Ep 507: Growing Bigger For Succession And Then Intentionally Downsizing For A Simpler Lifestyle Practice with Carolyn McClanahan

0:02Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitces to hear stories of how leading financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitces. Welcome, everyone. Welcome to the 507th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. My guest on today's podcast is Carolyn McClanahan. Carolyn is the founder of Life Planning Partners, an RIA based in Jacksonville, Florida that oversees$300 million in assets under management for 65 client households.

0:47What's unique about Carolyn, though, is how she grew her firm to more than 100 clients before deciding to downsize to improve her work-life balance as she also executes a succession plan. In this episode, we talk in depth about how Carolyn initially planned to grow her advisor team to handle increased client demand with her firm closing and reopening to new clients over time, how Carolyn invested significant effort in training new employees on her high-touch planning process, hoping that doing so would pay off by developing potential successors, and how Carolyn ultimately had to face the prospect of departures of younger employees who wanted to pursue different paths, forcing her to start over with new hires.

1:25We also talk about how Carolyn worked with business coaches to ensure that she offered competitive compensation and development plans for employees and to help her and her staff align their life goals with their professional paths. How Carolyn ultimately made the decision to downsize her client base to have more free time for herself and to pursue her goals supporting the planning industry. And how Carolyn has created a new succession plan that allows her to continue serving clients while transferring ownership to employees at her firm. and be certain to listen to the end where Carolyn shares how she set criteria to determine which clients to keep at her firm and which to let go, how Carolyn evaluated other firms to help departing clients find an appropriate advisory home, and how Carolyn, who is also a physician, advocates for medical-style residency programs in the financial planning industry.

2:11And so with that introduction, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast with Carolyn McClanahan.

2:22Welcome, Carolyn McClanahan, to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. Michael, I am so excited to be here. Thank you for having me back. I am excited to have you back. You were one of our first 10 episodes all the way back just shy of 10 years ago when we started the podcast. and you were in a growth mode, but at a very good place in the business. It was a million dollars of revenue with a core team. You didn't necessarily want to grow it a whole bunch bigger beyond that at the time. And I know in the years since, it has been a little bit more of a rollercoaster journey. It got bigger, you decided to make it smaller.

3:04And I'm particularly intrigued to talk about the decisions that drove you to make it bigger and then the decisions that drove you to downsize and make it smaller. Because I find just the overwhelming focus in the industry these days is like growth, growth, growth, how to size up, how to scale up, which is great for a subset of advisors who want to do all the things it takes to build a large team and support a large advisory business. But we've seen for years in our advisor well-being research that the unhappiest advisors have an average of about two to$3 million of revenue. Because it's the size where your client base is getting big, you've hired up your team, you got like a half a dozen team or more.

3:46And now you're working like a huge number of hours to manage 18 members and 172 clients all at once. And we keep hearing this refrain of like, it's grown bigger than I ever thought it would. I'm making more money than I ever expected I would. And I'm burning out on all the hours it takes to run this business and I've never been more miserable. And often the most straightforward solution from the business perspective is, well, maybe if this is really bigger than you wanted, just downsize to have fewer clients and fewer team members and a simpler practice and get your life back. And that's like really easy to say on paper and really hard to do in practice because most of us do this out of a desire to serve others.

4:25So the idea of like downsizing staff, downsizing clients is like anathema to a lot of us. But I know, Carolyn, like you have had to navigate this journey, like up the hill, down the hill, as it were, and go through the downsizing process. And so I'm excited to talk to you today about what brought you the decision to make it bigger, what brought you the decision to make it smaller, and how you actually did it and what you learned through the process. I live the story, so happy to tell it. So I think as a starting point, help us understand the advisory firm as it exists today, just so we have a snapshot of where it is.

5:04And then I'm going to kind of jump back to where we were 10 years ago and understand how this journey played out. Sure. Well, right now we are a that charges flat fee based on complexity. Our revenue is about$1.6 million, I think it's going to end up being, because we just downsized clients. We had 100 clients at the beginning of the year, and we'll get into it more in depth, but now we are going to be at 65 clients. And our AUM, before we downsized, we don't charge on AUM, but we manage all our assets for our clients. It was about$360 million before I decided downsize. After we finished downsizing, which we're not totally done yet, I'm estimating it's going to be at about$300 million.

5:54Okay. And how many team members is it? So I have now two other advisors, two full-time admin, and one half-time admin. And we had two people leave the firm and I'll get into that one of the why. And it was all on good standing and good footing and they landed in good places. Okay. And so I'm looking at this relative to where we were 10 years ago. So for folks who want to go back and listen, episode nine, so kitsis.com slash nine for the original episode. And back then, you were running like the same complexity-based model. It was about 80 clients. You had a million dollars of revenue. I think it was two or three team members then as well.

6:53So if I just look as a snapshot from then versus now, you had a focus practice that leveraged you. Now you have a focus practice that leveraged you. You've got slightly fewer clients today, but the revenue is higher as we honed in on clients who will fully pay to appreciate the fees of what we do. So if I just look at the two points, it's like, okay, you continue to hone in and focus the business. Seems like it's running great. you know, a couple of teams supporting 1.6 million of revenue with 65 clients is like a wonderful high touch service practice. So now connect the two dots for us of how did this actually play out from where you were 10 years ago to get to where we are today?

7:45Yeah. I mean, it's funny when you go back and tell me where I was 10 years ago, it looks like things haven't changed and I probably had a great 10 years. um so i've had it was like cruising along it's awesome carolyn yeah i've i've had a wonderful life 10 the last 10 years but it definitely has been a roller coaster i want to step back and say how i got to where i was and it'll take me two minutes at 10 years ago um you know i started my practice in 2004 and when i started i planned on just being a solo practitioner taking care of my buddies and you know my er i was a former doctor and i was taking care of my er buddies and running buddies.

8:21But then all of a sudden, things went a little crazy because so many people were looking for real financial planning, which there weren't a lot of people doing real financial planning in Jacksonville. You know, the business of medicine had gotten really hard. And I loved patient care, but I decided I really loved financial planning more. So I went full bore in 2005 to being a full-time financial planner. And as you know, I love this profession and so many people helped me get started that I started speaking on the intersections of health and finance. And it's all of a sudden I had two jobs, speaking at conferences and running my program.

9:05And I love, love teaching advisors. 2010, I'd been asked to join Capstone, which is a study group of a bunch of really large firms, firms that were a billion dollars. And people might not know back then, like Norm Boone, Elaine Beadle had very big, beautiful firms. Yeah. Saw this potential that I could have a big, beautiful firm. And I thought I should do that because at that point in my career, I had this crazy waiting list for clients. And I mean, people were just trying to knock down the door. And I thought, okay, do I want to be a big firm? and after joining that study group wonderful people but I realized mostly what they did was run a big business and that what I love doing is taking care of the clients and I love teaching advisors so I made an active decision at that point to stay small and that it was to grow to 100 clients and I believe I had an ensemble firm because there was no way I could go do all that teaching.

