you know, experiences with their family. And at the other time, like, please, if, if, if, if you get, if we get nothing else out of this conversation with Brian Ripley, please remember put together a plan on how your children are going to inherit your wealth, so it can be received as a blessing, not a burden. You don’t want your family fighting. You don’t want your family confused. You don’t want your family feeling guilty just because you don’t want to talk about it. So if we tell you nothing else, talk about it. And we want to facilitate those conversations.

 

Brian:

I have for years brought that up and I’m still, I’m surprised with how many families or parents have not shared with their children, what’s the game plan? And I’ll bring up the topic and I’ll even mention I’ll facilitate the discussion, but there’s

 

Greg:

It’s one of my favorite meetings to do, family meetings. I love it.

 

Brian:

But there’s a resistance to it.

 

Greg:

Oh yeah. Everybody’s gonna, they’re gonna. Everybody’s gonna do it. But when you get them done, by the way, the first one is weird. Get ready for it. The first one’s a little awkward. But after that, if you do them over time, I think we’re on our third, fourth, whatever, like whatever, and our family, but they’re powerful.

 

Brian:

Oh they are.

 

Greg:

And by the way, it doesn’t only have to be about money and then, you know it, I think. Okay. Yep. Yep. Here we go. So last year we said, Okay, what charity do the Weimers want to focus on? Where do we want to bend the curve? What’s our, the Misogi goal — story for another day — what’s our Misogi goal and really, Lori and I spent time on it. And then the kids we, we said like, let’s do this. And the year before that, it was, it was more about faith.

 

And you know, and we, we have a lot of other things we talk about, but, but it’s, it’s, it doesn’t need— You bring your family to a shared belief system, just like you bring a company to a shared belief system. And it just, it just becomes more rewarding. And now all of a sudden, what you’ve worked so hard for your whole life becomes way more meaningful, because you and your family together are going to enjoy, share and donate it.

 

So we live in a world, so much of services done by an 800 number. So much of, you know, we were in a meeting and they’re like, you can now auto-enroll. You don’t even need to see a human being anymore. The whole philosophy of service to some, to some extent, great organizations, not the Ritz and stuff like that, but so much , service. And maybe some of it’s lack of people, I don’t know, but it feels like service is lacking. What, what’s your view of service? Like how do you make sure that you as a human being differentiate yourself on service?

 

Brian:

This is going to sound corny, but it’s the, the golden rule. I mean, we all want to be treated a certain way. And so I try, I strive to provide the same level of service that I’d want to receive. And when you think about the relationships that we have with, with these wonderful folks that have entrusted us, you know, the reality is, they want us to know, or they want to know, that we’re worried about this more than they are.

 

Greg:

Well, we talked about earlier, with the line of credit yesterday, for 1.9 million. And by the way, you’re, you are a professional, but you were freaking out. Like not because you were freaking out because you felt you should have, you felt 100% responsible to make sure that that individual was about to buy that business, had the $1.9 million in the account. And the fact that you were golfing at Laurel, none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered to you in the whole world at that moment was that client. And I just wish sometimes people could be able to see that. Because they think like, oh yeah, he’s sorta working on it… Sort of working on it? Like, like, like living it, breathing it and feeling it.

 

Brian:

That’s all you can do. And people, but people know that. And they, they they’ve seen enough other people in the marketplace. We all, we all know. And my belief is you’ve got to, you can’t fake that stuff. And people know, I mean, you know, when someone’s giving you the lip service or they’re not giving their all. And so I’m probably harder on myself than anyone else will be. But to me, I think it comes back to, you know, I want to know that I’m doing the best and I put a lot on my own shoulders to make sure that I’m delivering on what, what I need to do.

 

Greg:

Yeah.

 

Brian:

I mean, we’re in the investment business. It’s a great business, but let’s face it — if it’s only about the investments, what value are we adding?

 

Greg:

When someone reaches out and we say, “got it” — it’s gotta mean “got it.” And that, when we say got it, the whole team goes to work to make. I was just on the phone with, with a, with a woman from out of town in Illinois. And we’re doing some things for an estate planning. And I said, we got it. And in the last, I don’t know, hour, I’m telling you, people got it. And we’re going to get back to her with a thoroughly vetted answer that we got it. But it’s, that’s the difference.

 

Brian:

But to your point, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll just say that you know, there’s a, there’s a great amount of trust with the folks here because they got it.

 

Greg:

And they are smart.

 

Brian:

Yeah. They are.

 

Greg:

Like, like, like there there’s a group. We don’t need to — obviously, Randy, one of them. There’s a bunch, there’s a bunch of like 20 something, 30 something, 40 somethings. They’re just smart.

 

Brian:

They are, but they’re hard working. And you know, when we got together, sitting at this table with the, you know when they took, when Gregory and Randy took me through all the sophistication of the technology, I mean, because you know, people are like, well, why did you leave? Culture. Well, culture is a huge part of it, but how do you talk about that? But you know, what’s, what are the additive components underneath the hood?

 

Greg:

Yeah. And I, and if you’re in a room with Gregory and Randy and they don’t know the answer, it was a bad question. Because it’s like they do! Katie’s laughing. Like they know! Like they know! In fact, I’m like, how do they know this stuff? I mean, Jim and I will say every once in a while, it’s like, how do they know that? It’s, I don’t know. They know, like they, they just know. It’s really, it’s really remarkable. In fact, they said, how do you guys get like your, your twenty-something and thirty-somethings to work so hard? And your forty-somethings? And the truth is we don’t. They do it to each other, like they challenge each other. They, there’s just a higher standard where they really encourage each other to get better. And their, it’s not competitive because, but, but it’s just the standard and they live up to it.

Brian:

And I think you’ve also recognized that extra effort. Where I think a lot of people would want to work hard at other places or they do work hard, they don’t feel the same sense of appreciation that they do here.

 

Greg:

Gratitude.

 

Brian:

Yeah.

 

Greg:

So we’re doing, we’re doing some videos on gratitude and it’s just so powerful. It’s gratitude. We have, we have so much to be grateful for. And many of the things we have to be grateful for, we just take for granted and that’s unfortunate.

 

Brian:

It is. But you do that. You can do that with everything.

 

Greg:

Brian, We are so fortunate to have you as part of the team, I look forward to working with you for the next 25 years. After that, I can’t promise I’ll be here. But I look forward to working with you. And you’re not only a great member of the team, how you’ve acclimated to become a great friend to the organization is, is really appreciated. And your clients, and I mean this from every, from the bottom of my heart, your clients are very, very fortunate to have you. Thanks.

 

Brian:

Thank you.

 

Greg:

Thank you for listening to the Imagine That podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode and welcome you to reach out to Confluence Financial Partners with your questions and comments. If you’d like to hear more episodes, head over to ConfluenceFP.com/podcasts, or find us wherever you get your podcasts.

Confluence Financial Partners — The Power of Coaching | Episode #20

Greg:

86% of companies reported an ROI on their coaching engagements. Imagine that.

(ICF Global Coaching Study, 2020)

Greg:

Welcome to the Imagine That podcast. We have Dr. Ben Sorenson with us. Actually, he, he is a person that has really helped me. I think everyone listening is going to find Ben to be very helpful. We’re going to talk about, should you have a coach? What does coaching matter? Can you be coached up? You know, do you need a coach as you become more and more successful in life and why? And then, this may be news to you — in the second — I want to talk about those quadrants. I found them to be really, really informative. So I’d love to talk about like how we all can do a better job of connecting with each other and then just in continual improvement, the third thing would be feedback.

So anyhow, three things we’re ready to talk about today. Coaching, connecting, and feedback. And to do that, we have Ben, Dr. Ben Sorensen with us. So here’s who Ben is. He’s an executive coach, right? So he does a lot of executive coaching. He can— Here are some of the clients he worked with. T. Rowe Price, great investment firm. That’s how I met Ben. And then PepsiCo, Disney, DirectTV, MGM, Comcast, Greg Weimer, weird list. Like what the heck? Here’s, here’s his background. Ben, could you just not get enough schooling? He goes to Georgetown gets his law degree. Is that true?

Ben:

Yes.

Greg:

Master’s of Science of Strategic Intelligence from National Intelligence University. I’m going to say that again. Yep. Brian’s in the room with me. He’s looking at me, like what? Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence from the National Intelligence University. All right. That’s just really cool. Doctor of Ministry from Ambridge University, Master’s of Arts and Leadership from Duquesne. You’re a Lieutenant Commander, specializing intelligence in the Navy. Spent five years in the Pentagon. In his spare time, he’s the city commissioner of Fort Lauderdale. What the heck? What made you do all that?

Ben:

Short attention span, can’t stay focused on one thing. I don’t, I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure it out.

Greg:

I was like, I thought I knew you, but I’m reading your bio and then I’m like, what are you doing? Having dinner with me? I mean, my goodness.

Ben:

And you know, I’m learning from you all the time too, man. So it’s a, it’s a give and take.

Greg:

So what made you start doing the coaching thing? Like tell us about like, why coaching is important. What do you, what made you start?

Ben:

So thanks Greg. I mean, I’ve just always been interested in leaders and, and the basic idea of, Hey, are leaders born or are they made, is it some combination? And growing up, my parents are folks who were real involved in the community. And so I found myself around different community leaders and business leaders. And I’d see those folks when I was young and I’d say, Hey, I want to be like those folks. I want to be able to influence and help people. And so, as I was doing that and kind of grew up, I started taking courses around, how can we be better leaders? How can we not start reading a lot about being better leaders and developing and so forth. And so it just, it led to kind of this amazing kind of fortuitous event where a buddy that I grew up with and the father of a friend I grew up with, came to me and said, Hey, we’re doing executive coaching leadership training. We need help. We know you’re in law school. I was in my second year of law school at the time. And they said, would you want to help us? And I said, I’d love to, but I got to finish law school. And they said, Hey, we’ll, we’ll work around your schedule, make it work. And that was 16 years ago, Greg. And I’ve been doing it ever since.

Greg:

So, so, so to the question, are they born, or can you create a leader? Like what, like what’s the answer to that?

Ben:

Yeah, to me it’s, it’s, it’s created, I think we’re born with certain kind of traits and abilities, but the real skill and role of leaders, I think, is really developing as they grow identifying strengths. You know, Mark Twain says or said that the two most important days in our life are first, the day we’re born. And second, the day we figure out why. And so I think leaders are folks who really are able to tap into why are they, why are they here and what can they do with their gifts?

Greg:

So what are some of the traits though, of a typical leader? Like, like if someone’s listening and say I don’t know, I don’t, I don’t feel like I’m a leader. So what are some of the traits that you find that leaders have?

Ben:

So I’ll tell you, I’ll, I’ll lead with what I think is the most important. And this is a result of coaching one-on-one with folks around the world and working with organizations around the world. If you ask me, what’s the single most important quality to determine if someone’s going to be an effective leader and be able to lead people and, and grow. The single most effective and important quality is what I call having a growth mindset, a growth mindset — meaning, meaning: are you eager and willing to learn and adapt? Are you hungry and wanting to skill up as you move through life? That is a completely developed mindset. One that you don’t have to be born with, but when you look across industries, that is what most successful leaders have.

Greg:

I love that you said it. Cause we, we talked, we talked about the growth mindset all the time. And by the way, I find, I find people with growth mindset, they just, they have bigger goals, have bigger ambitions. They tend to be happier. They tend to be more optimistic. How do you teach that? Because you see some people and you’re like, man, I just want you to be the best version of yourself. But you are so limited in the way you think. How do you help someone find that growth mindset? Or is it just you’re born that way?

Ben:

Yeah, no, I think you can help uncover it for folks. And one I’m thinking of I’m coaching right now, a surgeon right now at a, at a huge hospital. And we’re, we’re just having a great time working together. And, and, and one of the pieces that we’re working on with this surgeon is helping understand, kind of, what are the aspects that you could be doing better and realizing that if you do those, if you skill up in these areas, if you adjust a little bit in these areas, it’s going to help you get to where you want to go and achieve what you want to achieve. And so by, kind of, creating that awareness, connecting that to a sense of purpose and urgency. A lot of times you awaken that, Hey, I, now I have understanding of why this matters, why it can do better on this, why it can grow and so forth. So it’s kind of connecting the dots can be so helpful.

Greg:

So I have to say, after our dinner last week, and it’s been true of our other conversations also, come in there, we both had long days, you leave with more energy than when we sat down. And it’s because, you know, the growth mindset, right? You talk about the future and listeners are probably sick of hearing me say that. I get this, I get it. But I really believe, as a human being, you absolutely have to believe that your better days are in front of you. If you believe your better — I think that comes with a growth mindset. If you believe your better days are in front of you, even if you’re on your death bed, that leads to happiness. And one of our first conversations, you took me back to childhood. I thought, this guy’s got way too much psychology stuff for me. Right? I’m like you said, like, tell me when you were a kid. Tell me about your mom and dad. Tell me about your siblings. I’m like, alright, enough of this. But I gotta tell you it really helped me connect dots. I wouldn’t have done on my own, i.e., the importance of coaching. It really helped me connect dots on why I do the things I do. So thank you for that. I’m putting reasons more on the why.

Here’s what I see happening. How do you help people through those thoughts? It’s interesting. Someone starts out in their profession, you’re working with an all-world surgeon, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods. They all have a lot of coaches. In some industries, including ours, by the way, people get to a level of comfort. They hit their thermostat, their temperature where they believe they belong. How do you help those people say, okay, there’s more out there for you in whatever aspect of your life? And really go seek and get a coach. Because so many people are like, I have obtained X. Now that I know everything. I don’t think a coach anymore. What would you say to that person? How can we shake that person up enough to say, wait a minute, I have to shock the system? Shocking the system will really get you more happiness, results, etc. What do you say to that person that believes that they’ve learned everything there is to learn?

Ben:

Where I like to start off with, one of the ways to kind of look at that is — look, we’re in football season right now. Right? So a lot of folks watching the NFL. The, an NFL team, how many players can the NFL team dress out on game day? It’s 46. They can dress out 46 players on game day. Now how many coaches does the average NFL team have? How many coaches do they have? On average 15 to 20 coaches? Oftentimes it’s upwards of 20 to 23. So top-performing organizations with the most elite athletes in the world, the Tom Bradys the, you know, Aaron Rogers, whoever your favorite kind of player is, they invest significantly in coaching. They have multitude of coaches around these top performers. Now why do these top performers have so many coaches? They have so many coaches because even the best can keep getting better. They have coaches to help them push and drive, and if the best can keep getting better, then I think you and I have an opportunity too.

Greg:

I think that’s wonderful. And when you think about, you know, the surgeon, for example, this, you know, extremely well regarded nationally and he’s hiring you as a coach. I forget, I heard, I forget. I think Tiger Woods has like four coaches.

Ben:

Exactly.

Greg:

So you know, for the people listening, coaching matters. Now that may be for you a podcast. You just have to fill your mind with brain candy, positive things, but, you know, but some of that stuff has a sugar high to it. You know, meeting with a coach on a regular basis can really foster that growth mindset, make you a better leader, and get you all that you want, and become the best version of yourself. So thank you for what you’re doing for us. Thank you for what you’re doing for our firm. We really do appreciate your coaching.

Let me go to the second part. One of the things you do as a coach is you help us connect with different people. And by the way, if you think like this is too hard to do on the podcast, I understand. But if you could give a brief overview of how you believe that people will fit into the four quadrants. Because for everybody listening, think about, okay, which one am I? Maybe you think about someone that you want to connect better with. And you say, oh I wonder which one they are. And then we can talk about the four different quadrants, because it really does help you connect with people you love.

Ben:

Absolutely. And, and let me just make one other comment on the coaching piece and to wrap that up. Is look, Greg. I think you’re spot on about the need for all of us to benefit from a coach. Even more important than a coach I would argue, is having a therapist. And I know, you know, some of us here in the word therapist and kind of think, you know, that that’s weird, that’s for people with, with problems. No, this is actually, a therapist is a coach for all of us, that all of us can benefit from it. It can help with your personal life, with your significant other and relationship. Even if it’s just, check the oil, once every couple months. You know, look up a, a local therapist in near area and you can kind of talk through how things are going from emotional level, especially right now, there’s so much going on in the world. Your mental health is paramount. Those folks can really help as well. So anyway, sorry, Greg. I just wanted to,

Greg:

I can throw a quick bullet on that because hopefully it’ll help everyone else. You helped me. When we were having dinner, I just told you one of the things I do is, I do the worst possible outcome. So I think of an event, I’m the guy that, I smell flowers, I look for the casket. I’m the worst possible outcome worrier. And I think a lot of people can relate to being the worst possible outcome worrier. And maybe it’s an Italian thing. Maybe it’s a Catholic thing, but that’s, that’s what I do. And specifically, I do it at two o’clock in the morning and that’s not healthy. And you said something to me, you said, possible, not probable. Just wanna expand on that real quick?

