Take CONTROL with Rickson DSouza - Ep-583

it was easy to find these individuals to lift you up to play at their level. And over the years, I've constantly looked for those rooms where I can be the dumbest person in the room. I can be with the person with the most to learn and not necessarily— while I'd love to be able to give back, I don't want to go into a room where I am the person that knows everything.

From the outside, everything looked successful, but beneath the accomplishments was a realization that something fundamentally had to In this episode, we uncover the mindset shifts, hard truths, and practical frameworks that help advisors and entrepreneurs build lives of significance, not just success. You've mastered the art of making money, but what if the life you've built is costing you the very legacy you hope to leave behind? Before it's too late, ask yourself this question: What price have you paid for success? Everyone else admires. Welcome to Streams to Impact, brought to you by Steedtucker Capital. I'm your host, Dr. Allen. For many high achievers, there comes a moment when the question quietly emerges, I've built a successful life, but at what cost? The promotions, the accolades, the growing net worth, they can all mask a deeper longing for meaning, alignment, and a legacy that truly matters. Today's conversation explores what happens when outward success no longer reflects how we feel on the inside and how redefining our understanding of growth can transform not only our own lives, but the lives of the families and communities that we influence. Before we begin, I'd like to extend a personal invitation. I'd like you to join me for a Path to Prosperity call, 15 minutes of focused enlightenment where you examine your current financial landscape, Clarify what genuine prosperity looks like for you and identify the first deliberate steps towards securing it. This is a one-on-one conversation and it's a quiet space for thoughtful professionals to think out loud with someone who has walked the path and to leave with at least one insight worth the quarter hour invested. To reserve your time, visit our website, www.stetalkercapital.com. And schedule your consultation. Before we do that, if you find value in the conversation today, please take a moment to like, share, and subscribe. Your engagement helps us bring these meaningful discussions to more thoughtful professionals seeking financial clarity, purpose, and impact beyond the paycheck. I'd also love to hear from you in the comments. What resonates with you? What questions do you have? What What guests or areas of expertise would you like us to explore in future episodes? Perhaps it's, how do I know if my definition of success needs to change? Or I'd love to hear from experts on family governance, philanthropy, private investing, or creating multi-generational legacy. Your voice helps us shape this community and the conversations we have together. Just a brief disclaimer before we go into the show. All information shared on Streams to Impact is for educational purposes only. It is not to be construed as investment, financial, legal, or tax advice. All investments secure risk. You should always consult your legal, accounting, and tax advisor before making any investment.

Today's guest is Rickson de Souza, a Dubai-based succession planning advisor and founder of Successio Global. Helping high-net-worth entrepreneurs protect and transfer wealth through intentional legacy planning and long-term strategies. But Rickson's work goes beyond financial structures. He challenges people to reconsider what success truly means and how the lives we build today shape the generations that follow. Today, we'll explore the hidden cost of success, the courage to redefine growth, and how creating a meaningful legacy begins long before wealth changes hands. Rixon, welcome. We're glad to have you on Streams to Impact. So, Rixon, before we talk about framework strategies and succession planning, let's just begin somewhere much more personal. So, looking back on your journey, was there a moment when you realized that the version of success you had pursued wasn't the same as the life you truly wanted to build. And what did that moment really teach you and about legacy, about yourself, and how has your life changed since then?

Yeah. First of all, Dr. Allen, thank you for having me on the show. I have to say that when I was 30 years old, 33 years old, I'd reached a point of morbid obesity. I was about 304 pounds. That's about 138 kilograms. And honestly, I was working long hours, 14 hours a day, because in my opinion, the way to succeed in life was to just work harder. I had a 9-month-old daughter at the time, and she wasn't getting any of my time and attention. And honestly, at that point in time, I reached my lowest low. I had acid reflux, GERD. I started losing my voice. The life insurance company Ironically, given the fact that I'm in the life insurance business, life insurance companies actually charged me 100% more than the average 33-year-old just based on my obesity. I also lost my dad very early in life. He passed away at the age of 59. Just given the fact that my daughter was born, I lost my dad, I was morbidly obese, I got rated, all of these things made me reconsider my ideas about success. And I just started being more intentional about what I was truly chasing and how to get to that point, which is for the help of some amazing people in my community.

