Ep35 - Rethink: Does Your Advice Suck? – Featuring Carl Richards

Behavior Gap founder Carl Richards joins H. Adam Holt and Derek Notman to ask a deceptively simple question: how does an advisor actually know their advice is good? Richards argues that financial planning has become overly tied to precise, math-driven retirement projections at the expense of the behavioral guidance clients truly need. The hosts and Richards dig into what it would mean to judge advice by its real impact on clients' lives rather than the elegance of a spreadsheet.

• Defining what makes financial advice "good"
• Why retirement planning dominates the industry's definition of value
• Separating technical projections from real client value
• Using client outcomes, not projections, as the true measure
• Behavior-focused advice versus math-focused advice
• Simplifying complex ideas the way Behavior Gap sketches do

Full timestamped transcript.

[00:00:30] H. Adam Holt: Derek, does your advice suck? ?

[00:00:35] Derek N. H. Notman: That's kind of a blunt statement, man. I, uh, I, I would say no, but I, tell me more. What do you, how do you know? I mean, how do, do, how do you know?

What, what do you mean? Does my advice

[00:00:45] H. Adam Holt: suck? , I mean, you're a financial planner. Yeah, I'm a cfp. So how do you know your financial planning

[00:00:52] Derek N. H. Notman: is good? Well, I guess it's like the ultimate litmus test and what do my clients think about it? Do you ask them? Uh, yeah, of course they ask

[00:01:02] H. Adam Holt: them. Yeah. You know, so this, this is funny, Derek, because this came up in a conversation with Carl Richards, who you know well.

Yeah. And I think a lot of you know, well, and he brought this up in this theme. Is that financial planning has been overused and has been misvalued to the technical and the mathematical value of projecting your life with some form of precision. Err Lee, of course we know none of it's precise. It's a joke.

It's a nice guess and it begs the question that I'm wondering, which is how do we know that any of this advice is really good? That's

[00:01:47] Derek N. H. Notman: a huge question. I mean, it's almost , like good advisors are just , it's a series of best guesses, right? Hmm.

Cause as you said, it's not precise, is it?

Um, so are you saying that we're putting too much stake on financial planning or, or set advice with planning? Is is that , the thing here, and because we do it sucks because we're, we're too focused on

[00:02:10] H. Adam Holt: the.

I think that he touches on some interesting aspects, which we're gonna hear in a second, but it's something I've been thinking about and actually talking about.

I know you have too for a long time, but he says it in his classic Carl Richards way, and he doesn't just draw it, he actually explains it, which is kind of fun. But I think there's really something to think about. For all of you listening, we have for a long time put a lot of Preem. On the technical mathematical value of planning, usually around this idea of retirement planning, mostly because that is most of our biggest fears, no one's, no one's got a safety blanket for us in retirement.

And of course we can't generally earn income. So retirement tends to be the number one financial planning module run, just to the point where almost all financial planning has somehow become ubiquitous with retirement planning. And yet, As we all know, it's really about the journey, not the destination.

And as financial advisors, we have to make constant decisions again and again and again. And sometimes the long term plan is not relevant, right? We have episodic things that happen in our lives, right? Kids go to school, something changes. Course li lost my job.

Uh, I have no savings there. Something blows up. There's lots of decisions that we need to make that kind of predict our outcome. And so the question is, is financial planning being unfortunately rooted in the technology idea of projections on Excel or the best planning tool out there, or is it more.

Making ongoing wellness decisions that serve the long term goal?

[00:03:44] Derek N. H. Notman: Well, I'm biased. I think it's the latter. You know, , you've got a great question that you have put out there many times that clients may not always, , articulate, but , they're thinking it. Am I okay? Hmm. And the, am I, okay.

Question is extremely important, but it's also not a precise question in that it does change every single day. , so how do we, how, how can a financial plan be precise about something that's a moving target? I don't know. And I, I, I don't know where I heard this. I don't know if this was with you. I talked to you a lot,

I know. I'm sorry. I don't know where this was, but just recently , I heard someone say like,, if you ask a client what they're gonna do tomorrow or next weekend or next week, they can tell you with a lot of certainty what they're gonna be doing, but if you ask 'em what they're gonna be doing in 10 years or 20 years, Oh, I don't know, like golf, maybe travel, hanging out with the grandkids. I don't know. So it's, there's no precision left at that point. It's too far out.