Ben:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. This is look, we’re all guilty to different levels of catastrophizing, of really thinking worst case scenario and getting caught up in a lot of worry and anxiety, especially with just all, all everything that’s going on. So one of the things I like to remind to myself is, is it possible or probable? In other words, when I was young, I remember I first found out that the sun is slowly expanding and at some point, the sun might envelop the earth. And so I remember spending nights up awake and be like, oh gosh, when is this going to happen? And can we make it out alive and so forth? We do a lot of that, granted with different topics. So ask yourself, as you find yourself, maybe spinning into a little bit of a downward cycle or worrying about something — is what I’m worrying about, is it possible or probable? In other words, is it possible that what you said to that coworker might be damaging to kind of how they view you and kind of your long-term friendship with them because you gave them some tough feedback? Hey, it’s possible it might damage your relationship permanently, but is it probable? Is it likely that that’s going to happen? Probably not. So how much cognitive space and time do you want to commit to spending thinking about something that’s possible, but not probable. The higher ROI is focusing on what’s probable and working on leveraging that.

Greg:

So that’s closely related to something else we talk about a lot and that is can and can’t control, right?

Ben:

Yep, exactly.

Greg:

So if you just listed, and by the way, doing this on a daily basis is a cool thing. I’ll do it sometimes in the morning, I’ll say, okay, on the left-hand side, I’ll write “list of things I can’t control.” So, the stock market, whatever those things, you know, other people behavior, or whatever, whatever those things are you list everything you can’t control. Everything on CNN and Fox. I can’t control them. By the way, focusing on things you can’t control increases your anxiety. So focusing on things you can’t control increases your anxiety and reduces your results. And then on the other side of the ledger, I do a key chart, bottom right-hand side of my daily planner. And then on the right-hand side, I say, okay, here’s the things I can control. How many clients I talk to? Do I exercise? What I eat. All of those things I can control. And by focusing on things, you can control you and increase your results and actually you reduce your anxiety. So just a way for everyone to take their pulse is to say, okay, during the day, we’ll get that assessment later. If you say, okay, what can I focus on today? What percentage of the time did I focus on things I can’t control and what percentage of the days did I spend focused on things I can control? And the more you move to the right side of the ledger “can,” the more you will be happy, less anxious, better results. Fair?

Ben:

Exactly, spot on. And here’s what the cognitive research shows. It shows that basically if you spend time thinking and finding solutions for topics that you cannot control, in other words, coming up with solutions for something that you actually can’t implement that solution, what happens cognitively is when you come up with that solution and the brain seeks to resolve, seeks to implement that solution, and you can’t because it’s out of your control the brain starts dialing back cognitive resources, long-term problem solving. So you actually might detrimentally reduce the ability to solve problems you can control by focusing on that which you cannot. Marines do a really good job of this in bootcamp. The culmination of Marine Corps bootcamp includes something called the crucible, which is the last really painful part. And they really emphasize there: focus on what you can control, focus on what’s in front of you. That’s when you’re going to get the best results.

Greg:

The other thing we talked about, what I think is important because there are a lot of people, I think type A where it’s like, we, we immediately react, right? Instead of, and we were talking about the example of, you can feel that adrenaline, but then you have to assess the situation. So I’m sure a lot of listeners, you get that adrenaline rush. Can you explain that, and a better way to manage through that? And if you just want to expand upon that, that’d be great.

Ben:

Yeah. So there’s two parts of the brain that really impact behavior, the neocortex and the limbic system. The limbic system is the more reactive, instinctual, emotional fight-or-flight based in the limbic. It’s oftentimes called the lizard brain or caveman or cave woman brain. Neocortex is more of the higher functioning, CEO, long-term thinking, strategic analysis. What Greg was mentioning there is basically a limbic response to something. So something happens, that stimuli goes into the thalamus, which is kind of at the brain stem and the thalamus distributes that information to the limbic and neocortex. We’re at a significant disadvantage if we allow a limbic response. In other words, we stay in our limbic in responding to whatever that situation may be, because what the research finds is in our limbic, we’re much less creative. We’re, we take in less data, and we’re much more reactive in the limbic.

So we want to move to the neocortex. How do you move to the neocortex? It’s by being more aware of what we’re saying to ourselves, which is called self-talk. Self-talk is what we say to ourselves. We speak about thousand words a minute consciously and unconsciously in our self-talk. And so you’ll want to be aware of the self-talk. The easiest way to be aware of it is a little acronym I created, I call it triple-A, A-A-A. First A is, be aware of what you’re saying to yourself. So something happening in the world, you’re on a phone call with a client. You’re watching your kids, whatever it might be, you start spinning, right? You’d get, self-talk going. Be aware of it. Don’t judge it. Don’t react to it. Second A is, assess it. Assess it. Assessment is two questions. One is what I’m saying to myself accurate? Is what I’m saying to myself accurate? And two, is what I’m saying to myself, going to get me to the top performing emotions of happiness, confidence, gratitude. Happiness, confidence, gratitude are the top-performing emotions from which we make the best decisions, best strategic thinking and so forth.

So ask yourself those two questions. If both of those questions are yes, I’m being accurate and whatever I’m saying to myself is going to lead to that top performing emotion of happiness, confidence, gratitude, you’re a self-talk champion. Keep doing it. If not, if either one of those questions is no, then you’ve got to go to the third A. You gotta go to adjusting your self-talk, adjust your self-talk. So that instead of saying to yourself, I can’t believe he just did this to me. That was the most, rudest most inappropriate thing he’s ever done. Fair to have that reaction. But if you stay in that self-talk space, you’re not going to move into the neocortex and the higher performing emotion. So say to yourself, something like, Hey, that was rude. I’m not sure if he’s aware of the impact of what he said and how he said that. You know, maybe at some point I should just give him a little bit of feedback, so he understands how that came across to me and some of the others, and maybe helping him improve there. That’ll help make him a stronger team member.

Greg:

That is so powerful. So first, it’s just, be aware. We’ve all had that feeling. I mean, everyone listening, it’s like, yeah, I know that feeling, right? I get that rush. Just being aware of it. I mean, I have become more aware of it in working with you. But, like, you have that feeling, right? And then the self-talk is so powerful. What did you say? Thousand words per minute?

Ben:

Exactly.

Greg:

And once you dwell on it, you multiply. So just really powerful. And it’s interesting doing those two. It really has helped the adjustment to, I don’t know, to, to have a better response. Instead of, you know, being the fire person that runs into the burning building without understanding where you’re going and being logical about it.

Ben:

Exactly. And Greg, this applies to our, you know, being a Navy Intel guy, I get an opportunity to interact and work with different communities within the within our military. And this is something that applies to special operators. They perform best, even in the midst of firefights, even the midst of really difficult times, they perform best in an emotional state of happiness, confidence, gratitude. And they’re actually weeded out. They’re actually selected based on their, in part, based on their ability to perform in the neocortex and stay out of the limbic for long periods of time.

Greg:

That’s wonderful. Thank you so much. So let’s go. If we want to connect with people, especially with technology today, we were talking about in an earlier meeting and they’re like, well, we’re going to get a do everything online. I’m like, we don’t want to do everything online. Well, we’re going to call centers. I’m like, we’re not going to be that. Like we’re not doing that. We really want to be able to connect. The ability to connect is powerful. And I worry through texting and emails that we’ve lost, to some extent, the ability to connect. So one of the tools that you’ve shown us on how you connect is to understand that we have different personalities. With that overview, do you want me to like go through an overview of the four quadrants?

Ben:

Absolutely. Yeah. So many of your many listeners might have, have gone through or heard of Myers Briggs or DISC. These are great personality models. We have one that we call our communication style model. Similar, but some, some little, little differences. So each of us is a combination of four personality styles, Analyst, Director, Friend, Expert. Analyst, Director, Friend, Expert. Each of us is a combination of all four. There’s no right or wrong, good or bad. The key piece is this: first, being aware of what is your dominant style. If you had to pick one or two of these and, and I’ll share with them, share you with you, what they are briefly. But if you had to pick one or two, what tend to be your dominant style or styles when you’re working? And I say working because some of us have different styles at home.

So we’ll focus at the moment on your work. So what’s your dominant style. The second piece to be aware of is what is the dominant style of the person in front of me? Or the person on the phone? Or the person on the, on the computer screen? And the third step, to really connect, build trust is how can I adapt? How can I adjust just a little bit to communicate in a way as the person in front of me would communicate? That is called empathy. When you look at trust, the research around trust is really fascinating and it’s, and it’s going to be very intuitive to all of you. One, what the research finds is that people start evaluating whether to trust you or not immediately, within a 10th of a second. Furthermore, that trust evaluation never stops. So our significant other, our children, our longest-term client, all those people are still evaluating whether to trust us or not, every minute of every day.

Now, hopefully most of us don’t have wild swings on the trust score, but they are evaluating us. So how can we score high on the trust for leveraging this personality profile piece? You gotta understand how do people evaluate? They evaluate you and comprise their trust score of you based on two components: one, their evaluation of your expertise is Ben knowledgeable? Does he know what he’s talking about? Does he understand the industry? Does he understand competitors? Does he understand other products and so forth? Second component is empathy. Does Ben understand what it’s like to be in my shoes? Does he understand the fears, concerns, frustrations I have? People place a far greater weight on empathy than expertise. So you got to score high on empathy. How can you score highest on empathy? By doing what I said, which is adjusting to the style in front of you. So that’s kind of how we’ve got to be now, Greg, what I can do if you want—

Greg:

By the way, Ben, just on that, because I worry a little bit about that, because the listeners, you know, it’s not manipulative, it’s just to help you, I need to get in your shoes. So I’ll drop it. But if you’re an Analyst and I’m not giving you specific information, I can’t help you make a great decision. Or if you’re a Director and I’ll throw out some words that I’m sure you’ll go through, if you’re a Director and I’m not giving you bullet points, you’re going to stop paying attention to me. So really, what it is, in our world is, you know, and with your loved ones and with, you know, in business, you just have to speak in a way that connects with the other person, put yourself in their shoes. So then you can help them make a better decision. Is that fair?

Ben:

That’s it exactly.

Greg:

It’s not manipulative.

Ben:

It’s not, and in fact, I’m going to get mushy on you, but it’s the greatest way to love, honor and respect someone. If you really want to honor and love them and respect them, you’re going to communicate in a way that makes the most sense to them. That makes it the easiest for them to understand and digest information and make decisions. And so that’s what we’re trying to do. And just a little bit of adaptation. Greg goes a very long way on this. So—

Greg:

So we, one of our core values: It’s about you. Meaning, it’s about you, it’s you, it’s about you, the client. If it’s really about you, we, it’s more important that we speak in your language, not ours.

Ben:

Exactly.

Greg:

If you’re a relationship person that wants bullet points and we’re killing you with details, we haven’t helped you. Or if you’re an engineer and we haven’t given you details, we haven’t helped you. So understanding how you want to receive the information. And oh by the way, we do this in several different ways. One, we use all those things Ben talked about. We also help families with this. So we’re learning, and Ben you may, you may have heard of Personalysis. We’re learning how to become cert— we’re becoming certified on Personalysis so that we can meet with families and help them understand how the different family members can communicate. Because one of the biggest reasons that people end up squandering money or there ends up being a missed issue with money is because there’s a lack of communication.

And if we can help people understand family members better, that will allow them to communicate better and have better results from a legacy of the family’s wealth. So it’s not only internally because we put together teams internally by this, it’s also worked with our clients is how we communicate with clients. So it just shows you the importance regardless of how you look at this. So I threw out some things like Analyst, Director, Friend. Do you want to just go through, do you want to go through the four quadrants and just like give a bullet point on who they are and like how you identify and communicate with them?

Ben:

Absolutely. Yeah. And, and I’ll give you a quick and easy ways to pick up what is the dominant style you’re dealing with. And then I’ll give you some quick tools how to adapt to them, to ultimately score high on empathy, thus winning trust. So the first style is the Analyst, good example of Analyst is someone like Bill Gates is an analyst or Spock from Star Trek. So these folks tend to speak at a slower pace than others. They also tend to be less emotional in their speech. They like a lot of information and data. They like to take time in making decisions. So how do you adapt to these folks? How do you talk their language? Very important: you slow things down. They value precision. They value the avoidance of mistakes. So you want to show that you are doing your due diligence. You want to give them the black-and-white data.

If you come to them with a couple of glossy colorful pages, they’re going to think to themselves, Hey, what’s, what’s, where’s the meat behind this thing? What’s the real deeper dive on this? It’s also very important with Analysts that you talk about risk. If you go to an Analyst and only lead with upside and you don’t talk about the possible exposure, they’re going to think to themselves, one of two things, one, Ben knows what the risk is, but he’s hiding it or two, Ben doesn’t know what the risk is. He doesn’t know what the downside is. So it’s very important for us to share what is the exposure. And in fact, I even like leading with that, Hey, Mrs. Analysts, we’ve got a couple, two, two products here I’d like to share with you now with the first one, just as with everything else, hey, it’s not a perfect product. There is some, some exposure here and wanted to give you some research around that. And some understanding that, and overall, I think there’s a lot of positive here that we could leverage and make this really work well for us. Here’s the data around that. And then I’m going to do the same for the second product. How about a week from tomorrow? We touch base and see if you’re willing to make a decision. So give them time, set a deadline, give them data, talk about the risks, critical for Analysts.

Greg:

Yeah, we have a lot of financial advisors that listen to this, so that’s great. But what about for, like when you add, when you think about a lot of the other folks, who listen are our clients, which tend to be business owners, people that are trying to figure this out in their personal relationships. So if you’re thinking from a business owner or someone that you know is thinking about, okay, I wonder which one is my spouse, like, how should I alter my communications? Like I did one of these things in the past and what — they also analyzed my wife, and what I learned was like, she’ll have, like, if I say, let’s go to Italy tomorrow, it freaks her out. If I say like, Hey, why don’t we go to Italy in, whatever, December, she’s all in. So, you know, as you learn your spouse’s communication pattern, it helps you. So let’s think about it from, loved ones and as a business owner, like how would you communicate with them differently? Or how should they communicate?

Ben:

Yeah. And a great book that touches on exactly where you’re saying, Greg is “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman. So I recommend that to any folks, whenever I’m counseling folks, I’m a minister as well. And so when I’m, when I’m counseling folks who are getting ready to get married, that’s, that’s one of the top books that I suggest, to do exactly that. And the research shows, oftentimes, we pick significant others that have different styles than we have. And psychologists argue that part of the reason that may be the case is because they have strengths we don’t have, and we have strengths in vice versa.

Greg, so let’s look at the four quadrants. On the first quadrant, on Analysts. So Analysts very important. They like the details. They want data, they want information. They like taking time making decisions. So it’s very helpful with them to give them the full picture, to help them understand what are the possibilities, what are the options, give them time to digest. And when you think about a loved one that that wants time to kind of think through possible vacation spots, let them see the options. And don’t rush an Analyst. That can be very negative in blowing up trust with an analyst.

For the Director, Director style, they like make faster decisions. They don’t need as much information. And in fact, they can get frustrated if you keep kind of second guessing or bringing back a new option to the table rather than just kind of laying out the full options and, and the reasons why from a very high level. Two to three reasons why you think this is the best option and then executing from there, they’re also very time-sensitive, Directors are. So you want to be very efficient in your communication and interaction.

