How a Founder Can Step Down as CEO Yet Remain Pivotal in a New Role

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Today's episode is the fourth and final episode in my miniseries on the role of the advisory firm CEO. I'm your host, business coach Steve Sandusky. Welcome back. The arc of this series has covered the evolution of being a CEO. We started with setting the stage for what it takes to be an excellent CEO with Scott Keller and Vik Maholtra of McKinsey Company. As we discuss their great new book, CEO Excellence. Then Mary Beth Storjohann gave the perspective of getting promoted into the CEO role of a multi-billion-dollar RIA firm. I followed that with a conversation with Scott Hanson, and we talked about being the CEO from day one and growing and evolving to a $15 billion AUM firm while staying at the helm the whole time. Finally, today, We're gonna wrap up with Seth Streeter. Seth is a founder and longtime CEO of Mission Wealth, which is a $4.8 billion AUM firm that specializes in comprehensive and holistic financial planning. I wanted to have Seth on the show because he implemented a phased transition where he exited the CEO role but is staying with the firm as the Chief Impact Officer. So this show is about exiting the CEO role while still being a major shareholder and part of the leadership team. I hope you're enjoying this series as much as I have in putting it together. With that, let's get started with Seth Streeter. Seth, you were the CEO since the beginning of Mission Wealth more than 20 years ago, yet recently you voluntarily gave up the CEO role. So we're going to dig into some details here on why you made the transition, how you made the transition. But before we get into that, I'd love to hear about how you have evolved, how your role as the CEO has evolved, because where the world is today in 2022 is quite different than it was in the year 2000 or so when you started. So, tell me about the evolution of you and the evolution of your role as the CEO.

Well, I think like most financial advisors, when we start off growing our firms, we're really wearing many hats, and largely the hat we have is that of a practitioner. So my co-founder Brad Stark and I did everything, you know, we looked at the tech stack, we helped do marketing initiatives, we brought in clients, we service clients, we took out the trash at times. And we didn't really think of ourselves as leaders, we were just practitioners taking care of clients, we were very client-focused. But as we started to hire some people, you know, we had to start to develop our management skills and kind of processes around how we could best manage our people, and we had to get clear about our roles. So I would say, you asked about evolution, I started off focusing on IQ, and I learned to be an effective manager, it's really about EQ. It's about relationship skills. It's about working with people as human beings, not just human doings. And so, you know, for me, the evolution has become over the 20 years that I was leading the firm, really more about learning to be my authentic self as a leader and not trying to play some role of buttoned-up leader that I thought I was supposed to be, but just being uniquely who I am. And being able to lead by example was key. And something that really helped us was in 2005, 5 years into our firm's inception, we read the book The E-Myth by Michael Gerber, and it was helping us kind of look at working on the business instead of in the business. And about 2 years ago, we now have been using the EOS platform for leadership. So finding some frameworks and structures for leadership has really served us, and it really helped me get clarity as to my roles and the importance of building a leadership team. And I guess the kind of the summarize, I learned that the CEO for me was about being the chief energy officer. I was there to be the kind of visionary and the top energetic person that hopefully had a contagious effect across the firm. And so that's how I still see my role, even though I have a different title today. I still try to carry that flame for the team.

Yeah, Chief Energy Officer. I had a conversation with Michael Nathanson of the Callidy Group. You probably know Michael. And he said, I oftentimes describe my role as the CIO, and he calls it the Chief Inspiration Officer. So probably not too dissimilar from the Chief Energy Officer. So as you think about today, let's say you could go back 15 years, knowing what you know now, what would you tell the Seth Streeter of 15 years ago about what to be ready for, how to prepare yourself, and how to succeed over the next 15 years?

I'd say, hold on, it's going to be a ride, Seth. You know, I think, Steve, going back, I would, really try to acknowledge the power of partnerships and really lean into the power of partnerships. You know, we did so much on our own. We invented the wheel ourselves 100 times over because we just figured we needed to. And if I could go back, I'd realize that other people have been there before, and I would, I would lean into mentorship opportunities. I would look at our COI partners, our, you know, center of influence partners, whether that was accounting firms law firms, therapists, mortgage brokers, and really think about their distribution channels and how we could provide value and case studies that could service their clients. You know, that's been a big part of our growth, has been around partnerships, and I would have leaned into that earlier and more often. And I also would just think about the power of vulnerability. You know, I mentioned before that I thought I had to be kind of this buttoned-up leader and kind of show no emotion and kind of just play the role. And as my leadership style has evolved, I've realized that there's such power in vulnerability. And that's with clients, that's with your team, that's in the community. So being willing to kind of share a personal story, and that's something that for me, you know, in 2016, 16 years into my kind of entrepreneurial story with Mission Wealth, I had the opportunity to do a TED Talk, which totally opened up new doors because I shared my story more authentically. So I'd say for existing leaders, be willing to share your story. It's not just about clients opening up to us. It's about us opening up to them, to our team, and to the world. And when we do that, there's tremendous alignment in people that show up, kind of self-select into your world because of that alignment. So those would be some of the lessons learned that I would have told myself 15 years ago.

