YOLO as Policy and Why EQ Is More Important Than IQ

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Hello and welcome to The Way Forward. This is Greg Bartolis, editor-in-chief of Wealth and Asset Management at Barron's, and today my special guest is John Jones, CEO of Seattle-based RIA Brighton Jones. John, welcome.

Thanks, Greg. Glad to be here.

Thank you so much for joining. So you have a really interesting story, and I quite literally have dozens of questions, but we don't have enough time to go through dozens of questions. So let's start with, with one thing that seems unique and singular about your, your experience. Um, you in 2013 took a year off from your firm and traveled with your family to 35 countries. Um, I want to talk about how advisors might be able to glean some lessons, some wisdom from your experience, but, um, first on a high level, tell us a little, what was that whole experience like?

Wow, it's a little bit like asking, asking me 12 questions, and we could probably talk about this for days. So let's start with the why. You know, the why behind taking a year off was really to want it— wanting to see travel through my kids' eyes, you know, and kidnap them for a year and, and, you know, visit— we like— we visited 35 countries, had 47 flights, literally made ourselves away, you know, made our way around the the globe. And it was amazing. So, it was 365 days and came home and kind of, you know, everything was the same at the business. So, but there's a lot, you know, there's a lot that goes into, you know, getting prepared to do something like that. And I think everybody, there's always an excuse on why you can't do it from money to time to, you know, the business can't survive without me. And I think those are some of the side benefits that the company had with me actually going away for a year. So, yeah, it was great.

I can imagine. This is the kind of thing that many people will, you know, think about, but then it'll be a fleeting thought. What— I mean, what was the spark of the idea and what made you actually decide to do it and not just talk about it?

So we have 4 kids, and when we left on the trip, the kids were 6, 8, 12, and 13. And when my youngest was born, so 6 years earlier, we kind of came up with the idea, which was really good. It was, you know, let's say 2007 when we talked about it. And we talked about, okay, how old does she need to be to carry her own backpack? 'Cause we had backpacks, lived in youth hostels and Airbnbs for a year. It was, you know, 6 years to prep to get the business ready for me to go away for the year. So I, I, I kind of broke it down into these 4 areas of, you know, what do we do as a business and, and how am I going to feel comfortable leaving, um, for a year and really just tuning out? I, I checked in quarterly unless there was something that came up. Um, but I, I broke the business down into 4 areas of getting clients, keeping clients, getting people and keeping people. And even today, our meetings are centered around those 4 things. Our goals are centered around those 4 things. And of course, there's a lot more than keeping clients or keeping people. You want to engage clients and people. And so, there's— but that's kind of how we set it down. And so, what I did before I left is made sure that we had at least 1 full-time employee focused from a strategy standpoint in those 4 areas, working on the business, not just working in the business. So, in the business as an advisor, getting work done for clients is kind of the, you know, what we do and how we deliver it to clients. But working on the business is setting up processes and technology and consistency and dashboards and making sure that we're executing around getting clients, keeping clients, getting people and keeping people. So, when I left, I had one person, in charge of each, each one of those areas. And then I, and then I had a COO that oversaw, you know, the strategy and goals in those areas. So that's it, that the 4 people reported up to.

And how large was your firm at the time, roughly?

Yeah, so we started the firm in 2000 with, you know, there's 2 of us, Charles Brighton and myself. And I would say in 2006, I shifted from client service work to, you know, really working on the business and thinking about growth and scale and In 2013, we were probably $15 million in revenues, I would say. Today, we're at about $60 million with a little over 200 people. I think we had— I don't know what— we probably had 50-ish, 30, probably 40 to 50 people at the time. And we had 5 offices, so there were some different offices that we had to manage back in 2013. Today, we have 14 offices.

I'm curious too, because aside from this being quite interesting story. Anecdotally, I'm gathering that a lot of advisors are more interested nowadays in having sabbaticals, be it maybe 2, 3, 4 months. What would you recommend to them? And while acknowledging that every firm is different, every culture is different, resources are different, are there any general, general advice you could impart?

