Using Stories to Connect with Clients and Prospects

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How well do you really know your clients? Hi everyone, I'm business coach Steve Sandusky for Barron's Advisor, The Way Forward podcast. My guest today is Dr. Preston Cherry. Dr. Cherry is the head of the financial planning program and director of the Charles Schwab Center for Personal Financial Planning at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He is also the founder and president of Concurrent Financial Planning, where he specializes in empowering households and business owners with a trusted place where they can be candid and comfortable sharing their stories and aspirations about their life and money, past, present, and future. The goal is to utilize their unique stories to cultivate financial independence that optimizes their financial resources and encourages financial wellness, thereby creating a life wholeness experience. In today's conversation, we explore how you can incorporate storytelling and story listening to better understand your clients and do a better job serving them. So let's get started with Dr. Preston Cherry. You're in a unique position both as an academic and a practitioner of financial planning. So you really understand the theory and the practice behind many of the things that financial advisors do. And one of the areas that financial advisors spend a lot of time in is telling stories and eliciting stories from their clients. So, let's go ahead and start there. What would you say is the role of story in the financial advisor process, both the advisor sharing stories and also getting the client's stories?

Yes, thanks, Steve. Critical, very critical. And I'd say critical and not in a negative manner. It's enjoyable. It's transformational. It's very connective. I guess that's another C word. It's that glue. Remember when you had construction paper back in the day and you put too much Elmer's glue on the construction paper, it used to slide everywhere, right? Well, now we're having Gorilla Glue now where you just put a dot of glue and you put that dot of glue in there and it sticks, all right? This is how critical the glue is. It's the storytelling and story listening. Is that Gorilla Glue. It is the most important thing. Why is that? It helps us connect, Steve. I mean, people want to be heard. People want to be valued, belong. Their stories have to be listened to. It opens up the lane for everything else. It opens up the, the mind. If you can lead with compassion and conversation, then the lane is opened. So the heart is— oh, you know, you lead with the heart, the humanness, then the mind is opened for suggestion. And then that's when the mechanics start kicking in. It's very important on both sides of the table that story listening and sharing is engaged in in order to create an environment of trust so that, you know, vulnerability lane can happen and commence so the process can commence.

Now, one of the things that advisors, I guess you could argue, get paid for is helping clients change behavior, whether that's making better financial decisions and actually sticking to those decisions or not bailing out of the market when markets are dropping. And I think stories have the ability to facilitate this behavior change. So, I'd love to hear from you, maybe some of the science behind it and some of the practicality of how can we use stories to help facilitate behavior change?

Well, some of the science is— and I did some digging into, into the science of it, you know, we have these chemicals going in our brains all the time. And a couple of things that I found was dopamine, we have oxytocin, and all these big words, right? And we have cortisol. They're released at all type of things. And when we talk about dopamine, we talk about things that keep us engaged. And then we talk about oxytocin, and how we build relationships. And cortisol helps us form memories, right? So what does that have to do with conversations and storytelling and story listening? Well, when we're talking about, you know, oxytocin and we're talking about building relationships and empathy, well, when we're going through, you know, market fluctuations and we're hearing noise and we have elevated points of worry, anxiety, all of these emotions. Well, we have to empathize with those. And so that's dealing with the mind. When the planner is reaching out to the client, first of all, I would hope we're being proactive and making calls and seeing how others are doing. And then when those stories are shared, And when you ask the question, how are you feeling about what's going on in the market right now? Valued, heard, right? And then that person is sharing their story. Yeah, well, you know, this is what's going on in our household. This is how we're feeling. Well, that's an exchange of empathy. You're hearing that person, how they're feeling. You got to affirm that because those are real feelings. And then it's unique to each household. So, you know, those are not only quantitative or qualitative feelings, subjective expressions,, we have some chemicals going on in our brain that's backing that up. So those are— we were talking about oxytocin, right? That's empathy. And so, but we know what that feels. We don't need big words in order to know how that feels. We know how that feels. Market's going crazy, so to speak, then how do we empathize about how we feel? What's our story? What's going on, right? And so it's very important that we keep exchanging these stories and then How do we connect the story to what we may have experienced in the past? So that's when we talk about cortisol, when we're talking about creating memories. Well, we have to create memories from the past, bring them up to the present, okay? And how do we connect that? How do we juxtapose that? How do we compare that? What did we do last time? How do we work through what we're doing now so we can remember that going forward? And see, when we share a story and we're juxtaposing, we're comparing, we can say, yeah, you know, maybe it was 5 years ago, maybe it was 10 years ago, 6, could be a few months ago. You know, yeah, yeah, it was like this. We've been through this. It felt like this that time too. What did you do? How did it feel? What adjustments did you make? Did you come out of it? You know, were you prepared? Are you better prepared this time? In a past story, you may have been underprepared, and then you made some adjustments, and now, how are we doing right now? Oh, yeah, we made some adjustments in our plan, and we kind of set ourselves up this time. And we get to revisit the plan and say, OK, because of last time, we made this moat around us so we can reduce the anxiety. So when we're sharing the stories, when we're making the memories, we get to bank those and use those as armory or recall in order to, you know, address what's going on right now.