10:05Plus, I didn't think it was fair for the clients to be just me and what happens if the bus hits me. So I hired an investment manager who was just an amazing guy that worked with me. He's now retired and I have a new one. And then I hired another planner. And the challenge was what happens when I need succession? So things went smoothly, fairly until 2019. okay so i was gonna say when you were on in 2017 this was still very much the discussion i mean i think you literally said then my plan is to never grow beyond 100 clients you had your investment manager there was another planner so you had the the continuity elements what happens if you get you get hit by a bus so so help us understand further what changed so like 2019 and starting to think about succession.

10:58Right. Well, which I had already thought about succession. And so I thought my young planner that I hired would be the succession plan. And so here is, I am here to share everything, all my warts and problems and mistakes I made. So the big mistake I made is not really good communication around succession plan. I, you know, I've done well throughout my career. I've saved well. I don't need to make a ton of money off the firm. Back then I didn't. Now I don't need to make any money off my firm. I could retire today if I wanted to and just close the door and walk away. But I did a very poor job of explaining to my succession plan back then that I basically was going to give him the practice, maybe one-time revenue.

11:45And he was a great young man. But he needed a lot more development. I think we just kind of had a disagreement on where he thought he was and where I could see that he was. And so he left. And that was a wonderful kick in the butt for me because I needed to take business planning a lot more seriously and really lay out the succession plan, lay out the metrics of what the advisors who were working for me needed to do and what they need to deliver and what I was going to deliver to them. So that was my first big mistake. So the gap was you had expectations, at least in your head, of the level people needed to be at in their development, like the things they needed to be doing or the capabilities they needed to show up with, but that hadn't been as clear, so you ended up with a mismatch, and he thought he was there and you thought he wasn't there, and that became a problem.

12:50Right. So can you help us understand what kinds of development or capabilities were you looking for even then? What were you watching for? What are you trying to identify to say this person's a good fit or at the right stage, right level? Well, the biggest challenge I think in our firm is we truly are comprehensive. People talk about being comprehensive. We're almost a family office, except we don't pay people's bills. So we know everything about the client. We do very in-depth tax planning before it was vogue. We coordinate all of our clients' estate planning and go to the attorney with the clients.

13:39We do projections every year to make sure and monitor what clients are spending, how they're spending money and monitor their spending to make sure they're keeping it in the road. And we do in-depth insurance planning. So we also look at the client's property and casualty and health insurance in addition to their life and disability and all that. And we don't sell any products. So we basically become the patient's advocate when they need stuff. So a lot of advisors don't do that. And the most important thing to me and a skill that an advisor needs to have is being able to keep all those pieces in view when you're making a decision about one thing, for example.

14:29And most people know this, but you have to really know the client well. When you make a tax decision, how does that affect estate? Sometimes it can affect cash flow. Likewise, with insurance, you can affect estate, you can affect liabilities. There's just so much that you have to understand. And you also need to understand what the client's values and goals are when you're making these decisions. So the big link that was missing is being able to put that big picture together and know how all the pieces have to work together and how to communicate that well to the clients of what you were doing for them and what they needed to do.

15:13And so this becomes to me a challenging, somewhat fuzzy thing to measure and evaluate in a prospective successor. Exactly. Because basically teaching young advisors how to keep all those plates in the air, making sure that you're not letting balls drop with certain things that you're doing with clients, how to manage the workflow. So they may get the nuts and bolts of doing a tax plan or doing an insurance report. But being able to be a collaborative advisor with the client and knowing how all the pieces fit together, that takes experience. And I'm sorry, you can have one or two years of experience and be a really smart person and have passed the CFP exam.

16:04but it takes sitting in the seat and really working with people to know how to do a great job to work with people. Okay. And the challenge was you had younger folks coming in who didn't necessarily want to spend the number of years that you thought it takes to, to really get to that level of experience. Yes. Okay. Okay. Uh, but, and so the blocking point or the concern for succession, your context, I guess, relative to your earlier comments, like, it's not an afford, like, can we afford to buy the practice at the valuation issue that crops up for some people in succession planning? It was a, no, no, just the standards are quite high for the depth of what we do.

16:49And we need a good amount of years and experience and putting the proverbial reps in to be at the level it takes to handle the clients, the service standard we deliver. Right. And in on in my side, the mistake that I truly made was I did not have good measurables for that for them. And there are and, you know, I hired a business coach after that, which we can get into to help me develop that. And it was invaluable. It's just like, here's what you need to be doing and why and making sure that I'm tying pay to that. Because the other challenge is that, you know, people felt like I should be paid more.

17:30and because this is what the industry standard is paying. I have three years of experience and I should be getting paid this by now. And I laugh because they actually point to kids' studies when they look at how much, what you guys are saying people should be paid. And it's a challenge for small firms like mine to hire people and bring them in and have to develop their skill set and being able to pay them appropriately when they can go down the street and work for like a Fidelity or a huge firm and do basically cookie cutter stuff and get paid a lot more. But their opportunity going forward in those firms isn't the same.

18:16Their autonomy is not the same. So there's intangibles that I feel like a lot of young people don't understand until they're in those shoes. So then talk to us a little bit further about what came next. You have a version of these that doesn't work out. So I don't know if you realize like I need more measurables and went to find a consultant or you went to find a consultant and they helped you realize you needed more measurables. Like how did it move forward from here? Yeah. So, you know, I'm very active in the profession, go to a lot of conferences. So I know a lot of people. And so I had another young advisor who was with me because when I retired, my succession plan was going to need somebody working under him with him to help.

19:07you know, so, so we actually had two young advisors and my investment manager at the time. Um, and I thought, okay, hopefully she'll work out, but I'm going to hire a business coach to make sure that I get it right this time. So I hired Kelly Cruz and I hired Andrew Miller. Um, so two, two business coaches. I started with Kelly. What do they see each of the, what do each of those folks do? Yeah. So Kelly Cruz is a compensation consultant because that was the big sticking point. Am I paying people well enough? And so she did a very deep analysis on what everybody's roles were in the firm. And so not just the advisors, but the admin and all that, what everybody's roles were, what the current market in Jacksonville was and how much I should be paying.

20:00And so she gave this range and I actually was paying very well in the high percentiles for each of my spots that I had. And so it wasn't a pay thing, but the other thing she also helps people do is create compensation guides and measurables for when people get raises, measurables for when people get bonuses and what that looks like. So she built these beautiful spreadsheets, you know, Excel spreadsheets of what advisors need to be doing. And we created very detailed job descriptions and what's it look like to move up. So that was beautiful. And I'm so grateful I did that. She did a very good job dragging me.