So how can a financial plan, like I would say that your advice sucks if your financial plan tells 'em exactly what they should be doing in 20 years.

[00:04:54] H. Adam Holt: Oh, that's, see, that's interesting because I know that many advisors think it's about the money and all of the financial planning discussions that we've had recently that are really about the technology supporting financial planning has been about the math.

Right. Do you have Monte Carlo? Do you take consideration tax? And I don't know. I've always had a trouble with this because in the real world, the client's not thinking about that. I know they're relevant. They think that we are supposed to be. Paying attention to that. And we are, but it's not the real meaning, right?

Many advisors think it's about the money. It's not about the money. It's about what the money gives you, certainty, security and what it provides you. And those things, unfortunately, very often can't be quantified cuz they're so far out in the future and we have no clue what we're gonna spend in the future, really.

So what about your projection model of, I'm gonna die a hundred and I'm gonna pay this much in Taxe. It's like, I don't know. It seems, as Carl says, a righteous trick. It basically is a necessity that we have to do it, but it's kind of also silliness, right? And I think that's, that's an important aspect. So let's get to know Carl, because I think you're gonna all appreciate what he has to say here.

How do what? Tell me about Carl. Well,

[00:05:58] Derek N. H. Notman: He is a certified financial planner. , he did work, , client facing for a while. , but he's really well known as the sketch guy, he did a column in the New York Times, I think, starting back in 2010, and you've probably seen some of his pictures on, well, heck, maybe the New York Times or LinkedIn.

Just really simple scribbles to explain sometimes rather complex ideas or strategies in a very simple manner. So he's known as that. He's been featured in places like Marketplace Money, Oprah, Forbes, he's been a keynote speaker in a number of places. Just recently, he was at the Riska Lies event.

Mm-hmm. . He does the Carl and Kitsis, , podcast, , he's got a couple books out there. , the one page financial plan and then also the Behavior Gap. He's been in this space for a while. He's really come at it for more of, a behavioral finance, psychological aspect.

Mm-hmm. , but enough of his stuff though. I think we just gotta hear what the guy has to say and let people make up their own minds.

I agree.

[00:06:57] H. Adam Holt: How do we get to know Carl really fast? Oh man,

[00:07:01] Carl Richards: that's the hardest question of all. Um, really fast. I got into business by accident. I applied to be a security guard.

I thought it said security. It said securities. I didn't know the difference. Um, got into business by accident, stayed because I quickly, with my first interaction with the public, right? I figured out that this was not a math job, and, and I didn't know what it was, but I was like, whoa, this is not about spreadsheets and calculators.

People are upset, people are sad, people are mad. And that kept me in the business, um, because I humans and their interaction with money is endlessly fascinating. So now really the last 20 years have been about exploring. The secret is I don't care about money. What I care about is that it's as far as I can tell, other than health, and I think maybe even more than health actually, it's the fastest way into the stuff that matters.

Like I, we can just use money as a righteous trick. To get to the stuff I really care about, which is like, what? What are you doing here? Like, what's the purpose of your life? What's the thing you care about? What's the difference you wanna make? And so that might shed some light on why I wrote a personal finance columns at the New York Times about imposter syndrome or taking cold showers in the morning.

Or I have a much broader definition of personal finance than most. So maybe that.

[00:08:23] H. Adam Holt: I like that.

[00:08:23] Derek N. H. Notman: I, I'd love to see the job that you applied for .

[00:08:27] Carl Richards: , I've been asked so many times about it that I went back and tried to find it. It was a, I just recall it being like security guard and I thought this would be amazing cause I'm with school full time.