Now, this is interesting because what I do not hear you saying is if the market's going down, oftentimes what advisors will do is they'll pull out all the past performance, they'll pull out all the previous times that the economy went into a recession, and they'll show, here's what the financial markets did 18 months after it goes into recession. The markets are up, or whatever the numbers are. So they try and calm the client by talking about facts. And historically, this is what has happened to the markets when we've had a similar situation like we're facing right now, for example. Now, what I hear you saying is you're not doing that. You're not trying to overcome a client's emotional feelings with facts. You're talking about stories, you're talking about empathy, you're talking about going back to what you've done in the past, how you responded to a similar situation in the past, and can we apply that to the present? So I find that very interesting. Then do you like add a story into that as well? Does story come into this where you can share a story about how to deal with this current situation? Does that come into play at all?

Yes, it does. And when you lead with the compassion, the heart, then it does open up the lane for some of the facts and figures, because people do want to have some education. They want to be informed. I've had clients tell me straight up, it was like, okay, I want to be informed. I've had people say, use the word educate, can you educate me? You know, I've had, you know, clients use that word. But that's after all the stories, the affirmation, and all this, as far as the conversation is concerned. So the story that you asked me about, well, there's a time to where a planner can share what they went through very quickly in order to make that connection with what the client may be going through. It's called a selective share. When do you drop your dime, so to speak? When do you say, OK, yeah, I could resonate with that. When I went through a market condition like this, you know, with my family, I remember we had to tighten our belts a little bit. For example, you know, when I was coming up, my family talked about money all the time, and we actually had these family meetings during inflationary times. The prices were going up, and we had family meetings, and we actually had recorded them. We did. Coming up, we actually recorded them. We've listened to them a couple times now that we're adults. We're going to have to tighten our belts a little bit. These events are going to affect us like this, but we're going to be okay. It's going to be like this for several months, this, that, and the other, but going forward, we're going to be all right. But for right now, we're going to have to do this and that, and this is what's going to affect the money, and it's also going to affect the household. We're going to have to do this, that, and the other, right? And so I would share that, and I said, how are you talking about money in your household right now? How are these times affecting you? And then I turn it back over, right? And then they would then pick that up and say, yeah, so, you know, we have had this conversation, or we haven't had it yet, but— or we need to have it, you know, see? Then they start rocking and rolling, and then I sit back at that point. But what it's not, Steve, is a dead conversation to where there's no story swapping, you know, where it's just— we're just sitting back and listening 100% of the time. You have to build a connection Oh, you have to build some engagement. You have to build some connectivity. You have to lob something up in order for them to hit. It's like almost, it's almost like a pitch. All right. And then there's something may trigger or resonate with them and they're like, oh, okay, yes. Then they'll take it from there. And then you just, then that's when they're listening. Then that's their turn to share. And then they're, they're on their way after that. Right. And so that's when it really starts resonating. That's when the story listening and sharing component really starts, you know, that's that conversation. Conversation is a two-way street. That's when it really starts kicking in, particularly with, you know, market conversations. And then I would say to put a bow tie on this, then you can start sharing some, some facts and figures. After they start sharing, they feel a little bit more at ease. Then you get to start saying, so when we started building your plan at the onset, we built your portfolio based on you all's level of anxiety or worry or perception and, you know, your risk tolerance and your, and capacity. So during times like this, we took that all that into consideration. Remember when we did that? You shared with us this, that, and the other. Well, we built this cushion in. We built this in here, this, that, and the other. So if you could look at your account right here, we have this portfolio structure in, in order to maybe wade these waters for several months. And you can see that right here. Let me show you, you know, and here's this account right here. All right. And then also too, in the markets, they tend to recover after periods of this, da, da, da, da. And that's why we did da, da, da, da. So what do you think about this? Then they'll share. So now you've done the conversation piece of the emotion piece. They're ready to receive some of those facts and figures. And now you're getting your opinion of— you're getting feedback about that too. Because you've opened up the heart, you've led with the heart, in order to open up the mind.