I think you make such a key point there in that you and I are roughly the same age here. And I think as we were growing up, it was more about the tough guy or the tough gal, and we've got to be strong. And if we're the leader, you know, we charge, charge, charge kind of thing. But that has certainly evolved over the year. I think Brené Brown's book, of course, has been very popular in that area. And yet there is such strength in the humility, there's strength in the vulnerability. And I think you and I know each other a little bit. You've done a fantastic job in just being real like that, as you're describing here. And people respond to that. They react to that in a positive way. And it's not a sign of weakness. It's actually a sign of strength.

Absolutely. Yeah. And it, and it is a great way to connect with people in that human level. And when you have that type of deeper connectivity, again, whether it's team members or partners or clients, that's where loyalties really go up. That's where you become highly referable. That's where you can recruit talent because everyone else is talking about the features and benefits, or look at our growth story, look at the numbers, look at the money, right? People are chasing money in this industry, but if you really focus on deep caring, deep connection, helping people find meaning and fulfillment, and if you focus on that yourself and lead by example in that way, it's going to attract the right people into your organization.

So you've been in this role for over 20 years, starting in roughly 2000. So if we think about everything that's happened from 2000 to 2022, we had the peak of the tech bubble in 2000, and we had the unwinding of that in 2000, 2001, 2002. We had the great financial crisis, '08, '09. We had COVID, of course. So, some big bumps along the way. How did you navigate those? What lessons did you learn along the way about navigating those? And how do you think about reflecting back on your role as the CEO during these crisis points. What did you do that maybe you thought, gosh, I think I did this well? And then also, gosh, I wish I would have done this differently?

Well, during all those points that you referenced, they were scary times at the time because no one knew how they would turn out. And even most recently with this pandemic, and now there's a war, there's always something around the corner that can be kind of looming and can feel dark and scary.. So in those times, that's when being the chief energy officer is most important. That's when we really want to show the team that we're in this together. We've got their back, show clients that we're going to be there for them. So we've always defaulted by stepping up service. Anytime the world seems to have turned upside down, the first thing we do is we get in front of clients, we call clients, we sit down with them, we call team members, we make sure they're fine, their families are fine. So we lean into caring, we lean into communication. And I would say that's what we've always done really well, is we've been super proactive on giving research, sharing updates. Like, we were doing daily calls with our team and daily Zoom meetings with our team when the pandemic began, and we were doing weekly updates for every client, just say, this is what's going on, this is how it affects you, this is what's going on with your business, let us know if you have any questions. So stepping up communication, showing caring, and then, you know, of course, listening. I always like to say listening is the highest form of loving. So making sure you can hear people out, so they really feel heard and understood is a great way to keep some sense of connectedness in a world that feels like it's spinning. As far as where I think we could have maybe done better in navigating those times, it's hard not to sometimes let fear affect you. So we have taken some defensive moves that if I could go back, I'd say, well, we didn't need to be defensive. We didn't need to keep that much cash on the side or help clients pull cash back or shift more to fixed income. We did that because kind of the behavioral finance side, emotionally they needed it as well. But obviously, if we would have said, hey, double down and buy more in stock looking in arrears, that maybe would have been a positive move for them. But they all were fine. And we always defaulted back to the financial plan. You have more than enough. This is the income you need. We've matched your income with your expenses. You're going to be fine. We have enough runway to handle if this crisis goes on for an extended period of time. So I don't really have regret for making some defensive moves on behalf of clients. But I would say, you know, we always have an opportunity to help paint a picture for what's positive. So during the pandemic, we had, you know, a lot of clients that were afraid financially, maybe their businesses were, you know, shutting down. But when we look at wealth across these multiple dimensions, we had a lot of clients that actually had more abundance in their life in these other ways. So maybe their finances were scary, but they had more time with their family. They had time to take daily walks. They were listening to more podcasts, so they were learning. They spent more time in nature. So in a lot of ways, they were richer. They were having richer lives. They weren't traveling all the time, commuting all the time, sitting in the same four walls every day like they had. And they had an opportunity to reinvent themselves and maybe pick up a guitar and start to flex their creative skills. So helping people look at the positive is also so key in these times of crisis because oftentimes they're blessings in disguise. And we can be the ones to help people reframe that situation while still being empathetic to the challenges, but help them look to what is positive out of this and how is this possibly working in our favor.

Great point there in terms of pointing out the bright side. And while the pandemic has certainly been terrible, there have been some bright spots that you just described there. But let's talk about vulnerability. You mentioned that here just a moment ago. Were there any times during the tech crash in the early 2000s or the great financial crisis or here during COVID where you just said, look, I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen here. Did you ever have conversations like that? And if so, how did those go?

