You're listening to “Financial Advisor Marketing”—the best show on the planet for financial advisors who want to get more clients, without all the stress. You're about to get the real scoop on everything from lead generation to closing the deal.
James is the founder of TheAdvisorCoach.com, where you can find an entire suite of products designed to help financial advisors grow their businesses more rapidly than ever before. Now, here is your host, James Pollard.
James: I've read a bunch of business books and personal development books. I'm a big fan of the genre, and I think there's a ton of value there. But I think the more I read, the popular ones, the ones that are hot right now, the ones that are on the bestseller list, the more jaded I become, because it seems like they all say the same stuff where they talk about the same concepts in different ways. [00:53.6]
For example, there's a book called Who Not How, and it’s an okay book. I mean no disrespect whatsoever. I understand that it can be helpful if you're a beginner entrepreneur. But the truth is that it’s literally just a book about hiring people. The whole point of who not how is to tell you that you should hire people.
I just laughed to myself as I was reading this, because the idea of hiring people has been around for thousands of years. This is not a new concept. It’s just packaged into a book and positioned in such a way to make people feel like it’s something groundbreaking. As a marketer, I love it, and again, I respect it. I mean no disrespect whatsoever, because it takes skills to write a book and make it successful, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that it is still just about hiring people.
I mean, let's say you want to install a new light fixture in your house and you have no clue how to do electrical work. You could focus on the how. You could learn how to do it yourself, or you could focus on who you could pay to install the fixture for you. If you choose that option, then congratulations, you have chosen who and not how, and you didn't even read the book. How awesome is that? You did it. You did it naturally. Congratulations. You deserve a cupcake. [02:07.6]
There are so many books like this. The E-Myth is another one and it's probably the worst of the bunch. I don't like The E-Myth. I understand that there are so many people out there who sing its praises. I just don't like it. The big idea that it pushes is that you need to work “on” your business instead “in” your business.
Whoa, what an insight. I'm so glad there are hundreds of pages telling me to do just that when literally every successful business requires working on both. Even a casual observer should be able to notice that—and I hate to break it to you, but if you can't notice that as a casual observer, then maybe, just a thought, maybe you were never going to be a successful entrepreneur in the first place.
I'll give you some examples of books that I really like. I like all of the books Jim Collins has written, like Good to Great, because he dug deep into successful companies and figured out what sets them apart from everyone else. He took a methodical approach and it is as good as anything you're going to find out there. [03:06.6]
I also love The Outsiders by William Thorndike. If I had to make a list of 10 must-read books for an entrepreneur, it would be on there. It’s definitely top 10. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. I love the outsiders. I recommend it all the time. He talks about eight CEOs who earned phenomenal returns compared to the general stock market and their industries, and tells you what they did, because CEOs should be measured against the returns they're able to provide for their shareholders.
The goal of a CEO is to provide those returns, and if you're not providing those returns, I don't care who says it, I don't care what book gets written about you, I don't care what magazine cover you're on, but you are not a good CEO if you are not putting some mullah in my shareholder pocket.
I also really like In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters. Tom Peters went through 43 companies from different industries and sectors and identified what made them successful. He was the Jim Collins-- I think he wrote the books before Jim Collins, so Tom Peters is the original Jim Collins or Jim Collins is the original Tom Peters. I should probably fact check this. I think that book is also incredibly valuable. That's In Search of Excellence. [04:14.0]
Those are books I like to read. I like those types of books where they look at a wide spectrum of different companies and CEOs and industries, and they pick out the traits that apply across the board. However, this podcast episode isn’t necessarily about books. I’m going to talk a little bit more about books later in the episode, but it’s also about what you might not find in books.
I want to give you three success tips that you have probably never heard before, and I think they can help you. The first one I have for you is that you should study your parents and grandparents. I have been studying evolutionary psychology recently. I have been on a bit of a reading binge on this topic because I think it is so fascinating. I love learning how we pass on traits and how biology impacts psychology and vice versa. [05:01.8]
For example, here's something interesting. Did you know that when a baby is born, the mother's family is more likely than the father's family to tell the father that the baby looks like him? That's true, and the theory for why they do that is because they're trying to ensure the father is convinced of the paternity and, therefore, more likely to invest in the family and take care of the baby. This is pretty wild stuff.
I've got dozens of things like that I could share with you, but I want to focus on paying attention to your family history. If your parents and your grandparents are no longer with you, I only have my mom left, for example, everyone else is dead, then you should try your best to learn as much as you can from other sources. I've come to understand that believing we are all unique little special snowflakes is a bit of a coping mechanism. We want to believe that we're different from everyone else, but the truth is we are not that different. [05:52.3]
You have to realize that if genetics didn't pass on almost everything, then our species would be far less likely to survive, because think about this logically. You don't even have to think about it in terms of biology. Just use basic common sense and logic here. If a set of genetics survived long enough to pass on, then it's likely a good set of genes that is likely to reproduce in the future. So, of course, it makes sense that it will stay as similar as it can. We are all the descendants of winners. These winners have won the survival game. They have passed on their genes to us, so we are descendants of genes that have won.