One of the things you just said there, Preston, is you talked about education, you talked about the sequencing here. And let me just describe what I think I heard you say, because I think this is really important. And that is, let's again use this example of the financial markets have dropped significantly, let's say, and you've got a client that is panicking or is frustrated by it. Now what's interesting is you as the advisor and the client are looking at the same set of facts, meaning let's just say the market's down 20%. Okay, so let's just say that's factual. Now, you as the advisor, you have a story around that. And what I mean by that is you have history, you have experience. You know that the markets do this on a fairly regular basis. So that's your story around the market's down 20%. Now, the client has a story as well. They don't have your experience, but their story is, oh my gosh, I'm freaking out. I've lost 20% of my portfolio. I can't afford this. Get me out of the market. Okay, so those are two very different stories. And the story that you tell yourself is how you interpret the same factual information. And what I think I heard you say, and tell me if this is what you said, is that the sequence here is really important. Meaning, if you're the advisor, you can't simply turn around and share your factual understanding of this situation with the client and go back to the history of what has happened in the past when the market drops 20%, okay? Because that's your story. You can't do that. What I think I heard you say is the sequence is you've gotta get them to open up their heart, I think is, is how you phrased it, that you've gotta start with a story which opens them up to receive a new story. And once they're open to receive a new story, then they're gonna interpret the situation, this factual situation with the new story that you were able to sort of slip in there. So is that making sense? Is that essentially what you were saying?

Absolutely. For those that can remember, but you know, Michael Jackson is timeless, but when he broke out the moonwalk, right? Yeah, this was back in '85. He did some songs with his brothers and he said, yeah, you know, those were the old songs. And then he said, now we're going to do the new songs. And then when he broke out Thriller, then he did the moonwalk. And what does that mean for what you just said? Which is the stories and the reactions to the market down 20%. When the story is shared, it's almost like a cleanse. You're working through the old or what's going on now. You have to shift that out of the way in order to receive the new, the information in order to progress to what's next. All right, there, there is a process, there is an order of operations, and no one's going to listen to a spewing of information if they haven't been heard first. And matter of fact, they may tell you about it, they may check you on it, right? And this is in real life, in real life, like in planning, but Haven't you been a part of a conversation to where, not even about money, to where you're just talking and somebody just starts talking at you and you be like, I haven't, I haven't told you anything yet. So we've checked our counterparts in regular conversations. So how is that going to fly in a, you know, market condition conversation or a money conversation? It's not. Because we haven't allowed the other person, you know, to, you know, share first, or we even haven't asked. We haven't connected yet or attempted to. It's a willingness, Steve. It's a willingness to want to ask that or learn about how that person is feeling. Yes, so absolutely there is an order of operations to this, uh, to this process. Once they have shared their unique feelings. You know, it could be borderline panic, could be. And they may tell you a story of why. You know, we were planning to, you know, make a shift, and we're about to purchase a home, a second home, a first home, or I don't know, whatever it may be, vacation. We were about to switch jobs. We were about to, you know, whatever a life event that was coming up, the market may have interrupted that. You know, we're about to go move closer to our parents so we can take care of, you know, our parents. That's emotional. That's best big time. I, you know, I just learned of someone here recently that's going to go move to care for their loved one. And if that's delayed, yes, that's going to trigger an emotion, wouldn't it? So if you don't hear that, is somebody going to listen to, oh well, though, you know, the market since 1950 has had 4 bear markets And if you plan to go live closer to your parents to take care of a loved one, you led with 4 bear markets and then, you know, takes 3 years to recover, you would be kind of ticked off.