Well, I always think about there's practices out there and then there's businesses. And businesses, I think, can run without, you, you know, any one individual, and practices really can't. And so, and, and all of the— I would say all of our industry is in some kind of transformation from a practice to a business, or, or is just staying in a practice. And I think when you have a practice, it's really hard to do that. If you have a business, uh, well, it becomes easier because you're really trying to build out, you know, redundancy and processes and scale, uh, and, and add people. So, um, For us, we have at 10 years, we have what we call a YOLO program where it's you only live once. And at the 10-year mark, we allow our people to take 3 months off on a sabbatical and unplug. And combined with vacation, they could take close to 5 months off to really do whatever they want to do. But the key part is unplugging. And I think it's really healthy for the business. And the team, and it shows trust and confidence in the team that they can get work done on clients or get work done on the business without that individual. And it's great for the individual just to unplug and think about their life and think about what's important and think about the journey that they're on and kind of recommit themselves to the business.

Yeah, the YOLO policy, it's really, quite refreshing in a way. I mean, it's funny because when you first hear YOLO, you think about like meme stocks and day trading, like you only live once, so roll the dice. Um, but this has a whole different meaning, obviously. And what's been the, um, what caused you to implement a policy, and when did you actually do so?

Uh, we implemented the policy in 2013. So I, of course, I announced it and said, okay, and I'm leaving for my YOLO, and I, and I took a year. Um, so So, we announced it then, and the reason for it really is, like I said, twofold. For one, for the employee to really just, you know, it's a time to think and reflect and think about what's important to you in life and really think about life as this journey that you're on and enjoying the journey. Because sometimes when you're at work and in life, you just get stuck. I call it the tactical treadmill, and you're just thinking about You know, okay, what do I have to do today? And you just don't step back enough to, you know, enjoy it and think about what you, you know, love about what you're doing and what you don't love and how can you do more of the things that you really love to do. So, YOLO is really a time to reflect on that for the individual. And then, for the business, it's just a healthy unplug of a key player that we have to shore up. You know, if something did happen to that person, how would we get the work done that we needed to get done? I think it's just as beneficial for the company as it is for the individual.

And given our always-on economy, I think that policy probably resonates even more to employees who'd like to unplug.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I don't think we're not in jobs where you have an 8 to 5 and you unplug. Clients think about their money and their finances nights and weekends just as much as, if not more, than they do during the day. So we, we really strive for work-life integration so that people kind of are plugged in and can, and can get done work done when they need to get it done. And, and less of like this idea of work-life balance kind of drives me crazy because I, I don't really— it makes it almost makes it sound like work, you know, life good, work bad. And, you know, people really love what they do. What you're really looking for is like, how do you have the right balance of of living and have that integration. And so if you really feel like you need this kind of balance, you might be in the wrong job or the wrong profession.

And I know it's probably tricky to quantify, but could you tell— has this helped in terms of retention? I mean, presumably it would help with morale at least, but do you get a sense that people are, you know, it's a little more appreciative and willing to stay with the firm partly because of this policy?

I, you know, there's so much we do with culture. You know, we have a mindfulness-based emotional and social intelligence program. We have— we just had a team day this morning and it was built on the Office theme and there it was fun and engaging. So, you know, there's a lot of stuff we do with trying to make work fun and engaging. And I think the YOLO is just one of them. And does it help with retention? It probably— I mean, I think more than anything, it just helps with engagement. With people, you know, while they are, or while they are with your company. And, um, and I think that's the most important thing is like, do people really love, you know, their job? Are they engaged? Um, you know, for number one for us is, is culture. You know, we, we have to have a place where people love where they work. And if they do, well, then the client work takes care of itself. You know, both getting clients and keeping clients kind of takes care of itself if you have a place where people really love love where they work. So I think as a key message I would have for people is make sure that you have a place where people really enjoy it. But part of that, part of a culture is also trying to drive what I call a growth mindset and creating a place where it's easy to give and receive feedback, which makes people better. But that doesn't always feel good. When you're getting feedback around things that you're awesome at, well, that's great. But when you're getting feedback on things that you're less than awesome about, it doesn't— our natural tendency is to reject those things. And so, we work really hard on changing people's mindset to say, "Hey, thank you. That's a gift. Okay. What can I do with that?" And so, that's a big part of this messy work that we do to try to drive more emotional and social intelligence at work. Right.

