S7E18 Human Side of Advice with Brendan Frazier

Hey real quick, this is a podcast for financial advisors, so don't take it as financial advice. Oh, and we're partnered with CPD Check so that you can get the CPD recognition for listening to this episode. Follow the link in the show notes to complete the quiz. Hello and welcome to Challenge in the Standard. We're Jordan Barker and Nathan Bradley and not just discussing financial advice, but a revolutionizing it. The conversations tackle everything a financial advisor needs to know, breaking down barriers and biases to shape a positive future for our profession. Ready to challenge a standard common revolutionaries. Let's dive in. Hello and welcome back to Challenge in the Financial Advice. The podcast by advises for advisors, my name is Jordan Barker. I'm joined today by now in 4k, Bradley, which is the second time I've made the joke because we had connection issues initially. So it's not supposed to get a usage with our connection at all. No, no, and it's not 4k anymore because we had connection issues. So if you have a watching this on video, which you won't feed because it won't come out in video, it won't matter. The last time we had a connection issue, we were making a joke about how good our connection was and then it dropped off completely. So I don't know what's going on with it's suspicious, but it happens when you invite all that to the side because more importantly, and I hope you don't take that, you would take that personally, Nathan, more importantly, we're joined today by very special guest from the US. Brendan Frazier of RFG advisory. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, guys, thanks for having me. Excited to be here. This is like what 12 months, maybe longer, Brennan in the making would be trying to find it. Get this not proud of that. Not proud of it. I'd like to just move past that at this point. It's the time before. It's the time difference. Yeah, to be fair, that's not that's not unsure. Like that's a bit that's an element of it for sure. Yeah, and you know, it's you're also, you know, had some family stuff going on, newborn and all the rest of it. So thank you. Got to take a priority. Isn't that fun? You know, I can I can appreciate that. I'll say that's important. I appreciate that. There's one thing that's rocked my world more than anything else in my life at this point. It's introducing a third child into the mix. I'm still like, I'm still not exactly sure what's going on or what happened. So yeah, things that that's the main reason probably why it's been a year is I've been trying to figure out how to operate a life with all these kids running around. So yeah, I can give you zero input. I have two dogs and two chooks. And Jordan has two kids. So he get he doesn't know what three would be like at all. I'm one of those kids of the moment. I still have all the advice I can get by the way. I saw that in your LinkedIn tag. I heard it's very good. Yeah, all the advice. Yeah, the people will willingly offer. I'm sure it's useful. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll filter through it. I probably don't accept 98% of it. But the two that sticks to six always really get an help. Now I introduced you as being from RFG advisory, which is true. You are the chief behavioral officer there. But I think most Australian listeners will know you better from some another little project that you do, which is where we camera cross you. What's that called? The human side of money. Yep, human side of money, which might be the episode title. We'll figure that out later. Yeah, the human side of money podcast, which this summer will hit it six year anniversary, which is just insane. It was already been so wild. Yeah, that's so cool. It's a and what they why how did that start? I mean, that would have put you. Was that like, I mean, that's COVID, right? Was that a COVID project where you was sitting at her look down? Or was it just happened to time load that? No. So the idea started even like well before COVID. Maybe COVID allowed me or forced me to do it sooner. But for those people that know Brendan well, they would tell you that what Brendan has ideas and he has a lot of ideas. And in the execution part, because if you're going to do it because the way I'm wired, the story I tell myself is if you're going to do something, you don't do it in less than to grade, right? Which serves me what? Yeah, right. Right. Like, while so do you spend time on which serves me well in a lot of ways. It also doesn't serve me well in a lot of ways. And I know it and I recognize that I'm aware of it. And I still it's still hard to overcome. So, you know, we'd behavior psychology. It's something I know exists. And it's still hard to get over the hump. So actually, I started the idea. I have a Google Docs folder that I start where I put the idea and started created it back in 2018. And then 2019 a year later, I had gotten as far as purchasing a microphone. I took it took a year. I got a microphone. Yeah, you can't podcast. Well, you can't actually podcast without it. But I thought it made me feel more official. So I get a microphone. I took a picture of the microphone and posted it on social media as a kind of ability to get kind of right. And said, Hey, here it is. This is the podcast that's coming. Here's what it's going to be. And then it was about a year later that it actually that I actually launched. Now, there isn't important lesson in this. Both from like anybody that's out there that's like, I have ideas and I want to execute on them or just either interested in general human behavior. If I look back on it, I'm like, all right, what was the key component, the key mechanism, the key lever that made me do it. And I've been I've learned from this. I've taken the same concept and applied it in other areas of my life now moving forward. The biggest thing for me was I sat down with a friend who had a successful podcast in in a different industry as for dinnists. And I was just like, Hey, walk me through what you do, how you got started, what it's like. And so we got together for breakfast for an hour. And you just basically sat down and said, Hey, here's what I have. Here's what I do. Here's how it works. And there's two things that came out of it. One is just being with being around somebody that was doing what I wanted to do made it feel infinitely more doable. Sounds simple. Sounds dumb. Right. But like had I not been that close to it and him be like, yeah, here's how you do it. I don't think it probably would have taken even longer. But the idea, but the main thing that he said that really hit home that stuck with me. And I think was the main that the real key behind it was he goes, I was like, Hey, okay. So what do you use for editing? And he's like, I don't edit it. And I was like, well, why not? Did you ever try it? And he's like, no, I knew if I tried, I would never actually get any good. I would never actually release an episode. And I tried, I had spent about 30 minutes a couple weeks before that waking up early trying to edit a tech test episode. Yeah. One of the most miserable experiences of my life. And I know Nathan, I was like, you know, anybody that does this has to be some form of a madman and insane. And so I was like, Oh, okay. All right. So remove friction, remove barriers. Okay. So I went and immediately found somebody that could edit it. And those decommunation of those two things fast forwarded the implementation of it. I think it was probably about four months later that it actually got launched. God off the ground. And so yeah, anyways, that was how it was a COVID project just in the sense that I think I probably had a little bit more time because I was at home. To be able to do it. But the idea started well before it. It was a classic, Brendan's situation of having an idea and needed to perfect it before it got off the ground. I can say I almost feel personally attacked by exactly what you've just described. I don't have any other ideas. I'm trying to do them, but I'm not finished. I'm then perfect. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. The idea of creating speed bumps and roadblocks yourself and then sitting on them for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. Although I might be more chronically unable to see those roadblocks and I just plow for one and find them later. I feel like I feel like somewhere in there is a I there's a running joke, but it's actually just a reality. I don't know the difference between an allegory and a metaphor. I feel like this was one of those there somewhere about human nature and getting people to take action and financially to the right. Surely there's there's something in that to learn and take away. I mean, I don't know the difference between the allegory and metaphors. Yes. It's not just me. I know the metaphor is. But but your point I guess your point being that regardless of what it be financial advice, whatever it is, whatever you're looking at. At the core, it's just it's really hard for human beings to change their behavior to do the things that they ultimately want to do. It doesn't matter what you're talking you can be talking about the dentist industry or dentist profession. You can be talking about getting in shape, eating healthy. You can be talking about marriage advice. You can be talking about things you want to do. But I mean, it ultimately at the at its core, the gap between where we are and where we want to be in any area of our life is just. It's an implementation thing. It's a behavior thing and an execution thing. It's not a lack of knowledge. Eventually I knew everything that I needed to do in order to get the podcast launched to get it off the ground. It wasn't like I needed more information. At some point you have to have sufficient information. So let's just get on that first. You can't you do needs information as a base. It's just not sufficient. So there's a point where I had all the information that I needed and I still wasn't acting, implementing, changing my behavior to get it off the ground. Because I was hiding in this idea of oh, it's safer to be an idea phase than it is to be an execution phase. The odds of me failing when this thing's not real are zero. The odds of me failing when it's out there. At this point feel like hi. Because you see all that's doing. It's like hey, the majority of podcasts are. done after like 10 episodes. And imagine that would have been if you had to sit that photo, if you'd microfurred and you'd push it and then it fouled in, right? What's the file? It pulls it back. Can't what that happened. That's right. Yeah. But there's also another important lesson in there, too. So we can pull on the human