20:48She didn't have to drag me through, but it was a lot of work. You had to really think and put pen to paper of what is it that I need? What are the roles and where's that fit in? You know, and the challenge when you're a small firm, you've got to wear a lot of hats. And so you can't have just a chief compliance officer. So my investment advisor, who was the chief compliance officer, how much of his role did he get paid for chief compliance officer versus being investment manager? So little things like that, having to really parse out how people are spending their time and how they should be spending their time on what they're doing based on what they're getting paid.

21:26And so if part of the anchor point was measurables and more clarity to figure out when are advisors ready to move up, what did you end out with? What were the triggers or the measurables that came forth? Well, the big thing is owning more of the responsibility of the client relationship. And I know you and I have talked in the past, we really truly are an ensemble in that I was doing tax and estate and then one of the other planners was doing the projections and the cash flow planning. And then the investment person was doing the investments. And then the other advisor was doing the insurance.

22:14And we all knew all the clients. And the key is, though, is I was still the lead problem solver. So the advisor who did their insurance plan would be communicating with the client about the insurance plan. And everybody knew their story. So we all always communicated about how does this fit in with everything else. But when people have poop hit the fan, when clients have something bad happen, that's when I get called. And we're not saying bad as far as something we've done, bad in their life. You know, they get diagnosed with an illness or they lose their job or whatever. I was the lead problem solver.

22:56And the challenge was we are so efficient with our planning processes and how we manage investments and educate client on investments that that part was easy. It was the big work, though, was when a problem would come up. And so I was training all these young advisors and having to be the lead problem solver. And so the big, big trigger for them moving up is they had to learn how to be more of a problem solver. okay which means like deal deal with complex issues when the poop hits the fan and actually be able to handle this on your own correct okay which you evaluate just by looking in practice when those situations have come up have they been able to handle them yeah well so what happens is when i get something landing in my inbox that i think you know you have easy easy poops and then And you have sometimes somebody has a gastrointestinal illness.

23:56And, you know, so I started with handing over, okay, here's this problem. How would you solve it? And it was Cheryl Holland that taught me a long time ago. You can't guide them. You have to let them guide themselves and step in if they start to get in trouble. And so, you know, because people need to learn to think critically and think through problems. And so that's part of the process. So the other thing is making sure people are good at managing workflow. And some people, they just don't have that skill set to know where all the pieces of the puzzles are. And so that was the other challenge that we're having.

24:37Did you think when this client called about this issue, did you think to bring up Salesforce and look at the five other tasks that we have so you could check in on those? You know, so one, learning how to solve problems. Two, learning how to manage the workflow so that we weren't all piecemealing the client and nickeling and diming their time because they weren't doing a good job communicating and looking at what's going on with the client. so i guess i'm trying to visualize in retrospect like what would this have changed or altered or improved with the prior person who had left um well i don't know that it could have fixed it because i just think that with and so this is where um a maturity thing matters i mean not that he was he was great guy um not immature but as far as a um on his professional glide path, he needed more time in the seat.

25:44And I think had I maybe had clear career paths and clear expectations and tying those places, it might have worked. I don't know. But I'll tell you where we are now and why it's working, why I hope, I think it's working now. So let me fill you in on the years after he left. That's where, you know, I taught, I worked with Kelly and I said, okay, I cannot rely on one person for my succession plan. So, and the young, other young advisor, I mean, now she's what, two years out of school and still, you know, she's super smart, but need a lot more experience. And so we're talking like 2022 or something like that.

26:34So I, I said, I'm going to go ahead and just bite the bullet and create a team. And so we were going to grow to five advisors, three admin. So started hiring. So that's a, that's a big shift from you were two, two advisors and two supports? Well, no, it was, it was the investment manager, two other financial planners, and me. So now it was going to be the investment manager, three other advisors. Is that right? Me and three admin. Okay. Right. We had a hundred clients at this point, right? And just a reminder, I have been close to new clients for more years of my practice than I've been open to new clients.

27:29And every time we reopen to new clients, our waiting list for a year gets immediately filled. It's a good problem to have. So the adding advisors part here, since you, investment manager, and now going to not one other, but three others was because you wanted to have multiple horses in the race for potential successor. All of them, ideally. Yeah. All of them, ideally. We're diversifying our risk that at least if one doesn't work out, there are others and my only option is not the door. Right. So that was other. And to do that, I did all the financials and all that. We'd need 150 clients. That's it.

28:22Because our typical clients now, and again, we charge flat fee. We don't charge based on AUM. But since the world operates on AUM, our typical clients average$4 to$5 million. Most of our newer clients are$5 to$20 million. So these are people who are the millionaire next door do-it-yourselfers who know they're too complex to do it themselves well. And they basically need a family office except somebody not that they're okay paying their bills. They don't want a real family office. Okay. And so that's where we were planning to go. And so what ended up happening is hired quickly, trying to train.

29:10And the first one I hired failed. So after a year, that was painful. My investment manager also retired. He hired his replacement. His replacement was amazing. So that was a success. It's like, I need to be the one not hiring maybe. That's the issue. But we all hired as a team, then hired another advisor. So now I have three advisors working for me and the investment manager. And the problem was, is they're so, it's hard to get anybody with experience. And especially the experience that's coming out of what's out there, they don't know true comprehensive planning. So teaching them how to put all those pieces together.

29:55So many firms don't do insurance. They don't, you know, they tell estate planning is telling the clients to go to the estate planning attorney. You know, doing insurance planning is telling them to go to the insurance agent. Tax planning is tax loss selling. And so our planning was very in-depth. And the people who have come work for me, it's like, wow, this is way more than any other advisor does. It's like, well, that's how we get the clients that we get because we're very. That's why we work with five to$20 million clients who pay a lot of money. Yes. Right. Exactly. And so if you don't want to lose your lunch to AI, be a problem solver and help do those things that other people won't do.

30:39And so that was a big challenge. So now I'm having to manage these very complicated clients to make sure no balls are dropped and teach these young advisors. So the last two years, so 24 and 25, I was working 60, 70 hours a week sometimes and averaging over 55 hours a week for the whole year. This was in addition to me still speaking at conferences. I had cut it down. I could never be like you. You're amazing. At my height of conference speaking, it was like 25 a year. That's wild. Yeah, after COVID, I cut back and I would do no more than eight a year. That's still eight conferences and running a practice and trying to train all these people.

31:25I was like, oh my God, what did I do here? So it was – and I was still hopeful. And you know me. I'm the happiest person I know, but man, I was getting burned out. So what was causing all the hours to be so high at the end of the day? Well, because, you know, for example, and again, all good people working for me. I know how long it should take to do a projection, how long it should take to do a tax fund. I measure everything. People laugh. I have this spreadsheet that goes back to 2006 of how I have spent every 15 minutes of my workday. And I don't do that. Yeah. I mean, because I want to know how I'm spending my time.

