Episode Transcription 

INTRO  00:08

This is the ultimate advisor podcast, the podcast for financial advisors who want to create a thriving, successful and scalable practice. Each week, we’ll uncover the ways that you can improve your referrals, your team, your marketing, and your business operations, helping you to level up your advising practice, bring in more assets, and to create the advising practice that you’ve dreamed of. You’ll be joined by our hosts Bryan Sweet, who is moving fast towards a billion dollars in assets under management, Brittany Anderson, the driving force for advisors looking to improve their operations and company culture, and Draye Redfern who can help you systematize and automate your practices marketing to effortlessly attract new clients. So what do you say? Let’s jump in to another amazing episode of the ultimate advisor podcast.

Brittany Anderson  01:07

Hello, and welcome back to your ultimate advisor podcast. This is Brittany Anderson and I have with me Mr. Draye, Redfern and Mr. Bryan sweet. And we are going to go through the next four episodes talking about what holds us back from success in our business with the whole core purpose of having you avoid those things. So to kick this off this week, we’re going to talk about how fear can often get in the way of achieving the success that not only we want, but what we’re actually capable of. So fear tends to be the biggest thing that actually holds us back when we look at making progress in our business, in our lives amongst our team, all of those things. So what’s the saying, and Mr. Sweet has said this many, many times over. But the biggest limitation is really only the six inches between our ears. So we tend to get in our own way, especially, you know, when you hit certain levels, when you break through certain ceilings of complexity when it comes to your business, it can be really scary to look and say, Okay, well, I’ve done all this. And this has been great. But I don’t know if I’m capable of that next thing, or I don’t know if I’m able to break through that next ceiling of complexity. So one of the things to bring up here is there’s this little thing called the imposter syndrome, where we get in our own heads, we get in our own way, thinking that, you know, who am I to teach on this? Who am I to help advise clients who am I to help them reach their goals when I don’t think I’ve really met all of my own goals. So we tell ourselves, when we get in this narrative of feeling inadequate of feeling like we’re not worthy of some level of success, of feeling like we shouldn’t be the ones that are out there making this difference in impact, because of our own insecurities. So again, when you look at that that’s really getting into a fear based mindset versus a growth mindset. The other thing that fear has a tendency to do is to Trump energy. You know, energy is actually our superpower. If you think about it, you walk into a room. And if you come in there, and you’re like, Alright, we’re getting down to business. Everything’s serious, everyone’s grumpy. This is no time for fun. Like, how do you think that influences the room. Whereas if you walk into a room and you’re like, Alright, guys, we’re going to rally behind this is going to be hard, this is going to be tough, but we’re excited, you have every capability. And you know, here we go, let’s go for it, that will influence the energy in the room in a positive way. So again, energy is truly as human beings, our superpower, and it helps them aids in our ability to influence others into action. So if you are living in fear, and you are experiencing that imposter syndrome, where you’re questioning your own value are your own worth, that could actually be detrimental to your energy levels. Because it’s hard. I mean, if you’re really in a state of fear, and you are doubting your own skill set, you’re doubting your own IQ expertise, it can be really difficult to mask that when it comes to showing up as your best self showing up with high energy and showing up to lead your team and really lead your clients to. So it’s up to us to protect that energy by not eliminating fear because I think fear can really work for you and can be really helpful to you. But you need to let it be a motivator versus something that just takes over and kind of crushes that energy or crushes your abilities. Fear can also make us say yes, to a heck of a lot of things that we should actually say no to. So I think this is a big one, especially for our high achieving advisors. Like if you’re listening to this and you’re like, I’ve got drive. I’ve got this skill set. I know what I’m capable of. I’m excited for it. And I want to learn all the things and take on every project and In the world, because it’s gonna help me get to my level of success, there’s this thing called FOMO. fear of missing out. So a lot of times, and we talked about this amongst ourselves too, you can be involved in a million different programs and a million different, whether it’s a coaching thing, or some sort of very specified skill set here and there, you get involved in too much, you end up scratching the surface on everything, versus just executing in a really focused, streamlined manner. So when we’re fearful of missing out on the next best idea, or the next best opportunity, it can actually pull us away from the core that’s going to help us grow and move forward in our business in a way that’s controlled and in a way that scalable, and in a way that keeps our energy up. So again, we’re protecting our energy here, we’re saying no to the things that don’t serve our greater vision and mission, so that we don’t allow fear to get into the way. So recently, I was on a training with Mr. Ryan love back, he’s absolutely brilliant. If you’ve never read the book, ask it’s a great one. That’s Ryan authored that, but he talked about how, really, when you look at success in your business, there’s really only two things you need. Those two things are courage, and grit. So think about that for yourself, like where do you right now need additional courage in your business? Maybe it’s courage to say no to something, maybe it’s courage to say yes to the right thing. When you think about your business, where do you need a little more grit? Where do you, you know, no, you need to give that unattended undivided attention to break through that next ceiling of complexity and achieve the success that you want. You know, grit doesn’t necessarily mean working 18 hours a day, and never sleeping, and just going around the clock whirlwind, you know, grit can can boil down to just being extremely focused on those few activities that move the needle the most. So when you’re thinking about framing fear, and you’re thinking about how it relates, and how it can motivate you into your business, we want to have it work for us. We don’t want to have it control us. So Bryan, I would love for you to share. I mean, you’ve been in this business for a long time. Now, I would love for you to share some instances where maybe you’ve been fearful of a certain decision or been fearful of the what’s next and how you have actively worked to overcome those.