behavior thread, the behavior change thread. There's also another important lesson in there, too, of finding something that you enjoy doing and being a powerful force for sticking with it, right? Most things that we want to do and be successful at, they take time for results, right? So we get excited about an idea, we go out, we try it, maybe it doesn't work. And so you're like, ah, I'm onto the next thing. But what we know, what we find is that the people that stick with things the longest for the ones that get the results, it's just like investing. Longer you stay invested, the more compounding returns you're going to get, that happens in pretty much all areas of life. It happens with content, it happens with health. And so the silver bullet is consistency. And to be consistent, you have to actually enjoy-- but you don't have to. But it's a pretty key ingredient. It's a hard, Brennan. Like so easy. Just can't-- I just do it a bit. Post about it on Instagram. Get my dog me and just immediately be good at it and move on. Aison that, just try not to do that instead. That sounds like business, exercise. Like the lady that cuts my hair, that she's on TikTok, wants to be a TikTok influencer. And I was like, all right, so often you get in content out there. She's like, oh, I do it at least once every couple weeks. And I was like, well, that's probably not the rest. But we got to stop that stuff. Yeah. And I was like, why don't you do it more often? She's like, well, there's times where I know I need to. And I just don't feel like it. And it's like, all right, well, anybody that's ever taken off on TikTok probably doesn't have that same problem. Or they figure out a way around it. But with the podcast, for example, people are always like, oh, Bernan, should I start a podcast? And is this something I should do? I'm interested in it. It seems fun. And I'm always be like, all right, here's what you do. You go and you get a mic. And you record yourself on your own for five episodes. And if you love every minute of it, and you can't wait to do the next episode, you've got something. Stick with it. Do it, roll with it. If that-- if that both five episodes feel like a grind, move on, do something else. Because if you don't enjoy it, you're not going to stick with it. That's how this shit came about, by the way. I did a podcast course because I wanted to do this podcast on sustainability kind of thing. And then I said one of the little course thing I was doing was about just getting started, right? It was like getting rid of the barriers. So they'll do the editing for you. They'll teach you how to get in front of it, how to talk. And each week we had a little thing to do. I shout out to my pod for that. And Jordan was my practice week. So we had to just record seven minutes of just interview someone about something. And Jordan, I did that. And we don't think we'd only shut that long at that point, because this was the least before we started it. And it was the funniest seven minutes of anything ever. And my wife said to me, that's really good. You guys are hilarious. We've not produced a funny thing since. But-- That was the peak. That was the thing. That's why I would've been chasing. I was like, and then for two years, I was like, hey, we should start this podcast. It was going to be called standard 12, because we're basically kind of all of the explaining. And then eventually, Jordan was like, I think we should start that podcast. And we did. So same thing. It's just got to be-- I'm sorry. You got to do it. You believed your wife when she said it was good. And that was all you needed to hear in the rest of the-- In '99, I'm said of what I would never be capable of. She didn't say, yeah, you could do that. I'd be like, I can't do that. She'd be like, you can't. And I do it. And I'm good at it. And she's like, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm like, yes. Which I think you've preempted my question here, Brenna. But this is a very simple and probably quite a silly question. Are you glad you did the podcast? I mean, how do I say-- how do I best express this? Undoubtedly, yes. And I've said this before, and maybe it's a little bit hyperbolic. I don't know, but it's not that far out there, far fetch. But I think it's probably-- well, first of all, it's my second favorite thing that I do behind speaking. But it's a close second. But also, I think it's changed my career life in ways that-- in more ways than anything else has, up to this point. And in more ways than networking has, and more ways than studying or getting any type of designation or credential has, it's open doors, provided opportunities, made connections that-- of course, I didn't imagine when I started. So but now, in hindsight, as I look back on it, it's like, I enjoy doing this. And it had a bigger impact on my career life, more than anything else that I've done. It's like, if you can find things that you enjoy and genuinely like doing, and they have that big of an impact, it's-- you'd be-- I mean, that feels like a secret to life almost. But the short answer is, I mean, yeah, absolutely. I'm glad I did it. In fact, I often wonder, I'm like, what if I just started-- when I had the idea in 2018, instead of 2020, I wonder what would have happened. Where would I be at that? The tech enough. Wouldn't have taken off. Had to be the right time. The universe lined you up. You needed that prep time. That photo was important. You know, the delay, the anticipation, everyone had. But I think it's the third point you make there that the impact it had. It's not just that you're doing something you love and you're doing it consistently, but also you're bringing value to the people in the audience. And I think that's what helps it take off. That makes a big difference. Yeah, OK. So obviously, you can tell that I like-- taking what I've done and what I've learned from the podcast, using it as a way to apply back to-- I guess I'd say help other people out. But more so, just like-- these are important insights that I've gleaned from having done it. But the real-- so the impetus for it starting, I didn't know that I enjoyed it before I started. When I started, when I set out the whole idea and the whole goal, at that point was, OK, right now, I am a financial advisor and I'm working with clients. Prior to that, I had been in a role where I was consulting with advisors. And so I'd heard this idea of like, hey, Brendan, I feel like more of a therapist than I do an advisor. Or I think I'd be better off with a degree in psychology than a degree in finance or anything numbers related. And you would hear it all the time, right? And it's not surprising, but you just kept coming up. You'd hear it over and over again. So then I decided I was like, all right, well, next time I hear that, I'm going to ask, that's interesting. I hear that a lot. What do you do about it? Like, because when it comes to technical knowledge, we have no shortage of information in training on how to do that part of it. And so I started asking that question. And then the most common response I would give would be, I read a book. And I remember thinking, like, books are good. Books are great. We got a lot of them behind me right now. But surely we can do better, right? Like, these books, generally speaking, weren't applicable to working with human beings and their money and helping them live better lives with their money and actually fall through and implement the advice that we give them and change behavior. And so then I started working with clients and I started experiencing that same thing. I'm sitting there working with clients and I'm like, yeah, I feel like more of a therapist, than a financial advisor. And I would have these clients come in and I would be like, all right, here's what you need to do. You put it up on the board and you show the projections and you're like, clearly this is the right thing to do. And a year later they come back and they still haven't done it. I'm like, all right, this is what they were talking about. Like, everyone like they can't right now doing they got it being a different person. So, and you sit there and it's easy to go, in that situation specifically, it's easy to go, well, they're just not a good client. And I go, well, I told them what to do, but we don't pause for a second and go, well, hang on here. Maybe I have a role in this. Maybe there's responsibility on my part. Maybe there are things I can and should be doing that help maximize the likelihood that my clients actually follow through and implement the advice that I give so that they can live better lives. And so I'm experiencing it. And then I read the book, "Advice that sticks" by more or some of us, are you guys familiar with that? - Yes. - No. I'm not. - You should have her on to be straight. - I'm ready to go and read it, apparently now. I've gotta go on Amazon straight away and buy it. - So I always, in the US, I always say, there it is, look at that. - Jordan's just, he's got it in front of him. Jordan's the lead camera. - It took about eight seconds to get that camera to camera that was the rest of it. - It's got the camera off for all listeners that have right now. And he's turned it on just to prove that he had the book in front of him. - It's a good one. - It's a good one. - It's a good one. - It's like it's marked it up. And he's got it signed. - So I read that and it just like my brain explodes. And I'm like, whoa, there is this whole realm of dealing with human beings and advice that we need, that we don't even know what to do. So all that full circle, I come back to the point you made earlier where we were talking about the podcast. I didn't, when I started out, the whole idea was, I'm gonna start this podcast, A, because I think, I think it'd be great. I wanna have a podcast, I think. I don't know if I'm gonna like it or if it's gonna be fun, but what I do know is worst case scenario, I'll be able to learn a lot of things from a lot of really cool smart, sharp people that I get, the worst case scenario, I get to go back and use to help my clients and my business. - I don't know what that's like, Brendan. That's not something we've done at all. (laughing) - It's just an entire reason to chat to people 'cause they didn't have time for coffee, but they'd love to come with it. (laughing) - Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, - Amen, I say it all the time. It's like Daniel Crosby, who's like, who at that point in time when I first started, was like a legend in my mind. And still is a legend, even though we're friends now. And so he and I get on there, I have him on it's episode eight. And I'm sitting there like, if I had asked Daniel Crosby, if he wanted to get together and