Yeah. And what's cool about this is, as you say, this concept really applies in anything. It's not just in the financial markets, but it's just in regular conversation with people because again, 2 people can look at the same set of facts and have 2 completely different interpretations. And so whether you're talking politics, whether you're talking religion, no matter what topic you're talking, people have different interpretations because they interpret based on their story. Like they use story to create meaning out of what is going on there. And so this really gets back to facilitating behavior change. If you're trying to change someone's behavior, It's usually not gonna happen by telling them a bunch of facts and all of a sudden they see the light and say, oh, you're right. Your facts are really right. And I was interpreting those facts incorrectly. Well, no, it doesn't really work that way. It's like open 'em up, tell a story, and then when it appears that they're receptive to receiving a new story, a new way to interpret the facts, then that's a way that you might be able to facilitate behavior change. And I would say, of course, This is not about manipulation, but people do use this to manipulate. We see that happen all the time when people use this type of thing, this type of, you know, telling stories to manipulate people. That's obviously not what we're talking about here. So it can be used for evil. No, no. I guess one other thing I'd say, too, is if you're trying to change someone's behavior or someone's interpretation of some facts, I think it's also helpful to preface or ask permission to tell your story before you jump into your story. And I think that just helps set the stage. Like, I respect that we may differ on this, but is it okay if I share a story about my experience in this area? And they say, yeah, sure. So now you're being respectful of them. They've given you permission to tell a story. Now you tell a story. And I think that might lower the temperature a little bit. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it makes complete sense. And both ways work, I've seen. And I like your introduction of the word manipulations, if I can address that. It's more utilizing for encouragement. It's encouraging, it's creating. Um, so it's definitely— I love your point about that. It's not manipulation, it's encouragement, it's empowerment. It is utilizing a tool and a technique in order to create a space to where a person can be encouraged to share. They want to anyway. They just have to be in a place to where they can say, oh, okay, I feel good about sharing. I want to share. I may not know how or when the time is right. However, now it is. It is the time. I just have to be asked a certain way. And I appreciate you asking. So it's definitely not manipulation. They come— they're coming to the table wanting to. They just have to be in an environment where they feel comfortable doing so. So, uh, I just wanted to address that. I'm glad you brought that up. That's what people are hiring you for or partnering with you for, is to have a relationship in that manner. It is incumbent and a responsibility of the professional to create that trusting, vulnerable environment for somebody to say, okay, yes, this is how I'm feeling. So it's a responsibility in order to do so. And they expect it, to be honest. They expect an environment like that so they can come to you with that trusting feeling. That's number 1. Asking permission to sharing a story. I feel that conversations are very organic. If it's unpracticed, Steve, then yes. You know, say, can I share a story? Then yes, that does help a lot. Sometimes though, it's kind of like questioning. We have these big question banks. It's like, okay, here's 50 questions, you know, this, that, and the other. And there's a lot of good questions out there in order to help facilitate conversations and everything like that. You're not going to just start checking off questions. You know, it's not an interview. We're not on 60 Minutes, you know, right? However, if you can have tools inside of you to where things just start coming out organically, then I feel those are the best conversations. So a story just may come up organically. I've been in conversation, Steve, to where a person is telling their story, they're sharing, they may ask a question, and we're, we're in the groove, and then a story would just come out real quick, you know, to be like, oh yeah, I actually went bankrupt, and which I did in real life at 28. I said, you know what, I actually went bankrupt at 28, so coming back from bankruptcy as possible. And that was 14 years ago. And I said, like, real bankruptcy, like going down to the court, not Monopoly bankrupt. And some people would be like, ah, right? You know? And then I'll say, so how do you want to proceed? Da da da da. That was a quick drop, right? And then I'll throw it back to them. I didn't necessarily ask them to share that story, but it was a quick 15, 20 seconds. They may want to hear more about it, they may not. The thing to try to break the ice a little bit, try to take the shame and judgment off of maybe something. I just use that for an example. And so I didn't necessarily ask for permission in that situation, but I also didn't elongate on my story to stick it on me. You know, sometimes they want to elongate a little bit so they can, you know, feel a little bit more relaxed, or they'll say, ah, okay, yes, then they'll elongate on themselves.