100%. Yeah. I mean, and clients appreciate it. If you give this false sense of knowing when it's clear that no one can know how long this pandemic or financial crisis is going to last, you start to lose trust. And so by just being honest, we don't know how long this is going to last. We've never seen this before. Here's research from past geopolitical crises, past financial crises. This research can give us some indication, but at the end of the day, we don't know, and we know you don't know, but we do know that we're going to go through this together. You can know that we're going to be here. You can know that we're going to be proactive in sharing any research that we find that's meaningful. You can know that we're going to try to find ways to take advantage of opportunities, tax loss harvesting, or other incentives that are out there. So I would say letting them know you're there, but also letting them know you don't know can really be a valuable approach with clients because they appreciate, again, honesty.

I want to talk about aspiration here for a moment. So go back to the year 2000. Did you aspire to have this multibillion-dollar firm by 2020 or by 2022? I'm going to guess probably not, but I could be wrong. But then how did the aspiration evolve over time? Were there some pivot points? Were there some catalysts where you said, you know, we got something good here, maybe we can just double down and just see where we can take this thing?

What—

how did the aspiration evolve over time?

When we started out, you know, we were just busy again being 2 practitioners and 1 assistant trying to just grow the firm. And when we did the E-Myth process in 2005, I remember Brad and I, I think we had 2 employees at the time, or 3, so there's a total of 5 of us. We wrote out job descriptions for kind of the future of the firm, and we came up with 12 to 15 job descriptions, some of which we each had multiple hats. We thought, wow, we're going to need these 12 to 15 people, and that felt like triple what we had at the time. That felt like a big reach. So absolutely no, did we have this vision, oh, we know by 2022 you'll be a $5 billion firm. We didn't know that, but we knew that we wanted to build a firm that could outlive us, We knew that we wanted to have internal succession and have employee ownership. So we had some building blocks that really still are the foundation of who we are today. And as we started to scale nationally, that was, you know, initially something that was— felt like a far reach to open up multiple offices outside of kind of our smaller geography in Santa Barbara. But as we started to take some leaps, first we went up and down the California coast, you know, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, then we went San Francisco, Then we worked into Colorado. So we started to move across the map and we go, wow, this actually is resonating. Like our approach, the way we do comprehensive financial planning, our proactive service models and so forth are really resonating with clients. That's when we— the kind of light bulb moment went on. We also had opportunities with some custodial referral partners, which also gave us access to more markets and kind of instant marketing opportunity. So between those two shifts, we started to have an exponential mindset, and that has really continued to fuel our growth. You know, it took us 13 years to get to our first billion, and last year we grew by over a billion in 2021 alone in net deposits. We, you know, continue to expand our perspective of what's possible, and a lot of that is fueled by this desire for impact. So I always say impact is my love language, right? So I love creating positive impact. First it was with clients, really deep diving with clients, Then it was with team, then it was with nonprofit partners, then it was with leading community leadership programs and community development programs. And so I'm always thinking about how can we accelerate and how can we expand our impact. And if we can help people live more fulfilled lives, if we can have teams that feel like they have unlimited growth and feel supported with a family-friendly culture, then, you know, the sky's the limit. So for me, the impact mindset continues to grow. But it is at the essence of who we are. So we're not growing for growth's sake. We're growing to create a positive impact in people's lives.

Well, impact is a word that keeps coming up in my conversation. So one of the earlier podcasts that we did in this series was with Mary Beth Storjohann at Abacus Wealth Partners. You probably know Mary Beth. You certainly know Abacus. They talk about impact. Mary Beth talked about impact and how when she was deciding, do I want to continue with Workable Wealth, which was her own RIA, or do I want to merge with Abacus, a multi-billion-dollar firm, and have a bigger impact? So she was very clear—

impact.

I talked to Scott Hanson. He was also on a previous podcast in this series. He had multiple periods where he got to a billion. He was hardly working. He decides, well, do I want to keep making a whole bunch of money here at a billion and just coast and work a couple days a month, or do I want to double down and see what we can do? Well, decides to double down, gets to $2.5 billion. Another pivot point. Do I want to keep going? Sure. Let's take on some outside capital. Now he's $15 billion. It's about impact. But then you have a lot of other people who say, no, I'm good at $1 million in revenue. I'm good at making $500,000 myself. And I just want to hang out here. What do you think is the difference between you, a Mary Beth, a Scott Hanson that gives you that drive, that determination to want to make that bigger impact relative to a lot of other people who are like, "I'm good." [Speaker:BRAD_STONE] I think it comes down to what fuels you.