zoom or go to lunch, just to like share his wisdom for an hour, hour and a half, he'd be like, "Brennan, I'm sure you're a good guy." You may not be actually, you know, maybe you're not a good guy. But I'm not sure you're gonna spend an hour sitting down if you're telling you these things. But if you have a podcast, right, it opens up the doors, you get to have these stuff. So I'm like, on my, on the first, I mean, even to this day by the way, I'm sitting there like, we have a lot of people on it. I think I'm just taking notes the whole time. I'd sit down afterwards and be like, "All right, how do I actually go back and apply this?" This is fascinating. And so it all, the whole idea behind it was just, it started out by me following my own curiosity and desire to learn and learning what I needed to know. And that's how, that's been my compass or the guiding light for where I take it up to this point. I read something, find something and I go, I wanna learn more about that. Reach out, hey, can we guess? Do you wanna come on? And then I just get to sit there and learn more about something that I'm interested in. Morgan Howell's a Lou Rotha psychology of money talks about how he thinks his success is partially attributed, well, there's a lot of reason. But partially attributed to the fact that he writes to an audience of one. He writes about the things that he's fascinated by and interested in, not what he thinks people want or need to hear. And I've sort of used, and I didn't know this at the time, right, but that was sort of what I was doing with the podcast. I was like, I'm just gonna pursue things that I think are fascinating and interesting. And then hopefully other people come along on this journey and we all learn together. - I think that's a perfect segue because the only reason I wanted to get you on this show was that in the next 40 years, I'll let you download everything you know about the events. (laughing) So let's swing into, into, where I originally found you with the, I think it was the perfect first appointment, and I really got involved with a lot of your like one page financial plan stuff. And contrasting, I think the United States market to what we're doing here, it really speaks to our market. We're advisors in Australia, it was so good at this stuff. I think we just developed it well. But then watching the people that you work with or know or posting on LinkedIn, their stuff, and unreal, took a lot away from it. So maybe we start with, maybe we start with the first appointment, but not the first appointment itself. What I was supposed wanted to bring up immediately, or urgently or importantly, or, I don't know. Does Dynamite questions? You went through a run or what, I linked in what you would post like, you should ask this. Have you thought about asking that instead? Like that, it's just so, it just gets right to the core of what we do, of the core of this podcast. The challenging what we do, why do we always fill up this paper form? Who cares? We can get that separately. Let's spend our time with the client, asking them about them. Without, like, what's your favorite question? Like, where do you take the, how do you start thinking about as an advisor? What are the big questions I should be answering in this meeting, instead of finding out how much money they've got in the bank? - So I'm gonna ask you guys, why do you think, what's the purpose of questions? Why do you think we're so fascinated by this concept? - Can I say as someone who jumped in first and never shot saw, so I'm not speaking. That's actually my driver. Like, I'm gonna ask a question of the client because I want them to talk. I want them to tell me. I want them to feel that, comfortable, to feel that confidence, to feel that trust, all those kinds of things that you get from speaking more than listening, and they just go, and the more you do that, the deeper I can go, the more I learn. That's, that would be my answer. - So you're first meeting then, I think, like, that ratio of you talking to them, talking, where would you put that? - I reckon it's like, if you take out that first section of, this is what the meeting's about, this is the process from here, which I try and get through as soon as possible, I may be taught 10% of the time, and that's me asking a question. Same as by 15 minute calls. Especially if you take out the, "Here's what we do from here a bit," I don't talk at all. - Which would surprise most people that listen to podcasts. - What's the, here's what we do from here a bit. They even just like, generally speaking, what does that sound like? - That's like the, you know, if initial 15 minute call might be, if that's your free call, tell me about your situation where you're up to, and then we'll work out if you need advice, if I'm the right person, what do you do next, or the other resources, et cetera. That bit's kind of like, all right, from here, the next appointment is this, this is what we're doing that. That's me laying out the process, which I'm currently in the process of getting a video together on a website together, so I just go, "Here it is," and send it before the meeting, so that we can just go any questions on it, as opposed to, yeah. But that's kind of like the formality to give them to know what's happening next, to remove any ambiguity in the process, the rest of it. I try and speak, even to the point where I was gonna call yesterday, and she's like, "Oh yeah, yep, and that's probably me." I'll put also, just leaving that silence bit, just that little bit longer to let the question air a bit more, and oh, look at that, we just uncovered something new. Yeah, which is, I don't think that's, that's when we, - To go back to Brenda's question is I think there's two reasons we like questions. I think the old fashioned version is to get to a close, right? It's part of the sales process, is you follow the question, the bouncing ball of the questions, and then I'm asking the script and it gets you to the sale. But I think the better advises now, or that I'm aware of, it's a curiosity. Well, you are genuinely interested in that person across the table from you, so you want to learn more about them, because you know then that you can solve their problems better. You want to be better at what you're doing, but I think, I hope it's genuinely curiosity that makes us ask all these questions. - Yeah, I think, so generally speaking, we don't know this, we don't know consciously, but human beings are really good at picking up on uninterested, non-curious questions. Or in other words, like interrogation interview style questions. You're like, you can, it doesn't, they don't call it out. But if you're asking a question, because you're not actually genuinely interested in asking the question, but because you feel like it's on a checklist and something that you need to ask, people pick up on that. And one of the hardest concepts that I've had to teach and try to get across, and I try to show videos that do it, and I try to get at home, it's just so hard to do until you do it yourself and experience it. Is I think what's more important than the question that you ask, is how you ask the question. So if I take two groups, if I take two people, and I sit them down, and they're with the same person on the other end of the table, and I get, tell them the same question. I'm like, "Hey, here's the question that you have to ask." If one, if person A asks it as if it's like a requirement or checking out, checking the box, to ask it, and then person B asks it with a genuine sense of curiosity about the other person, you're gonna get two different answers. Like our brain picks up on the intent behind the question and it learns, and it learns from the signal that's being given by the other person, that they are actually genuinely interested in hearing what you have to say. So think about the last time you met, the last time you met somebody to a network event, or a party or a social event. You're out and about, you know, maybe you've met them once or twice before, maybe you're meeting them for the first time, and you're sitting there and you're talking. I mean, half the time, if not more, if they ask you a question, you're responding, you're kind of wondering, whether you realize it or not, you're kind of wondering, are they actually interested? Do I keep going? Do they really wanna know this? Or am I, like, on the verge of oversharing? Am I wasting their time? Are they wondering, do they wanna go be talking to somebody else right now? Like, are they interested or are they not? Are brains always in this place of, it's looking for a signal of, am I safe? Or do I need to stay protected? Right. The good sharing information is an investment of your own energy, and if they're not going to respect that, and they're not listening to it, then why would I make that investment then? Like, go and talk to the other people you'd rather talk to. Right, and it's the same. It's the same. It's the same. Yeah. In any context, we're financial, obviously, massively. And we're asking questions about their life, and we're diving, but your safe is the word you use, Brennan. I think that's so powerful of like, if you're not, if you don't feel safe, if you feel exposed, if you feel vulnerable, you're going to clam up, you're gonna back away, you're going to protect yourself. You have to close that gap. If you're, oversharing, Princess, you're very, you're very like, I'm comfortable and confident this person, and I can tell them all sorts of stuff. I probably should say that, that's probably too much information, but that you know you're getting on the right path. So I'm a Brennan, it's like, the question is actually not important in terms of what's the 10 most powerful questions. It's actually the delivery, the content, the context, the body language, everything you're doing, not sitting there feeling out of form. Do you think that's the right answer, Brennan? Yes, I think. Yes, and I do think that there are certain questions to ask that will, that are better questions, but what's more important than the question is how you ask it, right? So yes, I do believe that, that's what you should prioritize first, but I also believe that there are better questions asked. For example, I had a guy on the podcast, I guess this is a while ago now. In fact, so his name's Warren Burger, he's a questionologist. Wrote the book, "The Big Beautiful Bulls." - Both of them. - I love that, big, beautiful, book. So he's a self-proclaimed questionologist but also now widely recognized as a questionologist. I even asked you to look like a photo of like the word questionologist one day and send it to people so that he could get that career. Then a year later he started calling