Yeah, no, I appreciate the clarification there. And what's so fun about having these kinds of conversations is we are sharing a smorgasbord of tools, so to speak. And so we're giving the listeners options and ideas and ways that you can use these things. And so ultimately, when you're in a conversation with a client, you've got to determine when is the right time to use this when is the right time to like ask permission to do something and when do I not need to? So just like you described, yeah, there's a lot, lots of times when no, I don't have to ask permission to tell a story. I'm just going to tell a story because it comes up organically in the conversation. So, and that's where the skill comes in, I think, on the part of the advisor is knowing when to utilize certain tools and techniques. And that's one of the things I love about podcasting is we get to have all these great conversations and share these things. So, okay, so we're talking about stories here. Now, there's lots of different types of stories. I'd love for you to share a few of the different types of stories that you as an advisor might want to actually share when you're dealing with a client. What are the different types of stories we should think about?

So, you know, stories are, they're connective in nature, ones to build trust. There's stories to encourage. There's ones to build, you know, empathy. And, and I know these words now are somewhat becoming— they're, they're— and this is a good thing— they're becoming regular. They're like, you know, I mean, I'm hoping they are, you know, but they're so important. They're so important. How they empathize— some of the best ways in order to do this is, is to swap stories. How do you know when someone is empathizing or creating a vulnerable environment, how do you know when somebody is trustworthy? How do you know when somebody's connecting with you? How do you know that? Some things are not just definition. You just have to feel it. You really do. This is the human element. So many people want so much rigidness in things, Steve. It's like, OK, empirically prove this to me. Do this. What is this human side? What is this? People thing that you're talking about. You're a human being, you know it, you just do. The stories that I mentioned, you know, connective, trust, empathize, vulnerable, trial, triumph. Not everything has to be, you know, sad about money or trauma-driven, you know. You can share about, hey, I came into some money, I got a new job, I got a bonus, you know, I got options, I've, you know, Hey, let's go get another house. Abundance, right? Put a smile on your face. Let's go get this money. Let's go do the next thing. So you have trial and— I like the two T's, trial and triumph. We got a new child. My dad used to call them tax write-offs, you know. But so these are the type of stories, Steve, and they happen organically. Like for instance, I had got a client that needed permission in order to spend money. Needed permission to spend money and go to their next phase of their life in their 50s, by the way. It's young. It's like, can we do it? Sure, you can do it. You got millions. But their thing was, it's like, can we go on to the next thing? How do we do it? I just shared a story about permission to go into the next life cycle. I said, my parents had this conversation. They're young too. Been married 44 years and they talked for about a year about going to the next life cycle and what they were going to do with their next stage. A matter of fact, I told 'em it was on my first episode of my podcast. They said they talked verbally about it. They were very intentional about what they wanted to do, who they wanted to see, what hobbies they wanted to pursue, what was next. They were released from investing in, uh, household and my sister and I. Their conversations took a year, but they were intentional about them. So what about you and so-and-so? How are your conversations going? Have you started them? If so, how are they going? If not, when do you want to begin? You're free now. Boom. I paused for a second. I know, you know, it's radio and podcast, dead silence, but it's key to pause for a second. So I stepped back. I shared a quick story, but I paused, and then we spent months on that, Steve. We spent a couple of months just off of that share right there, right? It's triumph. Their freedom. They had millions they spent, you know, and they're going to their life stage. And we spent, we spent more time— the client shared with me— we spent more time on the release of freedom and boldly and courageously creating a vision for their lives than the mechanics of money.