The third style is the Friend. Friend, just give you a celebrity example of a Friend, like Jennifer Aniston from Friends or Warren Buffet from investor, is a good example of Friends. They’re very relationship oriented. They’re looking for win-wins. So if you can provide them ways and actions that will benefit the good of the all, the good of the family, the good of the community, how this is going to help folks that they care about. That’s where you get real wins with Friends. It’s also very important with Friends that you share the personal side of things and the personal reason for making decisions. And then the fourth and final style is an Extrovert. Someone like an as an Extrovert, like a Whoopi Goldberg or Richard Branson, these folks love taking risks. They love trying new things. It’s important to kind of cast big visions for them. Lead with the positive with Extroverts. Lead, with the upside and the opportunity that gets them motivated. And they also are, it’s very important to give Extroverts kind of positive feedback. So just briefly, those are the four styles that we can kind of look at.

Greg:

It’s really cool. So that helped me in my leadership style. I don’t know if you remember, I took it back— which one am I? Right? I mean, which one am I? So I want to understand who I am, so then I can figure out how I can improve. And so, you said I’m, you mentioned three, do you recall, or do you want me to go through them?

Ben:

Yeah. I mean, you got Director, a Friend, and a little bit of Extrovert.

Greg:

Yeah. And then you said Analyst, but not, not, not in the way that it gets in the way. Right?

Ben:

Right.

Greg:

So, so here, so, so to understand this, here’s where it helps — this is why you need a coach. Here’s where it helped me in my leadership style, you said, your Friend with Director qualities, and that’s diagonal, if you would put it on a chart.

Ben:

Yep.

Greg:

Do you want to tell people like, now they understand this, I’m trying to help our team and Confluence understand so they don’t feel like you know, it’s jerky leadership, but do you want to explain what the challenges are with that?

Ben:

Sure, absolutely. So normally you see, when people have kind of two dominant styles, they’re normally kind of adjacent to each other. So like a Friend/Analyst or Friend/Extrovert or Extrovert/Director or Director/Analyst. In your case, it’s kind of a, it’s diagonal. So one of the challenges that, just as an example, that a Friend-slash-Director would have is Directors can be very bottom line, very task oriented. At time, Directors can be perceived of as real taskmasters, not real caring, not sensitive, not understanding kind of what folks are going through personally and professionally. So that can be a challenge. Now, Friends on the opposite end of the spectrum are very good at understanding what are people going through, connecting, understanding, trying to be supportive and so forth. So just in that example, you can have a Director/Friend who people could possibly feel as there’s a little like Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde there, which, what am I getting at what time? And, and, and kind of uncertainty around why, and what’s the cause and reasoning. That’s just one of the reasons why it’s so helpful to kind of, when you’re working with a team, to have an understanding of what’s everyone’s dominant style. And they can actually say, ah, that’s the Director coming out, or that’s the Friend and so forth.

Greg:

Yeah. Thank you. And by the way, for the listeners, we can, the quadrants. If you want to go through the quadrants, we have them, we have, we have them in our office, reach out to your advisor and give us a call. And we’ll take you through those. You want to do with your family, Personalysis. You know, we can do that also. Where we can sit down and we can help you maybe understand the quadrants a little more detail, and maybe also understand, you know, how to communicate better as a family, or even in your leadership in your business. You know, like what, which one are you? And one of the things Ben says to me is, yeah, you’re everybody’s friend, but you’re very task oriented and very goal oriented. So he said, just help people understand that when you become that, it’s from a good spot. You just want everybody to be the best version of yourself, of themself. So that’s been really helpful to me and the offer to anyone listening to this, we stand ready to help you and/or your family become better communicators, so you can optimize your results. Fair?

Ben:

Love it.

Greg:

Okay. Let’s do real quick thing on feedback.

Ben:

So, you know, and we, we kind of started this discussion around coaching and the importance of it. Just a quick example of the importance of feedback, Greg, is, we were working with a company, and it was a sales organization and leadership kind of identified the two groups that we’re going to go through in the Salesforce. It was going to go through this training and they the, the leader decided to break up the group into two groups and he put the kind of bottom 50% of, of kind of team members to receive the training first. And then the top 50% leaders receive the training second. And so he said, once he kind of got that going, he immediately got a lot of criticism from both groups. The, the lower performers were complaining that they had to go through this training at all. And the top performers were complaining that they had to wait to go second to get the training. So it was—

Greg:

So, top performers want feedback?

Ben:

Yeah.

Greg:

Right? And so like, I don’t know, I was a C student, so I didn’t like report card day, right? I was feedback — I didn’t want it. My brother was like an A student, he liked that day. So bad day for Greg, good day for my brothers and sisters. So feedback is powerful and mirror is powerful. And as leaders, it is so interesting to me, how we, we are challenged to give people feedback. And many times, they want it.

Ben:

Yep.

Greg:

Now there’s a lot of different ways to do feedback, whether it’s self-assessment, 360, in fact, you may want to mention how we’re doing 360 feedback in here. It’s really cool. So if you can just talk about that and why it’s important, why that’s important, but also, if you’re going to give feedback to someone, which is really powerful, and that just means you care enough about them to talk to them about how to improve, are there ways to do that?

Ben:

Yeah. So we’re, we’re using with Greg a 360 tool, which is getting — 360 meaning kind of 360 degrees of a circle, meaning getting feedback from folks that are kind of peers, folks that are above you, folks that are below you. And when you can do that, kind of, holistically, you can really get some rich data to understand what are the opportunities, what are their strengths for someone? And so specifically with—

Greg:

So by the way, my children are doing this also. I mean, I have three girls and a daughter-in-law that is like my daughter, I’m going to tell you, I’m going to have to have some thick skin like, you know what I mean? I get it. But it’ll make us better, so it’s all good.

Ben:

I love it. And, and not many folks that I work with one-on-one asked to have family members involved in their 360. So I love that you’re, you’re open to that. And I can’t wait to dig into that! That’s, that’s awesome. So, so one of the things — look with, with giving feedback, few people love giving critical feedback. I mean, who enjoys going into a room being like, great, I’m going to sit this person down and tell them all the misses they’ve had or all the things that they’re doing that are frustrating me. Very few people actually get excited about it. So it feels very difficult, uncomfortable. And to what Greg was touching on there earlier is, it’s so helpful. I think to have the mindset going in of, Hey, this, giving feedback is one of the greatest gifts I can give this person. Because if I really do love honor and respect them, I want them to do as best they can.

I want them to live as full a life as possible. And you know what, some of what I might be seeing could be inhibiting that full potential. So if I want them to be happy and full here, let me give them some feedback. So that I think it’s important to roll in with the right mindset here when you’re approaching it. And then Greg, I’d be happy to give them a little tool around how I think you can actually deliver feedback.

Greg:

Absolutely.

Ben:

So the tool we developed, and I really love, is this idea of camera check feedback. And it’s this idea of giving feedback that a video camera or your phone could hear or see. And for camera check feedback, we have an acronym it’s, that I developed for camera check. So it’s C, chronology. Give the day and the time when you’re giving someone feedback. So in other words, Ben, today at the meeting, at the family meeting, this morning at the breakfast table.

Okay? So start with chronology. It’s important, so that Ben will then start dialing back cognitively to what happened this morning and has a better frame of reference to understand the behavior. Next, is A, so accuracy. You want to give the specific behavior, what you specifically saw that person do. Now, so many of us at times say things like, oh, you know, he’s just not paying attention to details, or, you know, Ben’s not considerate, or whatever the case may be. It’s not that helpful. You want to dig into the specifics of what you saw. So accuracy really matters in giving the feedback. So state a specific observation, what you saw. Ben, having breakfast today, you know, you were chewing with your mouth open, right? Be specific. Then M, in camera is meaning. Describe the impact of the bad behavior. What’s the impact of Ben chewing with his mouth open? Tell them the impact, because they might not know why that matters.

Hey Ben, you’re doing that. You know, you’re, it’s a bad kind of role model for kids when they’re seeing, and they’re going to start doing the same thing, and that’s not just good kind of manners when they get older. So that’s M. E is enhancement. Tell them how to improve. Don’t just tell them they’re, they’re chewing with their mouth open. Tell them how to improve, say, Hey, Ben, you know, next time, if you’ve had some, it sounds like you were kind of wanting to talk while you’re eating. Hey next time, finish chewing that bite. Then once you’ve kind of finished that bite, then share what you wanted to share that you were really excited about. And then R is a result. What’s the impact of that? That way, you know, everyone’s going to feel better. The girls are going to have a better kind of role model to follow around table manners. And then lastly is A, is give it at once, timely. Don’t wait to give feedback, you know, a month later when you’ve built up five or six things, you want to tell that person. Give them the feedback as you get it. So Greg that’s CAMERA and that’s how you can use it day in and day out.

Greg:

Yeah. That’s powerful, I heard you do that maybe a month or two ago, and I use it internally. And you know, I heard, I heard someone say that the difference between a good coach and a bad coach is like, a good coach— a bad coach is like, you know, to an offensive lineman, Get in the backfield, get in the backfield, get in the backfield! But a good coach tells you how to do it. You take a step and take out your right arm. They tell you step by step how to do it. I think the benefit of CAMERA is it not only allows you to give feedback, it allows you to be the good coach to give effective feedback. Because sometimes that why it’s not received well, right? So, because it’s not effective feedback. It’s just like, Hey, stop doing that, it gets on my nerves. Yeah. Well, I don’t care if chewing with my mouth open gets on your nerves, right? It’s not really taking it through CAMERA. So that’s powerful.

The other thing that’s interesting is, really powerful for people to do self-assessment. I really think part of being successful is being aware and self-aware, and they’re a little different. But, you know, self-assessments obviously very, very powerful also, but you know, feedback’s great, right? Some people like feedback as long as it’s positive, but if we really want to improve, we really need to get feedback. And so, can encourage everyone out there to give feedback and use CAMERA. So thank you so much.

Ben:

Absolutely. And I’ll just say, one other thing about, about feedback is, and you, you mentioned this is, not only give corrective feedback using CAMERA, but also give positive feedback using CAMERA. In other words, don’t just say, Hey, Ben you know, great job in that meeting today, or thanks for helping around the house. Be specific, say, Hey Ben, thanks for doing the dishes. This morning that helped me get the kids ready while you were cleaning up after breakfast. Really appreciate it. Be specific. They’re more likely to repeat that behavior when you tell them specifically what they did and what the impact of that was.

Greg:

Yeah. Two good friends of mine, Tom Bartow and Jason Selk. They do executive coaching, and they talk about self-assessment and sorry, guys, if I get the numbers wrong, but they say, Okay, every day, at the end of the day, you should say, okay, here’s three things I’ve done well today. Be specific. Here’s one thing that did not work that I messed up. And then, here’s one thing I’m going to change for tomorrow. I’m going to do better tomorrow. So and the reason it’s three to one, is to your point Ben, what you, what you dwell on you multiply, right? So there’s three of those and it’ll encourage you — first of all, it’s great for state of mind because you’re focusing on positives — and when you watch athletes, it is interesting, like, you know, if an athlete is being interviewed after a game. Here’s everything we did well. Here’s where we need to improve or something that didn’t work. So they do this naturally, but doing a self-assessment and really taking inventory of the things you do well puts you in a better state of mind, but also it makes sure you repeat those behaviors.

Thanks for listening. If you’d like to hear other subject matters that may be of interest to you. Please check us out at ConfluenceFP.com/podcasts.

Confluence Financial Partners — 5 Steps for Changing Your Life | Episode #19

Greg:

You are 42% more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down. Imagine that.

(SOURCE: inc.com, Dr. Gail Matthews at the Dominican University in California, 2015)

Hello and welcome to the Imagine That podcast. I’m your host, Greg Weimer, founder partner, and wealth manager at Confluence Financial Partners. Each month we’ll explore new ways to help you maximize your life and your legacy and meet some extraordinary people along the way. So if you’re looking to get more out of your life today and legacy tomorrow, let’s get started.

This is gonna be a great session because at the end of the session, the goal is we give you a couple things that you can do to just get better. The greatest thing one adult can do to another is cause them to think so, hopefully what we’re gonna do today is cause you to think, not only about your health, but also about setting goals, achieving goals, and getting better.

And at the end of the day, if we can help you improve your health just a little bit today, we’ve accomplished our goal. And to do that, I’m here with Eric Zalewski and, and I’ve known Eric, I just did the math. I’ve known Eric for 26 years, right? So, or yeah, 20 years, 25 years, something like that. We’ve known each other a long time. Actually Eric went to kindergarten, I think with, with, with my son Gregory. So how the world changes is amazing. And, and Eric is a, is a son of a great friend of mine, Billy Zalewski. So and many of you may know, Billy’s a great friend. So, and is Eric’s a trainer Eric’s personal trainer at St. Clair Country Club and, and he makes people better. And, and I go in there from time to time, like I go into Jezioro’s gym and I’m trying to get better.

And what I love about Eric is he brings it. Like if I come in there, he brings it every day and I’ve been amazed by the passion he has and how much he loves helping to people get better. And you not only bring it, you live it. So Eric, welcome. We’re looking forward to learning a couple things that we can all do to improve our health and maybe on setting goals. So, so I’m just gonna ask you, like, how do you bring it every day? Because like, are you really that fired up about watching people do like pushups and stuff?

Eric:

Well, first off, Greg, thank you so much for, for having me here today. Obviously humbled to be here. Some very impressive guests on this podcast, and I’m just a fitness guy at the end of the day. As you mentioned, I, I run the fitness center over at St. Clair Country Club. I also coach locally, high school hockey and I run their strength and conditioning program over there. So what’s really cool about what I do is I get to work with so many different kinds of people.

Greg:

Yeah, you do, right?

Eric:

All different kinds of people, right? Which is awesome. Which is challenging. Let me tell you none more challenging than this guy sitting across from me right now. He comes in, day number one. He says, all right, I need to be a GI Joe. I need to go GI Joe shape.

Greg:

It’s true. GI Joe. He said, what are you trying to accomplish? I said, I wanna be a GI Joe.

Eric:

GI Joe, right? So how can you not be fired up about that at the end of the day?

Greg:

Look, you failed miserably by the way, but go ahead.

Eric:

Well, we’re still in, it’s a work in progress and I’m sure everybody can sympathize with me that it is just that. But no, I mean, ultimately here and, and we talked a little bit about this is, you know, growing up, hockey was my life. Hockey was everything. And unfortunately that got cut short a little bit for me in high school due to injury. So once I’ve recovered from those injuries, for me, it was kinda like, okay, where do I take that competitive drive? Where do I take this energy? And for me, it was fitness at the time. Started doing it. Loved the way that, that it made me feel. Loved the way that I could learn something and instantly apply it to my own workouts. When I learned that I could study this in school and do this for a living, bam,

Greg:

Bam.

Eric:

I was all in. I was all in.

Greg:

It’s interesting. What happens is, I worry, don’t, don’t tune out! We’re not asking you to a bunch of exercise. We’re asking to get better. We’re gonna like, like you said, you work with all different types of people. So if you’re listening right now, we’re going to meet you where you are. We’re not gonna try to make you a professional hockey player. We’re gonna meet you where you are. And if at the end of this, you have a couple things you can do to improve your health, we all win.

If we get nothing else across to you, if, if, if you’re motivated, just go into a gym and say, I’d like to hire a trainer. If we end this podcast right now, and you do that — game changer. It’ll, it’ll change the game.

Eric:

And, and really to your point, it’s all about structure, right? And exercise is so individualized, at the end of the day. So what works for you may not necessarily work for me. So it’s important to get a professional out there and somebody that knows what they’re talking about, and knows you more, most importantly, and from there can structure a program, based off of your goals and your body and your time and all of those things should be considered.

Greg:

You know, there’s different types of investments you can make that, granted, by investing in, in businesses, through the stock market is a great investment. The best investment you can make is in yourself. So, so here is an investment guy saying the best investment you can make is in yourself, and go into, to get to someone like Eric with a personal trainer.

Eric has five steps. Five, right?

Eric:

Correct.

Greg:

Five steps. We go through these five steps. You know, you just follow these at the end of the day, you’re gonna be GI Joe. So I have obviously not followed ’em all, but, but, but here’s a problem with this. Easy to do, easy, not to do. Think about that. Easy to do, easy not to do. So, it is easy for you to walk into the gym and hire a trainer. It is also easy not to do it today. And say, okay, I’m gonna do it another day, you know? So it’s easy to do, easy not to do. So now let’s go through the five steps that you would take that if you really wanted to make an impact or change in your life. Step one.