Bryan Sweet  07:29

Yeah, I would be kidding you and everybody in the audience, if I said that, I’ve not ever been fearful because especially when you first get started, you’re probably fearful of any decision that you make. And, and maybe rightfully so, because you don’t know what the outcome is. And so until you’ve had some successes, it’s it’s it’s scary. And I think that maybe the the time that I remember the most, but maybe it was the biggest learning curve was when we were doing way back when when you used to have upfront charges for mutual funds. And, you know, they’d have eight and a half or five and a half percent. And the trend was starting to go to fee based. And it was one of those things where us being in a really small community, I went well, no one would pay us a fee for just managing their money. They’ll just they only want to pay us when when we actually do something for them. And so I literally delayed that decision for I’m guessing several years, to my chagrin, because once I finally said, well, what’s the worst that could happen? And did it, it actually went really, really smooth. clients were very accepting thought it was kind of an amazing concept. And now literally 95% of our business is is like that. And it’s a really interesting thing. So this whole fear thing is, really, I’m glad we’re talking about it because it plays a bigger role in the in our industry than we probably want to even admit. And the thing that I have found is that if you are prepared. So if you just go in and try something and you don’t haven’t thought it out, or you don’t have a plan of action, you’ll probably fail. But if you’re prepared, it usually goes pretty darn well. And so then it usually ends up being in our own head that we can’t do things. And so I think one of the key things we have to remember is always think about the successes that you’ve had, when you’re making a decision like that to go well I’ve done something like this before it might not be exact, but I’ve tried something. I’ve had success with it. So why would I have success with this and what are the things that I did to help make it successful. And have I done those things and thought about that in advance to make sure it goes, you know the way that it should. And so, nowadays, I don’t have any lack of comfort to just literally try anything, because I, no one I’ll be prepared to, I’ve got a great team to help implement it. And three, I’m not fearful of the outcome anymore, because, as we’ve alluded to on this before, there’s only two things that can happen, you can have it go right and win, or it could be a learning experience. And because of that, you get better that way, also, so both of them are positive. And there’s not a negative outcome that can happen. But I think one of the other key things that you want to do is you really, really, really want to be conscious of your employees are your teammates, and their feelings, because their thoughts maybe are even more susceptible to fear. And so we talk about the concept of learn to get comfortable being uncomfortable, literally at about every meeting. And you really need to encourage and get your team to embrace that thought process if you’re going to experience much growth. And so one of the key things is if you ever have one of your teammates, kind of break through that barrier, have a success or overcome a fear, make sure you’re doing something in a real positive note, not only personally but in a group setting to show the success, show what they’ve overcome, over exceeded. And it’ll get them to do much more of that type of activity in the future, which will lead to more success, because that’s very encouraging. And one of the other things that you mentioned was FOMO. And my name is probably in the dictionary for that aspect also. But I didn’t really know that there was a title for that I All I knew is I had that and still deal with it directly today. But I’m one of those that love to get new ideas and love to think about opportunities, and how can I get better, and how can we do this quicker, faster, more efficiently. And so my ears are always peeked at every idea. But what I have found is it is really the most distracting harmful thing that you can do. And it’s really, really important to be conscious when you’re in one of those states of mind. Because the more you can keep a laser focus, the much better results that you’re going to have. So consequently, today when we’re doing decision making, we’re using filters to help us stay on track. And if it doesn’t move our vision forward for our dream architect process, it’s really moved down the list are completely taken off the list. And I think that is one of the bigger lessons that I’ve probably dealt with in the last year is just don’t get excited about every opportunity. But be aware of every opportunity that helps you get closer to your vision. So if you face that, it’s just being aware of it and then having some kind of a system that you can go through to make sure it’s not affecting you negatively.

So Draye, I know you’ve had a lot of situations in the past where you’ve had to say no to some big opportunities, but in the long run that served you well, so can you share some of those?