We have growth mindset as one of our top values at Mission Wealth. And having a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset says, "What's possible? Imagine if we were 10 times braver, 10 times bolder than we were today. How would we address this issue? How would we tackle this opportunity?" So having a growth mindset just really inspires us to want to think about that impact in all ways. Right now, we're organizing giving out 16 scholarships to CFP certificates and inner in cities. We're excited. We started a VTO policy, a volunteer time-off policy, where all of our people are going out, can volunteer a full week a year. We're organizing volunteer activities at our retreats. We're, we're thinking about impact in the traditional make a difference standpoint, whether that's, you know, ESG investing or values-based planning or actually community service programs. But it's also by us expanding, by us partnering with other firms across the country, by us being employee-owned, By us being able to really service clients the way we feel they deserve to be treated, the way we would want to be treated, we know that also makes an impact. So growth to us is synonymous with impact. The more we grow, the more opportunity there is for our team, the more families we can serve, the more communities we can give back to. So I guess the definition for us is growth equals our purpose because our purpose is impact. And for others, the purpose might be more lifestyle-based. I just want to have time with my family. I want to make enough money doing what I do, and sure, I'll take good care of my clients, but ultimately, I'm okay just kind of maintaining what I have. The other piece for us, and I'd say, you know, it is a little bit of a fear element where we've seen the vast growth in our industry and the consolidation that's happened largely with PE-backed firms. And so as these firms are adding in additional services, there is tremendous service expansion where they have in-house tax and in-house trust companies and in-house estate planning teams and so forth. We know that we want to be able to compete with those firms and offer equivalent level services so that our clients aren't worse off by staying with us versus going to one of these other firms. And my sense is if a firm is just kind of treading water, they're not growing, they're not going to be able to keep up with that service expansion. So ultimately their clients aren't going to be as well cared for if they can't offer the same services for an equivalent fee. That's someone who's just doing basic financial planning and a 60/40 rebalanced portfolio is offering. And my mindset comes down to industry trends that are evolving and how we need to keep up with those.

Yeah. And I think another key point in there as well is oftentimes the people who say, hey, I want to hang out at a certain level here, they're thinking, I don't want to have to work harder. I don't want my business to be more complicated. But like you've discovered over the past 20 years, whether it was Michael Gerber's book or EOS. You come up with the frameworks and the systems and the people. And if you're doing it right, you'll be able to structure the business so that you've got the right people in the right roles doing the right things. And you're not working 80 hours a week, yet you're still growing. And like in your case, and I think maybe this is a good segue to the, the heart of what I want to talk with you about today, which is you've actually stepped out of the CEO role. You're still a young guy, but you voluntarily given up that role after being in it for about 20 years. So tell me about the thinking, the thought process behind you deciding, I want to step out of this role, but I'm still staying with the company. Tell me about that.

Well, even when we're talking to firms that we're partnering with, we will say, you know, what is it you love most? What do you love doing the most? And if you could do more of that and less of these other hats that you don't love as much, Wouldn't that be a good thing? Wouldn't you be bringing more of your genius into the world? Wouldn't you have an extra pep in your step as you came into the office every day? So some of that applied to me in the decision to make a transition. And a lot of it had to do with just an exceptional candidate that we knew could fill those shoes. So Matt Adams had been with us for over 15 years. He was our Chief Investment Officer. He went on as our Chief Operating Officer. He then— we named him President about 2 and a half years ago. In every role he took on, he just excelled. And so it became really clear, both from kind of me seeing his abilities and for him communicating what his aspirational goals were, that we wanted to keep a shining star like that happy, and he really wanted to step into the CEO role. So, you know, through communications with him and with my co-founder Brad Stark, it was just clear that he was the right person for the job. So then it was a matter of being intentional. How do we go ahead and make this transition a success? So after we spoke, we then spoke to our leadership team. We then eventually announced it to the firm. We then announced it to clients. And, you know, my job was to really help make sure I was setting him up for success. So initially publicly, if we were speaking at a client event, we both would speak together, or I would empower him in some way. And he naturally stepped into those shoes and did a great job. So it became just clear that if I could get out of the way, he was going to come in and bring a different skill set than I had. And that skillset could be really great for where Mission Wealth was launching to at the next level. Now, it's not always without bumps in the road. We had to get some clarity as far as our respective swim lanes, as far as who's in charge of what. And being someone who'd been leading for a couple of decades, it's not easy to all of a sudden just step back. So I had to let my ego get out of the way and learn how to transition smoothly. But we did that and we worked really closely together. And I would just Final point on that is, you know, the EOS system is really clear. They have these two key roles. You have the visionary and the integrator. And Matt was a natural integrator. He's very data-minded. He builds agendas for everything. He's very task-focused. And I am clearly more of a visionary. I love the big ideas, aspirational, forging relationships. So when we got that framework, as we were going through this transition ourselves, it just was a natural fit. Let's make sure we each can do what we do best And that's going to be not only great for us, but it's going to be great for the overall firm.

Yeah. And if you were trying to design the perfect complement for you, and you touched on this a little bit where you said that he was the integrator, really strong in that, you're more the visionary. So certainly that's very complementary. And as you think about where you think Mission Wealth can be, oftentimes we'll say that when you hire someone, you want to hire someone who is still going to be successful when you're 3 times or 5 times the size of your company today. So this is someone who has to be able to be successful even as the company continues to grow. So how do you think about that? And maybe we'll take Matt out of this. Matt, in case you're listening, we're not doing a performance review on you or anything right here. But as you think about succession planning and trying to groom someone into the CEO role, what are some other things that you should be thinking about in terms of what capabilities do they need to have to succeed in the environment of the advisory world or the world in general? Because things are going to get more complicated, not less complicated. What are some of the skill sets that they're going to need to have? The level of EQ that they're going to need to have? Are we going to need the two roles? Are we going to need someone like you who can be the visionary and still be there? But also the really strong integrator. How do you think about the skill sets needed to succeed in this role over the next, say, 10 years?