Eric:

Let’s do it. Step number one, we need to identify what needs to change, okay? So the example that we’re gonna use for the, you know, case of this podcast is going to be lose weight.

Greg:

Lose weight.

Eric:

Okay? Simple enough.

Greg:

So simple enough. Go. So lose weight.

Eric:

Lose weight. Okay. So I’m identifying it. Hey, I’m overweight. Dr. has said, I’m overweight. My clothes don’t fit the way I like ’em to fit. I need to lose weight. Okay. That’s step one. Just coming to that realization of, it’s time to make that change.

Greg:

Can I add to that?

Eric:

Yeah.

Greg:

Why? So like that’s I think that like, I think in your heart, I think that’s exactly right. You need to understand if you don’t know what you’re shooting for, you’re not gonna get it. Right. You gotta, you gotta say like, I wanna lose weight. But you gotta say like, why? Why? I’ll tell you my why. I wanna watch my granddaughters dance at their wedding. We were at the gym, I don’t know if you remember, and a cardiologist was there with us. And he said all my, all of my, all of my patients over 90 have one thing in in common, they all work out. And so I just think about my granddaughter who I love dearly. And soon to be my grandson, but I, I love ’em dearly. I wanna be at their wedding when I work out. And if that means I’m gonna lose weight, I want to lose weight. So that’s my why. That shouldn’t be, some, maybe it’s because whatever, but it’s really your why.

Eric:

Right. At the end of the day, this is only gonna work if you understand your why, and if you’re committed to it.

Greg:

Fired up.

Eric:

And if you understand why, you will be committed.

Greg:

You will be committed.

Eric:

At the end of the day.

Greg:

Two.

Eric:

Step number two — in order, it’s great, okay, we’ve identified we needed to make a change, step one. That’s fantastic. But now it’s time to set what is. A quantifiable goal. Okay. So let’s put some numbers to it. So, okay, we’ve identified that, that it’s we wanna lose some weight here. Let’s, let’s say in the upcoming year I wanna lose 20 pounds. Okay?

Greg:

A year.

Eric:

I’m gonna lose 20 pounds in the next year.

Greg:

Is it possible?

Eric:

Okay. Of course. It’s possible. Anything’s possible. Okay. However, what’s important about goals. Okay? That’s more of a longer-term goal. If we look at a year, ah, it’s a long time. Right?

Greg:

Got it.

Eric:

So we gotta break this thing up into segments. So what if I said, instead I’m gonna lose five pounds every three months. And over the course of the year, simple math will get you 20. Right? So setting short-term and long-term goals, putting numbers to it. Right. Cause just saying, I wanna lose weight. What does that mean? Right. Put numbers to it and then also important to write down those goals.

Greg:

So, yeah. So it’s interesting how fitness goals correlate with personal goals. So, so in our firm, next Friday, we do this every six months, we will have all of our associates together. We’ll, we’ll create and, and repeat and focus on where we want to bring the organization to benefit clients. We will then say here’s what we want to do over the next quarter. And, and we’ll get into like the other stuff. We, we hold each other accountable, et cetera, but we will have three goals. Each that we’re trying to do over the next quarter. It brings us closer to our 10-year vision. And all of a sudden, you’ll, you know, you keep doing that every quarter and you get to your 20 pounds, right? If we keep doing that every quarter and we have our quarterly goals, which we, which are quantifiable on things we’re trying to do to help clients, it, whether it’s health or fitness, quarterly seems like the magical, that seems like the magical number. And you can make, so, so you can make a difference in 90 days in health.

Eric:

Of course you can, of course, you can make a difference right away. Right? But it’s just a matter of sticking to it. And, and we’ll continue on that path here as we move forward in these five steps, but it starts with being quantifiable with that goal. And again, if you look at a longer-term plan in a vacuum, you know, it’s gonna be hard to hold yourself accountable to that. Cause that’s never gonna get here, so far down the road.

Greg:

It can be.

Eric:

But when you split that up and you can see the finish line from the starting line, boom.

Greg:

It’s better. Right. Instead of a marathon with no end line, it’s just like, I’m gonna lose, I’m gonna just, I’m gonna lose weight forever. It’s a series of sprints. So you’re like, okay, I’m gonna do a 90-day sprint. The first quarter, second quarter, whatever your thing is, the next 90 days, I’m gonna do a sprint. And here’s my quantifiable goal. Right? And by the way, when I’m functioning at a high, at my highest level, but then we don’t always function at our highest level, I take those quarterly quantifiable goals and I put ’em on index cards and I usually have three to five and I put ’em around my mirror in my bathroom. So I look at ’em every day. And I put ’em on my notebook, on my iPad every day. And I’m looking at those quantifiable goals and I’m trying to accomplish every single day. And that leads to an intentional life. And part of the intention, if, if it’s your lose weight, right? You get, take this, you, you, you’re saying, we’re saying, we’re agreeing — you can make a difference in 90 days. So the question is if that quantifiable goal’s important to you because of your why, is 90 days worth your health?

Eric:

And the answer to that we all hope is yes.

Greg:

I hope so. You just gotta, yeah. So that, so what’s the next thing we need to do?

Eric:

Okay. So then we’ll move right on to step three.

Greg:

Boom. Let’s go.

Eric:

Okay. So we have identified what needs to change. We’ve set that quantifiable goal. Step number three. It’s time to create a plan of action. How are we gonna get there? Okay. So for example, here, we wanna lose weight. We’ve identified here that we wanna lose 20 pounds in a year. We wanna lose five pounds every three months. That’s great. How do we get there? Maybe for example, that it’s going out, like you said, Greg, hire a trainer, step one, right? Find somebody that’s gonna hold you accountable. Find somebody that’s gonna approach this in a way that’s very structured, in a way that makes sense for you. That’s a great place to start, but of course you gotta figure out other things within that. Okay. Where am I going to find the time in a given week?

Let’s say I want to exercise three times a week. Well, where is that time gonna come from? Right? So now you have to start to look at your schedule and we have a great quote, Greg, you and I talked about this. It says that you don’t want to prioritize your schedule. You wanna schedule your priorities. I’ll say that again. Don’t prioritize your schedule, but schedule your priorities. So if this goal, this change in your life is such a big deal. We would say it’s a priority. It’s important that from there, you start to schedule that accordingly. Treat it like a priority in your life.

Greg:

So, so as you’re, you’re saying that, I couldn’t agree more. And, and, and this is where I fail, right? So like this, I say it’s a priority, but, but I book over it. I, I just like, I haven’t seen Frank in a couple weeks. I‘ve seen, I’ve seen you one time in the last couple weeks. I book over it. I, I just, it’s it. I say it’s a priority, but, but I, but I book over it. And so, and it’s a challenge. And so the plan, so let’s assume it’s, let’s assume four hours would be a lot to work out in a week. Yeah? I mean, four, four hours. It could be four one-hour sets. I mean, that’s a lot. Right? So four hours.

Eric:

For most.

Greg:

For most, that’s a lot, I mean, but that, but you could get results with four hours.

Eric:

Of course.

Greg:

Yeah. I just looked, it’s 2% of the week. You’re gonna tell me you care about yourself, but you’re not gonna — and Greg, you’re like, like, you wanna be around for your grandchildren. And, and if I were, you I’d call like BS on that. It’s like you say you want to be dancing with your grandchildren, but you’re not willing to commit 2% of your week to really caring about that. Right. So, so having the plan is really important, but what’s the next step on making sure that it works?

Eric:

Well, it’s execution of that plan, Greg.

Greg:

There it is.

Eric:

Right? So now it’s time to, it’s great to, to write down how you’re gonna get there, but it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t do it.

Greg:

With you and Frank, what do I do? I text ‘healthy scratch.’.

Eric:

Right.

Greg:

Cause I’m not, I didn’t get outta the business. I didn’t get outta the office.

Eric:

And I think you’re being a little hard on yourself, to be fair. But yeah. I mean, you’ve definitely found yourself on the physically unable to perform list a couple of times here recently, but nonetheless, so it’s about executing that plan, right? So, hey, if you’re persistent, you’ll get it. If you’re consistent, you’ll keep it. You have to be persistent and consistent when it comes to execution, at the end of the day.

Greg:

What helps you? What helps you get better at that?

Eric:

Well, I think for me personally, you reset after every single day, you know, it’s great. What I did yesterday was great. Okay? But it doesn’t mean anything if I don’t do it today, if I don’t follow that up today. So for me, it’s that mental reset at the start of every day. What can I do today to become better than yesterday? And what can I do tomorrow to become better than today? That’s another quote that I like to live by. But at the end of the day, it’s that mental reset and bringing it, staying committed every day. And Greg, not every day is gonna be sunshine and rainbows. Not every day is super easy. There might be a day or two that gets away from you. What’s important in all of this is to remember that’s gonna happen. And that’s okay. But over the course of time, if you’re persistent and you’re consistent in that execution, if you bounce back strong, after a tough day, over the course of time, those results and that change will happen.

Greg:

The likelihood of you executing, if you write it down, there’s levels, right? If I say to myself, Greg, I should work out today. There’s a chance I’m gonna do it. If I tell Eric, Eric, I’m gonna work out today, there’s a chance, there’s a greater chance I’ll do it. Cuz I’ve, I’ve shared it with someone else that I now have to live by my word. If, if I, if I say to Eric, meet me at the bottom of my driveway, let’s go do a run. Now, all of a sudden, my, my likelihood of doing it goes through the roof because I have someone to be accountable to. So like in our quarterly goal sessions that we’re doing on behalf of the clients, we have accountability partners where, where it’s like, okay, here’s the things I say I’m gonna do in the business to make sure our business is strong for our clients, for generations. Here’s the things I’m gonna say, I’m gonna do this quarter. And then what we do is we make sure, A, it’s top of mind. So on top of every day’s to-do, are your, are your goals. On top of every day’s to-dos. So you’re living intentionally every day. So it’s on top of your page. And then also we’re, we’re holding each other accountable. One of the greatest things about having a trainer is when I say I’ll be there tomorrow at 11, doesn’t always happen. But if I say I’m gonna be there tomorrow at 11 it’s 90% chance I’m gonna be there instead of 10. So, right? I mean, so it goes through the roof.

Eric:

Right and honestly, even coming back to the accountability, find a friend, you know, or, or find a family member, find somebody that has a similar goal as you and get in this thing together, right? At the end of the day, you know, accountability can make all the difference in the world. If we’re in this thing alone, it makes it tough. Right. It makes it super tough. So finding somebody that has similar goals, similar interests as you, can definitely help in the process of execution.

Greg:

Totally agree. Next step

Eric:

Fifth and final.

Greg:

Here we go.

Eric:

Two-part plan, or two-part step here, revise and progress. Okay. Revise and progress. Okay. So what does that mean? Let’s start with revise, right? Whether you’re successful or unsuccessful in your goal, there’s always gonna be an element of revision that’s necessary. Okay? So let’s say you’re not successful. Let’s say I wanted to lose 20 pounds in a year. We’re six months into that, I’m down only five pounds. I was hoping to be down 10. All right, so let’s go back to that plan of action. Okay. First off, am I doing everything that I planned to do? Am I exercising three times a week?

Greg:

How much did they want to lose?

Eric:

Right. They wanted to lose 20 pounds in a year.

Greg:

And they lost what?

Eric:

They lost five pounds in six months. Right. It’s not over. Right. But why aren’t we on pace? What is it that we need to do in order here to get back on track? So revisiting that plan of action. Am I doing everything I said I was gonna do? If I am, what needs to change then in order for me to have a little bit more success, right? Do I need to set aside more time to exercise?

Greg:

Right.

Eric:

Should I be doing a different type of exercise? You know, am I watching what I’m eating when I’m drinking, stuff like that? But there’s constant revision, there’s constant analysis of the plan when things aren’t going well. And Greg, if things are going well, that’s fantastic. Okay. However, we’re not in this thing just for a, for a one-year, trade off, lose 20 pounds. Great. What happens if I stop? Comes right back, right? So the beauty of success is that it’s two things. One, I feel success is contagious. Right? You get through that year; you lose 20 pounds. Success is contagious, right? Like you wanna do more. Right. What’s the next thing?

Greg:

And, and as horrible as this is. And it’s so egotistical, but it’s humans. Once you start to see results, like, like when you said 5 versus 20, I’ve trained myself. You know what I heard? God bless, they lost five. Do you know what I mean?

Eric:

Right, and to your point, it’s about celebrating the little victories and that’s important here for sustainability. Right. And change. Like, you should be pumped up if you’re on the right track, if you’re trending in the right direction. That’s awesome. Right. Keep it going. Like you’re doing a lot of things right if that’s the case, right. Especially in this example I provided, but the second part that I was gonna say about success is it’s not only contagious, but it’s encouraging, right. At the end of the day, like you have some success, like, you know, you’re fired up.

Greg:

Yeah.

Eric:

You’re fired up. Right.

Greg:

By the way, you could work out like one day and say, I feel so much better. Right? It’s just, it’s a little bit, I just feel better. It’s like, yeah. It’s about energy. Yeah.

Eric:

Right. And we could spend all day talking about the physical and mental benefits of exercise. Right. There’s too many reasons to not do it.

Greg:

Right.

Eric:

But at the end of the day, yeah, I mean, finding, finding something that works for you is ultimately what’s most important. And at the end of all of this, you know, we’re talking about making changes in your life, fitness, health, anything that you wanna make a change to — it’s about a lifestyle, right? So it’s not just a short-term goal and it’s not just a long-term goal. It’s a daily commitment, right? And this is a long journey. But if you focus in on each and every day, it becomes your lifestyle. It becomes what you do.

Greg:

Do me a favor. Let’s recap the five steps because it’s really important that people put these in their brains. I know it’s simple, but you know, getting, getting better and have to be complicated. So the, the five steps are, go!

Eric:

Right. Very simple here. Five steps to make a change in your life.

Number one, identify what needs to change.

Number two, set a quantifiable goal.

Number three, create a plan of action.

Number four, execute that plan of action.

And number five, you’re constantly revising and progressing at the end of the day.

So and, and just to touch on one thing that you said there, Greg, we live in a watching world. People are watching what you do. We need people out there leading by example. And that’s what it comes back to. If you need to make a change in your life, fitness-related or non-fitness related, if it makes you a better person, in all likelihood, it makes everybody around you better, right? A rising tide lifts all boats. And that’s really what this is all about here today.

Greg:

And here’s, here’s just one last thing I would add. If you’re in a rut, change your state. You gotta change your state. So like, if, if, if right now you’re listening to this and whatever’s going on and you’re like not feeling you’re in the moment.

Get down to 10 pushups. Listen to loud music. Put some hot, put some, put some cold water on your face. Whatever that is, you can change your temperature. You can do whatever you gotta change your state. And then when you change your state, then you may, then you go through Eric’s process. If, if state, if, if all you had to do is go buy the new exercise piece of equipment, everybody that ever bought a Peloton would be in shape. You’ve gotta keep the right state and so change your state.

And then I would really encourage you to go through those steps that Eric went through and not make it about Eric’s example, make it about you. And if we’re able to do that and, and people, I don’t know, if five people that listen to this improve their health, we had a hell of a morning talking, right? If just five people, but let’s make it more than five people, cuz the results are the, the, it’s too important not to, right? I mean the, the ramifications are too great not to do this. And then at the end of the day, let’s ask the question is your health worth 1 to 2% of your time a week? And if it is, you’ll have the opportunity potentially to dance at your granddaughter’s wedding and that’s all worth it. Eric, we really appreciate it. We appreciate the passion you bring every day.

Eric:

Well, Greg, thank you very much for having me here. This was a lot of fun. We, and I’m gonna say we’ll be in GI Joe shape maybe by Christmas of 2023.

Greg:

If not, maybe, who else could we be? We’ll pick someone else maybe that’s a little more realistic. We’ll see. All right, thanks Eric.

Eric:

Thank you.

Greg:

Thank you for listening to the, imagine that podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode and welcome you to reach out to Confluence Financial Partners with your questions and comments. If you’d like to hear more episodes, head over to confluencefp.com/podcasts, or find us wherever you get your podcasts.

Confluence Financial Partners — Wake Up to Gratitude | Episode #18

Greg: Hello and welcome to the “Imagine That” Podcast. I’m your host, Greg Weimer, Founder, Partner, and Wealth Manager at Confluence Financial Partners. Each month, we’ll explore new ways to help you maximize your life and your legacy and meet some extraordinary people along the way. So if you’re looking to get more out of your life today and legacy tomorrow, let’s get started.