32:16Where am I wasting my time? Right. So I know how long on average it takes me to do a state review. I know how long on average it takes to do a tax plan and all that. And I don't expect them to be as fast as me because I'm way more experienced, but there's a certain level you have to reach. And so basically they were still learning. I'm still teaching them. And I just had to keep picking up a lot of the balls and doing the regular work while they were learning. And it just wasn't progressing fast enough. And at the same time, you expanded the client base to bring in the revenue to cover the additional salaries of the additional advisors and training.

33:06so there's also just more clients on board now than previously. Yeah, all the new clients. And so they were responsible for doing the new client plans, but I still had to go through everything and make sure that nothing was missed. Because again, they were learning and they were smart, but when you don't have years of experience, you don't understand the nuance and the important little things that you need to catch. like, oh, this client has a life insurance policy at work that you didn't ask about because you didn't pay attention to the pay stub that they sent us that shows a life insurance premiums being deducted.

33:49Little things like that that we need to know about. And that's what learning's about. But I bit off way more than I should have. And I expected way more than I should have, I think of the people working for me given their years of experience. The other end is like, well, why didn't I hire up, hire a more experienced person? The challenge with that is they still, even more experienced people, didn't have a lot of the in-depth knowledge of the way we do things. And they expected these huge paychecks where it still was going to take them a year or two to kind kind of get what we do and how we do it.

34:30So ironically, from your end, the, the experienced people still need a lot of the training and developments. They're just more expensive. Right, right. Well, and plus, you know, plus they're coming from, you know, trying to, I tried to get people out of the broker dealer insurance world. They're coming with these preconceived ways of doing things. So you not only have to teach them new, you have to teach, unteach them the old. And so that was challenging. And I am grateful and very, the people I hired were good people. I just feel like I set the expectations too high for them and too high for myself.

35:13For how quickly they could get to where they needed to be. Exactly. So, and I guess the pain for you because now you're running three at once and more clients to handle the three at once. And so that's what makes all the hours go up. Right. So did it feel like it was making, I mean, like, was it making progress as you were going? Was it 70 hours, 65 hours, 60 hours? No. Moving in the right direction? Yeah, well, we were adding these new clients. And so the end of 25 is when I hired Andrea Miller. She's a CPA formerly, and she worked for the AICPA. And she was there. You might know her, actually.

36:06Yeah. And she ended up leaving there and becoming a life coach for financial planners. And I read about the work and I knew her through the AICPA because I speak for the AICPA. And I read an article about what she was doing through Bob Veris' newsletter. And I'm like, hmm, I might need that. So I said, Andrea, I have a challenge for you. I know you're working one-on-one with people, but I wonder if you would help me work with my entire team to help them develop where they need to go so they can lift the hours off me. Okay. So we hired her the end of – it was end of 24, sorry. And so we created this path of what needs to happen, when it needs to happen.

36:57and then she helped as far as working with each of them individually to make sure that what they were doing is what they really wanted to be doing and how did they feel about how it would be going. How could Carolyn do better to make sure to help you? I just felt like I needed an outside objective person to help us all put things in perspective and that I couldn't be working this way. And I, and I was going to give them this great deal on the practice. So they needed to really step up because I couldn't keep doing it. And so at the end of last year, at the end of 25 is when, okay, team, what's going to happen next year?

37:44Because Carolyn needs to cut some hours. I didn't even take my vacation time in 25. So, you know, crazy hours. And I mean, I took time off, but basically I worked so many hours on the weeks I was here that it was like I got my vacation time back. And I said, I at least want to be able to take my 25 and 26 vacations time in 26. And that's my goal. If I could just have that, that'd be great. And, you know, I want to throw one thing in there. My husband doesn't mind me sharing. He's developed a neurological problem. It's not life threatening, but it's going to affect his mobility in the future. And I'm like, OK, how many more good years do we have?

38:29Because we're very active hiking, kayaking, biking. How many more good years do we have that he's going to be able to get around to do things we want to do? I can't do this. And that's where I said to myself, I'm not going to hire another person. I ran all the financials. financials. I looked at the client list and we really, I know we've talked before about my client engagement standards. We do a great job of making sure we pick clients we like to work with that we, you know, when they call, you want to pick up the phone. And so it's like, okay, how am I going to do this? Cause I like everybody.

39:07And I just looked at the client list and I said, okay, I'm going to keep two thirds and help a third find new people. And then I had another young advisor. He was wonderful. And I just basically had to say to him, cause he wanted high growth fast. And I'm like, I'm not going to be able to deliver that to you. So I will happily help you find a new job. And I said, or, you know, if you feel you're up to it, you can, and open your own practice. I will help steer some of the clients to you. I said, I can't promise they're going to come to you, but I'll say you're opening your own practice. And I bet a fair number will help you get started.

39:46So, but he ended up going to work for another firm. So that's what ended up happening. So now we're down to one advisor, my investment manager and me. And the one advisor I have left, he actually was a hire late last year. He did not know the hornet's nest he was walking into of where we were, but he knew what the plan was. And I basically said to him, and so he's in his fifties, he came, he was at Merrill forever. And then he went to Edward Jones on his own because he wanted to be an independent advisor, realized that that setup didn't really allow him to be a true fiduciary. So he jumped at the chance to work here.

40:25And the beautiful thing about him being in his fifties, seeing it all, doing it all, his maturity level about understanding what it took to really be here is there. So, so take me back for a moment. Just you, you did this work with Kelly to try to set clarity of the career track, the measurables, what they needed to do. You brought in Andrea to help further create paths for them. So, right, like it's, it's a quote unquote, it's all the things you're supposed to do. Right. So, so what, what wasn't working? I mean, I'm now like with the lens of hindsight, at least like what, what wasn't working?

41:12Too many who were too early stage at once? Yes. Okay. Because you'd expanded the client base to cover them, but they're all in the same learning mode at the same time. Right. And we hadn't fully, I mean, we had only added maybe, gosh, eight clients since we started all this because we were doing it very thoughtfully because, you know, I'm very big into make sure we never neglect our current clients. So we want to add thoughtfully. So we were adding like a client every two months. And of course, he's a complicated client. So you got a lot to do with them. Okay. I guess that's helpful context. So you hadn't gone already and ramped from 100 to 150 clients off the list.

42:00No, no, no, no. I could never – I would have died. And I wouldn't have been able to do a good job. We wouldn't have been able to do a good job. So yeah, we were adding a new client about every two months. And between that and doing a great job taking care of current clients, it was a lot. I guess I'm just trying to understand if you'd only gone from about 100 to 108 clients, just what made the hours skyrocket so much that you're working 60-hour weeks and can't take vacation? Well, one – In the time-tracking spirit of your magic spreadsheet, like where was all the time? timegoing that blew this out for you in such a challenging way?