But, in fact, the whole premise of sexual reproduction is that you hedge your bets a little bit, at least, and get a mix to allow for change over time, because having the same exact thing over and over and over, like asexual reproduction, that's a recipe for failure sometimes as well.
This means that 50% of your genetic makeup comes from your father and 50% comes from your mother, and that's a pretty good mix, if I just say so myself. Since your parents are your grandparents' children, you share 25% of your DNA with each grandparent you have, so your grandparents are also very important to study because your grandparents influence your parents and influence you, and you can learn a lot from them. [07:10.1]
Obviously, the environment has an effect on people, but not as much as people think. There are certain traits that have zero environmental effect. It doesn’t matter if you're in the United States or Zimbabwe. If both of your parents have blue eyes, then there’s a near 100% chance that you will have blue eyes and there’s nothing you can do about it.
I say near 100% chance, because if you have some different genetic makeup and maybe there’s a brown somewhere in the gene pool, it can come out. Google it if you don’t believe me. Just search, is it possible for two parents with blue eyes to have a baby with brown eyes? Yes, it is possible, but it is very, very, very unlikely. [07:49.1]
Back to the environment thing. There have been twin studies where each twin was in a completely different environment and the twin’s personality traits and likes and dislikes ended up being shockingly similar. So, the environment is definitely important, but I don’t think it plays as big of a role as people think, and that’s uncomfortable for a lot of people, because it means they have to give up control where they can’t put themselves into a better environment and just wave a magic wand and everything changes for them. There is an element of destiny here, like your genes are your destiny. I’m not going to say that your biology is a hundred percent your destiny and you can never escape it, but it plays a pretty darn big role.
I like to think of genetics as your upside potential. Do you think Shaquille O'Neal became, what is he? 7’1” I think, 7’1”, 7’2”, because he had a better environment than you did? Probably not? His height was locked in at conception. Now, of course, if he was starved as a child or something like that, then it could have been different, but his maximum height potential was likely always greater than yours unless you're someone who is 7’3” or 7’4” and listening to this podcast. [08:58.6]
I don’t care what you do or what you believe, or how many cold showers you take or how much meditation you do or how much you believe you can manifest. He had an advantage that you could not overcome in terms of height. Why am I talking about this? Because many traits that are correlated with success are also heritable.
Have you ever felt, and I feel like this all the time, like the world is just getting stupider? One possible explanation, and probably the correct explanation is that stupid people are having a lot more children than smart people, and IQ is highly heritable. Other traits you can inherit from your parents include things like resilience, intelligence, creativity, and just things like that. I mean, look this up. Spend some time with some sources that can tell you about this. Don’t just listen to this podcast and move on with your life. [09:51.0]
If your father was a colonel in the army and your mother was a corporate executive, then you almost certainly have inherited superior leadership skills. You should use that natural proclivity to your advantage. That means if you are ever presented with an opportunity to be a leader in your life, you should take it, because you have something in leadership that is like Shaquille O'Neal’s height advantage, assuming they were both great leaders and felt like it was their calling to lead and they weren't just forced into the position.
If your mother was a corporate executive because she had no other choice and she hated it every second of the day, then maybe rethink this. But if your mother loved being a corporate executive and she was just killing it and she felt like this is what she was put on this earth to do, you should learn from that.
You could also use information that you’ve learned from your grandparents and your parents, and your great-grandparents, to identify where you're likely to encounter difficulties in your life. For example, traits like impulsivity and risk aversion are both heritable, too. If both of your parents were drug addicts or gambling addicts, then you will probably struggle with impulse control and you should guard against that in your life. Don't go to casinos. Don't put yourself in situations where peer pressure is probably going to be a thing. [11:02.8]
I mean, if you're listening to this podcast and you're probably past that, but if you have children and you know that you struggle with impulse control, then you really need to go hardcore with your children to make sure that they don't fall prey to the things that you did. You need to go above and beyond, do more than other parents are doing.
If you study your parents and grandparents and discover that they never took any risk, then you can safely assume that you have a naturally higher risk aversion. You should keep that in mind when you are going through your life and when you're presented with different risks. You can take a step back and see that your genetics might be hindering you. They might get you to think about risk in a different way and you might be holding yourself back when you shouldn't be because of your genetics. [11:45.4]
Listen up, financial advisors. This is something special I'm doing exclusively for people who listen to this podcast. If you subscribe to the Inner Circle Newsletter over at TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching, I will send you a collection of seven copyright-free emails, personally written by me, that you can use right away to begin getting more clients.