Draye Redfern  

Yeah, I’d be happy to Bryan, this is, you know that some of them are gut punching, when you look back and like, oh, my goodness, like, how did I miss this opportunity? or Why did I not take that you kick yourself because you didn’t take advantage of it. And that’s usually FOMO thinking, like the fear of missing out. But one of the things that I think has been really, that’s always been sort of my Mo, is play the long game. And most people don’t we live in a society of instant gratification, I want everything yesterday, and I’m totally guilty of this, like, I needed some things Friday. And instead of going to the store and getting them we just had waited like two hours and had Amazon and Whole Foods, deliver them to the house without me having to go anywhere, do anything because I can, that’s a society that we live in. But it’s not always a good representation of how you should operate your life and your business. So the long game is one of the filters, like Bryan says, you know, they have filters, too, they pass things through. That’s one of our filters is what is this? You know, how will this best serve us in the long run or that you know, using the long game as the as the example. So I’m going to give you an example of an opportunity that I passed on. And then what ended up happening as a result of me passing it, passing on it. And then what is happening now. So this is hyper relative because all of this just finished transpiring on Friday, and we’re recording this on a Monday, like literally one business day ago. So about three and a half years ago, I had the opportunity to work with a different shark from Shark Tank, we’ve helped daymond john Watson things before, but work with a different shark from the show Shark Tank, and it was going to be something that was right down our wheelhouse, like we could, we knew we could knock it out of the park. But I was so overbooked and way too stressed out too many moving parts and pieces. And I didn’t want to have that potential deal with this, this shark blow back. Because if it couldn’t give it 100% attention to all of my focus, what would the ripple effects of that beat, and it would have been a great deal, it would have been a fee only deal. But a really great very high fee to accomplish this. Well, I ended up passing on that deal. And I kicked myself for three and a half years. You know what I could have added that to the list that we’ve worked with X amount of sharks from Shark Tank, like just more credibility, and yada, yada yet, all of the things FOMO. Right. All of the things fear of missing out well, fast forward. And literally, as of last week, last Friday, we are now taking an equity position in another company, of which this shark owns a stake and a piece said, and so here I am, like literally eating my own dog food, practicing what I preach playing the long game. And it’s a matter of like, you know, you got to be in the right place at the right time. That’s what you know, a lot of what opportunity or luck can be. But the other side of that is, you know, recognizing what is that bigger picture. And you know, don’t pick up a dime to Miss $1 later on. Not saying you don’t want to capitalize on opportunities that are that present themselves. But it’s also about perspective and delivering the best in the you could do. So I’m ecstatic. I’m super pumped. I’m super stressed out though now because now we’ve got to deliver on these things, right, all of the things that I was afraid of, you know, three and a half years ago. And so for me, that’s a perfect example of, you know, I do I want to say yes to everything, but I can’t. And that has been a huge eye opening in a scenario for me because in the last year we went have gone from three full time in house employees to 12. And from like an outside contractor team of about like 10 to an outside contractor team of about 25 we’re like extreme like meteoric growth right now. I want to just Yes, yes, yes. You want that? Yes. You want to take on that? Yes. That’s always been the mentality is it’s a matter of like, keeping that in perspective, running that through the filters that Bryan had mentioned. We do the same exact thing now. So they’re not only just friends, but they’re they’re amazing people. To have in my ear at the same time. But the mentality is, even if we take something on it goes through the filters. We either win at it or we learn. That’s it. So if it doesn’t work, if it falls flat on its face, and my God, I fell flat on my face more times than I could ever tell. It’s embarrassing how many times I’ve fallen flat on my face. But it’s all been learning experiences as being the visionary of the company, I can share and disseminate those learning experiences with my team to help shortcut their learning and shortcut their time to get up to speed to do all of these sorts of things. So what holds us back, I want to take everything on, but it’s about perspective. And it’s about playing that long game, because you never quite know what’s around the corner that could make your business even better, even bigger at a whole other playing field. So with that, Brittany, I’ll I’ll turn it back to you.