Well, speaking of emotional intelligence, I read, heard an interview with you in which you said when it comes to creating a team, you value EQ more than IQ. And I thought that was pretty interesting. And I was wondering if you could elaborate on that a little and how do you quantify to the extent you can EQ? Just a little more about that.

So EQ in our world is called messy. And MESSI stands for mindfulness-based emotional and social intelligence. And emotional intelligence is really this idea of I really am self-aware. I understand what my values are. I understand when my needs are being met. I understand when my needs aren't being met. And then I can manage myself around those feelings. So call it self-awareness and self-management and it's self-competence. So when we say emotional intelligence, We look for people that have really good self-competency. And then social intelligence is really about other people's thoughts and feelings or what we say empathy, really being able to put yourself in somebody else's shoes and being aware of their thoughts and feelings and then being able to build relationships with other people through compassion. So social intelligence is around social competence. And it's through empathy and compassion. And so we have lots of, let's just go with mindfulness training, skill-building activities that drive more self-awareness, self-management, empathy, and compassion, ultimately to drive more emotional and social intelligence for our employees. And because our belief is that people that are, that have more emotional and social intelligence tend to be, whatever your measure of success is, whether your measure of success is happiness, whether it's more friends, whether it's money, you know, it's— we find that people that have a higher emotional and social intelligence tend to be more successful and, and, you know, enjoy life more. So we try to attract and retain people that really want to work on themselves, work on their messiness as a skill. So, and we have a, we have a yellow belt training and blue belt training and red belt and brown belt and. We've got different levels for people, you know, essentially just to gamify and make it fun to work on yourself, which also feeds into this idea of getting and receiving feedback. And, you know, when we're in client work, a lot of times clients, you know, the market, people can get pretty emotional about their money. And when we're emotional, I just don't think we show up as our best self, you know, both as an advisor or as a client or as a person in general. And so this idea of building emotional and social intelligence is really giving people tools to respond more thoughtfully to life happening versus reacting emotionally. And it's like you can get that through a hope strategy of just, man, I hope I get better at it, and I hope that I can find the right response to this client interaction. Or we can work on it as a skill. And so we really are thoughtful around how can we build space for people to respond thoughtfully to life happening.

During the interview process, are there any telltale signs, for example, that might indicate that someone, let's say, scores in quotes high based on mindfulness-based emotional and social intelligence? Or is it really difficult to ascertain and everyone simply as part of the same program, or add anything to that?

I can, and I'll give you two, two, um, two things. One is that as humans, just humans in general, we survived, you know, as a species based on, you know, fear, worrying about a lot of things, and greed, wanting more of everything. Like, that's just kind of— that's built into us, and that's why we survived. So just as normal humans, I would just say we tend to be a little less content with status quo, with this idea of kind of, I'm good. And I wouldn't say status quo, but it's kind of like just this general, like, yeah, okay, life happens and I'm good. It doesn't mean you don't want to win. It doesn't mean you're not competitive. It doesn't mean, you know, that you don't have a drive, but it does mean that you show up, you know, thoughtfully and respectfully to those around you. And so during the interview process, I would say that As humans, we're always going to show up a little less EQ-ish or messy than we would want to. So we test. So we'll ask questions to kind of see if you can, you know, ask maybe emotionally charged questions and see how people respond. It's not even what they say. It's really about kind of more of the feeling you get and how they're responding to things that might be, you know, more emotionally charged and, and, and then see how they react afterwards because It's, it's okay in the moment to, you know, to make mistakes, you know, and not show up as your best self. But you've got to recover, right? This idea of continuous improvement and always getting better. And, and, and so, yeah, there's, there's definitely some, some interviewing techniques that we have to try to sort out, you know, people that want to work on themselves to get better versus those that have more of a fixed mindset and are more committed to being right than getting it right. You know, we want people that are vulnerable and candid and create, you know, psychological safety amongst, you know, the teammates and each other. And so, and yeah, there's definitely things you can look for during an interview process. But more than anything else, what you're looking for is somebody that's willing to be vulnerable and work on themselves.

I also noticed that, I mean, your firm is in a good way, embraces many unorthodox ideas. I mean, certainly there's YOLO, a little bit emphasizing EQ over IQ. And also, I mean, a lot of firms talk the talk about hiring next gen, but I looked at your about page on your team and there's an abundance of younger people. Tell me about the next gen team. Like, you seem to be practicing what you preach. Tell me a little more about that.