himself. If he did I'm still jealous. It just seems like the process from here I'm just like a photo of everything I'm trying to do. I'm gonna send a photo of this guitar at the back practicing under Jordan and be like a photo shot myself on a stage. You should know that I wanted to. There you go, dude. Look at me go. He did it to me already. I know. So he I even asked him on the episode I was like hey do you think I could be your apprentice and he laughed it off and it was kind of an awkward moment. I was kind of like seriously joking but he didn't really have to ask me with the verbs at the time. That's I wasn't that's probably why he kept like pushing it off. He's on your chest for questionologist. And so he comes on he talks about this idea of rope questions so not all questions are created equal. There are some questions that you ask that you ask and they don't necessarily move the needle. They don't progress the relationship. They don't enhance connection and there are other questions that you can ask they're more intentional that do serve that purpose. So if you're in a meeting with a prospective client you need to move the needle on trust. There are questions that are designed to do that and there are questions that you ask and that you know aren't going to do that. So the example that I always like to give is that when I the guy that I used to get my haircut from I would go sit down in the chair right and sit down he'd be like how's life and I'm like whoa hang on first like I don't know like I don't sit around all day thinking to myself how is life right so that feels like a big question to answer also that do you really care like the way you ask it mate I'm not entirely sure good so the question yeah right and so that's why you get so okay the the answers you get are going to be directly related to the questions you ask and how you ask them so if you ask somebody how is your weekend this is another rope question how is your weekend they're gonna say it was good you know are you say so how are you feeling about the weekend good it's not a bad question it just doesn't move the needle it doesn't create connection it doesn't deepen the conversation but but if you were to ask like going into the weekend you could say hey any big plans lined up for the weekend and that's gonna generate a different response at a year sitting there somebody on Monday after the weekend instead of saying how was the weekend you say so did you guys get anything fun this weekend doing anything different out of the box and maybe the answers know right but you're at most of the time it's not by the way people are gonna give you a little bit deeper better answer that you can learn from that you can pull on the path that you can go down and so the point there is you can still ask questions that are better right there are some questions that are better than others but it's what more important is how you ask it and then I want to go back to something you said that just a little bit ago that I think is important which is I think it or I guess what I was thinking as you were talking was I what we have to realize is when we talk about you want somebody to feel safe right where we go hey I want you to feel safe so you can open up so you can tell me these things you don't tell anybody else in your life by the way when we talk about me or you tell very few people we want them to feel safe we want them to open up to your point you said you get the people that start over sharing I always say that the goal or what you really want to have happen is where you go okay now my problem is not how do I get them to open up my problem is how do I get them to shut up when you when that becomes your problem you know you're on the right track but I think it's important if we want them if we want to have that problem if we want them to feel safe we have to realize that it is all it's not entirely in our control but the responsibility is on us to make that happen we don't you don't want to walk in and go well I hope they slept on the right side of bed and drink their coffee this morning so that they wake up feel ready to talk and open up we have to know what it is that we can do to maximize the likelihood of them feeling safe so that they can open up yeah which I think the point you can say that playing out in the real world where you can see in that meeting whether it's online or across the table they go from a bit more timid a bit more and then all of a sudden the whole thing changes they're moving more there you know and especially with teams meetings that have these days I used to always leave some form of like lolly bowl or some fruit or something where I when I could particularly for late meetings like evening meetings because someone comes after work they probably have an adina blood sugar a bit low you're gonna get something out of them a bit better if they've eaten but teams meetings now when if I do a like one I do them here often anymore but it's like make sure you eat beforehand I don't care if we start 30 minutes later I want you to eat that's a bad as much control as you can get outside of the actual interaction the time they spend the way that you spend it right yeah I like that's a great idea though it's like hey I'm I'm gonna you're sort of in a way making sure that there is prepared as possible physiologically right like it as far as their body goes to be able to engage and then when you get in the interaction when you get in the meeting then there are things that you can do to get them to open up right but but you're also making sure that you're making it more likely that they're able to do that that they're not sitting there with low blood sugar they're not saying they're thinking man I can't wait till this is over so I can go eat so I can go grab something because I'm just starving right I think that's a really that's a great point we've had another guest on our pod by name of Vanessa Bennett who she's a performance psychologist in Australia and a few things that I do I've taken away from her but one you might find interesting in the same light is she talks about the side of ambiguity removing reducing ambiguity because we've got any ambiguity makes the brain it's like running all these different processes it's like a computer it's got way too many apps open and the we talk about like the explainer at the end of my call that's to reduce ambiguity yeah what would happen what's gonna happen same as when the someone comes in this is what we're gonna talk about today or this is how you get into the office like there's a we're making friends in the show a good friend of ours that we met because the cameras are guest did this video of like when you get to the office and he walked through and he sends it out to them when they come in everyone gets an individual one of him showing them how to go to their office it reduces the ambiguity there's no questioning on the right place because all of that takes away instead they're confident they're happy they're walking in which sets the scene for you to be able to ask better questions and engage better at that point in time but it's so much leading up to that right yeah that's exactly right I mean exactly right so the analogy that I use and I think it really illustrates the point I'm not gonna you know not gonna explain it too much because what you just said from the performance like I'll just she hit she nailed it too but this idea that you win it all possible at every point you can you want to eliminate uncertainty because uncertainty creates anxiety and anxiety puts you in the place of the brain where you're not able to best engage focus and connect your operating in the wrong part of the brain so to the degree that you can reduce anxiety you increase your likelihood of connection with a person that you're with and so those examples you just gave by the way are great and fantastic examples of how you do that prior to a meeting the analogy that I that I use to like help hammer home the point for me is when you think about Uber right all you guys yeah you guys have Uber I know we have Uber to stride it burn it's okay yeah well I had to make sure I know I know that certain things away that also destroy that cabin industry and then suddenly became very expensive as well it can happen to you know so as I was about to say that I at this point my mind where I was like I have two choices here either go down this path the just like ball steam ahead and nobody knows what I'm talking about or I potentially embarrass myself and ask the question do you guys have Uber okay all right I should have asked what's Uber yeah right just right face that yeah we have to go get our own food yeah so okay so when we look at Uber and what they did that why did it work what made him successful it wasn't one thing that's but like one of the things that goes that flies under the radar that they did that was a big propellant in their success is if you think about prior to Uber you want if you needed to get a cab to go somewhere you would step outside you look around hopefully there's a cab coming you try to hail it down if you don't see one you're like all right it could be two minutes it could be 10 minutes before I actually get this cab and then it finally comes you don't know if you're gonna get it or not maybe somebody grabs it before you do but hopefully they get to you first you get in you tell them where you're gonna go you don't know how long it's gonna take to get there right and you finally there you don't know which way they're gonna go you don't know how long it's gonna take and so what did Uber do Uber came in again they did a lot of things don't it's not this simple right but what they did they came in and they just a limit not eliminated but vastly reduced the uncertainty and by the way our brain thinks uncertainty is miserable so they reduce the uncertainty in the misery that comes from not knowing all right and they go so now you know hey that I have a car that's coming specifically to pick me up it'll be here in three minutes it's coming from that way when I get in I know I'm gonna arrive in my destination at this time so I can start planning all these things accordingly and so to the degree that you can reduce uncertainty it reduces anxiety and so you want we want to be thinking through how do we do that it but like prior to or even in a meeting right but especially prior to the more you and I'm not gonna keep going on this path because you already hit on it perfectly but the more that you can give them an idea of what's gonna happen in the meeting the better chance you're giving yourself to be able to connect I really love that idea of taking the video of saying hey here's how you come into the office that's