I call these my “objection-busting” emails, because they are designed to overcome the biggest objections financial advisors face. All you have to do is send me an email letting me know you’ve subscribed and I will reply with a link where you can download them for free.
I originally offered these in the May 2024 Inner Circle Newsletter issue, and it was one of the most popular bonuses I've ever given away. Today, these seven objection-busting, copyright-free emails are only available to listeners of this podcast, because I'm not mentioning them anywhere else. Go to TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching to subscribe today. Now, back to the show.
Enough about that, I want to move on to the second unorthodox success tip, and that is you should study and learn from people who do not share the same beliefs as you. This is all about expanding your horizons. How open-minded are you? [12:59.1]
I've discovered that success is correlated with open-mindedness and it might actually be causal, because being open-minded causes you to seek out solutions to your problems, and seeking out solutions to your problems leads to success and money, and happiness and all the things that come with solving problems in life.
I’ll give you a specific example from my life about how I try to apply this. I am currently reading some books by Sam Harris. Now, Sam Harris is a hardcore atheist. He has written books that are straight up anti-religion, like Letter to a Christian Nation and so on, just different books that he's rallying against Christians and religions. What's interesting is that your preference for religion might be inherited as well.
If you don't believe me, you can look this up for yourself. I encourage you to look all of this up for yourself, verify everything that I'm telling you and judge it for yourself. Scientists call this the religiosity gene. My favorite book from Sam Harris is one called Free Will and he makes the argument that free will doesn’t exist. Gasp, what an interesting thought. [14:03.0]
I actually think I agree with him. I’m not a hundred percent decided either way yet, but I’m more convinced that free will does not exist than I am that it does exist. I think I'm like 80/20, 80% of me thinks free will does not exist, 20% is still holding on and hoping maybe it does. I just find it interesting that he rallies so hard against Christians and people of other religions when it's possible that their genetics are skewing them in that direction. That would be like me writing books about why people shouldn't be taller than seven feet. Shaquille O'Neal would be like, Hey, what did I do? I can't control it. It just seems silly to me.
Anyway, I really liked this book Free Will by Sam Harris. It got the gears turning in my head more than many of the books I've read throughout the years and I appreciate that. We definitely do not see eye to eye on religion, though. Specifically, I think Judeo-Christian values have been a tremendous force for good throughout the course of human history, all things considered. [15:00.7]
In fact, if you dig into the spread of literacy, it comes from the Bible primarily. There have been different religions throughout world history that did not spread because there wasn’t such an incentive to spread them. Part of Christianity is evangelizing and spreading the text, and that, by extension, spread literacy, so the very fact that you're able to read and consume information likely, at least to a big part of this, comes from the Bible.
I also recently read Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking, and he also doesn't believe in a God. He uses quantum physics to suggest that the universe would have truly been made from nothing. But even that answer, though I believe it's possible, I accept it in my mind, it doesn't satisfy me, because how can we possibly conceive what the nothing is and what came before that. Hundreds of years ago, if you told me that nothing was in the air in front of me, I would have believed you, but now I know there are things like radio waves, for example, that I cannot see, but they are there. [16:09.5]
I'll give you one more example and this is something that changed my life when I read it. It's from The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. Richard Dawkins is also an atheist, probably the most well-known atheist in modern history, and here's a quote from him talking about trial and error, and here it is.
“Survival machines that can simulate the future are one jump ahead of survival machines who can only learn on the basis of overt trial and error. The trouble with overt trial is that it takes time and energy. The trouble with overt error is that it's often fatal. Simulation is both safer and faster.”
That rocked my world when I read it. I immediately felt what I couldn’t put into words. I always thought trial and error was goofy, and here was this man explaining to me, in genetic and biological terms, exactly why I felt that way. [17:01.4]
If you're someone who starts a business and just tries to figure everything out along the way, you're only hurting yourself. Trial takes time and energy and error is often fatal. He’s totally right. Error can kill you or kill your business, or whatever your goal is. Why make mistakes that you don’t have to make?
Shameless plug, that’s why I love stuff like the Inner Circle Newsletter, which I write every single month for financial advisors, because I quite literally give them marketing ideas and strategies they can use so they don’t have to try to figure everything out themselves. What's even better is a lot of the ideas in the newsletter come from successful advisors who email me back and forth with their questions. I learn from them, too, and I take their ideas and their campaigns and whatnot and I share them in the newsletter. That's a whole lot better than trial and error.