I was like, I'll work the graveyard shift. I'll be like, perfect. Yeah. Mall cop or something. Like, I can study in the booth or whatever. They never asked me at the job interview about kung fu or jujitsu and they would say mutual funds and stocks and bonds. I'm like, whatever. And I still got the job. Which tells you about the applicant pool, of course, but it, I'm, I'm

[00:08:55] H. Adam Holt: glad it worked

[00:08:58] Derek N. H. Notman: given that, that that entry into this profession and interesting triumphant,

[00:09:03] Carl Richards: triumphant entry, triumphant light,

[00:09:05] H. Adam Holt: I mean, True.

I heard the horns. I heard 'em. Yeah. Uh,

[00:09:09] Derek N. H. Notman: I love it. I'm curious as your perspective now on what the financial advice market profession industry is given this really cool path you took to get there and what you're doing.

[00:09:23] Carl Richards: yeah. I mean, it's so interesting, right, that that question is even up for discussion and, and the reason it's so interesting is that we don't even know what to call ourselves.

I remember when this. This first really struck me. It was at FPA retreat and it was someplace in the sort of the south, Southeast, I can't remember exactly where it was. And at FPA retreat, that's like, you know, deep Thinker Retreat and they have Tim Maer and Michael Kitsis and I were on a panel and this was a long, long time ago and I was right in the column at the time for the New York Times and I was really frustrated by the difference.

Between what I was seeing in the financial pornography network, you know, like what I, the stuff I was seeing written about financial advisors, cuz this was like Bernie Madoff and Mini Madoff and all of that stuff. And so I was, I was frustrated by the reputation of what a financial advisor was compared to what I thought I was doing myself.

But certainly I was seeing my colleagues do like these people were saving people's lives. I mean, maybe not literally, but like as close as you could get. And yet everybody was like, yeah, nobody know. And I remember saying at that panel, I was expressing that frustration. It was like the difference between what people think and what we, this group real financial planners do.

It's really frustrating. I remember saying it's like there's a secret society of real financial advisors, right? Like I remember whispering it even like nobody believes that we exist, and I'm trying to answer this question, that at retreat you can sign up for your own session. Like you can create like under the trees, I think they called it You, you and somebody wrote down real financial planners.

I went out and there was like a hundred people there. The president of the FPA and the CFP board and people I looked up to and admired, and we were all there to debate what it meant to be a real financial planner. And I was like, this is so crazy that we don't even know. And so my definition of, of the advice market, of what real financial advice means is the sort of never ending alignment of somebody's use of capital use of capital.

And capital has an asterisk by it. It's time, money, energy, and attention sources of capital. So the alignment of somebody's use of capital with what's really important to them. That's what I view as financial advice. Now, how we deliver that, like, you know, does anybody sign up for that? I know nobody shows up.

Hey, can I sit on your couch and cry for a minute? Like, but that's. Asset allocation and performance, and those are all just righteous tricks. Greet with empathy or if performance is important to you, I can say Adam, thanks. That's a great question. Performance is important to me too. Could we back up a minute, right, and get to the why questions underneath, and that to me, I just define real financial planning as the alignment, the never ending alignment, cuz it will never finish the never ending alignment of your use of capital with what's really important to you.

[00:12:31] H. Adam Holt: We've heard that so many times in the, in similar interviews, of course, in our own journeys, right? Don't tell me what you care about. Show me your budget. I'll tell you what you care about. And the use of capital is also sometimes very obscure cuz people don't wanna share because they feel like they're gonna be judged too.

So it is very intimate and authentic space that we need to move our professions to. So we clearly appreciate what you're saying. I think our listenership will as well. What do you think Carl is the missing opportunity that advisors just don't see or can't see?

[00:13:03] Carl Richards: Super interesting, the missing opportunity, um, to me there's been so much for the last, let's just call it decade fear, around robo advice, fee compression, you know, online, you know, TikTok advisors, like whatever it is. And that fear to me, Is actually a really helpful tool to point us to what is actually really the value.

Right? And I think, I think the opportunity is to understand real financial planning is of no is under no threat of fee compression. It's all those other things that you used to think was your job like you used to. And there was a time, like I grew up in a, in a time where security select. And timing were something we sold as our value proposition as a stock broker, right?

Like I'll pick a stock for you. Then we move to asset allocation and portfolio design to answer these 17 questions and out pops a portfolio. Right? And now we've realized like all of that is under pressure. And the missing opportunity, I think the opportunity that advisors are often missing is, is the solution to that threat is to be more human.