Today’s a little bit of a different conversation, but it’s an important conversation we need to have. To introduce our conversation, I’ll just start with a quote. “Gratitude, Like faith, is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it grows.”

That’s our goal today, by the way, to grow our muscle of gratitude. And that quote comes from Alan Cohen, who’s a very successful businessperson, but gratitude is powerful. And there’s some studies that go about how powerful gratitude is. So this Thanksgiving, let’s wake up to gratitude. We all say we’re grateful. And we say, thank you. And thank you sometimes can just be, you know, just be a throwaway line. Hey, thanks. No, no, no. Let’s not say it. This Thanksgiving let’s not say thank you from our heads. Let’s say it from our hearts. And when you really look at the benefits of gratitude, it’s amazing what it can do to the human body.

You know, America this year, and the last couple of years have had so much anxiety. And it’s been proven by the way that if you are grateful, it is very, very difficult to be grateful and anxious at the same time. Let’s be grateful. It’ll, it’ll, it’ll help with the anxiety I think of the world.

So let me just share with you a statistic that is amazing. Practicing gratitude has been shown to improve sleep, boost, immunity, decrease risk of disease. Imagine that. Like, it really does have an effect on people. And like, when you look at some of the research, there were two psychologists and I, and I know this is getting a little deep into gratitude, but there’s science behind it. And then we have so much to be grateful for, I’ll talk about that, but there was a Dr. Emmons and then doctor— they had three groups, one group wrote about gratitude. The second group wrote about irritations. And then the third group wrote about activities that happen in life with no emotion. And it is amazing what they found. They found that after 10 weeks, the people that wrote about gratitude were more optimistic, felt better, happier, had fewer visits to the doctors.

So anyhow, this episode is about gratitude. Gratitude is powerful. What you dwell on, you multiply. What you dwell on, you multiply. So here’s some things that I just want to share that that could help you have more gratitude from your heart in our lives. Here’s just some exercises that we could maybe practice together to become even more grateful. One, and this is easy. A lot of listeners probably already doing this, but a question. Do you write down something that you’re grateful for every day? On my to-dos like at the bottom of the page, I just put like something I’m grateful for. And it doesn’t need to be world peace.

It could be air conditioning. I don’t know. It could be heat. It could be the food that we are able to eat. Write down something that you’re grateful for. My daughter, Morgan, she gave me a jar and I could write down like something I was grateful for all the time. Now, you know, if you have kids, make sure you have, when you die, they read it. So, you know, you got to say something like nice about every kid. But it was awesome. At first, I’m like, I got it for Christmas. I think she gave it for me for Christmas. I’m like, that’s cool. I’ll write down whatever. But it’s cool. I look at that jar and every time I look at that jar, I’m grateful because I realize every day, I wrote down something that I was grateful for. You know, there’s also studies that if you write a letter, write a letter of gratitude, maybe, maybe that’s your to do from this.

Maybe you’ve been meaning to tell your mom how much you love her. And just imagine, if you’re a parent, how great it would be if one of your children wrote you a letter. Why not be that child? Why not write that letter to your child or to your parents and write the letter? And hopefully that will be wonderful for them. My guess is though it would also be wonderful for you to let someone know how much you really are appreciative of them. This is something we stumbled on last week in my office. And that is, I’m going to give you a gratitude awareness challenge. So I was sitting in my office, and I thought, okay, let me just look around the room and actually be present, right? So I’m in my office all the time. But am I present to gratitude? So it was a form of meditation for me.

I started looking around the room and realizing how much we have to be grateful for. So this is a glimpse into also gratitude and how, how fortunate I feel for so many of the relationships. Let me give you an example. I have a lot of pictures of my office. And I’ve looked at those pictures so often, I don’t know that I see them.

And that day I looked at them and I saw them. And I saw my kids, my wife, my family, I see these pictures. I don’t even look at them. I see them. And I feel them. And it was awesome. I was just so grateful. And now I’ll tell you, every time I look at those pictures, I just look at them in a different way. I looked at my computer and I thought we are fortunate to be able to work with the clients we have.

We have awesome clients. Many are great friends, just great clients. We don’t take that for granted. They could work anywhere and, and clients choose to work with us. We’re grateful for that. I’ll tell you another thing I looked at, I looked at the Mickey Mouse picture. We have, I have a Mickey Mouse picture in my office, and I thought, it just took me right back to when we were all, our team was in Vegas, and I was walking down the road and I saw a Mickey Mouse picture and we bought it. And it just reminded me how grateful I was, not only for that interaction that we had in Vegas, but also for the team. And they mean the world to us.

And we’re so fortunate to have that, but this all came alive. I looked at, I have a hammer. My Pappy was a carpenter. And so I, when, when he passed away, I got his hammer. This was in the eighties. I got his hammer and I got it bronzed and his fingerprints on the handle of the hammer. So it just made me so thankful for my Nonna and my Pappy. And they really gave our family work ethic. And I’d looked at that, I’ve looked at that hammer since the 1980s. And I’m telling you, when I woke up to gratitude by doing that little meditation, it came alive. I participated in a charity event called Folds of Honor. And I have a little memento from the charity event, the Folds of Honor, and, you know, Folds of Honor, for fallen heroes and military. And we have our freedom because people have given their lives. And when you think about that, it’s powerful.

And if we can’t be grateful for that and thankful, and honor those people, shame on us! And it really woke me up. And I felt that. I’ve always cared about — I felt it that day. And so, you know, last thing, I saw my kids and wife, they did it when I turned 50, like, you know, 50 Things We Like About Dad thing. And I, and I actually read it and I looked at it and I thought, man, I look at that every day and I don’t feel it. So my challenge to everybody is, there’s real benefits to you and to your health and to your happiness and to your mental health if you feel gratitude. And this holiday season, this Thanksgiving, let’s take gratitude to the next level. And it may be just writing a to-do every day of something you’re thankful for. It may be send a letter to say thank you to someone. It could be wake yourself up to gratitude.

By the way I did this. I’m like, does that really work? I was wondering. Like, was that just a weird day in my office? No, I did it early this morning, sitting in my family room. Which is just couches and a TV. I won’t take you through the whole room again, but it happened again! It happened again! And I’ll never walk in that TV room, the family room in our house, I’ll never walk in there the same again. Cause I sat there at 5:30 this morning and I did the gratitude challenge. And man, that room came alive. So many of you will be with loved ones this year. Many of you will be with family, thank goodness, we’re allowed to be with family again. But do the gratitude challenge and just wake yourself up to gratitude. And I promise you what you’re going to find: it’s 100% all around you.

Thank you so much for listening and from our Confluence family, we wanted to tell your family and make sure we express our gratitude to all of you. Happy Thanksgiving.

Thank you for listening to the “Imagine That” Podcast. We hope you enjoy this episode and welcome you to reach out to Confluence Financial Partners with your questions and comments. If you’d like to hear more episodes, head over to ConfluenceFP.com/podcasts or find us wherever you get your podcasts.

Confluence Financial Partners — Meet Jonny Hartwell | Episode #17

Greg:

Radio reaches 92% of the U.S. Population weekly, compared to 88% for television1. Imagine that.

Greg:

So today we have Jonny Hartwell with us, and if you want to hear authenticity and the importance of being authentic, you should listen. If you want to hear about how to change and evolve in a rapidly changing industry like radio, when you think about how much radio has changed in the last 20 years, and Jonny has been part of it and continues to strive and evolve and excel in, in a very, very rapidly changing industry, you should listen in. And if those two things don’t excite you, you know what? Just listen to Jonny and be entertained because it’s a fun, he’s just fun. It’s fun to hear it, listening to the stories. So please enjoy the episode today. This is hard for me,

Jonny:

Why?

Greg:

Because you’re like, because you’re like, this is what you do. This is my thing. And I’m so nervous.

Jonny:

I’ve never been interviewed before.

Greg:

I do this once a month. I mean, this is like, this is weird for me. And that’s the way, the way this works.

Jonny:

Okay.

Greg:

Jonny interviewed me and it was, you did such a nice job. Great questions carried me along. So now I’m interviewing Jonny Hartwell.

Jonny:

And, and I’m going to screw things completely up.

Greg:

Oh yeah, I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about you messing up.

Jonny:

Oh yeah, absolutely. That’s where it’s going to go. You’re totally off the tracks now.

Greg:

You’re like a pro. So we’ll try. So help me out.

Jonny:

Well, that’s kind of funny that you say that because to me, it’s just, just talking, it’s just having a conversation.

Greg:

Yeah. We were just hanging out for the last half hour. They should have just recorded that. That was fun.

Jonny:

That was fun.

Greg:

It was fun. Yeah. So, but for those of you that don’t know, Jonny, Jonny has been in the radio business since,

Jonny:

Since the earth was cooling.

Greg:

That’s what I’m thinking. I was trying to figure out a nice way to say that. 1983.

Jonny:

Yeah. That’s when I started in college radio and then progressed to, you know, you know, a full-time job in, you know, 1988 and then landed in Pittsburgh in ’96. So I’ve been here for 25 years.

Greg:

In ’96, you started with?

Jonny:

B94.

Greg:

B94!

Jonny:

Well, I was on briefly for Magic Y97 in Braddock for a period. And then I moved to Youngstown, Ohio, and then I’ve, I’ve worked Myrtle Beach and LA and all points in between. Disc jockeys don’t die. We just get bigger—

Greg:

Oh, here’s the, here’s the best.

Jonny:

Okay.

Greg:

So I’m like, okay, so what’s your real name?

Jonny:

Jonny.

Greg:

It’s Jonny.

Jonny:

Jonny Hartwell.

Greg:

So like, I thought it was, so I’m only Googling the top DJ names, thinking like Jonny Hartwell will come up this morning. So I’m having my coffee. I’m like, okay, this can’t be real. He’s like, what is his name? It can’t be Jonny Hartwell.

Jonny:

It is Jonny.

Greg:

Jonny Hartwell iHeartRadio.

Jonny:

Yep. So I was named after Johnny Cash and I, my parents were big Johnny Cash fans. My real name is Jon, J-O-N but I — well, this jockey in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina said, you know, what name do you want to come up with? And I’m like, I don’t know. And he goes, ah, how about Trapper, John? I went, oh, okay. And I use Trapper John for the first break. And he was like, nah, no, no, you’re Jonny, Jonny Hartwell. And that was the only time. I mean, here’s something ridiculous. What I started with B94, we had this meeting to discuss if I was going to use a fake name and they ping ponged different names and they were going to call me Spank. And I’m thinking, oh, no, no, no, no, no. Here’s a guy who’s married, has three kids. Don’t call me spank. And so—

Greg:

I so want to call you Spank now.

Jonny:

Please don’t.

Greg:

Wait, wait, wait, one more name. What in the world is Jonny Palooza?

Jonny:

Wow. So where’d you come up with that?

Greg:

I just did. I get paid to know.

Jonny:

No, you gotta tell me.

Greg:

I got to get paid to know. All right. So let me, I’m gonna help you. It’s called Google.

Jonny:

Oh, okay. All right. Well when I worked for CBS radio we sponsored Kid-a-Palooza, right? And we expected about 50 people to show up. And 5,000 people showed up. And we didn’t have any prizes. We didn’t have any games. And I had this thing called the magic strings and I would, I would get these kids together and I would do these little magic tricks. And just to keep people occupied till the staff was able to come down with prizes and they’re like, oh, thank God, Jonny Palooza’s here. He took care. Also when it comes to, there, it’s funny, disc jockeys generally are you think of them as gregarious, outspoken kind of people. But a lot of us are very shy.

Greg:

I was going to ask you that, you know, Johnny Carson was right. So a lot of folks that are entertainers are shy. So you actually would consider yourself an introvert?

Jonny:

No, I’m not. I’m not your typical. No, I love, I like my embarrassment gene was severed as a child. And so when, when I would do live appearances, I would bring out the fun and games and laugh and carry on. And, and so whenever somebody said, Hey, you know, who do you want to do the remote? They go, hey, give it to Jonny Palooza. He, you know, it was actually, it was a bit of an insult because, you know, this guy just he’s so full of themselves. I just love entertaining people face to face.

Greg:

Yeah, but even people that love entertaining others. Like I’m more of an introvert, but even people that love entertaining others and being around people. I know!

Jonny:

Really? You?

Greg:

True. Yeah. True. So, you know, and I, I’ve heard introverts to be like, well, where do you go to get your energy? So if you, if you need to be alone to just like recharge, that means you’re more of an introvert. You know, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be entertaining and fun and be with people. It just means you have to recharge your battery. And you don’t recharge your battery by being around 10 people, you do it by like, you know, just like chilling a little bit, you know, just like chill a little bit. So yeah, I’m actually an introvert.

Jonny:

But my experience with you is that you, you are, you have fun. You’re energetic. So you, you must have a lot of down time.

Greg:

I don’t, I don’t need that much. I’m kind of like a lab — I either go or I sleep, there’s no in between. So, so what I, one of the reasons I also wanted to talk to you is, when you think about radio from when you started in 1983 to today. I mean, and by the way, you and I were talking about earlier that radio, especially in Pittsburgh, I grew up in Johnstown. It, it, it, it’s my childhood. Like I think of WCRO and then Glue 92. And like, and then when I first started the business, one of my tasks was I would get on: This is Greg with WVSC in Somerset with a stock market report, you know? And then I would give like the stock market and what it did. And now people look on their phone and they know instantaneously. And there’s satellite radio and, and, and, you know, going from when my, I used to sit on the porch with my Pappy and listen to the Pirate games, you know, it, it it’s changed so much. I can’t think of any other industry really off the top of my head that has had such change. How’s that affected you? How’s that affected, you know, the profitability and the listenership and radio.

Jonny:

Well, believe it or not. You know, because of iHeartRadio, we have almost a thousand radio stations from coast to coast. We interact with more people on a daily basis in the United States than Google does globally.

Greg:

Come on!

Jonny:

I’m not kidding. This is, people underestimate the reach of radio, but when it comes to Pittsburgh, I’ve always said Pittsburgh was the first radio market. It will be its last! Because radio is such an integral part of people’s lives here in Pittsburgh. Now I’m not saying I’m not going to discount the other media in, in certain, you know, satellite radio, you mentioned. The thing is satellite radio is a very expensive, you put a rocket into space and maintain it, that costs billions of dollars. And I don’t know what satellite’s going to do once Howard Stern retires. But—

Greg:

Why is he such a great interviewer? Because he is, right?

Jonny:

He is, he’s fantastic, he’s the best.

Greg:

What makes him great?

Jonny:

I’m not really crazy about his, the sophomoric humor.

Greg:

I get it, but when it comes to the interview, he does an interview. It’s like, it’s a great interview.

Jonny:

But with, with radio, we have maintained locality. And when, when, let’s talk newspapers. You’re a stock guy. When’s the last time you consulted the newspaper for stocks?

Greg:

Uh-huh. No. I, I mean, you know, it’s, it’s, we could be way more selective how, and when we consume information. So, so now, instead of reading the Wall Street Journal from, I will search the topic and then the source. So, I first go to the topic and then wherever that source is, Wall Street Journal, rather, that’s where I find it. So it’s a little different,

Jonny:

Right.

Greg:

So wait, let me just say I just, I, they gave me this statistic, which to support what you’re saying, I’m going to you, I’m not going to kill you with stats, but not, it says the average American spends 99 minutes a day, listening to the radio2. And just to support that, whoever’s listening right now, think about, okay, wait a minute. Have I listened to the radio today? And I have.

Jonny:

It’s changed in that. It’s, it’s mainly in cars and vehicles and things like that. You know, we used to have one of those big radios and you’d listen to at home. That generally doesn’t happen with the iHeartRadio, you can listen to anywhere. But okay. Let me ask you just on top of your head and I don’t want to—

Greg:

3WS, what’s the question.

Jonny:

All right. So the, when I open up my microphone, how many people do you think I’m talking to on a daily basis?

Greg:

Gosh, I would have no idea. I almost asked you that before. So, so 200,000?