Yeah. Well, that is fascinating. Looking at you now, it's hard to believe that you were ever obese. Obviously major transformation in your life.

Mm-hmm.

So during that period in your life, when in many respects I'm sure there was a lot of success on the outside, but clearly what was going on on the inside was not matching that. So what, what was it that That was really the trigger for the transformation. I mean, many people find themselves in that situation and they just maintain the status quo till it kills them, essentially.

Yeah, for me, I guess it was also realizing that since my dad had passed and my daughter was born about a couple of years later, just the realization that he never got to see my children. And that if my children had children, so if I had grandchildren, I would love to be around for that. I am in the space of legacy and succession planning. So we keep constantly having conversations with individuals about transfer of wealth and transfer of assets. When you realize over the years that the legacy that gets passed on has a lot more to do with the individuals passing on their ideology to the next generation as much as it is just the material wealth. You know, all of these things started to make me think about what I was doing with my life. I was with— I was in 2 toxic relationships. And by that, I mean business partners, which needed to exit. And honestly, on one phase of it, I got— there was— I was part of a— how do you call it?

A cult.

Uh, there was a hostile takeover, and this was my older brother that was responsible for the hostile takeover. And all of these things, you know, coming together, um, just made me realize I was just chasing the wrong version of success, that there was another way to get to a point of zen, if you want to call it that. And, uh, uh, just the way I was going about it right now, constantly just running and hitting really hard, wasn't the right way to go about doing it. Of course, since then, we've transformed a lot of things about how I function, how I work. I might work with about 3 or 4 new clients a year at best right now versus 132 transactions a year before. But my focus is always now on longevity, on health, on being around for my children, just making sure that those important moments in life don't just disappear and vanish. Yeah.

Well, clearly, there was A tremendous mind shift there. Death of your father, betrayal by your brother, the birth of your daughter, all of those things coming together certainly gave you insights, but insight is one thing and transformation is really Really, truly a different thing. So how did you, how did you manage that, that massive transformation?

Physically, it was not a choice. It was literally the only option. I reached this point where I had acid reflux and GERD, and I'd wake up in the morning without a voice sometimes. And that had to do with the fact that I stayed up the whole night coughing. Because of reflux. So literally, my doctor told me that I needed to go and do something intrusive. And I had a bariatric sleeve surgery done in 2012, after which I got onto the health and fitness side of things and chased endurance and Ironman and a bunch of other things. That was the physical part of the transformation. The financial part of the transformation was, again, it was forced on me. You see that Hostile takeover that took place was the result of my brother and me not aligning on core values of each other in our business, and really we reached a point where we both knew that we just couldn't be each other's business partner. It was affecting our personal life. So while the hostile takeover may have been not the best way to go about it, I do appreciate the fact that we're no longer business partners, and that was the end goal anyways. But that hostile takeover set me on a negative spiral as far as debt is concerned, where I now owed over $600,000, $700,000 to a loan shark, which over the years of me being unable to service that interest of 30% per annum led to that amount ballooning to about $2 million. So again, I feel like my hand was forced over there where I knew the only way to actually get myself out of that debt trap was to change the way I functioned as an individual because there were about that many hours in the day and that wasn't moving the needle for me. So, I think I had to get to a lowest low in my life from a health and wellness standpoint, from a financial wellness standpoint, from business partnerships, just to be able to come back up again and just reinvent myself.

Well, I can certainly relate to that. the lowest moments in my life. Ironically, I look back on those as some of the best days of my life. Certainly during those down, those dark and dreary days, they didn't feel good, but they were the catalyst for major transformation in my own life. So how did the control framework emerge? This is Control can oftentimes be perceived as a bad thing, but you consider control to be an important aspect of our growth and our— and essentially our spirituality. So talk to us about the control framework and how that all emerged and came forward.