Not to be more like the calculator, but be more human. So really I think of it as a tech enabled human, but that's good news. The opportunity is like robot awesome, like you can take care of all the crap I didn't wanna do anyway. And now I can be really clear about. I think the huge opportunity and value is probably summed up in Covey's old thing that he used to.

The last thing we want to do is spend our entire lives climbing the ladder only to realize it's leaning against the wrong wall. An algorithm's not gonna help you figure it out. If it's leaning against the wrong wall, a human will, and I think the opportunity is to lean into that, to be more human, to go there further and use all the tools to help us do that at.

[00:15:16] Derek N. H. Notman: I love it. I know I said that a couple times now, but I really do love what you're saying. It's, it's no problem. It's, it's profound and I think it, it should resonate with our audience. Further along that vein, then, Carl, what, what action steps would you be giving to? To advisors. Now our audience is primary advisors, but we do have folks that are in the product marketplace, if you will.

We have consumers listening. So I guess, and if you had some advice for, you know, all of us or any of us, you know, what is like, what are some action steps we can take?

[00:15:48] Carl Richards: Yeah, I mean, I, I think I like this word rethink, you know, and, and I think the opportunity I, what I love and I think, you know, if my work has been valuable to anybody, it's, it's mainly.

I'm looking at opportunities outside of our industry. Right. And I don't get it right very often, but when I do, it's because there's no ground beneath my feet. Right? It's, it's truly a, a new and novel thing, and I think if we could rethink the way we approach advice. We could rethink the business models we use.

Like you look around at other business models, I mean subscription for here. Here's one way to rethink. What if you rethought of yourself, like I love this. Like just sort of just take yourself out of your business and put yourself in a different one. What if a financial advisor stopped thinking of themselves as financial advisors and they started think of themselves as the owners of intellectual property businesses, right?

What if I got paid for my wisdom? Well, how could I package that wisdom? What souvenir or artifact could it take? Like in the old days we would've just said a book, right? But now we got all these other, how could I package the experience? How could I productize it? And, and not just to make more money, but to do me at scale.

We joked a little bit before we started talking about how efficient my team may be, right? Like, well, one of the reasons for all of that is to try and do impact at scale. I don't have a ghost writer. But I got a whole bunch of ways that people on my team capture what I say. So that can be done at scale.

Well, how could we rethink, how could we make impact at scale if we started thinking ourselves as, as the owners of intellectual property businesses? It doesn't just have to be an AUM fee anymore. Oh, it could be that I have a course. It could be that I have a workshop. It could be that I have a paid podcast.

I have a paid podcast. It's 10 bucks a month. It's a great, great. Right. I, so I love thinking. Well, lemme give you one more example, and this is just to like jolt people out. What if, as a financial advisor, you started a podcast where you recorded something two or three times a week with no guest? You could actually just take the CFP modules.

There's like 87 topics in there. I can't even remember what the number and talk about each. What if at the end of that, you repackaged them up a little bit and you wrote a book, but you never published the book. The book was only released at audible form in your podcast. Here's chapter one of my new book, and it's a mini book, and it was 10 bucks a month.

All I'm saying is you start thinking about all these other delivery mechanisms. You get a chance to completely rethink the business, not just because it will generate more revenue, but also because it will allow you to do you at.

[00:18:45] H. Adam Holt: Wow. These are all, it's interesting. Carlos is fun. Um, because this is the space that Derek and I choose to live in a lot, which is to completely rethink why we're doing, it's why we love innovation.

I really express that we appreciate your attitude towards this, and it's a great opportunity in today's. Age, we'll call it, where advisors have the luxury to do this if they choose to rethink themselves versus waiting for calamity to force them to change. Um, and so that's really exciting. I'm curious, is there anything that you think advisors need to hear or that the community needs to hear that is a topic we ne should be talking more.

[00:19:27] Carl Richards: Yeah. Yeah. And, and I love this, uh, format of this. Um, we, we think a lot internally about the work we do as like balancing a punch in the face and an empathetic hug. And sometimes it's an empathetic punch. Mm-hmm. , but maybe in the punch in the face vein. Your advice is not as good as you think it is. Your plan is not worth anything.