Well, it's just growth, you know, to be honest. We've got to build a business where we're hiring advisors that are going to service the next-gen client that's coming up, you know, through our business. So, I think the tally on our team day that we had this morning, we've hired 50 new people this year. And a lot of those folks are kids right out of school that have a finance econ or accounting major or a financial planning degree. And are coming in to want to be a lead advisor someday. So we hire a lot of kids right out of school. And the work that we do is, there's a lot of heavy lifting. It's not the old days where there's this idea of you provide investments and it's super leverageable and you add a client and you don't have to add staff. When we started our business, we started with this idea of playing a role of somebody's personal CFO and managing their whole balance sheet. We take on their taxes and estate planning and investments and everything to do with the balance sheet. And the bigger that we get, the more expertise that we add to the team. And for every one client, it's another FTE. So, we have to make sure that we're hiring in advance of the growth that we've had. And we've grown to date all through really word of mouth and one client and one employee at a time. We haven't had any inorganic growth. And that seems to be working really well for us to keep a really great experience for our customer and a great experience for our employees. So I think younger employees is just part of the next generation. And so I don't know that there's anything that we're doing that resonates more or less for a younger generation. I think it's just— I think what younger generations are doing are forcing companies to be better. I mean, people in general, and I'd say the next gen is really forcing it, people in general want to have purpose. They want to work at a company that has purpose and has a mission statement and is driving to make the world a better place, not just make money. And maybe, maybe, I'm not saying that this is true, but maybe an older way of thinking is drive shareholder value and maximize profits and that's it. And I think that healthy companies think, and I think this is always true, it's, if you can probably look back in the test of time, that healthy companies think about a balance between, you know, I've got to deliver value in excess of fees for clients. So that's a balance of a client. I've got to deliver compensation that's commensurate with the market value for employees. So that's a balance for the employee. And then I've got to deliver shareholder value that people that are going to invest into this company. And it's a balance of all three of those. And it's not just one. And so then, and I think what the younger generation is doing is focusing on, hey, you got to deliver value in excess of my compensation. And what's our purpose? And how are we going to make the world a better place? And why should I work here? Which is awesome because it forces companies to say, well, Why do we exist as a company? What do we do? Do we just make wealthy people wealthier, or do we actually really add value? And what we say is we help them live a richer life. And living a richer life is really about the alignment of their resources, which is kind of their time and money, with what they want to accomplish in life. And so what we say is their passions in life and purpose for life. And so when we think about financial well-being, which is where we think they're in industry is going. I think it went from investments to wealth management to financial well-being. Our definition of financial well-being is this alignment of time, money, passions, and purpose. And as companies and wealth managers, I think we need to start thinking about, you know, not just the balance sheet. You know, you have to be doing taxes and you have to be doing estate planning and real estate advising and everything to do with somebody's balance sheet, but you also have to, in our opinion, you have to think about, okay, how are they going to use that balance sheet to live a richer life and live the best version of themselves, which is really beyond the balance sheet work. So, thinking about building out communities for your clients and thinking about helping them define what is their purpose for life and what is their values and are they living in alignment with that?

You're in Seattle. And are you attracting a lot of talent and clients from California? Is there a connection there? And if so, are there any practices or policies in the tech industry that you're applying to at your firm?