Right, and, and the industry is really evolving. So I'd say the number one skill set is someone who's adaptable, someone who has that growth mindset, someone who embraces innovation, who can embrace change. So that would be the first quality I'd look for. If they're static in their ways, I've been successful and I'm going to keep doing things my way, Well, that's not going to work, right? They need to be able to be adaptable with the changing times. And Matt had not been an advisor. So he came in with a strong investment background with Roxbury and DFA. He then stepped into the CIO role, and yes, he'd be on client meetings, but he had never lived in that advisory role until later in his career. And so that was one of the things that we realized is that making sure he had that hands-on advisory experience as an advisor, not just as a CIO supporting advisors, was going to be important because he needed to understand that about half of our team are advisors. We have 85 people and over 40 of them are advisors. He needed to really understand what their life was like. And so he did that. He stepped into advisory roles with clients, then as president and as COO. He really understood all those hats that they wore. But then you have to also make sure they have skills on the EQ side, like you referenced, which is really about the heart of the matter. So we can lead with our minds, but we also need to lead with our hearts. And what I find is most people, your heart leads and the mind follows. It's not the other way around. So we need to know where are we going, why are we going there, and what is each person on the team's unique contribution toward that exciting vision, and how can we make sure that they feel empowered to help co-create that vision with us. So it's not, again, a unilateral my way or the highway. It's we're in this together.. And it's almost like the leaders eat last, right? They're in the back. They're just like helping to make other people become empowered. And so the, the EQ side is one where I, you know, feel like I worked with Matt and, and he's really grown tremendously in that area, but helping him see the value of those soft skills as a technically minded person who's just amazing at execution and strategy and data and, you know, agendas. He could push things forward with his mind. And now I think he's seeing how he can launch things even further by getting his heart involved. So it's the head and the heart combination. And I find that most people come with a stronger skill in our industry in the head. So how can we help them grow their skills in the heart, grow their skills in the EQ side, in the communication side, in the listening skills, in the empathy? Those are the attributes that are going to be really critical as we look forward. Again, Steve, our industry is going through a lot of changes. There's 90,000 CFPs today in the United States, and 40% to 50% of them are expected to retire over the next decade or so. The future pipeline of advisors are not going to look like most people that we see in the room in the conferences. They're not going to be the older white males. They're going to be more females. They're going to be younger, more diverse. With that's going to come different perspectives, different backgrounds, different ways in which they're going to feel motivated, going to be more mission-led type of, type of advisors. So we need to make sure our leaders can speak that language, can attract that type of talent, and can, can work with those types of diverse groups that are going to be very different from the groups we've worked with in the past. So I would be looking forward thinking about adaptability, EQ, and the ability to be an evolved leader that's going to really resonate with the future advisors and the future other team members that will be attracted to our industry.

Yeah, you mentioned lead with the heart. You may have heard of Hubert Joly, who's the former CEO of Best Buy. He wrote a book called The Heart of Business, basically talking a lot about what you're saying there about really leading with the heart. And I've known a number of CEOs of those very large companies that are saying exactly what you're saying there, on point, about the importance of the EQ, the importance of diversity, the reality that Again, the environment that you and I grew up in was very different than what it is today. And it takes new leadership skills and a different mindset to really succeed here with the EQ as well. So let's talk a little bit about how the planning works. So you've got Matt in there now. He's the CEO and you're still involved. Tell me a little bit about the leadership team and how that functions. And how you participate in that as the former CEO.