Interestingly enough, over the years, I transformed how I function with clients. Rather than working on 40-odd new clients a year, 132 new transactions, running out of time completely, making very little money to show for that hard work and not being around for my family, we changed to servicing the high end of the market. We started working with high and ultra-high net worth entrepreneurs, and we started showing up in their lives on a regular basis just to ensure that we could solve their problems. And as a result, also deal with my own financial turmoil. What I realized over there is I needed to be persistent. I needed to be regularly showing up as a— what's the word? I use a framework for this, and that is the naturally occurring person in their lives. I just needed to be in and around the same areas, the same gyms, the same schools, the same neighborhood. And I did that consistently for a period of time through COVID, after COVID. And it got to a point where our business started growing significantly. We started posting a lot about what we were doing with the intention of trying to find more clients like that, accidentally stumbling onto a marketplace, which is advisors like myself who were looking at all the case studies we put out and said, you know, they wanted to know now how we were doing this, how we were engaging these clients. And honestly, Take Control as a framework and as a book, as a manuscript, came out as a result of me then creating a pathway for financial advisors to reach that point of exponential income growth. So that framework really, I'd say, evolved over 8 or 9 years. And that's actually a— it's a short form for, you know, control stands for— C in control stands for clear goals. O stands for ownership. N stands for numbers and knowing your numbers. T is for tactics. R is for right fit clients, just identifying who are the absolute people you were born to serve. O is an interesting one because for me, that was— that's what got me out of the mess in the first place. And that stands for obsession. And finally, L in CONTROL stands for life, because for me, the biggest aha moment came realizing that at 33, Life insurance companies were going to charge me 100% more than the average 33-year-old because they saw me as a risk because of my obesity. Obesity being the reason that my dad passed away at the age of 59 and was unable to stick around to see my kids.

Hmm.

You know, so all of this stuff coming together, and I know I use the word, I use it, I use the terminology take control. Because I feel a lot of us are just, uh, you know, just going on about our lives. Uh, in my industry, it's a— since we're on commissions only, it's very— it's not unnatural for your manager or your team leader to give you a specific number as a goal from a production standpoint. But a lot of times people fail to take that goal and make it their own. There's no relation to the number that an insurance company or a broker or a manager wants you to achieve and what that represents actually in your life. And I think just changing that whole mindset and that mentality made all the difference to me. So the impact over here would be amazing if I could share that message down with people from within commission-based industries or even younger entrepreneurs getting into businesses. And, you know, I mean, With little or no knowledge. I think we need to have some frameworks. I've been the benefactor of listening to a lot of audiobooks over the years, and so many of them have impacted me positively. I feel like I know the author now. They don't even know that they've motivated me to be a certain way, but it's changed everything for me. And to be able to contribute in some form or way to that landscape, It's amazing. If it can help one or two people along the way, great. That's amazing.

Well, we've heard, I'm sure, more than once that we actually become the people that we surround ourselves with. And you've certainly laid out that example. And you were quite intentional about moving your life into a very different space and associating with with different people, essentially the people that you respected and admired. And so this clearly was, was part of that transformation. And I mean, it's one thing to have a mindset shift, as you did. It's another thing to actually make that shift into a very different lifestyle. And I think probably none of us can really do it We really need a support system in order to make those major transitions there. So you were in that process and you were intentional about bringing into your life a really different set of people who you admired, you respected, and appreciated their company. So tell us about really Obviously, you know, there's that one insight that began that transformation, but I'm sure as you progress through this 7, 8, 9-year journey, that there were new insights at every turn of the direction there. So tell us about that transformational process over the long term.

I think in 2008 or 2009, I decided to sign up for this coaching program for entrepreneurs. It was based out of Toronto. And the coach is a guy called Dan Sullivan. He runs a program called Strategic Coach. And when I joined the program, I was in my early 30s and I joined there with the intention— ambition was what was driving it. I joined there with the intention of, I'm going to be around these fantastic business people and I'm going to learn about how to make money in a better way, faster, quicker, maybe harder, work harder. And I happened to sit next to this gentleman on my first day who was probably about 20 years older than me at the time. And we started talking. And incidentally, we happened to be from the same business. We were both in the life insurance business. And when we started talking, the conversation we had is he asked me about my form of business, how I function. And I said, wow, very proudly that I work about 14 or 16 hours a day. I make X amount of money. I meet about 40— I land about 45 new clients a year, 132 transactions. And he just looked at me and he said, but why? And I was like, excuse me? He said, well— and he said, Rickson, I am in the life insurance business like you are. I work very specifically with Jewish farmers only all across North America. And I land about 4 new clients a year. And we make about 8x or 10x the amount of money I was making in a very short span of time. And I was immediately blown away. I didn't even think there was a model like that that existed. And over the course of the next couple of years, this gentleman, Neil, and the other people that surrounded me in that community, which was Strategic Coach, you know, they lifted me up with them. So I think being—

Mm-hmm.