And here's the reason. Let me, let me like back up a bit, right? The advice is not as good as you think it is, is because you didn't listen long enough. You're solving the wrong problem because you didn't take an Michael Bunge Stan or MBS Works is his website, mbs works.com. He has a great book called The Advice Monster or the Advice Trap, and he talks about this idea, like the reason, our advice, he uses the word, it sucks, right?

Your advice sucks is what he'll tell coaches. Your advice sucks. Well, it's not because it actually sucks, it's because it's not solving the right problem. Your advice could be perfect except it doesn't match the problem I have. Well, then it sucks, right? So the way to solve that is could we just stay curious a little longer?

Like curious, a little longer advice later, like just curious a little longer so we're not as good as we think we are in terms of the advice we're giving. Not because our solutions aren't awesome. It's because they're not matched to the problem. And the reason it's not matched to the problem is cuz we didn't listen long enough, we didn't do the discovery.

The thing that I think we need to hear is like, look, you're as an adult, you adults are required to sometimes hold two competing truths in their mind. At the same time, it can be true that your plan is the best plan ever created, ever in the history of the. And it's wrong. And I would submit that. Good planners, that is actually true of every plan they ever do.

It's the best plan they ever created, and it's wrong. And so one way to state that is like the financial plan is worthless without the ongoing process of planning. And if we could just please let go of this false sense of. This need to be precisely correct today and realize that when you look at other domains, like I'm heavily involved in, in sort of the VC world right now and a bunch of pitches, and in entrepreneurship, there's a thing called the Lean Startup.

We all know we build MVPs, we try little experiments, we see what information we get in programming. Nobody does waterfall development. You lock yourself in a room for two years and build a program and then come out and announce it to the world and realize it was all wrong. The world's moved on. You do agile development.

In complexity theory. We know that in a complex adaptive environment, the only way to navigate a complex adaptive environment, which is the definition of humans and their money, is to solve for the next local optimum and then reset. So your projections actually don't do us that much. What matters.

Financial planning is not about being precisely correct today. It's about being a little less wrong tomorrow. And that's a debate Michael and I have all the time, which is fun and we'll probably do it on at Advice tech, is that the idea that nobody cares about your solutions,

[00:22:54] H. Adam Holt: right? They care about their

[00:22:55] Carl Richards: problems.

Mm-hmm. . And so if we can just get better at everybody else in the world is doing it, why are we still building 30 year projections carved in? They should be written in pencil so that we can adjust them tomorrow and realize that. A fact in the last hit on this, cuz this is a little ranty on my part I know, but I get so fired up about it, is if we treat our plans like a strong opinion loosely held, we should actively be looking for disconfirming evidence and when it shows up, we shouldn't feel like that makes us.

It's actually a sign of our value when we show up and dis converting evidence shows up and we say, oh, great. That means we can course correct. Instead of feeling like Disconfirming evidence shows up, I'm gonna dig in and be a defender of this outdated map. Right? So maybe that's helpful. I don't know. It, it felt good to get it off my

[00:23:54] H. Adam Holt: chest at least.

We felt good to watch you get it off your chests. Yeah, that was kinda fun. You're welcome. That's good. Thank you. We could send it's therapy session, actually we're gonna package it and send it back to your team and we'll bill you . Perfect.

So that

[00:24:11] Derek N. H. Notman: was fun. Awesome. And you know I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna jump back to the beginning of this episode.

You asked me, does my advice suck. Uh, and I think by accident I've kind of been doing what Carl talks about is listening longer over the years. Now I'm by no means like a perfect advisor, and there's a lot more successful advisors out there than myself. But I think part of the reasons that clients have stayed with me since the very beginning is that I.

And so I think to that point, like I, I want to, I want to get your thoughts, but like that, that struck me right away is , I think that there is something to this here if you're not listening long enough, you're just like, gimme your social security number. Give me your net worth. Give me your income and gimme your debts.