So there's two big questions there. One is, are we attracting clients from California? And I'd say we have, so we have 14 offices across the country. We're attracting clients from everywhere. I wouldn't say just from California. And so the second part of the question is the technology question. And I think that there's a huge transformation that's going to happen in our business that hasn't happened yet. And if you think about your phone or your Alexa or your iPad, these devices, I think they kind of listen to you, right? We can talk about— I was talking about a boat cover with my wife, and then all of a sudden, boat cover showed up on my Instagram feed. And it's a little creepy, but the The reality is, is that technology companies work really, really hard to, let's just go with this, to add value to my life, right? I talked about boat covers. They sent me an ad for boat covers. I then found a boat cover at the lowest cost possible, and now it's being delivered to my house in a day. So it was amazing, that whole transaction, and it really helped. It also feels a little creepy that, you know, somebody's listening in. So, so there's things that we're interested in that help us just, you know, transact in life, and, and, and technology is there to help deliver it to us. And if I don't like it, I'll just delete the ad and move on. So in our world, in, in our, in our business, I would say an innovative technology is a company that uses Salesforce and somehow manually keys in the information relative to our clients' passions, purpose, you know, in, you know, interest and whatever, you know, whatever they, however they want to, what we say, live a richer life. And we do that through just a lot of heavy lifting through Word and Excel and Salesforce and client meetings and, and client notes. And I'm not— and so that I think that there's an opportunity to do it in a really productive— using technology, thinking more like Amazon, Google, Facebook, you know, Microsoft. If you can think more like a tech firm and then deliver value to our customers and advisors at scale using technology, those companies are going to be transformational companies. But it takes a lot of money. I mean, you've got to build a tech department that's tens of millions of dollars in a spend of just payroll probably, and then you add the technology spend to that, that's a few more million dollars. But I do think that technology is getting cheaper and there's more technologists that it's making the Some of the developers a little bit more affordable, although there's pretty high demand, so there's a shortage there. But I think that the wealth management firm of the future is going to use technology to supplement the advisor. Advisors, I don't think, are going anywhere. And so I think of almost like AI as like assisted implementation, you know, but I do think artificial intelligence and machine learning— in fact, I got a text this morning from my marketing person. That said our CDP, which is a customer data platform, through, through AI and machine learning, landed our first prospect today. So we have marketing automation in Marketo where we send out content and we gather— people click on it and then we get clients from that. But, but a CDP helps, helps refine the content that people want to see and curate it for them and, and then helps deliver it to them at the right time, what we say is content in the right context to make a connection, to build a community, and then ultimately you'll get the client. So marketing is much more about the 4 or 5 Cs than it is product, place, price, and promotion of the past.

One aspect of the technology, I mean, that world is changing so much. It's incredibly dynamic. I'm aware though, I listened to a really interesting interview that you did in 2018 with Steve Sandusky, who also hosts a podcast for Barron's. And you talked about how you maintain a 10-year plan. I was curious if you could just talk about that a little bit, because it's interesting given so much change. You know, tell me about the broad strokes of a 10-year plan. And also, you know, what did the pandemic mean for that?

You can almost take 10 years off and you could just say a long-term plan. And for some folks that might, you know, I would really try to get people to stretch how far they can think. For us, it's 10 years. I can see And so, I like to think in 10 years and really force people to think about what is your department going to look like? So, we start with a company and then we go to departments and really push the envelope to think about, okay, 10 years from now, what's possible? And again, those are just— it's a little fuzzy. It's not super clear, but at least directionally, it gives you a wayward point to go towards. And then, really crystal clear is what we call a 3-year picture. It's like we have a clear picture of where we're going to be in 3 years that takes us directionally towards the 10-year vision and then a 1-year plan that supports it. And then quarterly, what we call quarterly KRs or OKRs, objectives and key results that drive us towards our 1-year plan, the 3-year picture, and the 10-year vision. So, and it's, you know, I did our first one 10 years into our business. It was actually 11 years into our business. And I thought the first time I did that, I'm like, what? This is crazy. Like, what's the point of this? And, um, and, and I, and since then I've done them, oh, probably every 3 years I kind of update our 10-year plan. Um, because the, the 3-year picture is really clear of where we want to be and it helps us kind of directionally, you know, it's like, know what we should be working on today. Cause that today leads to the quarter that leads to the year that leads to the 3-year that leads to the long-term plan. And remarkably it actually, it actually works. So, um, It's really important to the planning for our business.

Within reason, or you're comfortable with, can you discuss a little bit about that in more granularity, or is that a little bit not really for public consumption, or?