Jonny:

Double that. About 400,000. Every time I opened up the mic, I’m talking to 400,000 people. And I start thinking about that, that kinda freaks you out. But, but a lot of people don’t realize that, that, you know, they aren’t listening for, oh boy, if they’d listen for 90 minutes, I’d be rich. 3WS is a music-oriented radio station though, so they don’t listen to that. But when you know, Pittsburghers, when the Steeler games on, they listen to the radio — big numbers. Now, when we play Christmas music, Ooh, that’s 600,000.

Greg:

You starting like next week, right?

Jonny:

Yeah, we are.

Greg:

Katie, Katie, Katie works with us in the room. She’s already started by the way, if you, regardless when you’re listening to this, it’s a, it’s August, but Katie’s listening to Christmas music—

Jonny:

Here’s a, do you know why we play Christmas music early?

Greg:

No. Why?

Jonny:

It’s because, well, first of all, you know, the first week, the ratings actually take a dip and then they skyrocket, but our ratings end like December 5th. So if we want to get a bounce in the ratings playing Christmas music, we gotta play it earlier.

Greg:

December 12th doesn’t help so much.

Jonny:

No it doesn’t. It really doesn’t.

Greg:

So let me ask you this. You’ve seen so much, it’s been since 1983, and one of the things that to have a successful and happy life, you have to evolve and, and life throws you curve balls, and you got to change and radio changes, and you got to change. What are some of the things that you’ve had to do professionally to allow you to change and adapt — and maybe it’s even your brand? Or is it the same brand?

Jonny:

Okay. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll give you an insight on the Jonny Hartwell program. You talked about, Hey I don’t do news. If you want news, you get that on your, on, you know, whatever news app you have on your phone sports scores, you know, the ratings for ESPN have plummeted because I can get the Pirate score anytime, all the time, and it can even be sent to me?

Greg:

Isn’t it amazing television, how little sports they have on the local news?

Jonny:

Cause they don’t need to; everybody knows the score way before the broadcast even happens. The way I looked at my show even 10 years ago when I first started at 3WS is like I’m gonna, I’m gonna do some Hollywood reports, but it’s going to be not controversial, but a little bit of commentary and say, you know, Hey Kim Kardashian, Kanye — make kind of make fun of that situation.

Greg:

Easy to do.

Jonny:

And so that I have a little bit of that. I want to do music news because you know, it’s a music driven radio station. The 3WS also has a history of 75 years of playing music. And so I want to be able to touch in, you know, people who listen to 3WS is very in tune with music from the fifties and sixties, even though we don’t play a lot of that anymore.

Jonny:

And there, I, I don’t avoid talking about music news of, of even current music, like Elton John has a current hit, now in the top 40. So I’m.

Greg:

Really good.

Jonny:

Yeah, it is really good. I agree.

Greg:

Yeah.

Jonny:

But, but that’s some of it, but my whole show is, before the break is, I’ve got a secret, Greg, I have a, I have a secret, I have a trivia question. I have a who-sings-it. And if you want to know the answer, you have to stay through the commercial break. It’s, it’s not, I’m not reinventing the wheel.

Greg:

The hook.

Jonny:

This is Casey Kasem, Casey Kasem did it for 40 years.

Greg:

What’s it called? Tease or hook, whatever you guys call it, whatever you guys call it. Yeah. It

Jonny:

Just keeps people listening. So if I do a trivia question, you know there’s only eight of these in America, all of them are in the Baltimore area. What is it? What is it?

Greg:

Eight … Baltimore.

Jonny:

There’s eight of these. And they’re only in the Baltimore area. Male cheerleaders. For the Ravens. And so if, if you want it, if you want to know the answer,

Greg:

I was so close to saying something. I was so close.

Jonny:

I was a male cheerleader.

Greg:

Given. So you take, you take 3WS, over a period of time, right? Right. Success leaves clues in any industry success leaves clues. So you take 3WS from number 11 in the market, is that true?

Jonny:

In the morning tonight.

Greg:

Yeah, in the morning. To number one.

Jonny:

In some months, in some instances, yeah, we’re number one.

Greg:

Yeah. It’s still it’s. It’s, it’s good. I mean, it’s and success leaves clues. What do you think if you could help the audience if you’re trying to be successful? And here’s some of the things we did that really allowed us to grow on the market.

Jonny:

Well, first of all, Pittsburghers can under, they can detect if you’re from out of town.

Greg:

For sure.

Jonny:

And if you’re not, if you’re not a Pittsburgher, they’re not going to embrace you. I’m Pittsburgh to the bone. I mean, even when I worked in in South Carolina, you know, I would say, you know, get aht!

Greg:

Get out.

Jonny:

Earlier, you went, yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah.

Greg:

Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah, I got it, I got it.

Jonny:

I, I in South Carolina, Myrtle Beach is in the county of H-O-R-R-Y, pronounce it. H-O-R-R-Y. How would you pronounce it?

Greg:

I’m going to do it wrong. Hoary.

Jonny:

Yes. And I said, “hoary” on the air and they called me up. You Yankee! It’s O-ray!

Greg:

It’s sort of like people from out of town say, I saw someone from Dubois (doo-bwa).

Jonny:

Dubois (doo-boys) I worked there.

Greg:

Yeah. So, so you, so you have to be, you have to be genuine. You have to be native. You have to be authentic.

Jonny:

Yeah.

Greg:

That’s one of the things I get about you. You’re authentic.

Jonny:

Thank you.

Greg:

Yeah, no, it is. I mean, it’s a skill, I mean, to be authentic. You know, it’s: be you. In fact, in fact, we were talking about that. We’re going to do a little, little video on that. Be you. Like, whatever, be you.

Jonny:

I don’t know who else to be.

Greg:

I don’t know, but people— they do, people try to be someone else they’re not authentic. They’re not real. You have to be disarmingly candid. Be you.

Jonny:

Well, I think it comes back to, you know, coming up with a radio name, you know, that’s coming up with a character. Hi, I’m Jonny. I’m Jonny Hartwell. That’s my name. That’s who I’ve always been. I don’t know who else to be.

Greg:

Formerly known as Spank.

Jonny:

Can you edit that out?

Greg:

It’s Spank! So what makes it make what makes a good interview?

Jonny:

Just what you said, if, if the person is authentic.

Greg:

Yes.

Jonny:

And I’ve interviewed a thousand people and when I’m interviewing generally celebrities, they’re trying to sell something and it’s, it’s my job.

Greg:

Can’t you tell that like a mil, a mile away. Hate it.

Jonny:

I hate it. Yeah. And, and it’s, it’s difficult because I’m in a position, I know they want to sell something. And it’s, it would make me a bad interviewer if I avoided that subject, because that’s the reason why they are talking to me. And I’ll give you a prime example. David Crosby, one of the greatest vocalists ever, and — Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young — and I really wanted to get into why those four people don’t continue to put music together. And he was, he wasn’t having it. He just wasn’t having it. Even if he’s like, listen, we’ve moved on.

Greg:

Right.

Jonny:

It’s just like, I really wish I could get together with—

Greg:

Different chapter new season.

Jonny:

Yeah. But no, he was just like, Hm, Nope. Not going there. And I was like, ah, come on. That’s what, as an interviewer, that’s what everybody wants to know. I can sell your product. You got a new album; you have a show coming into Pittsburgh. I’ll be happy to talk about that. But if, if I didn’t ask you that question, that’s the question on everybody’s mind who is a fan?

Greg:

And it’s unfair for me to get to know you, you got to get to know me. For you to get to know me, I gotta let you in.

Jonny:

Yeah. And I’ll tell you—

Greg:

Let people in a little bit.

Jonny:

Here’s one of my favorite interviews ever, was — God, I forget his name. The American Idol, dog, Randy Jackson, Randy Jackson. When I went to interview him at the Grammy Awards, he’s like, Jonny Hartwell! How are you doing? And I was like, oh, he doesn’t know me, but he goes, man, you added this song this week. Why did you do that? I’m like, well, wait a minute. You know, my playlist? He was like, Hey, you didn’t know you didn’t you didn’t add the Jordin Sparks. What is it? What’s going on with that, man, it’s going to be a hit. I’m like, yeah, I’m probably going to do it in a week or so. He goes, what are you waiting for? Pull the trigger tomorrow, Tuesday’s tomorrow.

Jonny:

And it’s like, he knew that business. He knew me. And he, he was prepared for that, that interaction. And then he, and he actually introduced me to Janet Jackson while we were having this interview. No, yeah. I met Janet. She’s like, hi. And that was it. I was not impressed with Janet. She just said, hi, like, I don’t know you, fine, hello. But Randy took the time to do his homework with the person who’s going to be doing the interview. And that so impressed me. And the people who are prepared or understand that I have a goal as an interviewer and they have a goal as an interviewee and they, we kind of mesh, we do that dance, you know what I mean? You’ve done enough of these interviews, and you know what the, the, the best interviews that you’ve had, what was, what was that ingredient that you had?

Greg:

You know, there’s a connection. If there’s a connection. And so I think it’s so much easier, like you and I, I’m not asking on a date or anything like that, but like, there’s a connection. Like you come in, it’s a, it’s a warm, hello. Like, I just, when I, when I saw you in the lobby, I really felt like, you know what? Game on. I want to be here. This is going to be fun. Let’s go, let’s figure out how we can, like, you know—

Jonny:

And when you were on my podcast, I felt the same way.

Greg:

I loved it.

Jonny:

Yeah. Cause you—

Greg:

I had fun.

Jonny:

Yes. And that’s, that’s all I’m asking. I want you to have fun. I want you to be comfortable.

Greg:

And, and by the way, the whole go back to trying to sell stuff. I mean, I think, I don’t think we’ve ever talked about investing on here. I think if people get to know us, maybe they’ll work with us. If they get to know you, they’re going to be more interested in your podcast. And that happens, right? I mean, it just happens by, by creating rapport with people that then you end up doing better, more business and you get more listeners and things like that. I think if I sat here and said, and just so you know, Jonny Hartwell has a podcast coming out, make sure you tune in to whatever I’m going to get on it. You know what I mean? It’s brand new comes coming out, whatever, right.

Jonny:

Yeah. I don’t know. It’s a, it’s, it’s more of, in an idea concept stage.

Greg:

Yeah. But by you being Jonny Hartwell and being honest and being authentic, people are like, you know what? I’m going to listen to 3WS tomorrow morning. And I think. Yeah, no, I do.

Jonny:

Hey, I got three dogs— I have three kids and a dog, I need all the listeners I can get.

Greg:

But I think that is, I think that matters. And you know, it’s also true in politics. I don’t want to get into politics, but as an example and tangentially or whatever.

Jonny:

Well, I think that’s where our politics kind of fall apart is that they they’ve lost that commonality. That they, the, you know, how are, how real are these people?

Greg:

Right.

Jonny:

And I don’t, I don’t get it from either side, to be honest with you.

Greg:

No, I get it. I mean, but if you think about it, I’m not going to go there to which ones cause people will say like, oh, he’s Republican or Democrat, it’s not that, it’s just, it’s just checking in on people’s authenticity.

Jonny:

I’m neither. And I, I honestly believe broadcasters should be neutral.

Greg:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jonny:

That’s I mean that’s kind of an old school—

Greg:

Where’s, where’s radio in 10 years?

Jonny:

That’s interesting. I think it needs to be hyper-local. I don’t think it’s headed that way, but I think it, it, it maintains like you look at the radio stations that are successful in any market. The top three or four are the ones that are local talking about local stuff.

Greg:

So this is, this is something you and I talked about before. I guess they were recording, but I think, I think it’s a key to success. The more local decisions are made, the more they can be made for the benefit of the community. And, and that’s true in politics. Again, that’s true in business. What’s happening in business right now. Like, I mean, we’re blessed to be a local firm or whatever. And we can do things, you know, we can, we can make quicker decisions, we can adapt more. But these big organizations think they’re going to make a decision in Washington, D.C. that’s going to affect us positively here in Pittsburgh. And it’s not true. Same with radio, right? I think I mentioned to you our house was struck by lightning. And so we got— you shouldn’t smile when I say that, that’s like not a joke. And Jonny’s over there like smiling. My house was struck by lightning. Thinks that’s funny.

Jonny:

I lived in Pennsbury. We never had power. If, if, if lightning strikes in Singapore, boom, Our lights go off.

Greg:

So real quick story. So I see firetrucks going up the road in our South Hills office. And I jokingly said like, oh my gosh, I hope my house isn’t on fire. I hope that’s not me.

Jonny:

It was you?

Greg:

It was us. So Lori, my wife calls, my wife calls me in five minutes and is like, honey, our house was struck by lightning. I said, we all okay? Okay. Do I need to come home? No, you’re good. Okay. So I sat, I never got up. And it was, it was such an important meeting. I’m like, okay. I’m not getting out of this room until we figure this out. We did. Later on, she told me I probably should have come home. So yeah, in hindsight. Here, here’s a tip for the listeners. We’re trying to help people improve: when your house, when you’re away at work and your house gets struck by lightning — go home. It’s just a little, little, little tip.

Jonny:

Tidbit of the day. It’s Greg’s tidbit of the day!

Greg:

But anyway we got struck by lightning. So we had to go get Sonos. So now Sonos is great, but, and I’m sure I’ll learn how to use it eventually, but I loved going — when you said it has to be local — I loved going to the wall, pressing the, the keyboard and putting in 3WS, or B94. And now it’s like, I get that I can listen to like, whatever Dave Matthews all day long, but I don’t want to.

Jonny:

Well, I, I think where Pittsburgh radio has succeeded is that, you know, the — newspapers have faded. And it’s too bad. Cause I love, I love reading—

Greg:

A cup of coffee and a newspaper.

Jonny:

Yeah. And, and television has almost disappeared, especially from a local standpoint because we’re all you know, we’re all connected with Tik Tok and YouTube, and, and we already know the sports scores. Why do I need that? And plus now with 932 streaming services, I don’t know where to find WPXI. Where are you? And, and, and so, but with radio, one thing you can pick us up on an app now. You can pick it up in in your car, but we also are able to integrate with social media, very, you know, very easily. And that has allowed us to adapt. And that that’s, one thing that Pittsburgh radio has done exceedingly well is interact with social media. Because, because we, we talked about, you know, the importance of being local. I take as many phone calls as I, as I possibly can, because that’s my opportunity to touch somebody. And, you know, it suddenly, you know Pam calls and then the next time I recognize her voice and say, hey Pam? I’m done. She’s gone. She, she is, she’s going to listen to 3WS forever because I Jon, Jonny recognized my voice and he’s my guy now. And so that’s—

Greg:

So you think it goes back, because it feels like it’s gone away from being a local, not, maybe not around here, but, but it has, right. I mean—

Jonny:

It does. Yeah. I lived in California for a time. And in California, Los Angeles is not integrated with, with the local community at all.

Greg:

So you think it comes back to being more local? To be successful Pittsburgh, the radio, come back to being more local?

Jonny:

Not just radio, but even in, in—

Greg:

In our business.

Jonny:

Financial, for sure. Absolutely.

Greg:

So we are able to do things for our clients. I think if we were national and had thousands and thousands of people, we have to make decisions differently. So hopefully Pittsburgh, because again, you know, WCRO, Glue 92,

Jonny:

Let me ask you a question, because now we’re moving into a Zoom era where everybody’s talks on Zoom and Zoom can be personable. If you talk to that person as a real person to have a real connection. When I interviewed you on, on my podcast, it was over Zoom and we still were able to maintain a connection. So I think even if you use that technology, it has to have a, you have to have that connection, whether it’s face-to-face or through Zoom or whatever technology you use, having that personal, having somebody look you in the eyeball and say, you know, this is what I think you ought to do. And it makes a big difference.

Greg:

But whether it’s Pam, you recognize the voice, right. Or over Zoom, or you and I across the table, the ability to connect is unique.

Jonny:

You think?

Greg:

I do.

Jonny:

Really?

Greg:

I do. And I, and I worry, it’s becoming more rare.

Jonny:

Wow. Yeah.

Greg:

Just because, you know, we think: I talked to them. Really. How’d you do that? Did you talk to them? I texted them. You texted them. So I think the connection—

Jonny:

Yeah. I agree.

Greg:

I just think it’s, I think it’s different. And I think for, for, not that I know anything about radio, but it just feels like my connection with Sonos is very different than my connection with a local radio station. Like through 3WS.