So again, we use the EOS system. We have a leadership team. There's 9 members of the leadership team. We meet weekly in what's called an L10 meeting. And the leadership team is comprised of essentially department heads. So our head of technology, head of marketing, head of investments, head of operations, head of advice, head of compliance, and so forth. And so I'm the Chief Impact Officer. So that's kind of my culture hat, another CIO definition, Chief Impact Officer. And then I'm also heading up our mergers and integrations team. So again, we're looking to partner with other firms across the country. So in those two roles, those are my two swim lanes. I have key contributions that are part of the leadership team, but of course I also, and Brad also, we carry a legacy of history around all issues, because again, we used to wear every hat. So we're able to help support the other people on the leadership team with issues when they come up from an HR perspective or a fork in the road. We've navigated a lot of those before, and we can kind of provide input and mentorship at times. So the way that we run it is Matt is the integrator. He actually is in charge of the leadership team. We also have 19 owners in the firm, and so we have quarterly partner meetings separate from the leadership team. So a number of our partners aren't on the leadership team, but they're just wonderful contributors to the firm. So Matt leads the partner group and we have quarterly meetings, and then Matt leads the leadership team, which we have weekly meetings. And then my role is to, you know, be a strong contributor in both of those roles. But also, you know, Matt and I talk every day and we text all the time, and Brad will text all the time. So the three of us are really constantly in communication aside from those set meetings. And because we work shoulder to shoulder, and we have for going on 18, 19 years now, we know each other so well, and we're all in it with the same end goal. Like, we want to make this a firm of permanence. We want to make sure it's an exceptional place for our team to work. We want to truly take care of clients, and we share that growth mindset. So because we all have the growth mindset, even though we're very different people, we have a shared why, and we're working shoulder to shoulder. Our unique ways. And one of the perks of growing as a firm, you know, now we have 85 people, is the ability to specialize. So I have my areas I can really specialize in. You know, I talked about culture, I talked about the partnerships that we're doing nationally. I also have Inspired Living Services, which I'm really passionate about. And I still love getting in with client meetings. You've had clients that we've worked with for over 20 years. I love getting in with clients and even working with some prospective new clients. So I still keep my hat in the practitioner role, which is, you know, where I started and always going to be part of my DNA. By doing that, I think it helps make me be a better leader because I know what people are dealing with and I can help kind of speak from their perspective.

You've got this leadership team. You've got you and Brad who are the founders, but not the CEO of the firm. When you've got a difficult decision to make, do you have a framework that you fall back on? I know you've talked about EOS, but I'm talking about something different, whether it's an ethical framework, moral framework, some combination of the two, other people, other partners that you might lean on to get feedback? How do you think about difficult decisions that you might face? And I'll just give you an example, and I'm not asking you to comment on this, but so people have an understanding of what I'm talking about here. As we're having our conversation here today, we've got the Disney Company in Florida, and we've got Governor DeSantis. They've got a big fight on political stuff. So Disney's got to make some decisions about how they want to handle and how they want to respond. So how do you think about difficult decisions as a firm? How do those get made? Is there a framework that you use?

We've always used kind of the golden rule. What would we want done unto us? How would we want this if we were on the receiving end of this, if we were the employee that was receiving this information because of a poor performance review? If we were the client getting this information, how would we want to receive this? So I think that's ultimately the framework we fall back on is how would we want to be treated if it was us on the other side? And, you know, we have this Identify, Discuss, Solve program that we go through to help really vet out all options and then pick a path, make a decision, and move forward on it. So we definitely make decisions quicker now because of this IDS framework. But at the end of the day, it's like, what's the right thing to do? We've always done what's the right thing. We could have made a lot more money if we just chased the dollars, but we've always said, We said, what's the right thing to do from just a character standpoint, from an ethical standpoint? And that continues to be kind of our through line for the organization since day one.

Well, what do you do if the right thing is like the right in your eyes, but it's not to someone else? COVID is a great example. You know, they got some people say, hey, wear a mask. Other people say, don't wear a mask. People have a strong opinion one way or the other. And I'm not asking you to comment on that particular issue, you. But again, just so we have a framework, so what might be the right thing to you might be the opposite, might make you a villain to someone else. So are there other things that you dig into? Because you might make some stakeholders happy with this decision but make other stakeholders unhappy because of that decision. So again, I know it's complicated, it's nuanced, maybe there's no simple answer to that question, but I know you've You've done a lot of work in this area. You're really thoughtful in this area. And so I wanted to take this opportunity to see what thoughts you might have around that.

Sure. Well, we have 19 partners in the firm and we definitely have a diversity of thought and perspective across those 19 individuals. And so, yes, whether it's a pandemic, wearing masks, or, you know, other issues, we have the full spectrum of opinions on those different issues. And so the way that we've had to handle those is we kind of have to say, What's the middle ground? How can we be Switzerland? And no one can push their own individual agenda. And just like any successful negotiation, there's going to be a compromise where we're all going to have to give a little bit. But it's avoiding the extremes, it's meeting in the middle, and it's having conversations where both sides can feel heard. I had a wonderful opportunity to meet Madeleine Albright and get to know her. And I asked her, you know, how did you handle when you're in the UN leading these meetings, these opposing nations and these opposing huge personalities? She said, you know what I did? I would start meetings with them having an hour matching each of the extreme folks with each other to talk about their childhood. She said, I would give them an hour and they would talk about how they were raised and what it was like growing up on a farm or with an overbearing father. And by the time that hour was up, these people who went into this meeting with really divisive sense of who we were, were able to see the common ground, were able to go, wow, you grew up on a farm too, and you had an older brother as well. They could feel that sense of human connectedness that then allowed them to tackle the issues that they might still have different opinions on from a greater sense of caring and kind of compassion for both sides. So I'd say that's what we try to do is keep a strong connectedness around the humanness of who we are, right? I care about my partners as human beings. We do things together. We go volunteer together. We take hikes together. We, we have a book club. We have a lot of affinity groups that we connect with together. So because I know them as humans, I don't see them just as an other with a different opinion than I have on a particular issue. I see them as a human being with me, and then we can help navigate those differences from that place of connectedness. So I'd say that's really what we've done is focus on what is the 99% we have in common, and then how can we address that 1% gap of differential from a place of compassion and caring.