42:44The client, the regular client care, the client poops, the problem solving, having to teach them and oversee all their work, having to review all the reports. Okay. Because I mean, before you went and hired them, you also had 100 clients, but you weren't working 60 hours a week. Right. But we weren't taking new clients. So new clients took a lot. I wasn't having to train a lot. Yeah. And so that, that, and Brett was doing a great job. We were going through the transition from Tim retiring to Brett taking over. So, but I still had to kind of watch out for him just to make sure. That was your new investment manager?

43:28Yeah. Okay. So I guess in retrospect, at least just too many new team at once? Too many new team, too much, you know, just as far as regular client care, I was doing all the tax planning still. So having to do 100 tax plans, that's a lot of work at the end of the year. And what was the path that Andrea was trying to build to get through this? So for them to get better about their flow, to help them think through how they want to step up in leadership roles. So a good example, one of the good transitions that happened is Brett took over basically being our CFO. So that took that off my plate. just getting them to think more about all the practice management stuff and how important it was to not let any balls drop instead of just staying in their lane of doing reports.

44:39So she was working with them on that. Okay. So all in the just developing them as talent and focusing more on the practice beyond just the client work itself. Right. While they're also learning the client work and how to deal with more complex clients. Right. And communication, learning how to write better emails, how to talk to clients, learning who the clients were so they can communicate better with the clients. And so I guess I can see the context. So the pain is so much time it takes to do the training and development with all the new people on as the new investment manager is getting up to speed and you've got two new younger advisors on board that you're heavily training.

45:31And then the most experienced one you had decides to leave. Right. But otherwise, you're basically in new advisor training overwhelm. If you want to continue down this path, the best case scenario is hiring another newer advisor and having three in training where the ones that are still coming up to speed now are your most experienced. Right. Okay. Yeah. And I just couldn't, I mean, could I stuck it out another two years? Probably. Did I want to? No. Life was calling. and I speak about the intersections of health and finance and I have for years talked about you don't know when things are going to hit the fan for you and they haven't yet.

46:21Trib's doing, my husband's doing great. We don't know, you know, what the time frame of how long he's going to do great and I'm just, I'm like, I'm not going to wait anymore. I want to make, I'm fine work. I love my job. I love financial planning. I love teaching advisors. I'm not quitting. My goal is to stay around another six to eight years. And again, I believe we should quit before we have to quit because I teach people about cognitive decline and all that. But I want to work a reasonable life. So our goal is to get me down to three days a week. So, okay. So now we get to the end of last year, we're rolling into this year and the news comes.

47:06So now take us through the the thought process, the decision process. So what, what, what did you do? What are you analyzing? How are you choosing like the path forward from here now? Yep. So the, so I talked with Andrew and Kelly and I said, I'm going to downsize the practice. And it's like Kelly's mouth dropped. Andrew is like smiled real big. Yay. And, um, I went through the financials of, okay, okay, which clients are going to help move on? And I decided to keep all my very old clients because I'm a fiduciary to the core and I care very deeply about my clients. So all my clients, like in their late seventies, early eighties, keeping them because they'll hopefully outlast them.

47:54Not that I want them to go, but we're just looking at statistics. Then I said, keep all my So oldest clients doesn't mean longest standing clients. We're talking like chronologically oldest clients, like the ones in their seventies and eighties. Okay. Late seventies and eighties. I mean, cause people in, especially clients of advisors are usually healthier. A 70 client, a 70 year old client may have a 20 year runway for you depending on their health. And so that was the first ones I knew I was going to keep. Then the very complicated ones, It's like, cause I know we do a great job for them and they pay us well for what we do.

48:30Then I also favored local cause about a third of our clients are long distance and, and I adore them, but I've also found it just, it's just fun having people local. And so, so that, that took care of some of the, I didn't get rid of all of our long distance clients. I kept our complicated long distance clients. And then I got rid of, um, rid, I hate saying that. I helped move on some of our, um, really young clients. Cause we actually had a very diverse age group of clients because I figured they're going to need somebody to grow old with. So we were left with this group of 65 core clients that, and, and all of us just, we each made a list of, okay, which 35 would you move on?

49:19And it was very hard. And we all compared the list. And there's some people that was just, you know, and some people who need lots of handholding and, or don't always listen to us. And so it's like, why are you paying us? I'm there, those, those are very few. So that was like a handful. We all agreed on that, you know, anybody could serve them because they don't quite get what we do after all these years. But the majority of clients were very hard, hard to say, hey, I got to find you a new home. Everybody was very gracious, minus one person. They were not happy. But everybody was very gracious, especially understanding the issues with my husband.

49:57And I've got to have a life and the succession plan's not working. I went through the clients that we're going to keep and I said, here's what's happening. Here's what I'm doing. You may not like our new succession plan. And one thing I've always done has been very transparent with clients about my plans and the succession plans that they've always been very appreciative. So all those, all the clients I said, I would like for you to stay a client, but if this makes you concerned and you don't want to be a client, please let me know because I'm going to let somebody else stay a client if you don't want to stay.

50:28So I kind of had to triage, you know, call down the list. Everybody that I asked, I said, we want to keep you, they stayed. And then the 35, I've moved all but about, now it's about a quarter of people I still am trying to find homes for. They have weird situations that it's an hourly person can't quite serve them well. I'm gravitating, most everybody came to us because they love our flat fee structure. So I'm gravitating towards flat fee advisors, but not all flat fee advisors manage assets. So it's just kind of been a challenge finding a home that they would feel good about. And, you know, but it's a work in progress.

51:15And already, though, my life is like so much better. The way I worked with the team on this is if Brett's the investment manager, if he wasn't going to be happy and stay, that was going to be a problem. I was actually going to downsize to 20 clients. So I went to Brett first and my office manager, who's been with me forever and ever. I said, here's what I want to do. And how do you feel about that? And Brett said, bring it on. I would love a lifestyle practice. So he was on board and that's why I decided the 65. Then I went to Steve, my new hire. I'm like, you know, you're, you're a mature guy.

51:51Are you in for this? And he says, yep, let's do this. And so everybody is very happy. And Andrea has worked with the team to make sure that we all feel good. And it just feels like all the right people are on the bus. So I guess I'm wondering, I see so many advisors who are in some version of this. And it seems like the almost automatic conclusion is we just have to grow through this. We just got to grow a little bigger. We got to get a little further and it'll get better. I guess I'm just trying to understand how hard or maybe not hard it was for you to decide, no, I just need to go the other direction.

52:34We're going to downsize and simplify this. Well, this is where an advisor really needs to look at what are their goals and values. I mean, I get a call from private equity every week. It's like, please quit calling me. I think private equity is killing the profession. I am not a fan of it. Yes, they will offer me a heck of a lot of money, but I'm not here for that. I'm plenty fine. and but another other advisors may need that and they may want that you know so that's okay to me there's no judgment we all want different things but for me I have enough I could I could retire today I don't want to and so it gives me lots of options having that financial freedom and And so I did not have to grow through this.