one of the things that most people don't think about is you sit there and you're like okay how do I actually get there and if you You can just make it fun and take that barrier out and reduce the stress of not knowing where to go and how to get there. Seems like a small thing, but small things make big differences. That's scalable. You do it once and you keep using it. Yeah, that's another great point. In my case, he made it personalized, so it wasn't scalable. That's insane. No, that's nuts. It's a terrible idea. It's the same video. It takes me 30 seconds, but I did it for you. For me, that's a whole raft of other things. I've just scrolled that down by the way. We can remove it or reduce the uncertainty. I feel like that's entirely what financial advice is. We can't get rid of it. That's our promise. We don't pay. We don't pay attention to the market business itself. We do, but what we want to do is remove the amount of variables you're unsure about, which then reduces your anxiety. If you're less anxious, you're probably happier. You could distill it down pretty deep to that kind of, I've just scrolled that down. I'm going to turn that into something. If we go back to the question, the idea I think is that a bad question asked well beats a good question asked poorly. For people that may be a new to advice or they feel like this is an area that natural curiosity doesn't really land with them easily, basically, is there a way you can fake that good way of asking questions? Or what can you do to improve the way you ask questions? I love that. How can we manipulate people, Brenton? I don't think you can fake it. You can get by faking it. Ultimately, people will pick up on that if you're not genuine and sincere. I think there's a little bit of a testing process that goes into figuring out what is it that I actually want to know? What does it that I actually want to learn? What does it that I actually want to ask this other person? What would it excite me to be able to talk to this person about? It also brings up another point around the less you can always ask yourself this question before you go in any meeting, which is, is any of the information that I'm gathering in the meeting able to be gathered outside of a meeting? In other words, we all have this tendency to be like, all right, so I've worked with the advisors right under discovery meetings. Where you go, they're like, all right, here's what I'm going to ask. So you sit there and you're like, I've got to make sure that I ask them about their relationship with their kids. Have they worked with the tax preparer before? I need to find out what accounts they have, how much they've saved, and I'm like, I'm not telling you not to do that, right? I'm not saying there's no perfect way, but let me ask you this. If you could get that information before or after the meeting, would you rather use that time to ask things or connect in a way that you can't do outside of the meeting? It's like, well, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. It's like, okay, well, why don't we, let's do that. So what are things you can do? What would you rather ask other than, hey, where are your accounts currently or how much have you saved? Or do you have insurance? You know, it's like, well, maybe ask somebody, you know, money is no issue. If you had $20 million in the bank, you had to spend it in 10 years. What would you do with it? That's a more exciting, engaging question than how much have you said. Now, you have to know how much they've said. You have to know these financial data, but you don't have to just sit there and ask it as if it's an interrogation and a form to fill out. That's what's going to kill conversation because that's not getting somebody that keeps them in their head rather than in their heart. And then to come full circle, Jordan, back to your question. There's one of the things I've wrestled with the most with no good, solid answer. And I've asked a lot of podcasts, guess this, and you get some solid answers, but nothing that feels really great is, can you, how do you cultivate curiosity? If how do you actually show interest, if you're not interested, or should you try to show interest? Or what if you're just not naturally a curious person? I don't know. I've tried to find the answer to that. I don't know exactly what it is, but I will say that I'm going to have a guest on later this year. He's got a book that's coming out on curiosity, and we're going to try to answer that question. So even when I heard you ask it, I was kind of like, oh man, I actually don't have a great answer for that. I guess I would say this though, by nature, if you're an advisor and you want to be good at it, you have to, to some degree, care about people and need to connect with people. It's really hard to be good at it if you don't. So I just think that if you're wired that way, there's going to be something that you want to know about, something that you're curious about, and you can go down that path. But again, that's not a, I don't think that's a great answer, and I haven't actually figured that out yet. It's a great question. There's a, and we're at a congress, our big annual conference last year, and I was chatting to one of the advisors there, and she said, I would have been a nurse or a doctor, except that I hate needles, so I'm going to find a good advice. And I was like, I feel like, I mean, yes, there's a trance of people who get into it, and maybe some of us did is, you know, like the idea of wearing the suit and that kind of wall straight nonsense, but a lot of us got into this because it was actually that we already had a natural curiosity, and this lets us flex that muscle and work on that skill, and we just got better at it. And we've got to be honest. I think a lot of us came in for the numbers and the quantifiable stuff and the investment, and we learnt all that and thought that was great. And then we got in front of people, we've realised, oh, hang on, this is the good stuff. We've got the charts and all that isn't. We came for the charts and stayed for the people. Yep, exactly right. That's the clip for the show right there. I'm for the charts, pay for the people. It's people I was afraid to shake. You can tell what people were like. It's been a catchphrase for me to use it in the last few weeks. People I was afraid to say it. There's also this, there's another element to this too, by the way, which I think on two things. One, on one hand, I think the reason why people are so fascinated by this idea of questions and lists of questions or what questions should I ask is because I'm not sure if because we're just naturally, you wouldn't be interested in that if you didn't want to know, like, how do I get information out of people? How can I be curious? There's an element there, I think that these are connection there, but also as human beings were wired and were built for connection. Even the most analytical numbers based engineer you could ever think of is going to be an illusion of isolation. Right? I don't know this one. Yeah. That ruins my point, then. But, besides, I'm Jordan. So, I need not analytical. That's fine. It's not. There's a reason. There's a reason. There's a reason. There's a reason. There's a form of torture. Right. And so, there's a, it doesn't matter who you are, we are wired for connection, which sort of leads me to believe that somewhere deep down, there's a light of curiosity to be sparking everybody. Now, again, I don't know the great practical answer to it. Something that I want to find out. And so, when the episode comes, I don't have to let you know, Jordan, because you and I are tracking on that. I think the thing that triggers in my mind is nation. If you, if you've designed your nation around curiosities that you have, then presumably, it'd be a lot easier for you to then be curious with the people you're talking to. I think that's totally, I think that's totally fair. I mean, I think about, or I think about the work that I was doing with clients. I started going down this human side path because I realized that I was having, I was, I enjoyed the conversations we would have around the things that are most important to them in their lives and how to help them use their money to fund the life that they want to live. More than I did learning about where their most recent life insurance policy was at, so that we could do a needs analysis and make sure that they were covered or something happened. And so that sort of became, like, my curiosity was like, hey, I can't wait for you to come in so we can talk about the things that are important to you in your life and you, and put a plan together to use your money to fund those things, right? And that may be a little bit different for everybody, but I think it is important to stay attuned to and be aware of in conversations and the work that you're doing. Where do you find yourself, like becoming most interested, being most curious? Where do you find yourself lining up wanting to learn? Yeah, what do you learn about? I think that's a signal, right? Exactly. I think that's the niche funding you, you funding the niche. It's not necessarily a style of advice or an area of advice, but it's the kind of approach that there's going to be people out there that just want you to tell them which the next stock to pick or whatever it might be, but we will naturally find ourselves attracting people who want you to ask those questions that want you to, or when you start doing it, like why are you asking me this? And then at the end, turn around and go, I really enjoy that process. I feel better. I feel engaged. I feel heard. I feel like we found the answer we were looking for, not the service we thought we were going to buy. And that's pleasantly surprised me. But that's like, if you sit there asking these questions about someone's life and they just don't want that, they're not going to come back. And that's okay. They're not your people. I haven't met one of those in a while because you get marketing that, but it happens. But yeah, I think that's the thing, right? You're going to get the right people. You're going to talk to the right people. The people that aren't going to want to talk to you about that stuff, which is mostly not people. If they're out there, they're probably not going to engage on it. You're going to know very quickly this is not, you're not the right fit. Which is what you want. If you're finding it hard to be curious about the people in front of you, they're possibly the wrong people. Yeah, I think that's ultimately the less I have. That's true to that, right? Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And honestly, you should be thankful for that because it serves as a natural filter so that you don't get two to three years down the road and realize, like, I wish I wasn't working with this person. You know, like that, this isn't a good-- fit. Why did I take them on? The more that you can attract the right people and repel the wrong people from the very beginning, the better off you're going to be in the long run. It's just hard in this business for a lot of us to say, "No, you're not a good fit. No, I'm not going to help you. No, I'm not going to take your revenue." It's easy to get into this like, "Hey, I'll work with anybody." Bill's made it be paid. That's right. Yeah, that's true. I'm just curious that we're talking about the meeting's questions and how, what we're actively doing. I'm wondering, do you have any sort of quick or easy insights that you can see what should advisors be conscious of in the meeting from the client? What are some things that clients can do that maybe indicate that it's going well or it's going poorly or that we need a change tack? Yeah, that's a really good question. I remember we had on the podcast, we had this kind of communication expert on. This is probably next level. I almost hesitate to even mention this because you can take some work. The more you can baseline somebody's body language and response tone to pace and the way that they're interacting with you, almost in a nonverbal way, but also verbally too. There's verbal cues as well. That sets a baseline of, "Okay, here's where I see them." And then once you have that, you can look and go, "How are they changing positively or negatively?" You sit there and you go, "All right, if they started off, but when they came in, they were disinterested, leaning back, not really engaged, arms crossed their chest." That's not necessarily always, just so we know by the way, crossing your arms is not always a sign of disinterested. This is the point about the baseline. If they come in and you can tell that they're asking questions and they're doing it with their arms across their chest, then for that person, the baseline is, that's how they feel comfortable. I remember thinking to myself, "I heard this whole thing where you're like, 'Hey, okay, if somebody's arms are crossed, that means that they're protecting themselves, they're not interested.' And I would find myself doing it because I'm weird like this and I like this stuff." This is why I started doing this because I'm more fascinated in this than I am financial planning. So I think about this stuff a lot. I'd be sitting there talking to somebody with my arms crossed and then I would go, "Wait, am I not interested in my protecting myself?" No, I'm not at all. I like this person and I'm interested. So I would start going down this path of like, "Hey, why is this?" It's because you have a baseline and some people just naturally do that. You register that as their baseline. And so then you know, "Okay, well, if they do that, I'm not worried about them seeing me disengaged or disinterested just because their arms are crossed." The advisor we know who works a lot with neurodivergent people and one of the most common bits of feedback she gets is that they've seen other advisors and they felt for whatever reason it wasn't a good fit, but she gets them, she listens to because she's picked up on baseline social cues that they've got that aren't necessarily the typical ones that they maybe they do cross their arms or do something or talk too much or don't talk a lot and people are like, "Oh, they're not going to come on board then they're climbing for me." But actually that's just their baseline to your point and that's a really interesting thing to take away. I mean, yeah, and again, it takes a little work, I think, a little price. It's hard to be present and curious and focused and engaged with the person and then also baselining their typical body language and pace of speech, tone that they're using, but that's why I almost had to say to even say it, I don't want people going in to be like, "All right, I need to baseline," and then they're forgetting to actually listen to what the other person's saying, which is why oftentimes I'll go back and say, "All right, yes, there are probably things, I think that's maybe second level communication skills," is you're saying, "All right, now I'm in a place that I'm so good at doing the base, the foundational work that I can take you to the next level because the foundational work is a habit, so I'm not in my head about it, so now I can go to the next level by starting to look for things like body language and baselining, and I think we all hear that as being like a cool, like, "Oh, I can just look at the master of the body language," it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, and it sounds cool, and I think people do it, and I think they do it really well, but I think it's like, it's like anything where you want to skip to phase two or phase three, but you don't have the building blocks in the foundation and placing quite frankly, if you ask really good questions in the right way and you're genuinely curious, and you listen to their responses and you signal to them that you're listening and you make them feel safe and comfortable and open up, that's going to get you like 80% of the way there, and that's going to get you past 99% of advisors out there who are talking for the majority. The communications receipt and transmission, and I think a lot of my clients are widows or the wall sees, and so they've they've met the the exes or the late husband's advisor, and they feel like they've been talked at rather than having a conversation, and I think that's the distinction with what you're talking about, communication pieces that, no, I'm, then Nathan's 10% ever went talking. You transmit a little bit, but then you're a recipient, you're there to take on the information. As you're saying something about that foundational level though, what the mechanics of the meeting is recording meetings a big thing in America? That's an interesting question because yes and no, I would say buy and large the answer is no, let me put it this way. If you had asked me two years ago, the answer is unequivocally no. Should we record meetings? Yes, right, but it's nobody wants to because it's not, it's always awkward, you guys know, if you go back and watch and listen to yourself after doing a podcast, it's just kind of awkward, it's a little bit painful, even if you're not critiquing yourself, you're like, "Gas, I really don't look like in sound light." But then if you're also critiquing that, you're doing that with my hands. Yeah, right. Keep pressing right off. That's exactly right. But it's another level of difficult when you're not just noticing that, but then you're also trying to go back and analyze, "Okay, why didn't I ask that there? I could have done this there. How do I do this better?" And I mean, the best of it, the best at what they do and anything, they do this process of going back, yeah, they evaluate, they analyze, they make corrections. So should we do it? Yes. Here's why it's an interesting question because once AI got into the mix, we now have this meeting recording software that we use AI for, which the meetings are recorded. We get transcripts of the meetings. We get insights from the meetings. I mean, you get these automated follow-up summaries and emails that you can use, it'll track the talk time for you, like how much did you talk versus the other person. So now meetings are being recorded and we get more data and we get more insights from meetings. But so our meeting recording is a big thing. They weren't, they are a little bit more so now just strictly because of this AI software that we're using to help follow-up meeting tasks. But I don't think that the rate at which people are using recordings to improve and enhance their skills has changed at all. And this is a good part as well. I think there's also an aspect of this, you know, when you're giving advice, there's obviously a layer of this of compliance, right? Of risk management of all that fun stuff. And, you know, historically, it was my recount in a note of what had happened in that meeting as opposed to then recording audio. You've now got tone and expression and client kept saying, yep, but they could be like, oh, yeah, I think about, yeah, that sounds good. But now you've got the other side. Do not everyone talks a lot or there's two people in a room and one's doing all the talking. What's the other person doing? You can see it. It's recorded. It's on video. Like, we've got that extra layer of insight into, did that person have the information, the confidence to give informed consent and know what they're doing in this plan? Where they involved in the process at all. And we can use that, I think, awesome as a reflection, watch back, take it in, learn from it. But also as a protection mechanism of going, well, we've got video footage of these meetings. You can see this person be like, yep, that makes total sense. I get it, yeah, oh, yeah, not, you know, yes. Right. No, absolutely. It's so fun. People they'll bring up with the issue or their hesitation, but the meeting recording is like, well, just I'm not so sure like from compliance standpoint, or there's some there's some compliance departments, legal side where they won't let meetings be recorded. And so we don't have to harp on this because it's not helping anybody. But my thoughts always been the same as yours, which is, wait a minute, shouldn't that help us? This the meetings are recorded, not hurt or what do we hide? Anyway, I'm not going to go, let's not go that path. It makes no sense to me. You've got me thinking about the critiquing because I, we've recorded meetings for four or five years. So we have a great backlog of the meeting recordings. And when AI came in, where I would dump them in there, get a great transcript and great notes and added efficiency, it's wonderful. I've never watched a meeting back to critique my questioning or my approach. And it makes me very uncomfortable the idea of doing so. Like I don't listen to this podcast, for instance, because I don't like listening to myself. But you're right, what a what a phenomenal tool that would be for advisors to look back or to coach each other or to critique their method. That's a very uncomfortable thought, Brandon. But I think that's something that may have to start. It's how you put it in there, right? You don't know if you're leading a weird way the whole time or how you, and maybe that maybe it's not weird. Maybe it's just how you do it. And it does make people feel comfortable. I feel like you're saying I lean a weird way. But you know, you don't, where we, where you know, you maybe you look down a lot and you're