Well, I appreciate you sharing a little more color on that. Let's go a little deeper into what your day-to-day looks like now. I know you touched on this a little bit, Chief Impact Officer, and also leading some of the partner discussions with the potential firms that might want to be acquired or merge with you. So tell me a little bit more about a day in the life of Seth Streeter.

Well, I do spend over half of my time now on this partnership rollout. You know, our firm has really been growing. And so we're always looking for like-minded, like-hearted firms that are aligned in that kind of employee ownership model. And so I'm spending a lot of my time speaking to those firms, speaking on panels, traveling more than I've traveled to have those conversations versus meeting with individual prospects. I'm now meeting with individual advisors and firm owners. So it's been kind of a fun new chapter for me. And that's, you know, over half my time. 30% of my time, I would say, is focused on culture.. So it might be recruiting new people onto the team. It might be reinforcing our values. You know, we have something called the Mission of Mission. And so I share kind of our story with new team members. I organize our impact programs, our retreats, putting together these affinity teams. So just reinforcing values within the organization. And that's been really important, especially as we've had a distributed workforce through the pandemic and we've grown so much. Being able to keep that glue when you're not just working shoulder to shoulder in a singular office. So culture is about 30% of my time. And then I would say about 10% of my time is focused on Inspired Living, which is our life coaching model that we have for clients where I'm, I'm leading programs, putting together gatherings, organizing retreats, bringing in speakers. So really wanting to be on the front end of that growing curve, which we believe is really critical of the values-based planning side. And then 10% of my time is probably with clients and with potential clients. So it's, it's a very diverse week. I'm never bored. And I always feel like there's something new around the corner, which is great because it keeps me learning, keeps me growing.

And then occasionally you jump on a podcast like this one. Exactly. Yeah. You mentioned the mission of Mission. You said that you spent about 30% of your time on culture. Now we all know how important culture is. But again, I know you a little bit, and I know how important culture and being able to share that, describe that, live that, and breathe that is to you. I'd love for you to take a moment and pretend I'm a prospective advisory firm that's having a conversation, maybe wanting to affiliate with your firm in some capacity, or maybe it's a new employee that you're trying to describe The mission of Mission. What would you say? What is the mission of Mission?

How do you talk about that? Well, we talk about the evolving landscape of the advisor and how a lot of what we've done in the past as advisors has been around kind of the knowledge economy. You know, hey, we, we know information about Roth IRAs. We know information about the economy and portfolios, and that's still valuable to a degree, but it's also accessible by many through Google, for instance, YouTube. So how is the value stack of advice evolving and how can we as advisors and other members of a financial services team move up the value stack and provide really meaningful value to these families' lives that goes beyond the balance sheet. And so kind of looking at those trends, we'll want to talk to these other firms and see if there's alignment. Do they agree? Do they want to provide that type of deep value, or do they see their value as simply being someone that rebalances a portfolio? So as we find there's alignment from a planning standpoint and from the kind of comprehensive service and coaching standpoint, Then I'll talk to them about kind of their personal goals and what is it that you want to accomplish for you, for your family, what lights you up, and how could you do more of that? And how could we handle some of those other areas that don't light you up with people who get lit up in those areas, whether it's technology or marketing or investments, and how together we could really build something special and be a firm of permanence and a firm that doesn't have to sell out to the private equity world that can control our destiny, put clients first, and really make a culture of a firm that we can be proud of. So it's about co-creating together. It's about kind of getting them to share their story, their why. It's sharing ours and then finding that common ground and, you know, wanting to be a values-based conversation. So, you know, talking about their growth mindset, talking about their level of caring. I want to learn what they do in their free time. I want to understand about their families and their other priorities in their lives. So it's, it's a human connection and it's a shared visioning. And it's really about rolling up our sleeves and doing something together at a national scale that can be super exciting and impactful.

So I'm looking at your website. I see Andy, Diane, Michelle, Jessica, Brad, and a lot of other people. If I went up to them right now and asked them, what is the mission of Mission? What do you think they would say?