53:27The only reason I would have is I wanted to make sure that my clients were well taken care of and that my employees were well taken care of. And once I knew that my, especially my key employees of my, my office manager who I adore, she's just been with me through thick and thin and, and our other admin person who is amazing. when once they were all on board and excited about it, I'm like, okay, this really is the right decision. So you've just got to understand your goals and values when you decide, am I going to grow through this and go through the same pain I went through? Or maybe you have more success because you'll do it smarter than I did.

54:08Or realize that you only get one life and you don't have to do all that. And how did you actually break the news to clients who weren't making the cut? It was painful. What was the process? How did you explain this? I called each, every client, even the clients who kept, I called everybody and I just broke it down. I always, I had to be careful because it's like a lot of clients know each other. So I didn't want to, I grouped them by, okay, who's going to talk to each other? So I had to call them quickly first. And then basically I just said, here's what's happening. And I have to move 35 clients to new advisors.

54:53And here's who I'm picking. I'm keeping my old people, my really complicated people. And you're not old and you're not complicated. And you really framed it to them that way. Like this is my criteria and you don't fit those. Right. And I said, and I'm not just like making you go out on your own. I'm going to help you find a new advisor. I'll give you names. Or if you guys come to me with names, I will tell you, you know, what I think about how their practice is. And then once you pick somebody, we'll do a warm handoff of all your information. You're not going to have to gather all your documents or any of that.

55:33and we're going to make this super smooth. And we've done that with every client. And I want to say one more thing about what I think the problem is, is with small firms is you don't, you can't go out and hire 10 people and have eight of them work, which the very big firms can do that. You have to hire one or two at a time. And I've complained and, you know, I've been very vocal about it since the beginning of my, me entering this profession, that the CFP board needs real residency programs, like two to three year resident, real, like we do in medicine, real residencies where people are actively practicing, learning the communication skills, learning how to put the big picture together, not just like one capstone plan, but learning how to be a financial planner, because that's what small firms need to bring in, or people have some experience, but, and we don't have to train from the bottom up.

56:35So that's my plug for hopefully one day to make this a real profession, the CFP board will create real residency programs. But I mean, Larry, like where the CFP board runs it and like takes on clients to give to the residents? No, it would do exactly like we do the medical graduate training system. University programs, which now teach CFP and finance, would have practices where the students and then now the residents would actively practice. Okay. Yeah. It's not literally something CFP board would run. It's something that like the CFP board registered college programs would run. They would run, but they would have – just like we have in medicine, they would have standardized curriculum.

57:28In medicine, we have the ACGME, which supervises all the residency programs, the CFP board would service that. Michael, I know you have a million pieces of education on your website, but I wrote an article on your website a few years ago about this. Yes. Yes. I'll link that into the notes. Yeah. But I'm just distinguishing because a lot – even for some financial planning firms out there that have built various versions of residency programs, like it's individual firms that are taking on an advisor or a few in a cohort, which is different than CFP board runs it or CFP board creates a framework where the colleges that currently do CFP classes run it.

58:13Right. Well, you could have individual practices do that because in medicine, you actually have community-based practices that take on residents. But the CFP board would have a standardized curriculum of everything that needs to be met for somebody to successfully graduate from residency. And so what do you think is missing that we don't have this or we haven't been able to get to it already? Is it just specifically the we just need a clearer curriculum of what it's going to be or do you see other blocking points? No, I think that we need young advisors to have time in the seat of doing real financial planning in a supervised setting with a standardized curriculum, making sure they know how to do real estate planning, tax planning, making sure they know how to put the pictures together.

59:14One capstone plan does not make a person a financial planner. And especially learning communication skills, behavioral finance is huge. That's such a big part of what we do. And that's a part that, you know, as we see AI take over more of the mundane planning processes, that it's going to be very important for advisors to have those skills to actually, you know, people motivate. AI doesn't do a great job motivating. So teaching more of those type skills and how to problem solve. I think a lot of the critical problem solving skills that advisors need are not being developed. And especially in these super big firms where they just want to do cookie cutter planning, a lot is not being done for the clients.

1:00:07That would be very valuable for the clients. And if advisors learn how to do that, we'd be serving them better. So now take me back a moment to the transitions you're doing. So as you go to the 35 who have not made the cut because they're not too old and they're not too complicated, how is this transition working? Are you selling clients? Is this like a partial book sale transaction? Are you just referring them out and sending them to a new home? Like how, yeah, it just felt, it didn't feel like I'm not selling them at all. No, I'm, I'm referring them out. I'm trying to match personalities. I've reached out to advisors and interviewed them and talked to them.

1:00:55I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out who would be a good fit. And, and it's been beautiful. And it's like, these advisors are like, are you sure? It's like, yes, you know, please take my client. And these are good clients. And again, like I said, some of them are a little bit more challenging, but every client has a different type of challenge. So I'm surely curious. You're now out scanning advisors' websites and interviewing advisors. So any learnings of what it takes to find a financial advisor as a financial advisor finding financial advisors? Um, yeah, I mean, to me, there is such a diversity in what people are doing for their clients.

1:01:41And it's amazing to me, how many, especially all the new flat fee advisors, basically want to work with do it yourself people to just validate them, and then send them on their way. And so that was a little disappointing to me. It's because there are a lot of people who don't want to do it themselves who would benefit from a flat fee advisor. And they just need somebody to make sure everything's getting done right. So that was a little disappointing. So it's just the distinction that you are a flat fee advisor that doesn't charge on AUM, but you're still doing portfolios and a lot of other implementation and follow through.

1:02:31It's not, I'll give you the advice and you can go forth and do it. You are still very hands-on with more delegator style. Yeah, we only take delegators. As opposed to some of the folks emerging in the advice-only space where the whole model is you work with the DIYs and validators who want to come for second opinions and get advice, but they don't want you to do it. They don't need you to do it. They're just literally here for the advice. Right. So, for example, some of the clients I'm helping find new homes, they would be fine to have an advisor help them rebalance once a year, right? But there are advisors out there that won't help them rebalance.

1:03:11It's like, I tried to send a$6 million client to somebody and maybe it was too big for them. I don't know where the guy is super smart and can do it, but he wanted somebody that was going to help him rebalance. And it's like, nope, not going to do that. I will send you down to the street to an investment manager. I'm like, it's not that hard. One thing is we use passively managed portfolios. We do individual bonds. So that scares a lot of people off. And I had some advisors insist that the clients need to sell their bonds off because they need to be in bond ETFs. I'm like, these are great bonds.