like, maybe I should look up more. That you're saying to me directly, that you're directly saying to me, that the, you know, you don't know what you don't know. And I think there's a danger though that you can look at something and go, oh, I don't like that. I need to be sitting up around it. But actually, because you're a bit more relaxed, because you look down, you're communicating more authentically. Do you think Brennan is a risk that we overanalyze and we end up removing the humanity from our process because we want to be? - Two thoughts. One is, I think it's like, I would never, my golf swing is horrible. And so are the results, on the course. (laughing) Which is why I avoided another problem that we can dive into the psychology of Brennan if we want. But, I don't think it would be helpful for me to go back and watch my own golf swing. - Yeah. - Brennan, I could do it. And I could go back and watch it. And I would look at it and I could, I would maybe be like, all right, so I need to do that differently. But is that really what I need to do differently? Or is that just gonna like, it's either gonna make these minors change this probably? Or maybe I make a change and it actually makes me worse, but I don't know, right? And so, first of all, I think I would say that. The second thing I would say is, do we risk taking out the humanity? I mean, maybe, I don't know, I feel like that, I think we're getting into the realm of like, you'd have to try pretty hard to make a lot of adjustments and to get to the point where we're losing humanity. But what I do think is important, is this is just like anything. Where if you're going, hey, I want to make sure that I get better in my meetings with clients, with prospective clients, and improving the skills that I have or how I'm conducting those meetings. Your best bet isn't to try to go and make 100 different changes, right? To make minimal impact. Your best bet is to go and say, all right, what's the one change that I can make for the next month that will provide the biggest lift? Get really good at that one thing, so it becomes natural automatic and like a habit. And then go back and say, all right, now what do I work on next? It's like when I coach these little league baseball players, right, I can look at their swing and go, guys, you've got about 12 different things that we can do to work on. I can just pitch you with like a big screen and you got like the dynamics and the recording and slow mo and you're drawing on it and like, you see go 12 degrees at Jackson, Jackson's four years old, just like, (laughing) That's 100% what I would like to do. And then, and so I tried it with my own kids, I'm like, all right, guys, do this to that. And you realize, like, wait, now I got, they just need simple instruction in a way they can understand and they're gonna need a while to get it to, for it to implement and hit. And you just have to go one little thing at a time and then eventually over time, it makes a huge difference. And so this is no different, right? It's, you need to identify what you need to do to be better, focus on that, get better at it, and then move to the next thing, the key though, why it's not that simple is you have to know what the thing is that you need to do. - Also, someone else needs to pick it for you, like having a PR or some of this not you can then go, hey, he's the one thing. And that's it, I sort of tend, but he's the one. And then you take that, is that, maybe that's the alternative, right? - No, I think that's exactly right. And also not just any peer, right? But the peer that you want to get help and advice from. And for the, so actually the other day, I had this, I know there's a lot of people out there like, all right, I know I need to go back and watch. I need to record it. I need to go back and see what I'm doing or have somebody else look. There's also this like, fear thing where you're like, hey, do I want to show them? It's maybe kind of embarrassing. I feel kind of, it feels nice when nobody else is in there. So the other day I had this coaching session with an advisor and we record the whole thing, right? There's a meeting transcript. So I just took the transcript and I put it in AI and basically said, like, hey, act like the world's greatest business coach. That's what I was pulling up over here. Have you guys saw me looking? I'm going to upload the transcript from my meeting today and I want you to provide me three things. Red dots are opportunities that were missed. Yellow were the ones that were good but could have been better and had room for improvement. And green dots are the things that I absolutely nailed and need to continue to do in sessions moving forward. And then I asked for, as like, hey, give me any clarifying questions that you need to make this great. And so then I get it back and it did a pretty good job of saying, hey, here's what you did well. Here are your green dots. Here are your yellow dots and here are the things that you missed and maybe need to work on. And it was nice, A, because it was instant. That was kind of cool. And B, because I didn't have to go back and watch myself. And I also didn't have to get, I didn't have the judgment of being in front of somebody else who'd be like, "Oh, put it in that was rough." I was forgetting to choose a different career. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was saying one thing, but there are as in facial expressions to put it in language, and everything said the complete opposite. That was really good. And it was excellent. Well, that was-- Yeah. So anyways, it was just kind of fun to do and see what it came back with. And I think that can also be refined over time. One of the things we're working on with our version, our A, I note, taker, is essentially like a meeting scorecard with a coach component, or so that it's not just this random output of what is like the A-- or the A, I-- What is AI coming up with? But it's like, hey, based on the things that we know are proven and effective in meetings, what's built it alongside AI, so we teach it what to recognize, what to train on, what to pull from. So that's one of those things that's going to take a little while, but I think the opportunities there to be a non-awkward version of a meeting coach. With that flattery. So it's like, hey, that does. Well, we keep that. We keep that in. The ego needs to be strong. As a great-- It's 2026. [LAUGHTER] Say it. [LAUGHTER] It's 2026 when a podcast-- we need to talk about AI briefly. But I want to talk about it in the context of a post you put up recently, only, then-- you said there's only one thing accelerating at the same pace as AI, the shift in value towards the human side. Could you maybe expand on that in a little bit? Yeah, so I sent that. I was driving yesterday on road trip on my way back. It was just sitting there thinking. And I had ways that I wanted to try to better-- like, articulate it or expand on it. But I was driving. And it was like, I probably don't need to be texting this while I'm driving. Number one. And then I-- I couldn't get it to click in a concise way, so I just bailed on it. But my whole idea was I was sitting there thinking, like, we're all-- everybody's sincere in their knowledge is like, whoa, this AI thing is-- it's taking off. It's moving. It's accelerating. Last year we were talking about prompts. This year we're talking about agents and workflows and things that it can do, like when you're asleep. And who knows where we're going to be next year? It may slow down, right? But it's not that you're going to completely shut off. We don't know what the future looks like. But OK, so AI is accelerating at this insane pace. The one thing we know about AI is it's essentially going to eliminate a lot of the manual task, back office tasks, administrative tasks, and then the more on the technical side of the plane. Like, at this point, the main thing technology does is it comes in and it commoditizes the technical aspect of planning that can be done better, faster, more reliably by a computer. So I'm sitting there thinking, "AI, it's accelerating. It's inciting the-- I get on Twitter and like my entire feed is what you should be doing with Clawd, right? Or you log in somewhere and somebody's got the next great AI idea." And it is-- it's all fun and exciting. And I'm going, all right, this is happening fast. And I think we're all looking over here at this moving object, going, "This is crazy, this is fast. I need to learn it, things are changing." And then over here on the other side, I don't want us to miss the fact that that's accelerating so fast that it's also shifting the value to the human side at the same speed. In other words, the faster that the AI takes over, the faster you're going to need the human aspect to be able to insulate the value of your job and be able to provide value in a way that technology can't. And so if you've sat there for a while and thought, like, "Yeah, I know the human side's important." And as technology continues to advance and proliferate, that's going to be my edge and I'm going to keep working on it. It's like, well, if you think and believe that AI is accelerating pretty quickly, just know that you need to accelerate your human skills at roughly the same pace if you want to be able to keep up. That was sort of the idea behind it. Now, is it fully validated and empirically reviewed and, you know, as far as "No, no." But we're going to put it-- we're going to place it everywhere and it's just going to be-- you're going to be quoted on it forever like that. Who do you think encapsulates what we believe about it? And part of that is perhaps an optimism that we need to make-- we need to believe that we will remain valuable. But I find it hard to believe that in my career, probably even in my lifetime, 58-year-old people that are approaching retirement the next five to seven years are going to be completely comfortable putting their future in the hands of the computer. They're going to want somebody sitting across from the desk to talk to you, I think. I hope. So we just pack it in. The point here too is we don't know what's ultimately what's going to happen. We don't know what AI is going to evolve to. We don't even know how much people are going to grow to trust AI. We do know there's an AI or technology trust hurdle that exists because I do look at the fact that you can take a self-driving car, many places, and most people still won't get in it because they're afraid of the fact that it drives autonomously. And it's like, you can tell them that it's safer. And they're still like, "Yeah, no, no, thanks." And so we don't know what AI is going to be able to do. We don't know how people are going to react