Yeah. You know, and that's one of the wonderful things about being a financial advisor is it goes so far beyond the numbers, beyond the nuts and bolts of planning, to the emotional side, the psychological side. And of course, you've got all the training to be able to go there with a PhD. And so you understand how to have these kinds of conversations. But it's so powerful. So I appreciate you sharing that story. I had a conversation here recently with one of my coaching clients, and we were talking about his discovery process in terms of how does it actually work, you know, kind of walk me through the first meeting with a potential new client. And then I asked him, I said, if the prospect asked you, why do you do what you do? Why did you get into this business? So I asked him that, and he went on and he told me a story about how when he was a kid, his grandfather gave him $1,000 every year on his birthday. And what his grandfather did was he said, we're going to invest this. And so every year give him $1,000 and then they'd sit down and they would talk about the financial markets. They would talk about investing. He opened up a brokerage account. So every year he puts this $1,000 into the brokerage account. And my client said to me, he said, you know, as I think about that, Looking back on it, that's really what got me interested in being a financial advisor is I had this connection with my grandfather. Then I asked him, I said, how many clients have you told that story to? And he said, nobody. And I said, oh my gosh. I said, you need to tell that story. Okay. That's sort of the, my why story. It's like, why do I do what I do? And I said, if you can share that heartfelt story, I mean, oh man, think about the kind of connection that you can make with your clients because they can— many of them will be able to relate to a grandparent. They'll be able to relate to the passing down of wisdom from one generation to the next. I said, there's your my why story. So I always think about that's another great story for advisors to tell is why did I get into this business? Why do I do what I do?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, wow. It paints an arc of why, you know, Saying, I just want to help people is so boring. That's right. Everybody, everybody says that. Everybody says that. And you know what? The client doesn't want to hear that either. You know, they don't want to hear that either. Matter of fact, the story that you just told gave me chills, you know, and it was going to give the client chills. And another thing, if somebody heard that, if that's a prospect, you're probably 30% of the way, by the way, of closing a relationship just with that story alone, more than likely, as far as building trust, connectivity, authenticity, vulnerability, all of that. Because a person hearing that story, I'd say 9 times out of 10, has a story that they're going to share right after that. They're going to be like, yes, I remember my aunt, my uncle, my grandfather, da da da, my dad, my mom, they're coming right in hot right after you with, with a story of their own. And that kicks off everything else. It really does. And then you get to ask a, a follow-up question, which is, oh, this is bread and butter right there. How does that story affecting your money relationship with money today, do you think?

He's never cashed out those investments. He said, I still have that money invested after all these years. And it's, it's grown, obviously it's grown substantially since then.

Yes. Yes. You know, those attitudes and habits towards money, right? And even those conversations that he had in the past, they have to be influencing what's going on in his household today. You know, his thought processes, his value systems. So following up with that question of, How did those learning patterns or the experiences and all that, how are those affecting your relationships with money and your goals and aspirations today? And just sit back. The conversation continues, right? The conversation continues. They're going to continue because all you did was bring that to the present, and then you've introduced with aspirations to what you want to do go forward. Now we're thinking about the future. Just continue to take notes. Oh, Steve, I could do this all day. This is fun. I mean, because, because then you're learning information about how are you going to do with the money going forward? You know, so just like you said, a fabulous thing is to have a story to share why you got into the, uh, the business, because they're gonna, they're gonna have their own story. Bam! Oh my goodness, great, great thing.

Yeah, I've even gone so far as I have a digital place where I store my stories. So whenever I have an idea for a story, I just go in and I type it all in. And so I've got a place where I've got a whole bunch of different stories. And so if I'm writing an article or if I'm putting a presentation together for a speaking engagement, I'll sort of go through my list of stories and identify, okay, which, which story makes the most sense in this particular situation? So I, I think that's another idea for advisors is to write down your stories and get your whole list of stories so that you've got them ready when it's appropriate to pull it out and you're not sort of scratching around to try and come up with one, but just go ahead and write those stories down and keep them in a place where it's easily accessible.