Jonny:

Yeah. I, I think that.

Greg:

You feel like you have a connection because you have, because you have things in common, which creates rapport.

Jonny:

Yeah. If I, if during COVID I did a couple shows from home. And because I didn’t have that connectivity, I felt lost. I felt like I was, I was in an ocean. I didn’t, I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t know the direction I needed to go. And then, so I went, I did maybe a week’s worth of shows from home. And I was like, nah, I can’t do this. I have to go back into the studio.

Greg:

Yeah. And I want to be around people I work with. I want to people, I want to do business with people. I want to, I want to interview. I want to people, to be around people have a connection to, it’s just so much more fun. Like I really enjoy spending time. I there’s a connection. And I think that that’s unique. And I, and maybe that’s what makes you, you know, 11 to 1, the city feels like they have a connection with you.

Jonny:

I don’t know. I hope so. I mean, I have a connection to Pittsburgh. I haven’t had a desire to move into another city now.

Greg:

I’m never moving.

Jonny:

My, my goal was always to come back to Pittsburgh. You know, I, I, my first real gig was in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, doing a morning show. Went down, there on vacation, right after graduation from college. Knocked at this one radio station. And this guy goes, I’ll tell you what, boy, there’s this new radio station down the road a piece, you should go down there. And I’m like, oh my God, Gomer Pyle can work in Myrtle Beach, I can. So I ended up going down to this radio station, knocked on the door. It was a Saturday morning. The guy asked me three questions. What’s your name? Where are you from? When do you want to start? They just fired the midday guy that night because they had a trip to Charlotte, a bus trip, no drinking allowed. Well, he had a bottle of Jack Daniels. He chugged it, threw up backstage and they fired him. So the boss had to fill in for the, the morning show, you know, that his show on, on Saturday morning, he was like, he’s thinking I hate doing these Saturday morning things. Jonny Hartwell showed up. That’s how I got my first job.

Greg:

So that was the first one.

Jonny:

First one.

Greg:

So most embarrassing moment on, on like, air that you hit, like you just starting out. When you were like, oh boy!

Jonny:

No. Oh, actually the first and most embarrassing moment I ever had was, was on B94. I was at the Grammy Awards. KDKA TV asked me to do a live cut-in. I feel completely comfortable behind a radio mic. In front of a television camera, no! A different story. And I went on the red carpet. I had about 10 minutes before airtime. I had this little box of sadness, a bunch of, you know, earpieces. And I don’t know how they work. And I had to look for sat three, and I was going up to every camera going, are you sat 3? Are you sat 3?

Jonny:

And nobody was answering. They, they had their little, and all of a sudden, I felt an arm beside me saying, I think, I think you need to go here. And this guiding hand led me down to the red carpet to sat 3. I looked over; it was Ellen DeGeneres.

Greg:

Really.

Jonny:

She helped me. And she said, are you sat 3? And the guy goes, yeah. And then she put the earpiece in. I was on the air with Patrice King Brown and Ken Rice. And I’m on the air in Pittsburgh. I can’t hear them. All right. So I’m just guessing on their questions. And I’m just rambling along. I’m not, I’ve never done television before. And then all of a sudden, I hear Patrice go, Hey, is that the Dixie Chicks? And I look over and there are the Dixie Chicks. I said, Hey Dixie Chicks, say hello to Pittsburgh. And they came over and they said, hi Pittsburgh. And then they went back to whatever they are doing. What I didn’t know is they were being interviewed, live on CNN. And I brought them off camera to go say hi to Pittsburgh. So the producer on CNN, is screaming at me while I’m looking into a camera.

Greg:

Who’s the Daryl from Pittsburgh?

Jonny:

We are live on the radio! What are you doing!

Greg:

We are very serious about what we do.

Jonny:

And I am just horrified. And all of a sudden, I hear, okay, that’s Jonny Hartwell… And they sent me the tape of it. I will never watch that tape. I was so embarrassed.

Greg”

My most embarrassing, I land in Orlando for an interview. Okay. I get picked up. They take me to the conference room. I sit there, I’m in the wrong room. I jumped in the wrong car. Nope. Different day. But yeah, I did. I was, I was ready to be interviewed. And I’m like, wow, this place has Prudential way too much all over the walls because it was a client of whatever. And I was like, they’re like, you’re not… I’m like, nope. And I’m like, you’re not… I literally jumped in the wrong car. Went for an interview, sat in the conference room. And they were, I wondered why they weren’t being very attentative to me. And so like, they, they, they finally come in and I’m realizing I’m in the total wrong company. I had to go back. I got the job though. It was good.

Jonny:

Oh nice. Good.

Greg:

That was good. So anyhow, Jonny, as I expected, it was a delight to talk to you. And we appreciate y’all doing Pittsburgh. I also know you’re very involved in some charities, which we appreciate. So, you know, you got a big heart, and we appreciate it.

Jonny:

The Alzheimer’s Association, my mother had Alzheimer’s, so it’s near and dear to my heart. Hair Peace Charities, American Cancer Society.

Greg:

You know what’s fun about being successful like you are, and having a voice, is you get to make a difference. And that’s cool.

Jonny:

You know, and I, you know, I do the Sunday morning programs, the, the public affairs programs for iHeart. And because I do, I really think that the, the nonprofits here in Pittsburgh do such great work.

Greg:

Phenomenal.

Jonny:

Yeah. And Pittsburghers take care of Pittsburghers. And I’d like to be part of that tradition.

Greg:

Yeah. I was listening to a couple of other podcasts over the last couple of days, and they said to have happiness, you have to serve others.

Jonny:

Hmm. I agree.

Greg:

Like if you really going to be happy in your heart, you have to serve others. And then that, that, that leads to happiness more than, you know, buying the next car. It’s serving others.

Jonny:

Yeah well, you know, so I’m, I’m part of I’m in the Diogenes form of my life right now. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the philosopher who, he was a Greek philosopher who lived in a wine cask and didn’t need anything. He had a bowl and a tunic. That’s all he owned. He saw a young boy drinking from a cup, saw, from his hands rather. And he said, I don’t need this cup. And so all, he said, I can drink water from my hands. So I think if you can, in your mind say, you know what, I just want to serve other people. I don’t need anything. I can live in a wine cask and still be happy. And so I think a lot of people just need more stuff, and I’m just not there. That’s not where my head is.

Greg:

Well at least know why you got this stuff; you know what I mean? Like, I understand the why behind the purchase. So we just bought a place in in Florida and the reason for it wasn’t so I could have a place in Florida. So it’s because I wanted to share moments with my children. And so like the why behind is different. Right? So I’m visualizing being there for Thanksgiving with them and really, really spending time with my children and grandchildren, parents. So I think at least you got to know why.

Jonny:

Yeah. And if you’re spending time with family, isn’t that—

Greg:

What it’s about?

Jonny:

That’s what everything’s about.

Greg:

That’s what it’s about. So anyhow, Jonny, thank you so much. I really enjoyed this.

Jonny:

This was fun. We should do it again.

Greg:

Always. Thanks.

Greg:

Thanks for listening. If you’d like to hear other subject matters that may be of interest to you. Please check us out at confluenceFP.com/podcasts.

Confluence Financial Partners — Navigating the Healthcare Landscape | Episode #16

Greg:

Among all individuals, out-of-pocket spending total $407 billion in 20191. Imagine that.

Greg:

Hi, this is Greg Weimer with Confluence Financial Partners and welcome to our podcast, Imagine That. I have a guest with me today that touches all of us and it is Brett Semonian. And he’s going to be talking to us about healthcare and health insurance. And how we protect ourselves. And if you don’t think you need to be protected, guess what? If you go into an intensive care, the average intensive care visit for a person is about a million dollars.2

So when we meet with our clients and we try and help them, you know, prepare for their retirement and enjoy their golden years and protect themselves along the way, health insurance is obviously a huge part of that. And when we sit down with our clients, it’s when they go to retire, it’s like the thing, it’s like the thing that really makes them nervous. And so we were actually, the way and— I’ll back up. What caused us to start thinking about doing this segment with Bret is we were sitting with very good clients of ours, very good friends. And they said, here’s how, what we’re doing on health insurance. I’m like, okay, who helped you figure all that out? And their faces lit up and they’re like, Bret, this guy, he owns Flintrock Capital Management, and he’s really helped us. You should meet with them. I’m like, I want to meet that person. He may be able to help some of our other clients. So I called Bret.

I said, hey, this is Greg. Brett help. We want to talk about this. And so I, when he came in, I was impressed. And I think all of you on the, that are listening will be impressed also. I mean, Brett has 1,700 clients and is in the business now for 15 years. So he’s helped some of our clients navigate through health insurance.

So here’s the things we’re going to talk about. Like first, how in the heck do you choose a plan? I think there’s like 75 or there’s so many plans out there, right? I mean, how do you choose? I mean, it’s a big decision. So how do you choose? There’s this thing coming out, or that is out, I guess, called Pennie plan. What? And if you haven’t heard of a Pennie plan, it’s important because it’s not asset-based, it’s income-based if I understand it correctly.

So we’re gonna talk about how you choose a plan. Then we’re going to talk about a Pennie plan. Now that is specific to the state of Pennsylvania for those listening outside. And then we’re gonna talk about like Medicare 101, like let’s just go through like Medicare 101. You know, let’s dumb it down for like, people like me so we can simplify it, so then understand it. And then we’ll talk a little bit about the donut hole. Everybody talks about it, makes it sound so scary, donut hole, right? So what’s going on with the donut hole? So we’re going to touch on those. We’re going to go through them relatively quick, but we’re going to try to make it meaningful for everyone out there. So at the end of this, 20 to 30 minutes, you say, you know what? I’m glad I listened, because at least now I’m protected from an event that could cost a million dollars and sabotage my whole retirement or my family’s inheritance or whatever. So, Bret welcome. We appreciate you being here. Let’s start if you will, with how in the world do you choose a plan?

Bret:

That is the biggest question that people have, and it’s confusing. There are resources out there for you to be able to pick the right plan. It will depend on whether or not you have income and how high is that income. Okay. If you are under a certain threshold for your income, you may end up on a medical assistance plan. In that case, the state is going to help you with that. So whenever we look at Marketplace plans, and the Marketplace came out in 2013 for 2014 effective dates, okay? With that, you were able to apply for advanced premium tax credits, and that would help to reduce the premium of your plan. With that being income-based, okay? If you were over a certain threshold, you don’t get any tax credits, which probably a lot of your clients would fall into that. Okay? So at that point you have two options. You can either shop directly with the insurance company, or you can still go through the Marketplace. Now, starting in 2020 for 2021 effective date, Pennsylvania started using Pennie, Pennie.com, same as the Marketplace, but it’s now state run instead of federally run. Right? So with that same plans, same tax credits, we just use a different website.

Greg:

Yup.

Bret:

Okay. So when you go in, if you qualify for tax credits, it will come off of your monthly premium. If you don’t, you can just buy your plan directly.

Greg:

So let’s back up. So it’s, income-based, not asset-based.

Bret:

Correct.

Greg:

So someone has $2 million. That’s how they save for their retirement in their IRA. Right? They live with inside their means, and they don’t really have any other income, they’re in their sixties, obviously… They could qualify, correct?

Bret:

Correct.

Greg:

Even though they have $2 million in their IRA, they could qualify?

Bret:

Correct.

Greg:

Remarkable. When I say qualify, like their premiums for healthcare could be blank?

Bret:

It is potential that it could be as low as $0.

Greg:

How high can their income be that they can be zero?

Bret:

So that’s, I can scale because it’s based on age.

Greg:

Okay.

Bret:

Okay. So the older you are, the more you’re allowed to make. It also depends if you have a spouse, if you have dependence.

Greg:

Yup.

Bret:

So all of that, there’s an algorithm that the computer figures out and it would be able to spit out what you qualify for tax credit.

Greg:

So right there is why it’s so important for us to be comprehensive and have people like you around to pick your brain. Because, you know, when we meet with our clients, we want to make sure that we understand their tax ramifications of making decisions. So it’s, you know, what, if they’re taking, you know, X amount out this year in their IRA and they create income, right? So we, we need to watch all of that and then check in with you to see if it’s going to affect their healthcare.

Bret:

Yes. That is a big mistake that I see, is people think it’s just income, as in what I’m getting monthly. They forget that they take an IRA distribution, and that is taxable income that counts as income on Pennie. So that could potentially take you from receiving tax credits to losing your tax credit.

Greg:

Okay. So let’s put that in parentheses. So the first bullet point, for people listening, if you have a lot of assets in Pennsylvania that does not mean that you couldn’t qualify for tax credits and apply for Pennie because it’s income-based, not asset-based. So that’s where if someone’s like listening and going like, hey, we don’t have that much money in our joint accounts or whatever. It’s all in IRAs. That’s where we, you know, just, you know, bullet point, as you’re driving down the road right now, you’re driving down 79. You know what I mean? You probably should call us, and we’ll put you in touch with Brett and you guys should have a conversation. And hey, that was a pretty valuable five minutes.

Bret:

Yeah. And the nice thing is I have a calculator that I can actually put—

Greg:

I have a calculator, too.

Bret:

We all do now on our phones. So I have a calculator that I can put in all your demographics, your income and everything. And it will get me a close number. It might not be to the exact dollar, but it’ll get me a close number if you qualify. So then we can do an adjustment and see, you know, what if maybe if you take a thousand less, maybe if you take 10,000 less out of your IRA, this is what we can do.

Greg:

So now they know, because we helped that person. Now there’s that person saying, yeah, that’s really great, but I have a lot of income. How do I decide? Because my experience has been, you know, when, when people go to retire, this is like their question! Like, it doesn’t matter how much money they have. They just want to make sure they’re covered. Because I think, you know, most people have a plan at work and I think 75% of plans, you know, we, as our firm, most of you know, we have Corporate Services, we help people through this. We help companies through this. Most companies, I think 75% have one provider3. So this is an easy thing. I work for X company forever. They tell me I have UPMC, I have Highmark. So, but what happens is, you know, they say, hey, XYZ company says, here’s the healthcare plan.

And then you, that’s what you get, then you retire. And you’re like, oh, there, the question we get is, okay, what do we do? What do we do about healthcare? And by the way, in our plans, we put healthcare in a lot of our plans because people think they’re able to be able to retire someday. And then we throw healthcare in, and it totally blows up the plan. It just blows it up. So we put healthcare in, but then, okay, we put it in, and we help them budget for it. But then they’re like, okay, I never had this choice before in my life. Now I have this choice called healthcare. And like, for us, it’s easy, we call Bret. But and then we have some other folks we call also. But so how do they decide? Like what should they be looking for? Cause we, you and I were talking, I think a month or two ago, there’s also some, some shady characters out there. Yes.

Bret:

So number one, you need to figure out which hospital system you want access to, because some plans have access to both hospital systems. Some plans have access to only their hospital system. Okay? So we have to figure out number one, what hospitals and doctors do you want to choose? Because that’s going to help dictate which path we go down that helps to narrow at least half the plans right there. Okay? From there, we want to find somebody that can help us. We need to find somebody that’s both experienced and knowledgeable. And there’s a difference there you can be in the industry a long time. That’s experience. Doesn’t mean you’re knowledgeable. So you need somebody that has both skillsets.

Greg:

Okay.

Bret:

They’re going to be able to help you navigate through the plans, the different deductibles. And at the end of the day, it should be very easy. If you’re working with somebody who knows what they’re doing, they can take 40 plans and put it down to two. Okay? But if you’re doing this by yourself, you have to be very aware of what you’re looking at. Choose your hospitals, choose your doctors. Also be careful on medications. Okay? Big mistake that I see a lot of people make is, let’s say they’re taking Synthroid. They’re actually probably taking levothyroxine, the generic, but they’ve been told it’s Synthroid, the name brand. So they’ll go and type in Synthroid and see it’s not covered. And they don’t know why, they think, why can’t I get my Synthroid? You can. But it’s a generic levothyroxine, a simple mistake like that can cause you to pick the wrong plan. And it’s, we see it all the time.