Okay? You need this much insurance. See ya. . That's not enough. That's, and if you do that, then yes, your advice sucks. , in my opinion. So I dunno, , how did, how did that hit you? , I thought it was a great conversation, but how did it hit you? It's

[00:25:10] H. Adam Holt: funny, I, you know, it's funny because Carl's demeanor is, is very intellectually thoughtful in his word choices and clearly, you know, I like that.

And listening back to it now, probably the third or fourth time you could hear this very therapeutic delivery. No nonsense, but I wonder from the standpoint of been in the business for as many years as both of us have too, there's a maturity level that comes out of recognizing what really matters after you've been in the business for 15, 20 years and you're, you're saying, it's no longer the recipe that I have followed of executing financial planning as a business.

Right. Do this, do that. It becomes an art and not such a science. And I think the interesting thing that a lot of advisors that we've been talking about is this idea of humanity and how do we deliver more humanity? And yes. So, so let's talk about, let's talk about takeaways because there's, there's a, I think there's a really, a couple things everyone needs to pay attention to here that they can write down, they can think about or rethink about.

Where do you start? Well, I, I, his comment

[00:26:13] Derek N. H. Notman: about , we don't even know what to call ourselves. That resonated. And I think the term financial advisor's terrible. I think you mean so many different things to so many different people. And our clients don't know what it means, like that's a problem. Um, and it leads to a bad reputation, uh, for, for a lot of us that are trying to do a really good job.

And so like what, what is a real financial. And I liked his definition of someone who is helping with this never ending alignment of their capital, their time, their money, their energy, attention with their client, um, and using that to deliver real financial advice. You know, as you put it, everything else is a righteous trick.

, and it's an unending thing. Like this journey that keeps going and . Put it in pencil. Don't put it in pen. Like don't carve it in stone. I think , that resonated with me.

[00:27:07] H. Adam Holt: , you just said something that totally, I, I realized

I had a little bit of an epiphany. I wonder if what you just said and what Carl also supported is if we don't know what to call ourselves, and remember we brought this up with Michael Kitsis. He brought up a whole new terminology around advisor. Mm-hmm. in our podcast way back when. I wonder whether financial planner as a naming convention is actually doing us a disservice.

I'm not sure if we're ready for it, but financial coach still might be more appropriate long term. And here's why I say that. If planner by definition is thinking about the future and they're trying to architect actions to plan for the future, but we just said the planning for the future is kind of silly in a sense.

We have to take actions today, and I think a coach helps us take actions today that serves our long-term agenda. And maybe we should stop thinking about, this is all about the projections of the future. I'm planning your road trip. Maybe we should be talking about like, I'm planning what you're gonna do today so that we're ready for tomorrow.

And that's what this kind of episodic concept or what he mentioned was, what did he call it? He called it the complex adaptive environ. And the need to reset at different points of inflection. I don't know. Maybe that's something to think about. I'm almost having an

[00:28:31] Derek N. H. Notman: epiphany on your

[00:28:32] H. Adam Holt: epiphany. Ooh. Is that possible?

You're layering epiphanies,

[00:28:36] Derek N. H. Notman: use like a sports analogy. Does a coach try to like put in stone what you should do 20 years from now? No. Your coach is helping you today and then a little bit more tomorrow. And then the next day and assessing where you are and okay, now we can make this pivot and that pivot.

So I really like your financial coach term now, honestly, one of the things that hits me with that though is does financial coach, mm-hmm. , is it a strong enough term? . You hear the word doctor, you hear cpa, you hear attorney or lawyer. Mm-hmm. . Those have these strong, credible, like auras around them almost.

Does financial coach have that? I

[00:29:17] H. Adam Holt: don't know. No, no, it doesn't, but that's only because historically it's had a hundred years to, to, to ferment in your brain. I mean, we, we have association with those terms just like we have an association with this financial advisor. Mm-hmm. . Right. We all know, as was said, I mean the evolution of the stock broker to the financial advisor or the insurance agent, to the financial advisor.

Or the bank broker dealer to the financial advisor. Everybody's financial advisor. And that's the challenge is that the tasks that we executed were typically product or solution based. Now we're all trying to say like, no, we lead with advice because it helps us sell more product. And that's the righteous trick that I've been, you know, banging the drum about forever.