1:03:49You're going to take a huge haircut if you sell them. Why don't you just let them mature and then you can reinvest them in bond ETFs? So there was just like some disappointing things in what some of the advisors were doing. But again, I found some really great people for people to go to. So it just was trying to figure out who was going to do what. So any other discoveries, learnings as you're reading websites and interviewing advisors and trying to figure out who's a good fit for your clients? Right. A lot of advisors have really bad websites. What's missing that you're looking for? Some of them don't really say what their fees are.

1:04:29Some of them are, they don't spell out their services and people want to know what they're getting. One thing that shocked me about some of the flat fee people is that are doing investment management is they say, I'm going to charge you$9 ,600 a year, no matter what the size of your portfolio. I'm like, that doesn't seem very smart because once somebody, you know, once you get clients that are over 10 million, 15, you've got to be thinking asset protection and setting up ways to protect them and making sure they're more tax efficient. They are a lot more work on maybe not on the investment side, but on everything else they are.

1:05:14And so to set a true flat fee that doesn't take how complex those clients are going to be and how much more of a liability they could be to you if you're not doing the right thing for them, I just – I think isn't real smart on those advisors' part. So what do you look for in the services context? I feel like most of us have a – our services, right? Comprehensive financial planning, including tax and retirement and insurance and estate and investment management of your portfolio. I feel like most of us have something in the context of services that covers that, and my impression is that that's not doing it for you.

1:05:54Right. Well, so like tax planning. They say, oh, we do tax planning. Well, you find out it's only tax loss selling. They're not helping people determine what's the ideal IRA distribution in retirement to manage lower tax brackets. They're not doing ACA tax credit planning. I mean, because you have millionaire next door, millionaire next door clients that are under 65 that you can still qualify for ACA tax credits. It's harder now that they didn't expand the tax credits, but it's still doable. And nobody's there's a lot of people that have no idea how to do that. I mean, I spoke at NorCal this last May on all the things you could be doing for your clients on health planning side.

1:06:40And a lot of that was tax stuff. And people had no clue how to file an Ehrman appeal. It was amazing to me. So now bring us forward to today. What is the succession plan now? So it's very close to what it was going to be. I am actually giving all of my employees a total of 15 % of stock. Okay. And so it's a gift. And they're not getting 15 % each. It's broken up. The advisors get more. My longtime office manager gets more. I'm even giving the admin people stock. Now, if they leave, they lose that stock. It just goes away. But if the business gets sold, they benefit from it, which I'm not going to sell except internally, but just in case that protects them.

1:07:31But they also get dividends along the way because we still have very good profitability. so it helps them invest in that growth. Next year, so this year I am getting, I've already taken a big chunk of my, I finally finished my 2025 vacation days. Now I've started on my 2026. So that's been amazing. Went to Greece for two weeks. It was great. And been taking days off here and there. And next year, January 1st, I'm going to four days a week. And I'll be cutting my base pay to reflect working four days a week, which is going to increase profitability. And Steve and Brett are going to start buying in 34 % over the next six years.

1:08:19They're just going to buy it a chunk at a time, which they should be able to do with their pay because they're going to get pay increases from taking over more of the work I'm leaving. And again, we're using very clear measures of what that looks like. Thank goodness I learned that lesson. And so they'll have lots of time to buy that. So they'll own 40, the crew will own 49 % of the practice by the end. And then when I'm ready to walk out of the door, they're going to buy the other 51%. And again, they're going to get a good valuation on it. Not, I'm going to take it as low as we can legally for them to get a good deal and for me to get something out of it.

1:09:00And so they shouldn't have any problems as long as we can keep that profitability and going forward, being able to pay that 51%. So the goal is not necessarily to give all of the stock over the 15 % as a initial seeding of their buying power to buy the next 34%. Part of it and part of it's more that incentive to continue to make us efficient um you know have good profitability and you know have that ownership and we're not going to take new clients but as you know like I said some of our clients are in our 80s we'll probably lose lose a few clients over the next few years I said that when whenever you guys are confident and competent and not to to fully onboard new clients and you guys want to take new clients without me having anything to do with that, you can do that.

1:09:55And we all agree that that's not going to be any time in the next couple of years. And so they can grow the practice some and they're going to need to. And they know that because you have to replace clients. We did, again, we still have a broad range of clients and we looked at what's the potential longevity of the current clients we're keeping. A lot of our clients are in their early 60s. And again, you're looking at a 20-year runway plus on those people, right? So they have plenty to keep them in good financial shape if they do a good job and keep the clients, which that's their goal is learning how to replace what I do.

1:10:38I guess I'm just curious as all this is float through, how did the economics of the practice end up? I'm just trying to visualize, is it actually more profitable now as well? Because you downsize clients, but you also reduce headcount. Is it a little less profitable, but you cut from 60 hours down to four days a week, so quality of life is through the roof and the economics are simpler? I'm just trying to visualize, is this a step back in dollars for quality of life improvement? Did this actually improve the economics as you went through all of it? Where does it stand? It's going to be a wash.

1:11:20Okay. Pretty much a wash. Yep. But your hours go from the 60 hour weeks to four days a week. Yep. Okay. Okay. So as you've now gone down this path, what surprised you the most of this journey of trying to create the succession plan and the transition from 10 years ago? You're like, I don't want more than 100 clients. We're still there with a bit of a roller coaster along the way. But what surprised you the most about this journey? Um, I think for me, how hard it was to get good people and everybody hired was good, but, but how hard it was just to hire in general. And is that because my firm is small?

1:12:14Is it because we're in Jacksonville, Florida? Um, it, it was just a challenge. Hiring was a huge challenge. So that, that was a surprise because especially we were doing everything right. I was offering equity, had clear career paths, had great quality of life, were hybrid. So people get to work from home two days a week. Great vacation, all the benefits. So and Kelly said, your package is amazing. Why aren't we why aren't people coming here? And so I don't know. That was surprising. It's like there was we had so much to offer and we couldn't get the type of candidates that would be a good fit.

1:12:55So that was one surprise. And my advice to people who are facing succession, start super, super early. You always hear that. And I thought I was starting early enough, but give your chance for one blow up because it's going to happen. And you've got to just roll with the flow, but make sure you protect your health and yourself and what is of value to you along the way. I never considered selling to private equity, but every now and then it's like, God, I wish I could just sell to somebody, but it just, it was going to be hard. And I have to say part of that problem is probably because we're flat fee and manage the assets that we do.

1:13:40because if somebody who's looking from an AUM perspective is like, wow, that's a great practice to buy. But when you actually get in and look, okay, their flat fee, what's that look like? People don't want to touch that. So if selling your practice is a big thing, I feel like flat fee advisors are going to face challenges in that given this current, you know, how the market looks practices. So I am struck on the dynamics of hard to hire people. It's like you did ultimately find good folks that fit that you're successioning to. So if I'm understanding right, it's not that ultimately you couldn't find some people, but it was very hard and challenging along the way with some turnover to like just to get to the ones that you got to.