Oh no, I'm, you know, we're 100% transparent around everything really. Execution's the hard part, ideas are easy. So, you know, we're really marching towards a 2030 goal. In 2030, we really think that it's not just gonna be,, balance sheet management. We think there's going to be more work that people are going to do beyond the balance sheet. And so, you know, the— our investments are good. So there's two parts to a vision statement. One is more of a narrative of a vivid vision, and it's more qualitative. And then there's the— the qualitative. And then there's the quantitative numbers. And so, uh, the quantitative numbers— let me start with that. It's like, you know, $300 million in revenues, and from there We know how many employees, we know how many offices, we know how many clients, and it kind of trickles down from that. So there's a quantitative number of like, we're going to get to $300 million in revenues through, through organic growth. And we think that's super doable. And then there's a qualitative part— sorry, the quantitative part, which is describing like, what does that look like? How are we going to get there? What's our service offerings going to be? And, and, you know, what's changed from what we're doing today? So some of the things that we're working on is building out communities around people's passions. And some clients might just say, hey, I'm good, like just stick to the balance sheet or stick to our planning, and that's totally fine. But other clients are pushing us to want more. And I think that that's a huge differentiator for companies to start to think about how are they going to move up. Fidelity's got this value stack, and I'll just use their vernacular. How do we move up the value stack to deliver more for clients after you've done the basics? And you can't lead with that. I just don't think that's going to be effective because if somebody comes in and says, "Hey, I need help with my financial plan or investing money," and you say, "Oh, well, what's your purpose statement?" That's just not going to resonate. And so, I don't think it's that different, though, than it was in 2000 when we said, "We're going to manage people's balance sheets," and people said, "Well, what? You're going to do what?" Because at the time, it was investments. That's all we do is investments. And so, we didn't lead with, "Hey, we're going to do your whole balance sheet." We led with, "Yeah, we can help you through your investments." And then what we would do is work around the balance sheet and deliver way more value in excess of our fees relative to, you know, they were signing up for investments and we did their taxes and we did their estate planning and we did the whole balance sheet. And then 3 to 5 years into the business, everybody that came to us said, hey, can you help me with my balance sheet? You know, can you help me with financial planning? And so our, you know, when I, part of taking my YOLO honestly is looking at the business and saying, okay, you know, if I was to start a business today, what would I start up? And I wouldn't start a wealth management firm. I mean, there's too much competition out there. And everybody from an insurance salesman to an annuity salesman to a really great wealth manager has the same website. They all say holistic. They all say comprehensive. So, it's just, it's really hard to differentiate yourself. And I'm just super— I'm, I'm, I'm, I have a lot of gratitude in the growth that we've had to— we have, you know, a few hundred people and we've got, you know, lots of revenues to help support, kind of differentiate ourselves and continue to grow. But I would hate to compete with a firm like us and others that are out there today, uh, on that message. You know, I can't imagine Charles and John starting up and competing against Brighton Jones. It's like, you know, we have so much more expertise in-house than we had when there's two of us. Or even 10 of us. So, I thought long and hard. I'm like, "Okay, what—" And I talked to our team and leadership team like, "What business would you start up? And how would we parlay what we've built into something different?" And we really do think it's the next kind of the future of our business went from investments, went to total balance sheet in planning, and now is heading beyond the balance sheet and helping deliver what we say is financial well-being.

Yeah, it's definitely an interesting evolution. And you mentioned that you would not start a wealth management firm today. For those out there currently, I mean, what advice, what should they keep in mind? I mean, for the long term, I mean, what will the industry be like? What will it take to not just survive, but to thrive?