I appreciate the fact that financial planning as a technique has been a loss leader for. AUM gathering. Okay, I get it. And we all know that those advisors who lead with advice and do more planning, financial planning, CFPs, supposedly earn more revenue than those that don't have a cfp. Why is that? Because the righteous trick of planning gets people convinced that they're, they're confident and they, they can trust your process because it's baked in what?

It's baked in a process that's mathematically pure. And I'm already lost in terms of meeting the obligations. Carl has pointed out, right, have I really listened to the underlying why of what you're really trying to achieve and I'm helping you get there. Now my very will be the same thing mathematically, right?

You still gotta save, you gotta invest, you gotta be smart on taxes, you gotta buy some insurances. But maybe there's a more human way to connect in a way that's gonna literally change behavior, which will drive wellness, which will lift the entire population, not just our clients, the entire population if, if all of us were more financially fit.

And I think that's the interesting implication of this change, is not just about how do I sell more, but how do I actually lift the popul?

So . ,

[00:31:06] Derek N. H. Notman: bam. I know. Like boom. Too big. Uh, if I'm a cfp, listen to this right now. And I'm leading with advice. You are a cfp. Yeah, but I'm not listening to it. Oh, thank you .

[00:31:19] H. Adam Holt: I'm recording it. You're supposed to listen more. He said. Uh, what? . very well. .

[00:31:27] Derek N. H. Notman: You know, are you telling me that I should, that my leading with advice to sell products is bad, or am I, or is the message, should I listen more to lead with better advice and that it's okay that products and services have to get placed eventually?

Or do I need to get out of the product manufacturing side and delivery side entirely and just provide advice and. Figure out a way to like come up with an Amazon to deliver these products for implementation.

[00:32:01] H. Adam Holt: Oh, I don't know. I, I don't know the answer to that. This is an ongoing debate. I know a lot, lot of people are having, but if, if, since you're asking, I might as well answer and put myself on the line and say what I really think We can edit it out later.

That's true. We, we could . . Is that a cue? Please? Edit Adam's comments. I don't wanna do it. I, I'll wanna share because. I don't think that product placement is some form of anti financial planning. It's only about the sales. I, I think the money does need to land somewhere. I think we do need to make decisions.

I, there's too many people driving around right now without their seat belts. In other words, they don't have the right insurances. Someone needs to just sell them something. They need to just put a seat belt on. Doesn't need to be perfect. There's a lot of gaps that we constantly see in asset Map where.

Massive. Hundreds of thousands of families do not have the right stuff that are basic and gosh darn it, if it takes someone selling them something to, to protect their family, that's good. What I am saying though is that we do need to help people start getting healthier financially. Mm-hmm.

And in some cases they need advocates. They need advocate. That's gonna help 'em. We all know top professional athletes, they get a coach even if they're an individual sport or a team. Likely they probably have a fitness coach, an attitude coach, a strength training coach. They have coaches and mentors that help them make better decisions.

And the same thing is true on the financial side. What we need to do as financial planners is not necessarily use planning to get the outcome we want, but use planning to get the client what they need. And ultimately because we'll earn the business because they'll, they'll need the place at some place.

And if we're the right place for that to land, then fantastic. If we're not, we should be big enough to tell them.

[00:33:51] Derek N. H. Notman: Yes. You know, I think that you, you just nailed it and I'm glad that you elaborated, so we won't edit this out, . Okay. Okay. We'll keep it in. Okay. But, but actually what I'm hearing is that financial planners, I guess we can include advisors in this definition here, actually have a really amazing, huge opportunity, and I think this is what you're driving at to impact society at a pretty interesting level by helping with these things.

You just talked. And as Carl said, , listen more. Mm-hmm. , make the advice more valuable. Know it's a moving target. , that's what I'm hearing now more than anything as we hash this out, which is great. What, what, what an amazing opportunity to help people. And there's more than enough business out there for everyone.

So yes, if you listen and you truly care and you try to help point your clients in the right direction, you're gonna get most of the business anyways. Yeah. It's gonna.