1:14:32Yes. And though, I want to say that we are not done because Steve and Brett still have a lot to learn. Brett's investment manager. So he, with it being the two of them, he's learning how to do the financial planning. Now, he is a CFP, but he's always focused on investments. And I said, there's no way you can just do it, make what you need to make and just do investments for 65 clients, especially given, you know, we're passively managed. We don't even do performance reporting. So Brett's job is not it's the big part of his job is we do use individual bond portfolios. So that's how he spends the bulk of his time is getting bonds as far as on the investment side.

1:15:22But now that he's down 35 clients, it opened up a lot of bandwidth for him. And so he's learning financial planning and he's doing he's super smart and he's doing a great job. Steve still has holes to fill coming from the broker dealer world because they did zero estate and zero tax. And he's picking up very, very quickly and he's very productive. And I think coming from that world, and also he really, truly loves financial planning. Both of them love what we do. So that makes me very optimistic. But they still have the skill to learn the skills of communication, making sure they're knowing how to spin the plates, of which where we are right now and where they are right now is way further than where we were the past two years.

1:16:14So I'm optimistic, but we're still not 100%. And I'm hoping it happens. And we all feel good about it. We're all still working with Andrea. So it feels good, but maybe I'll be back on your podcast in six years to tell you how it all turned out. So you're 20 years in now on the financial planning career. What was the low point of this journey overall for you? I don't know if it's the succession challenges or something else on the journey. I think it really was the succession challenges. You know, the challenge I had is I came into this profession knowing I was going to do it very differently than how other financial planners did it.

1:17:00When I did flat fee from the beginning, everybody said I was crazy. When the way I do engagement standards, when we quit performance reporting, everybody's always called me crazy all along. And my push in the profession about how important incorporating health conversations are, there's just a lot that I've done that's been very different. And so that has ended up, to me, creating a challenge for me of getting people into the practice that can really visualize what this practice looks like. And people say, how do you have the time to do everything you do for your clients? And the reason why is we do such a great job on investment education.

1:17:46We have zero investment meetings. We don't do quarterly reports. supports. We are very consistent in how we deliver planning and it's an ongoing service. And that's where we spend our time. So, and I looked at it where other advisors spend their time is trying to justify their investment management and all that, which we never have to do. So we spend the same amount of time as other advisors. We just have a more fun job. I like how you didn't just frame like we spend more time on the planning. It's like we have a more fun job. We do. I mean, that's, and that's what people want. They don't want to, they don't care about whether their portfolio outperform.

1:18:25The ones that say they care, that's because they've been trained. That's what I'm supposed to care about. But when it comes down to it, what people really want is somebody that's going to make sure that they're going to have financial security in their, in their lifetime and that they're enjoying life now and they're doing smart things financially now. And that's being a financial problem solver. And I could tell you, that's why we've never had a problem getting clients. That's why our waiting list was out the yin yang, because people understood that we really cared about them and their outcome.

1:19:02It wasn't just about their money and growing their portfolio. So any other of, I was thinking was the pearls of wisdom from hard-fought experience that you wish you could go back and tell you 10 years ago as you were starting down the succession path? I think I've shared everything. I love the journey I've taken, and I've realized that life is always going to have obstacles. I've been big into stoicism, reading stoic philosophy the last few years. And, you know, Ryan Holiday wrote the book, The Obstacle is the Way, which Marcus Aurelius talked about. And learning to approach obstacles as opportunities instead of problems.

1:19:49I think that, that I wish I would have learned that a lot sooner in life. Because now it's like what we're doing now is fun. And the decision I made to downsize, it felt good and right. And so learning, making sure that you understand who you are and what you want and following your heart with those decisions. And so I just wish I would have started that a lot sooner. Any other advice you would give younger, newer advisors like coming into the profession today? Um, the most important thing I think is to learn good communication skills. I think so much of that is being lost as far as how to have hard conversations with clients, how to ask the hard questions, because if you're comfortable having hard conversations with clients, you're going to be able to do a better job for them and they're going to value your services a lot more.

1:20:45So what comes next for you? What else is on your horizon as your time recovers? Yes, I know. Super excited. Yes. So as you know, I've been very big into teaching advisors about the intersections of health and finance. I did join the CFP Board Resource Commission a couple of years ago, and they brought me on specifically to help develop a guide for working with clients facing cognitive decline. um and i mean to me that's i've never been big about what's my legacy going to be but if anything's going to be my legacy i think um that that issue is it and i'm super excited that the guide is going to be released this fall and i'll be speaking at the cfp conference on um on the guide and working with clients with cognitive decline how to prepare in advance i'm gonna one of the goals I also have, you know, I have about 20 talks I do on intersections of health and finance and just ways to how I practice use of engagement standards, everything we do in our practice.

1:21:57And I want to record all of those on YouTube videos and put them out there for free because there's really nobody out there still talking about the intersections of health and finance like I do. And I don't want that to be lost because I think a lot of that's valuable. And I want to make it widely available to any advisor who wants to get better in that realm. So those are my plans. And I'm always dabbling in other fun things like politics and health policy and do some of that. And of course, spend a heck of a lot more time with my husband. We're kayaking a lot, taking trips, more trips and having a good time.

1:22:35So as we come to the end here, this is a podcast about success. And just one of the themes is that word success means different things to different people. It evolves for us sometimes through our lives. And so you have this like objectively very successful practice now in a hopefully successful succession transition. So the business seems to be in a great place for you now. How do you define success for yourself personally at this point? Oh, goodness. For me, it's like, did I do good in the world? And it's like, you know, so much was given to me as far as, you know, in my young life, the number of people that helped me, the number of advisors who helped me when I first got started.

1:23:28I, it was Cheryl Holland that always said, when you give without the expectation of getting anything back, it just comes back to you a gazillion fold. And that's happened to me. I have lived a very full life and I just learned that doing good just to do good is its own reward. and so I feel like I'm a huge success and by creating the practice that I created and by being bold and doing it differently and not being afraid to do it differently things to me have happened beyond my wildest dreams and so yeah I'm just grateful and to people like you I mean you have been just like a standard bearer in this profession have been kind of my guiding light through the years.

1:24:20And for all of us that are giving back to this profession, it's wonderful profession to be in and we're just making it better and better. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much, Carolyn, for joining us on the Financial Advisor Success. Thank you for having me back. And I look forward to seeing your path over the next 10, 20, 30 years. So it'll be fun. I still got a lot of gas in the tank. There's a lot. Awesome. Thank you. Want even more ideas, tools, and resources on how to break through to the next level of success as a financial advisor? Check out the leading financial planning industry blog, Nerd's Eye View, at www.kitsis.com, where Michael covers the latest practice management trends and financial planning strategies.

1:25:07And by joining the members section, you can earn IMCA and CFP continuing education credits along with exclusive member content. Get it all now at www.kitsis.com.