and adapt and trust it. So in those situations, you just have to fall back to like, "Okay, what do I know to be true?" And if you're in this industry, if you're in this business, and you work with human beings and their money, and an unpredictable, uncertain future, try to rely on what you know to be true, and no matter what happens, we may get replaced one day. But the last thing to go is going to be the human element and the human component. And so if you want to do this as long as possible and be as successful as possible, you better stake your value there. And sure, maybe if you're going to get replaced, you're not going to be able to stop it anyways. But you might as well put your anchor yourself in the part that you know is going to be the last part to go. Damn. Good finish. I'm also late. We are late. Yeah, and it's different since before, because we were able to tell ourselves all the time, but you know, it is funny, like, I've noticed a lot of people lately coming. Firstly, I'm getting suggested to people on AI, which is awesome. Like, thanks a lot. You should speak to Nathan, because that's someone who is cool. But also, they come and they say, "Hey, I've got this far." AI said this, started, "But." They always recognize that there's something, or whatever they do for work, whenever they ask AI. It's like 80% right, but it misses the key point, which then drives it, of course. And I think that's starting to happen. People are recognizing that it misses things sometimes, so they want the validation. So they come in pre-informed. They might have questions that they wouldn't otherwise previously ask, because they've done a bit of research. But I am finding it is reinforcing the human. It's like, "Oh, yeah, they're nice to me, and I can kind of anthropomorphize the device in my hand and talk to whoever I want." And yes, it's free, but it almost strengthens that when they do interact with a human, it's like, "Okay, now I remember why I like people, and I need people." Yeah, I think you still want the person to check your parachute in the plane. In the plane door, you want my guy to still check his parachute, it's actually connected. Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating, because even in that example, they're coming to you because AI told them to. I think we all have this natural tendency to believe in trust AI more than we ever should. Nobody's going in saying, "All right, where did you get that information? Run the stress test analysis on why this may not be true. Give me the flip side argument as to why this definitely isn't true." You get it learning what you like about it. It will still bias and flatter you. There's been some study explaining this, this week that came out, but how much it will reinforce your existing opinions whether they're good idea or not. Right. And even when you tell not to, does it not, I don't know. But the good news for you is that if it's recommending you, they're trusting AI, like, "Oh, well, they said that. So they're coming in ready to work." And they're wrong, 20% of the time, but that's okay. Here's the-- Yeah, it's wrong, 20% of the time. From the human aspect, we go, "All right, it's to your point. They get a lot of information that they need from AI, but there's still something to be said about. All right, I got all the information. I feel good about it, but it still feels good to go talk to another human being, process it with them. I know that they help people do this all the time, but it feels more affirming to go to an expert, human being, to sort of solidify everything you learn on AI. There's still peace in mind that comes with that. We don't know. We don't know anything. There's a possibility that that eventually we get so reliant or trustworthy of it one day that we're like, "I don't even need the human being. I feel confident with the information that I was given from AI." So I think that has the potential to go away. The part that I think falls out last, the part that I think goes away last is the behavior change element. The do-y. Yeah, I could tell me exactly the actual execution part. In fact, I wish it was 2018. I'd be like, "Hey, give me a 30-day plan to launch this podcast. Tell me everything I need to do every day for 30 days to get this podcast launched." And that doesn't mean that I was actually going to do it. I was going to get back to exactly what you started on that. Exactly this reason. I guess I'm not going to take a photo of your microphone. I don't know. No, at my. I just point out I'm not going to say no. Yeah, I'm not willing to say it. But I am willing to say that what it won't do is it's going to be a while before it helps me change my behavior for the better because there's so many barriers to doing that. There's so many different things. Behavior change is the hardest part. And as long as it's in its current form and even as it evolves, it's going to be hard. There's very few things that replace the accountability of another human being. And there's an aspect to. If I'm sitting there watching a movie and I'm building a financial plan on my phone, great. But there is an aspect to taking the step that is hard that means it's worthwhile. We don't value things that are free. So by very nature, we're not going to. We're less likely to. You're mad at times, I'll ask that for a running program or a gym program or. And I just don't do it. Because it costs me nothing. Whereas if I've gone out and spent the time, effort, money being vulnerable to another human, all the rest of it, there's so much value in. We do hard things because they're valuable to us. It's not just because they're hard. There's something to that that maybe is hard to quantify. But I feel like it's going to be a factor. Without a doubt, I don't think you're exactly right. The information is never. Again, it's helpful, but it's not sufficient. Oftentimes, it's not an information problem, it's an execution problem. And maybe AI evolves and changes to where it solves that problem. Which if that's the case, that would be phenomenal. We'd all be billionaires with six packs. Because we'd be in perfect shape, we'd be running these pieces. We'd be living in driving marriages, our kids would be perfect. Because we have the information. That's not the problem. Now that I think about it, I kind of hope that. Because I'm going to be set. Yeah. Brennan, we could do this all day. I know that for a fact. And it's been fascinating. So thank you so much for coming on. But we should wrap it up and let you get back to your day as well. Where can people reach out to you and get in touch with them? Questions? Where's best to get in contact? Yeah, so. LinkedIn, always a good option. I've put a lot of content out on LinkedIn. I'm fairly responsive on there. Depends on what the day looks like, what the inbox looks like. But you connect to that on there. The podcast, always a great place to go. Well, again, I think. I'm probably not the right person to ask. But even inside of money podcasts is always an option. And then I put out an article once a month on the RFG advisory website. So rfgvisory.com. And it's usually something related to the human side of advice and how to do it day and day out. And then oftentimes, well, it'll bleed over into business practice management stuff, too. Like the most recent one was on the ballot time. How to make the most of it. And the fact that. So I'll tell you guys this, I thought it was interesting. I posted this on LinkedIn, but a couple weeks ago I heard somebody say, "Hey, Bern, think about where you are today, where you want to be." And I was like, "All right, cool. Yeah, I kind of know what that looks like." And he's like, "The gap between that is wide." And if you think of somebody that's where you want to be, like where you're. Like think about where you want to be. Think of somebody that's there. Odds are, they probably spend their time better than you do. And I'm sitting there thinking like, "Hey, it's probably. Or maybe they've had more time." And that's also possible. But like oftentimes what you find is that we don't need more time. It's just like money. We don't need more money because it doesn't matter how you. All the matters is how you use it. More money's not better. How you use it is better time is the same. We all want more time, but it's not helpful if you don't know how to use it. Anyways, all right. So that was a side note back to the original point. So I write stuff like that to like how to build a schedule to maximize your time, to maximize time with clients so that you can get better retention and higher growth, that kind of stuff. So it's all. Once a month I write an article on the website that covers that stuff. Yeah. I listened to a few of your episodes getting ready for today and the most recent one about client services and mapping it out and being more deliberate around that. I think three minutes in you'd said something like, "Well, this is hitting a bit close to home. Why don't you care for this at all?" No, you're making me see the things I'm doing wrong. This is all this is bad. So I do encourage listeners to this podcast, go listen to Brennan's because it is fantastic. It will help shape the way that you deliver advice and give advice. I also notice the RFC Advisory YouTube has 992 subscribers. I believe something happens when you get a thousand. Something about you can change the URL or something like that. We're going to single handedly get you to 909. Let's get them over a thousand anyway, listen. Don't worry about that, 99. Yeah. I wonder if I subscribe. I don't know if I do. Maybe that'll push myself to the edge. When you do it, the balloons will just come down from nowhere. Yeah. Something special. Something special. I think it's a big 1000. But Brennan, thank you so much for coming on. We didn't even touch on the differences between the American and Australian markets and all those areas. So that may be something we come back to when we talk about another time. But thank you again. Absolutely. To everybody listening, thank you again for listening this episode. Any complaints, queries or questions reached out over on LinkedIn to Nathan and I. Nathan, any final thoughts before we wrap up? You didn't say if you've made it this far because this episode was actually really interesting, unlike our normal rats. Yeah. So I think that's what we're doing. That's a good final thought. Thank you again. Thank you, Brennan. Thank you again for listening. Until next time, we'll talk to you then. If you've made it this far, we'd like to congratulate you for your persistence. And don't let that go to waste. You can get stupid eight points by completing the quiz in the show notes. Thanks to CpdCheck. [Music] (air whooshing)