I know I intentionally chose that workshop, but I feel after going there and after making my intentions clear, It was easy to find these individuals to lift you up to play at their level. And over the years, I've constantly looked for those rooms where I can be the dumbest person in the room. I can be with the person with the most to learn and not necessarily— while I'd love to be able to give back, I don't want to go into a room where I am the person that knows everything.

Right.

So by choice, I put myself in situations of discomfort, I put myself in rooms where I can learn from the people around me. And this over the years has made a huge difference to my life. Outside the coaching programs and the conferences and forcing myself to speak, forcing myself to write a book, putting myself in front of high and ultra-high net worth clients, which is sometimes uncomfortable because they're big boys and they represent an uncomfortable area for me. But outside all of this stuff, there are also all these books. There are also all these authors, these audiobooks that I get a chance to listen to, these podcasts that I get a chance to listen to, which I'm very intentional about. I seek it. I don't listen to the radio. I don't read the news. I prefer to pull information that I want. And so many of those individuals have helped shape my life. But I will say I was intentional in seeking them out. Depending upon the task at hand, depending upon the challenge at hand. I will say in 2017, I decided this was through the this was probably the peak of the debt. I just exited or the hostile takeover had just taken place. I just exited another business, and I felt like I didn't have an identity of my my own. I felt I'd lost all the power, and I decided on a whim. start running. And when I started running, the idea of running simply didn't do much for me. So I decided to sign up for a race called the Marathon des Sables, which is a 250-kilometer race across the Sahara Desert. And while I live in the Middle East, it's very difficult to convince your friends to spend 3 days of the weekend, you know, 1 day of the working week and 2 days of the weekend, to come run with you for 8 hours in the sand. So my companion at that point in time was Dr. Angela Duckworth with her book Grit. And I listened to it and it gave me a lot of strength. There was an author that I listened to a lot at that time that made a very big difference to me just because of his pure energy, a guy called Grant Cardone who wrote this book called Be Obsessed or Be Average. And that energy, you know, and those books sometimes on repeat saw me through 4 months of training, to get myself to the starting line of this race. So, like I said, it just depends upon the mountain that I have to climb and who are the right people that I can seek. If I can get in front of them in person, then that's amazing. And if not, if they have content out there, I'm a great consumer of that.

Well, I think you touched on something that I think is important to really kind of reflect on here. And you mentioned the discomfort in going into these rooms where People are smarter, have higher net worths than you do. I think it takes a great deal of humility to step into those situations, but I think it also takes a lot of courage to realize that I'm stepping into a very uncomfortable situation and There's a lot of risk in doing that.

Mm-hmm.

And yet, and yet you did it and have done it very successfully. And it has been that humility, that ability to admit that there are people I can learn from, that I'm not the genius here. There's a lot of people out there who have A lot that, that I can learn from and take from. Very excellent examples there, and I really like your openness and sharing how, how challenging that has been. And yet, you know, some of our biggest challenges do bring those biggest rewards. And I really do. I've really taken a lot from Angela Duckworth's book as well and have found it to be not only inspiring but a very good way to come out of mediocrity and step into these places of excellence. Ultimately, what larger impact do you hope this work has on people's lives? You've alluded to it, but get a little more specific on that to their lives, their families, their legacies.

Sure.

You know, when we chose the audience of high and ultra-high net worth clients, prior to that, my motivation to working with clients who had a bigger income stream had a lot to do with my own personal ambition of earning a higher income. Bigger clientele, bigger commission checks. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very ambitious as a person. And I realized years ago working with one of the— well, our first accidental high net worth client, that their situation needed me to think out of the box. Their situation did not require a copy and paste solution, which is what I was doing for 12 years of my life. The situation actually required me to step out of my comfort zone completely. completely, put a team together to figure out the right solution. Months of planning, prepping, auditing their situation, finally to deliver a solution which was, in, in my opinion, my finest work, uh, given what the client required. And I absolutely— regardless of the money on the table, because the question was asked of me, if you spent all the commission, if all the commission on this case was gone, And this client now called you at 12 o'clock at night. Would you look at your phone and would you be upset? Like, oh my God, why is he calling me now? Or would you pick that phone up? Would you take that call? I realized that my relationship with this individual was so deep-rooted because of the amount of time that I spent with them that I didn't see them as just a client from a revenue perspective anymore, that I had indeed developed a very deep, meaningful—