Absolutely. I have about 15 of them, you know, Steve. I told one the other day to a group of students. I told a different one to, you know, a speaking engagement audience. Different ones just come up, and they're kind of like questions, you know. You have your question bank, and then organically they're just going to come out when they organically are ready because you have them inside of you. You have them inside of you. You know, one quick story, you know, from, you know, my grandfather. As far as, you know, people like, you know, why are you doing this? You know, my dad shared a story with me one time, Steve, and he told me about it. I'd never heard of this before, but he told me about my grandfather carrying around a check in his wallet to his dying day that his brother, my grandfather's brother, helped him write a check, showed him how to write a check, fill it out, because my grandfather, you know, didn't read or write. And so in order to, you know, navigate the world, my grandfather pulled that check out when he needed to write a check at a bank and copied the check signature writing the words, the numbers, all of that, the date. That's fantastic that a grown man would carry that all his life, from the rural areas of Alabama to riding a train to Kansas City to marry my grandmother and then spend 40 years, 40 or 50 years in a limestone mill. He was a welder. That has everything to do about money. You know, the dedication to invest in my mother and father and to save money. He was a rigid saver, avid saver. He was risk-averse, but he saved, dedicated his life, him and my grandmother, gave my dad access to education. All of that transferred generationally to what my mom and my dad rolled over to my sister and I. Self-worth, self-value are the most grandest compoundable assets that you can give to an individual. So that started with that check that my granddad's brother gave him in the state of Alabama. This is one of the reasons why I do what I do, the transference of human capital.

What's so great about the story that you just shared, I mean, a lot of great things about it, but one thing is if I was your grandfather's financial advisor or even your dad's financial advisor or your financial advisor, how important would it be to me to know that story? Because by knowing that story, it's going to help me better understand you and better understand how you relate to money. And when you make a decision or you have a certain behavior around money that to me as a financial professional doesn't make sense, if I know that story, that will put a whole lot more context around your behavior and help me have more empathy for why you do what you do in the way that you're doing it and the way that you're relating to money. So this whole idea of sharing stories, but also eliciting the stories from your clients to better understand them, I think is so critical to being a great financial advisor, which I think really leads to— and we've been talking about already how to get your client stories. But let's talk a little bit about motivational interviewing, because I think that's a way also to help bring out the client stories, because the more stories we can hear from our clients, the better job we can do putting together a financial plan that they're going to stick to.

Absolutely. And what we just did, we've done it a couple of times through our conversation, Steve, through this conversation, which is help facilitate When you're in dialogue with people, you have these selective shares, you know, dropping dimes a little bit. We are encouraging, we are creating environments, we are empowering people to reveal and share what they came to do in the first place. They are displaying a willingness by picking up the phone or sharing an email to want to enter into their journey already. We are guides. And they are coming to us in order to start their journey. So we have to release the tools in order to facilitate. So when we do share a story, the why of sharing a story isn't to toot our own horns. It's not to pad our own egos. It's not to talk about ourselves so we can get endorphins released in ourselves, even though there's science behind You know, it does feel good to talk about oneself. That's not the point. The point is to share in order to build these environments, to say, I have a story. I'm a human being. I've had a journey with money a little bit. I'm expressing that I can be vulnerable. Look, I can do it. Hey, I'm encouraging you. You can do it too. As a matter of fact, I want to share just so I can hear your story. I want to get to you as quickly as possible. And matter of fact, it happens very quickly, Steve. When those barriers are brought down, when that humanness, when that connectedness is made, when that truth is created, when that vulnerability is created, when that empathy is shown, people start coming right out the gate with, you talking about motivational interviewing, and then you bookend the story with, Has anything like that happened to you? What's your story? What's going on in your household? Is anything like that happened to you? Yeah, as soon as you say that, it's a 10 times out of 10, and I've never not had anybody say, give me crickets. They are off to the races talking about their situation, and you just have follow-up questions. Unpack that for me a little bit. Tell me more about that, you know. And how is that affecting you now, you think? You know, what about the future? It's endless after that. So when you tell it, when you share a story, it opens up the floodgates. And the purpose is to get into those motivational interviewing at that point. The motivational interview kicks off sometimes with a selective share to create the environment of encouragement and empowerment. It's a phenomenal thing.

Well, Preston, I could talk for hours to you about Talking about storytelling and this whole area here, but there is one other area unrelated to this that I'd like to segue to. Are you okay if we spend a minute here about another area? Absolutely. Okay. Now notice how I just asked you permission.

I was just about to say that, but I was going to let that slide, Steve. But I was like, that's pretty good. That was probably like a pun or something like that.