Greg:

Just listening to you. You, you have so much knowledge in this area, but the other thing I appreciate about Bret, I will tell you when we sat down to like, okay, if you talk to our clients, let’s be real clear. We don’t do gray. Right? We don’t, we don’t do gray. You’ve got to treat them right. And that’s what you do. You, you really do take care of the 1,700 folks that you serve. So, and you were, I guess you can’t mention it, but you were talking about a certain commercial. And like, it was, I just remember, you’re like, it’s a scam. And you were talking about a certain athlete that’s like, you know, looks really honest, then people I think buy into that. Right? But it’s a trap, right?

Bret:

So marketing has really changed the, this whole robo call thing that we’re going through now, you know, I’m probably going to get 18 calls about a car warranty today.

Greg:

Right.

Bret:

So what they’ve done, they’ve done—

Greg:

So you don’t think they’re real?

Bret:

What the car warranties? Probably not.

Greg:

There’s another tip for everybody.

Bret:

Not really.

Greg:

Not really.

Bret:

So what they’ve done is they’ve done reverse marketing. Now, now you do a buzz point on TV, get people really excited. They call you instead of you calling them. But when they call you, they think that you’re knowledgeable. They believe what you say, because they’re reaching out to you. If you call them first, they typically hang up because you’re a telemarketer. So it’s this reverse telemarketing. And they’re preying on that.

Greg:

They’re driving traffic into their 800 number or website or whatever.

Bret:

Correct and those people, they simply sit there. They read off a script. Their job is, as we say in the industry is churn and burn. Get through as many people as you can try to enroll as many people as you can. And what they do, they don’t actually do an analysis of your healthcare. What they do is they look for one hot button issue, say, oh, I can save you $10 a month on your premium. Great. Sign me up. You don’t realize that now your co-pays are higher.

Greg:

And they’re preying on the vulnerable.

Bret:

Yes. It’s the Medicare people, the people that are oftentimes doing this by themselves, they’re confused, possibly. They don’t have family to help them. Those are the people that they’re preying on. Just like we see all these other scans with money stuff. It’s all the same.

Greg:

Right, right, right, right, right. So okay. So if I’m about to retire in six months, when should I start thinking about this? Like when do you typically start helping people navigate through the healthcare?

Bret:

It depends on your age and your situation. Okay? If you are going to be turning 65 and six months, the typical timeframe is three months before is when we can really start the planning process. Okay? Let’s say you’re under 65. It’s really not a bad time. Six months out, to touch base. Okay? I tell my clients six months is more than, more than fine because we want to come up with a game plan. We don’t want to, a month before, have to scramble and get stuff done. Right. Okay. Because for instance, if you’re under 65, it may make sense for you to go into COBRA. You might not want to go into Pennie or buy a plan directly from the healthcare carrier, COBRA might be your better option, especially because with COBRA, if you’ve already satisfied your deductible that calendar year, why pick up a new plan where your deductible starts over? It doesn’t make any sense. So oftentimes I’ll tell people, finish the year on COBRA, in the fall, we’ll get you set up for January. Okay? With Medicare, you want to start that process, Social Security does not allow you to start the enrollment into Medicare A and B until three months before the effective date of A and B. So if you’re going to start on November 1st, August 1st is the first day that you can start that process.

Greg:

Okay. So you just said a and B and I think most people were aware of A and B, but some people may think it’s Antonio Brown. So can you just give a quick overview of A and B?

Bret:

The only thing that Medicare provides is Medicare A and B. And on your card, when you get your Medicare card, you’re going to see three things. You’re going to see Medicare part A with the effective date, Medicare part B with an effective date and your Medicare claim number. So Medicare part A that is inpatient hospital care. Okay? So staying overnight in the hospital, deemed as inpatient, skilled nursing facility, also blood work, stuff like that in the hospital. It is a deductible and co-insurance program, Medicare. Okay? So for instance, if you go into the hospital, you have a deductible that covers you for the first 60 days. After that. If you’re still in the hospital day 61 through 90, you’re going to have a per day charge. 91 through 150, another per day charge. Okay. With Medicare part B, if A is your inpatient, simple, B is outpatient. Okay? So that is your doctor visits. Those are surgeries, outpatient surgeries, anything not staying overnight in the hospital, that is what’s covered under Medicare part B. There is a small annual deductible. Currently it’s $203. After that is satisfied. We go into an 80/20 plan. 80% is paid by Medicare. 20% is paid by you. Problem is no stop-loss. That’s what people don’t realize. That’s the number one reason why you don’t want to stay on only original Medicare. So there’s no stop-loss to it. You rack up a million dollars in outpatient charges, chemotherapies, or cancer treatments. You’re going to pay 200,000.

Greg:

Wow. Okay. So that’s good to know. Good to know. My guess is most people are not aware of that. So one of the things we’ve said, you know, Medicare 101 I guess you just did the Medicare 101 for the most part. Right? Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Bret:

Well, I think it’s important to talk about what the options are then. If people are saying, well, if I’m not going to stay on just original Medicare, what, what do I choose?

Greg:

Right.

Bret:

Okay? So when we take a look at plans, we’re not talking company-specific, we’re just talking in general. We have two main options to choose from. We have one called Medigap policies, also known as Medicare supplements. And we have Medicare Advantage plans. Both are good. Both have drawbacks. What I do is when I sit down with somebody, you really have to figure out and diagnose, which is going to be their better option. There’s no one set plan for everybody. So Medigap policies, very simple. You stay on original Medicare. It is simply insurance you buy to cover the out-of-pocket that normally you would have had to pay in Medicare. So it’s paying that 20% for you.

Greg:

Right.

Bret:

It’s paying those copays.

Greg:

With the limit, or no?

Bret:

No, it covers everything. Okay?

Greg:

Got it.

Bret:

So, the nice thing about it is Medicare federal program, works in all 50 states. Okay. So a Medigap policy does not change that. It’s a non-network plan. So you can go to any doctor, any hospital that accepts Medicare in the country, no referrals.

Greg:

It’s paying your portion.

Bret:

It’s paying your report. Correct.

Greg:

I.e., gap.

Bret:

What’s that?

Greg:

I.e., gap.

Bret:

Yes. Right, exactly. Yes. So very comprehensive. I use this for A, people who travel a lot. Maybe you have a home in Florida, you’re down there for six months and you want to have doctor visits down there. Okay? Or you’re going on a lot of vacations. Great for travel for people with chronic conditions, also very good, because there are limitations to Medigap policies. You’re not always guaranteed to get them. You only have certain periods in your enrollment phase where you’re allowed to get Medigap policies. After that, you have to pass medical underwriting. So we want to be careful, if somebody—

Greg:

What’s those windows?

Bret:

So when you are turning 65 or going on to Medicare for the first time, you’re able to buy a Medigap policy guarantee. Okay? Also from the time—

Greg:

It doesn’t matter your health; no nurse shows up at your door. None of that.

Bret:

None of that. None of it.

Greg:

Perfect.

Bret:

So, from that point on, the first six months that you were on Medicare, you are in your open enrollment for Medigap policy. You can pick one up at any time. Okay? After that initial six months, you have to pass medical underwriting to be able to get it. So that’s why—

Greg:

And at that age, it’s not a slam dunk.

Bret:

It’s not.

Greg:

And then, people feel like, oh, I’ll be healthy forever. But I think you feel like that until you’re not like that. So. Right.

Bret:

Exactly.

Greg:

And so it sounds like, okay, that’s really good information. Yeah.

Bret:

So we want to make sure that when working with a client, we really look at their health because that will have an effect. And I always told people, we’re not planning for today. We’re planning for 20 years from now. So where do we see ourselves in 20 years? On the flip side, we have Medicare Advantage plans. Okay? Very good. And I tell you what, when I started, eh, they weren’t that great. In the last four or five years, the funding to them has really increased. And we’re seeing fantastic plans now. They cover dental, vision, hearing, over-the-counter products. It’s unbelievable. So they are great plans, and we are seeing more people go that route because they are a cheaper premium as well. Some of the drawbacks are that, now you are going to have copays for some of your services. Okay. You might pay for a hospital stay. Might only be $300 depending on your insurance. Okay? It’s not going to break the bank, but you still have copays now. Also, we have to be careful because they are network plans. So you have to go to doctors and hospitals who take it. Now we have carriers in this area that work in up to 42 states. Okay? So for people who travel, I will lean towards certain Medicare Advantage plans if they want to go that route. But we have to be careful. We have to watch that it is in network. You can’t just necessarily go where you want to go. Okay. one of the nice things, though, it includes drug coverage. On Medigap policies, it does not include drug coverage. So we have to buy another policy that covers drugs. So the cost can start to add up there. Okay? But at the end of the day, it’s whatever makes you feel best.

Greg:

From a cost standpoint is one typically more expensive than the other?

Bret:

Medigap is definitely more expensive, monthly premium. And typically drugs are more expensive because the majority of drug plans out there that are stand-alone drug plans, you have a deductible before your plan kicks in for name brands. Whereas on most Medicare Advantage plans, we don’t see a deductible, it’s day one copays.

Greg:

So, your job is really, I mean, you act as consultant. You sit down and you learn all about them. So then you can help them navigate which plans correct for them.

Bret:

When I sit down with somebody, I’m basically interviewing them because I need to get this info to be able to process, what am I going to recommend for you. Often, what you do with your clients as well.

Greg:

Right, and you can see how this is so important because if we help people with their wealth and we don’t have them, have them think about their health, it’s shallow. I mean, it’s not complete. It’s not comprehensive. Whether it’s, whether it’s a company, you know, these companies are out there spending, I think 82% of typical premiums are paid by companies right now4. And you look at that. And I look at that, go, man, the employees don’t even know what they have! And then the employers are paying all this money and they don’t, and the employees don’t know what they have. That’s our reason for corporate services.

The reason we talk to you is now they go to retire and now they have the decision to make on their own and people are confused. And so instead of like, really enjoying that day, they’ve looked forward to forever, when they’re able to retire. They’re like, oh my gosh, what do I do about my rollover stress? Right? It should be happy. Stress. What do I do about healthcare? I mean, my healthcare was always taken care of now, what do I have? There’s all these different plans, Medigap, Advantage. Like, you know, then let’s go— Like the thing that frightens people, which is funny to me, is the donut hole. Do you wanna talk about the donut hole? This is like, what about the donut hole? It’s like people talk about it like it’s the Bermuda triangle. It’s like, what’s going on with the donut hole?

Bret:

Yes. That is what I get asked about the most.

Greg:

Crazy!

Bret:

People are so nervous about it, and I don’t blame them.

Greg:

I know, but how much is the donut hole?

Bret:

So here’s how the donut hole works. I don’t think very many people understand how it actually works. So when you go and fill a prescription, you might even have a $0 copay. You think, okay, it’s free. Well, no, it’s not. Because there’s a cost. There is a cost that the insurance is paying. So what the government does, they track not only what you pay, but what the insurance pays. So their tracking the actual cost, when that actual cost in 2021 hits $4,130, every drug plan in America stops. This is the donut hole. So we have to all 50 states, it’s every drug plan. It’s not just a Pennsylvania thing. Now what happens is you pay 25% of the cost of the medication.

Okay? Now sometimes that makes your drug less. Oftentimes it makes it more expensive. Okay? Now what the government does is they track the 25% that you pay the 70% that the manufacturers paying. So 95%, what they don’t—.

Greg:

I was going to say, we’re missing five.

Bret:

Right. What they don’t track is the 5% that the insurance pays. So when you’re in the donut hole, they’re tracking 95%. Once the out-of-pocket then reaches 65/50 in 2021. Now what happens? You hit catastrophic coverage. That’s a good thing.

Greg:

Sounds horrible.

Bret:

It does. It does. But it’s good in the cost perspective. So at that point, you’re either gonna, I have a very small copay, or you’re going to pay 5%. Whichever is greater. Problem is that resets January 1st. So if you hit your donut hole in December, January, it’s gonna reset, which is a good thing there. Okay? But if you’re in catastrophic coverage, now your drugs are actually going up starting January one.

Greg:

So but your maximum exposure to a donut? Like, what’s the most the donut hole costs?

Bret:

Well, that’s based on the cost of your meds.

Greg:

So it could be unlimited.

Bret:

It could be. For instance, we see a lot of these very expensive drugs on TV, all the ads, okay? Oftentimes these drugs are five, six, $700 per month. I’ve got clients that are on two and three and four of those. Okay? It just, you stay at 5%. Once you get catastrophic coverage, you stay at 5% for the rest of the year, based on whatever, until January 1st hits and you start over. One of the biggest things that cause people to go into the donut hole in the past has been insulin. And this is another thing that people don’t realize, especially if they’re not working with somebody, there are new insulin programs available. Only certain insurances cover it. Okay? But the way that it works is, you pay $35 per month copay for your insulin all year round. It does not go into the donut hole. That’s huge. I’ve got people in two and three insulins that say, I can’t afford them in the donut hole. I can’t afford 25%. Well, now, if you’re aware of these programs, you can have it for $35 year-round, which is fantastic.

Greg:

I’m listening to you and I’m thinking like, no wonder people when they go to retire. Right? I mean, because there’s so much information, it’s confusing to people. And as people get older, trying to process all of that and make good decisions about something that’s not their area of expertise. It’s frightening for people. I get it. I get it.

What did we miss? So like, if you said like, hey, I wish you would have asked me this because people out there should really know blank. What should they really know?

Bret:

I think what they need to know most is don’t just pick a plan because your neighbor or your friend has it. I see a lot of people—

Greg:

I see it.

Bret:

Yeah. A lot of people, they get so overwhelmed.

Greg:

Aunt Sue had that one. I’m going to get what Aunt Sue—

Bret:

Exactly. That is so detrimental. Okay? If you’re healthy, you’re not really using it, you might not know that you have a problem. But when you need your healthcare most, you need to know how it works. And just picking a plan because your friend said, I love it.

Greg:

Right.

Bret:

I get a free gym membership.

Greg:

Right.

Bret:

What if you don’t go to the gym?

Greg:

Right.

Bret:

So that’s, that’s a big mistake that I see. When I sit down with people, I’ve had husbands and wives on separate plans and it’s because they have different needs. It’s okay to pick a different plan, pick the plan based on your needs, not by somebody else’s right.

Greg:

Good to know. And, you know, this is serious stuff. I not only, I mentioned earlier that, you know a prolonged illness can cost a million dollars if you have to go to the intensive care. So, I mean, that’s meaningful, but also when you think about things that can blow up your retirement, 62.1% of bankruptcies are caused by high medical bills5. So helping ensure that risk away is incredibly important for everyone, not just people that are ready to retire. And we really, I mean, we really appreciate the information.

Bret:

Yes, you’re welcome. And I will say, to talk about that bankruptcy. One of the biggest bills that I see caused in the healthcare industry is cancer. Okay? There is something so simple as putting a little cancer policy on yourself. It has changed the lives for many of my clients, because if they’re on something like Medicare Advantage, we have an out-of-pocket maximum, maybe it’s 6,500, 7,500 — that’s calendar year. So if you hit it in December, but you’re still getting treatments in January, you could hit it again. We might see 15,000 out-of-pocket.

Greg:

Yeah.

Bret:

So what we’ve seen lately is putting a cancer policy on people. They get a lump sum amount.

Greg:

Totally right. And so I’m looking outside the window and I see Mario Haifa who works for us in our Corporate Services, and he does voluntary, but one of the things he does, benefits, but part, obviously part of that voluntary benefits. And if he would hear us speaking right now, he’d be like, call me in coach, call me in coach! Because that’s what he talks about. It’s like, there’s, there’s cancer policies that you can have that can protect you. And he’s always, you know, at this table, actually on Tuesday mornings, when we do our meetings, he’s always jumping up and down that, you know, we need to talk about that more. And employers should have that available to their employees. And you, you obviously talk to your clients about that. Also extremely important. And let’s be honest for a lot of us, that’s what we worry about. What happens if us or our loved one, what if we get cancer? I mean, it’s a, it’s a big, it’s a big worry. So not only do you need to try to navigate through the medical community, which is equally complicated, now you’re trying to navigate, how are we going to pay for this? Right? And you’re making decisions based on money, not based on your health. Right? So great information. So thank you, Bret. We really, really appreciate it. And we look forward to continuing to connect. Thank you so much for taking care of our clients.

If anyone listening has additional questions, we’re always here for you on this topic. Thank you. Thanks for listening. If you’d like to hear other subject matters that may be of interest to you, please check us out at ConfluenceFP.com/podcasts.