Relationship.

potentially lifelong relationship with them. Realizing that the space I'm in, selling large-valued life insurance policies for legacy, you know, to amplify legacies for clients in contracts that will— that are designed to outlive them. And the fact that at some point in time, I want to be the guy that shows up with this check if something goes wrong, just made me realize that there was a need for me to look at things beyond just a transaction, beyond just the commission. The commission is great. The commission's important, but I'm— the release takes place not when the case is closed. Unfortunately, the release takes place when that decision maker is no longer around. And then it's my job to now show up and show up with the check to make sure everything is sorted out. That was the realization. And that realization meant I look at— I meant I looked at my business Very, very differently. And today, the impact— coming back to that, I realize when I deal with an individual who has a requirement for a life insurance policy, if something goes wrong, I need to show up with a check so that they can take care of their families. Simple thing. Or they may have taxes, liabilities need to be settled. When I deal with a high-net-worth entrepreneur who runs a multimillion-dollar business or a billion-dollar conglomerate, And if something goes wrong and we've now settled a $180 million death claim or a $200 million death claim, I realize that the impact is not just to his family. It's not just to his business. It's not just to his employees, but also to his employees' families. So when I think about that impact that it creates just from that one interaction or that series of interactions with that one individual, I feel like I'm tackling the problem head-on right from the top. And the problems that it solves along the way is just— I mean, if and when that situation ever arose, I would love to be able to resolve that. That's where it is.

Wow.

So, that's the impact I'm hoping to create from a legacy standpoint and from a life insurance standpoint. We did set up something else, Dr. Allen, and that was the academy, the Suchishio Academy, which was designed to teach advisors how to successfully grow their income exponentially over the years. Again, when the question was asked to me about impact over there, I go back to the same thing. The goal over the next 10 years is to have over 5 million advisors through that program. When I think about that exponential impact they can have on the lives of all their clients over the years, It's, uh, I think it's worth more than money. I don't get me wrong. I'm, I am a fan of money, but that release that comes from helping people, you know, find their right audience, deliver the right solution, and show up as a problem solver. It's everything.

Well, what a meaningful conversation this has been. And, uh, Rickson really speaks to my heart and soul as he has laid out his journey. It just is so reflective of my own and the impact that I think that all of us within the depths of our soul, what we really want to leave behind is meaning and purpose that transcends our life and influences other people. And I think Rickson has really illustrated that today. So Rickson reminded us that success isn't simply about what we accumulate, it's about who we become. And the values that we really embody and the legacy that we intentionally create through those choices that we make every day of our lives. So, Rickson, thank you for sharing your life, your wisdom, your journey, and actually your heart and your soul with us today. Thank you. So people, It was a wonderful conversation today, so I encourage you to check out Rickson's book. It is Control Framework, and the— it is actually Take Control: The Financial Advisor's Guide to Exponential Income Growth. Sure. You can find this at your local bookstore or any of the online retailers. And I can tell it's going to be a very fascinating read. So before we close, I'd like to extend a personal invitation to join me for a Path to Prosperity discovery call. It's 15 minutes of focused enlightenment where we examine your current financial landscape, clarity, what clarify what genuine prosperity looks like for you and identify the first deliberate steps towards securing it. And this is a one-on-one conversation, not a sales presentation. It's a quiet space for thoughtful professionals to think out loud with someone who has walked the path and to leave with at least one insight worth the quarter hour invested. So you can reserve your time just by visiting my website, Steed Talker Capital, and there you will find a link to schedule a consultation. So if you've enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment, like, share, and subscribe, and leave a comment. Tell us what resonated most with you, what questions were You're wrestling with, or what questions and areas of expertise you'd like to hear featured on future episodes. Until next time, remember that the greatest legacy we leave behind is not merely what we pass on, but the lives that we touch, the values we model, and the impact we create along the way. So keep building your streams of impact. Purpose and prosperity.

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