I've tried to practice what I teach here.

That was pretty good.

So you're a busy guy. I mean, my goodness, you're a professor, you're a financial advisor, you're a business coach, and you also are really training the next generation of financial professionals. So tell me a little bit about what you're doing here at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. And you and I know each other because we live not too far away from each other and we've been able to spend some time together. And I'm always appreciative of that time. I know a little bit about what you're doing there, but I'd love for you to share What are you doing there at UW-Green Bay in terms of training the next generation of financial professionals?

Appreciate the question, Steve. And also too, just want to let the listeners know, I appreciate your service on our advisory board too. Your expertise goes a long way, so I appreciate it. Thank you for your service. First of all, we have a program, a personal financial planning program that's registered with the CFP Board, which means that when the students take the classes at UWGB, then After they complete the classes, then they're eligible to sit for the CFP exam after they complete the minor. So that's a cool thing because we're helping them enter into the workforce and pursue their career. So that's great. And, but we're also providing experiential learning. I love the word, but I, it is one of the words I can't say, but these experiential learning opportunities. I had some professionals from the area come in and sit in on our capstone class in order to get some real-life commentary on our case. That's phenomenal. Young people and people in general just want to say, okay, yes, this is cool out of the textbook, but what about real life? We're using a case, but they want to hear what's going on in life, how do you connect it, how do you apply it, right? And so we're having professionals come on. We're having our student association is thriving. Students are actually running it now. I had to set up at first and do a lot of the legwork. The students now, they're so pumped up about the student organization, right, that they're like, Dr. Cherry, they're like, Man, thank you for the resources. We appreciate it now. Thank you. And now please get out of our way. I'm like, oh, okay. Because they're so excited about creating the events and promoting and inviting people to campus and all that. So these are these experiential learning things. You know, we're creating awareness about the different ways you can get into financial planning, whether it be fintech, operations, compliance, advisory services. The list is, you know, endless. We also have a podcast that's helping with getting awareness about, you know, just personal finances in general, Steve. We have a financial wellness center. It's sponsored by Charles Schwab. So it's Charles Schwab Foundation Center for Financial Wellness. And in here, the students all across campus can receive financial coaching sessions for about 50 minutes from those students that are in the financial planning program. And get coaching on, you know, budgeting, employee benefits, you know, how to maximize the financial aid, so on and so forth. So this helps twofold. One, it helps the students that are pursuing the profession to go get those people skills and engagement, right? And, you know, those— all these things that we're talking about helps with those questions and this, that, and the other, get that real-life human experience. And it also helps the campus, the students, with increasing their financial wellness, so reducing anxiety and worry, and then also increasing their own perception, their own health and wealth, about looking towards the future about their money. So all of that's going on. We also tour, we go to conferences. We've been to several big-time conferences this semester. We're going to continue that. So it exposes them to networking and so on and so forth. So I tried to squeeze a lot into a little bit. There's a lot going on. We, we got a lot of support from the university, outside the university, regional firms. We're rocking and rolling. There's a lot to do.

Yeah. And I think a lot of the people in that program, aren't they first-generation college students?

Absolutely. Yes. Yes. So we, the campus of UWGB is, you know, there's a lot of first gens. It's important that we're getting this message out. So, and then that trickles down into the program as well. So we're making a lot of impact.

All right. Well, Dr. Cherry, I think we will go ahead and wrap it there. I appreciate you taking some time here today. And if folks want to connect with you, what's the best way for folks to stay in touch with you?

Yes. Thank you. So my handle across all social medias is @drprestoncherry. So @drprestoncherry, you can find me Everywhere. And also have a podcast myself, Life Money Balance.

Excellent. All right. Well, again, thank you for being on the show. Thank you, Steve. Becoming a skilled storyteller and story listener is a critical skill that will help you not only be a better financial advisor, but also help you better understand people who have a different belief system than you do. And when you understand your client's story, you understand their journey and you understand why they do what they do, and why they believe what they believe. And with that information, you can do a much better job putting a plan together that meets where they are right now and helps them get on a path to where they want to go tomorrow. 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. Take care and be safe.

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