Brittany Anderson  

Yeah, you know, Dre, you He made me think of something there when you were talking about all of the yeses. So there’s a gal Her name is Judy Haller, she has this whole big movement wrote a book on being a fear boss. All right. So definitely geared towards female audience. If you’re listening to this as a female advisor, go check Judy out. She’s She’s hilarious. She’s brilliant. But there’s a concept that comes from that, but I think is so relevant. So part of her whole methodology on mastering fear is yes. And so how drays over here saying? Yes, yes, yes. Over here. Yes. Bryan’s like, yes. This idea? Yes. Let me grab this. We have to add an add to that. And a lot of times what that end is, it’s not Yes. And let’s add more to the plate. It’s Yes. And what in turn Do we need to stop doing. So if you’re saying yes to something that you believe wholeheartedly is going to contribute to your growth is going to help with your scalability is going to help with your sustainability? Well, you darn well better be saying no to some of the things that maybe you need to stop. And I think the trap that we often find ourselves in, is if we’ve said yes to something for so long, that we sometimes forget to measure how and if it even serves us anymore. So embracing the mindset that just because you’ve done something, the way that you’ve done it for how long or you’ve paid for some service for how long or you you know, whatever it is, it doesn’t mean it has to be like that forever. So embrace that idea of Yes, and using that. And as a point of elimination to the things that no longer serves your vision of success. The other thing that I was thinking about, as Bryan was talking is, let’s just think about our industry as a whole. Right now, you have a lot of people or a lot of advisors, who may be in like the broker dealer model right now who are looking at going fully independent. And as Bryan was talking, I’m thinking about this whole process of when we look at the advisors that we know that as Bryan was alluding to, they just jumped ship. You know what I think the grass is greener on the other side, and we’re just going, those are the people that got to the other side and went Holy smokes, this was a lot of work and a lot different than I thought. Whereas the people who are being very methodical about it, who are stating what their vision is, what their reasoning is for making any type of transition like that. Those are the people that as you circle back, they’re like, yeah, it was a lot of work. But it was the best decision I’ve ever made. So regardless of where you’re at, if you’re independent, you’re in the BD model doesn’t matter. The BD model is great for some the independent models great for others. The point is that you need to be one that measures the decisions that you make. And don’t just be hasty in it because you’re frustrated with one thing or you’re upset about another thing. And I think that concept applies to business across the board, and really to letting fear work for you. You know, sometimes we get caught in our own game. And it’s, you know, we see what we’re capable of, we look at our measures of success, and we make hasty fear based decisions, which can then have negative results. So I think just the theme here is to really be mindful, what are you saying yes to? What are you in turn saying no to? And how can you make fear work for you? So before I go into our top takeaways from today, Bryan, Dre, anything that either of you would like to add?

Draye Redfern  

I think it’s a good perspective that is not probably talked about as often as it needs to be. So I’m glad we’re I’m glad we’re rock and roll on this one this week.

Brittany Anderson  

Awesome. Well, alright, so top three takeaways from today. I think the number one thing that can be done that will benefit you after listening to this is to write out your fears. So this is an exercise that I personally went through recently, where I was looking at, here’s some decisions I want to make for my future for my businesses, for my family for myself, and I spelled out every fear that I have right now. And then I went down and I said, All right, what is the absolute worst case scenario? Like if I take action on this one thing, what’s the worst case scenario that’s going to happen, you will quickly realize that the worst case scenarios are not as bad as what you’re maybe initially thinking, when you actually sit down and put control back to it, versus just fear based clouded judgments. So I highly recommend as a takeaway, write down your fears, write down the worst case scenarios. And then on the flip side, write down the best case scenarios. You know, if you’re looking at, let’s say, you’re looking at investing in something for your business, you’re gonna make some decision to join the coaching program to join the ultimate advisor mastermind, there’s my shameless plug, you’re making a decision to add a team member to your business, whatever it is that you’re looking at, you need to do a measure, what’s the worst that’s going to happen if I make this investment, what is the absolute best that could happen, and then make your decision from there lead with facts, not fear, that’s so important. So write those down. That’s your first takeaway. The second and I think Bryan brought this up brilliantly, is to actually encourage other people around you. So whether it’s on your team, and I would also add in in your personal life, to encourage the people that you’re around to lean into their fear, and to do things that challenge them and to get comfortable being uncomfortable. You know, we’ve talked about before how you’re truly the product of the five people that you spend the most time with? Well, I don’t know about you. But I would love to be around a bunch of people who are just knocking fear out of the park. They’re like, yep, I’m terrified. But I’m also going to make this work for me. And I don’t know what’s going to happen, for sure. But the best case scenario sure does look pretty. So I think that’s something you want to do is when you start encouraging that you’re going to see this and I would love to hear like I would love to hear the results and do like an actual study on this. But when you start encouraging this amongst your team, the ability for you to be able to face fear in a brand new way, when you’re pushing it amongst your team. It’s a forcing function, it forces you to up your game, it forces you to lean into fear head on to make it work for you, versus avoiding it or versus letting it control you. So really encouraging people on your team. And then finally, I think Draye brought it up brilliantly is you know, focus on the long game. make decisions that don’t have just immediate gratification, but rather look at building look at sustainability. Look at the future of your business, look at the future of your team. Those are all things that can help you make decisions based on growth versus based on fear. So that wraps up today’s episode of your ultimate advisor podcast. We’ll catch you right back here next week.

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