So a lot of times when I talk about this, some of the smaller firms will say, oh, I love it. Let me compete against the big guys. We always crush it against the big guys. And I would agree, I would agree, the big guys relative today in today's industry, but the future big guys, if they're investing into technology, if they're investing into tax, and then they're invest— you know, if they're investing into the balance sheet and beyond the balance sheet in a way that is obsessed about customers and obsessed about their people, like trying to create the best experience for clients and people, that will be a firm that you know, that is going to be big and amazing. It's going to be the best thing for the customer. And because you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll have that small boutique feel in a large firm that delivering tremendous amount of value. It's almost like I've used this analogy before of a video industry. Think of the video industry. And when I was a kid, I'd go into the store and there'd be lots of, of choice of videos, not tremendous, but some. And then there'd be, There was groceries in there and it was like this mini mart. But as I got older, those mini mart, the money, professional money went into the video industry and there was consolidation. And then what grew out of that was Blockbuster Video and Hollywood Video and these big box stores that were way more choice than I had when I was really young. I'm 50, so. And then, and they won this race to scale. And they were crushing, you know, they kind of closed out all the small mom-and-pop video stores. But then the Netflix came along and Netflix is obsessed around customer and they're obsessed around their employee experience. They've got a whole employee manifesto that it's online and it's, you know, it's super unique to Netflix. So if you're signing up to be a Netflix employee, you better be signing up for their manifesto. And it works really well for them. And they're very focused not just on scale, but they're focused on this idea of winning, which is innovating, you know, I'll say improving, like, let's just get better than the competition, right? Innovating, which is putting you a step beyond the competition. And then I'd say transforming— oops, my microphone— transforming to, you know, some, you know, a new industry. And so I think in our business, the same thing's kind of happening. It's like lots of companies got to scale on investments and they're delivering on that. And it's the Blockbusters of the world. And then there's smaller firms out there that are starting to not just improve around investments, but they're starting to innovate by adding more services and adding some technology to it, and they can be a little bit more nimble than the big box stores can be, just like Netflix and, say, Blockbuster. And then if there's enough innovation, well, that'll lead to a transformation, which is potentially what we say is financial well-being. It's not just the investments and balance sheet, but it's beyond the balance sheet. And that has the potential to really transform the industry And that will be really hard for these bigger established investment shops to adapt to planning, which is what they're trying to do today. And they're delivering. So, some are and some aren't, but they started as investments. So, there's just a big shift you have to change to now start focusing on planning. And then, when you start to focus on planning, well, then you start to focus on, well, what do I care most of? What do I want to accomplish with my money? And that leads to education for clients' kids and it leads to helping aging parents and that transition. In life, which also affects your balance sheet. And so there's just this whole body of work that is beyond the balance sheet that's really value-added for clients that firms like us and others are starting to hire people and deliver on today. Indeed.

And I can imagine for some of your larger competitors, there's an element of inertia perhaps. I mean, doing things an old way, then it's a little bit the battleship analogy, right, of turning slowly. I guess you guys have been around for a while, but you've been more getting in front of this. So the— you've been managing the process, I think, as opposed to reacting to it.

I would say yes. And I think that the smaller you are, the easier it is to change, right? Your battleship analogy is spot on. And I think that the— also what happens is sometimes when you get big, you lose that entrepreneurial spirit, which, which can also be problematic, you know. You've got to, I think of winning as continuous improvement. And I think of continuous improvement as improve, innovate, and transform. And so you've got to have a mindset within your business of entrepreneurs, people that are thinking about what's next. You've got to have a mindset within your business of technicians that people think about process and scale and consistency and repeatability and dashboards and measurement and metrics. So those are the technicians. And then you have to have people in your business that are the people that do the work. And I'm sorry, those are the technicians that do the work and deliver to clients. The managers are the ones with scale, and the entrepreneurs are thinking about changing what's next. So there's always like, you know, when I'm hiring somebody and in a particular department, I'm thinking, okay, am I looking for an entrepreneur? Do I need a manager or do I need a technician in this role? And, you know, for every let's just say 100 technicians, you need, you know, 1 or 2 managers, you know, call it 2 to 5 managers and 1 entrepreneur. You know, you can't have too many entrepreneurs or they're, you know, you're running around like crazy. Can't have too many managers or it's super, super boring. And you can't have too many technicians, otherwise everybody's kind of doing their own thing.

It's all about figuring out the right balance and the right—

and the stage of where you're at as a company and stage of where that department is at within your company. Mm-hmm. Because, you know, early on you need Swiss Army knives, but as you grow and scale, you know, the utility of a Swiss Army knife, you know, the corkscrew, while it was awesome to have it at the beginning, I'm, I'm better off just having a wine opener. Mm-hmm. You know, it's a, I can buy a cheaper wine opener that's much better. And so, you know, then you just, you, you've gotta kind of move from the Swiss Army knife, uh, as you grow and scale to more functional expertise.

Um, I, I suppose we can wrap it up. Um, so thank you very much for joining. It's been a total pleasure having this conversation. Conversation.

You bet. Well, thanks for having me on.

I really appreciate it. Thank you. This has been Greg Bartolus, uh, editor-in-chief of Barron's Wealth and Management Group. Please join us again in the future for the next episode of The Way Forward.

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