Going back to that quote, what I'm selling in the newsletter is not necessarily just paper and ink. It's not even ideas. It's not even a network. It's really not even access to me in some cases. I'm selling speed. I'm selling safety, because I'm helping financial advisors avoid trial and error. Trial and error, they're so expensive, much more expensive than the $99 per month that the newsletter costs. [18:11.7]
I didn't immediately disregard these authors, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and Stephen Hawking, because we share different beliefs. In fact, I embraced them and my life is richer as a result. Aristotle said, “The mark of an educated mind is being able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” How many contradictory thoughts have you pondered in the past week? Heck, the past month or the past year?
If you're a capitalist like I am, I suggest reading Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. He wasn't a dummy. I mean, it wasn't like he was some kook who wrote a book. He was a smart guy and his ideas seemed so good on paper that a huge chunk of the world adopted them into their society.
Now, I think he’s wrong and I think communism is a horrible idea, but I can appreciate that he put his ideas down and was able to explain them well. I challenge you to do this, right now, seriously. Think of some ideas that you hold near and dear to your heart, ideas that you’re super convinced of, and try to learn from people who disagree with you. [19:09.4]
Moving on, the third unorthodox success tip I have for you is budget your time. You should budget your time and treat it the same way that you budget your money or treat it the same way you treat a money budget. For the longest time, I did not budget. I really didn’t need to because I didn’t spend my money frivolously. I saved as much as I could and that was it. My default setting was to save money. If I had a necessary expense, then and only then, I would spend the money.
One night, I hit a deer and wrecked my car. I had to drive a rental for a week. That was, at least to me, a necessary expense because I had to get places. I had places to go and people to see and things to do. Would a budget have helped me there? I'm not so sure, because it wasn't much of a discretionary expense. It wasn't really a priority. It's not like I woke up one week and I said, “Okay, next month, I'm going to wreck my car. I'm going to prioritize a rental car.” It just didn't happen that way. [20:09.6]
A lot of people start budgeting when they don't have much money. I did the opposite. I started budgeting when I had more money because I wanted to outline my priorities. I wanted to give every dollar a job and hold every dollar accountable, because that's what budgeting is. It's a tool to help you prioritize.
If you have $100 and $20 go to your savings, it is because you are prioritizing that part of your bucket of money for that purpose. If you have a big expense that comes up and throws your budget out of whack, you can adjust to get back to a long-term average of 20%. It serves as a record to let you know that you are accomplishing your goals.
I personally use YNAB or You Need a Budget. I tried a bunch of different budgeting tools and I like YNAB the best. Monarch Money is okay. I know a lot of financial advisors like Monarch. It's okay if you have a simple situation, but I didn't like it because I have multiple sources of income and different businesses, and it didn't really fit my needs. [21:04.8]
I felt like YNAB was better able to handle multiple sources of income, and I could even have separate budgets for each business that I have, and it was just cleaner. It was just better for me. I could just open the budget for Business A, open the budget for Business B, and just keep them separate, but all within the same app. I don’t have time to explain it all, but just trust me, I like YNAB better and I don’t think I’m going to switch back to Monarch Money.
I’m a big fan of zero-based budgeting, too, where you start with the amount of money you have right now and assign that money to the task you want to accomplish. I think we should budget out time the same way. For example, imagine we take a slice of 24 hours, which is all we have each day. We could, quote-unquote, “budget” that 24 hours to the different tasks we want to accomplish.
Eight hours might be budgeted to sleep, 20 minutes to shower, 60 minutes to eat throughout the day, and so on. Then you could put in your work time in the office, time spent with your family, time spent with your clients, and just budget what is important to you. When people say they don’t have time for something, what they're really saying is that it’s not a priority for them. [22:04.7]
Budgeting could help with that because budgeting will help you make it a priority in the same way that you prioritize certain expenses or investments over others. This tip is especially valuable for financial advisors, because chances are, if you're a financial advisor listening to this right now, you're already budgeting, meaning, you already have the ideas down.
You already are convinced of the philosophy of budgeting and why it’s important, and you know the process and the systems and you're in your groove, right? If you’ve been budgeting for years, you have a groove that you can fall into and you can implement this with your time with no problems.
I love time budgeting, because time budgeting forces you to be proactive instead of reactive. Instead of constantly putting out fires or dealing with urgent but unimportant tasks, you can focus on what will drive your business forward. It can help you carve out time for strategic thinking and planning, which is crucial for long-term success, in the same way that you carve out time saying, “Look, I have this bucket of money. I want this slice to go here. I want this slice to go here. I want this slice to go here,” and eventually you have success and you accomplish your goals. The same thing happens with your time. [23:05.5]
All right, that is enough for one week. Let's see, I'd like to give you a call in action, so I will give you this one. Go to TheAdvisorCoach.com and check out all the resources available there. You can choose your own adventure. That's the beautiful part of the homepage at TheAdvisorCoach.com. You can do whatever you feel like doing once you're there—and I will catch you next week.
This is ThePodcastFactory.com