Hmm, you know, I'm sure we'd get some variations, clearly we'd get variations, but they all would say caring. In fact, we just did a Wordle where we had all the words put into this kind of infographic, and the number one word when our team described the company was caring. Caring was the top word that came out. How we care for each other, how we care for clients, how we care for the communities. If there's one through line, it would be that one, that people understand that we're about caring., and that we're about, you know, really going the extra mile. And we try to lead by example that way. As far as, you know, painting the picture of mission of mission, you know, we have certain numbers. We want to be a $30 billion firm by the end of the decade. We currently have 13 diamond teams. We want to have 36 diamond teams. We currently have 85 people. We're going to have 420 people by the end of the decade. So they know there's certain numbers as far as our growth, number of offices, number of families we can serve, number of service diamonds. But those are, again, are just kind of the backup numbers to the bigger vision, which is we want to build this out nationally. We want to be a truly exceptional firm that stands out from the rest in how we care for clients, in the ways that we're pushing the envelope in this industry, and the ways that we really put culture first. And we've gotten a lot of amazing awards and whatnot, but it's really not about that. It's about, are we attracting the right talent? Does that talent feel supported with a very clear growth ladder?, and are we retaining, you know, these people, and are the clients feeling well served, and are we growing our client base and retaining our client base? So if it's, you know, really from a simple definition, there's a growth mindset and there's caring. Those would probably be the two continual threads that people would be sharing.

Well, it's interesting that you boiled it down to two, because in an earlier conversation, actually the one that kicked off this mini-series here on The role of the CEO was with Scott Keller and Vic Mahautra of McKinsey and Company. And they had recently written a book called CEO Excellence. One of the things they talked about in there is that the very best CEOs, instead of having 5 or 6 or 7 values of the organization, they really zeroed in on like 1 or 2 key ones. You've mentioned growth mindset. At Microsoft, it was growth mindset when Satya Nadella came in. That was the focus. He wanted everyone to get a growth mindset. We got to get this thing back on the track here instead of off the rails like it had been for a while. And so you talk about caring, that was the one that came up immediately. And you said, hey, that's probably the one that most of these people are going to come up with immediately. So it's about caring. It's about growth mindset. And, you know, if you could get your organization to think about those two, you'd be ahead probably of 99% of the other firms out there.

Yeah, and, and, you know, you can talk about values, but it's how you demonstrate those values. We want to infuse in the caring and the growth mindset and the adaptability into everything that we do, and then really celebrate wins along those lines. And so we're trying to do that. We're giving out a values award at our retreat next month. And so we've taken now 35 nominations, different candidates, and we're going to be voting the, the values winner MVP, and we're going to be really celebrating that person. We also try to celebrate the micro wins that happen each week. So when people go above and beyond for a client or for a teammate, we want to make sure we celebrate those little wins along the way because we're all working hard, but at the end of the day, we want to have fun together and we want to feel appreciated. So making sure people feel appreciated beyond having a competitive comp grid and, and, you know, benefits, it's really about, do I feel acknowledged for the work that I bring? Do I feel like I'm growing? Do I feel that I can really be my best self here and be appreciated as my best self? If you can provide an environment that does that, you're going to have team members for life. We also have multiple paths to partnership. So being able to give people the ability to become an owner is really exciting. It gives them that entrepreneurial mindset. It helps them really feel part of something. So we feel like we've created an environment where people can truly thrive. And if you do that, you almost can just get out of the way and let people do what they're going to do. So we're excited about the future. We're proud of the past.

It's been a great 22-year run, but we're even more excited about the years ahead. Right. So we've got shareholders, we've got employees, and we've got clients. If you had to rank them in priority, 1, 2, 3, in terms of who you take care of first, who you take care of second, and who you take care of third, How would you rank those?

Wow, that's a great question. I mean, it's hard to put one above the other, but I would say it's probably team number one, and then it's clients number two, shareholders last. And we've done that in the past. We've had to, you know, partners have given up comp to make sure team members could be retained and make sure they could maintain their comp. We've always going to put clients ahead of our own interests in that way as shareholders. So I'd say shareholders are last, and then I would say team is number one, clients are close number two.

Well, great minds think alike. That's exactly how I order them as well. You know, I've always thought that the way you treat your team is the way they're going to treat their clients and the people that they deal with. And so if you don't have a good team, if you don't have a happy team, if you don't have an engaged team, they're going to provide crappy service to their clients. And so we got to make sure that, that they've got those opportunities. So, all right, well, Seth, this is great. Anything else that you want to add here?

Any final concluding thought here? Just, it's an exciting industry to be in, and the future is bright. And I love thinking about providing deeper connections with clients and kind of linking the behavioral finance with the life coaching, moving our way up the value stack. That is where we see the future, and it's an exciting place to be. So, uh, encourage you all to lean in that direction as well.

And what's the best way for folks to connect with you or with the firm if they want to reach out?

They can go to missionwealth.com. They can feel free to reach out to myself. You can Google me, you can watch my TED Talk. I'm very accessible and at 6'6", I don't hide easily. So happy to speak to anyone if they have any questions and happy to be able to just have this opportunity with you, Steve.

Thank you so much. All right. I appreciate it, Seth. Always great to connect with you. Likewise. My key takeaway from my conversation with Seth Streeter is you don't have to die with your boots on. Seth is still a young guy, but he realized that he didn't have to be the CEO forever, and now he has time to focus on other aspects of his work and outside passions that continue to inspire him in the next phase of his life. All right, that's all for today. Make sure you like and share this podcast through your favorite social platforms, and for more great podcasts, visit us at barons.com/podcast.

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