[00:34:48] H. Adam Holt: Authenticity works in many ways. Oh my. To everyone's benefit. Yeah. Uh, that's true. So any other follow up check checkouts before we, uh, we close up?

Anything that you think, uh, remind anybody to go back and listen for it or listen for something.

[00:35:01] Derek N. H. Notman: Be curious longer and be honest with yourself. Is your advice actually suck? Take a look. Yeah,

[00:35:07] H. Adam Holt: take a look. And don't be afraid to ask people. Obviously, you know, there's an important aspect to this. Try out some new techniques.

We, we really want everybody to rethink how they're delivering advice and confirm that they're doing the best or find ways to elevate it just a bit. I really, I, I've thought about that climbing the wrong ladder. I thought about our DIY clients that do it themselves. You know, they're saving, they're doing these things and then you find out that the ladder's on the wrong wall.

Uh, and I think that's an opportunity for most of us and advice to help out. And I, and I think. It's true that let's be careful about the, you know, the plan carved in stone. It's worthless without an ongoing process that, that's called planning. , I think we need to do more of that.

So with that, Derek, I actually really encourage everybody to go back and listen to that again cuz it was really fun. Uh, and I, I know you'll pick up more from Carl. Thank you Carl for taking the time to spend time with us. Derek, what's next?

[00:35:56] Derek N. H. Notman: Well, let's end it on a slightly lighter note. Okay? Okay. Um. So we're both dads.

We are. I'm guessing it's a couple dads listening. I think we should end today with a couple dad jokes.

[00:36:10] H. Adam Holt: Dad jokes. All right. Right. Give me your best dad

[00:36:13] Derek N. H. Notman: joke. Well, this is, I don't know if this is my best dad joke. All right. I don't, this is a dad joke and it's probably gonna make people listening cringe a little bit, but here you go.

Okay. Adam? Yes. What did the man say while he was reversing his. What, what? Ah, this takes

[00:36:34] H. Adam Holt: me back. Oh my goodness. .

[00:36:39] Derek N. H. Notman: It's so stupid.

[00:36:41] H. Adam Holt: Did you try, you, you all right? That's

[00:36:43] Derek N. H. Notman: okay. I'm sorry. It, it's just, maybe that's poor execution. Maybe it's just a bad joke. But it's it's a dad

[00:36:48] H. Adam Holt: joke. It's a dad joke. It's supposed to be bad, right?

Hopefully people will remember this one. I never remember the joke, so, but I have one for you. I want to hear New York. Tell what you got. Okay. So my kid has been going through these, these tests to get into a new school. So we've been doing a lot of math. So here, here's the question for it, Derek. If you have 10 apples in one, And 13 oranges in the other hand, what do you have?

I don't

[00:37:09] Derek N. H. Notman: know. You got a lot of, so do you remember this?

[00:37:11] H. Adam Holt: You got big hands. That's what you got . You know, you're from Florida. They have orange is down there. I'm big, big hands. I know. I can't wait to tell that to my daughter. She's gonna roll her eyes like all the time.

[00:37:23] Derek N. H. Notman: You know, you should have her write that in as a question on one of her entrance exams just to show how thoughtful she is.

It's true.

[00:37:30] H. Adam Holt: She'll fail is how good a math I am. It's true. See, she's rethinking the problem. . She's get credit for. That's right. Oh my God. Right? The train is going how fast? I don't know. There you go. Well, this has been a lot of fun. Thanks for making me laugh. And of course, Carl, thanks for making us. Thank, uh, we do appreciate it.

For those of us that, uh, that have been, uh, had enough opportunity to meet you in person, certainly check out Carl and all the stuff that he's doing online as, uh, as well as his, his fun societies and his podcasts online. You'll just get some great stuff. And I know Michael , and him have been doing a great job.

You also thank you for, uh, your hundredth episode that was recorded at Device Tech Live that just came out, so make sure you check that out. And we were excited to have you there. Seeing this community is really so tied to each other. Derek. Anything that everybody needs to do.

[00:38:13] Derek N. H. Notman: Yeah, everyone listening.

Tell a friend of yours that's an advisor and one that isn't. To subscribe and listen to our podcast. We're growing. And growing. And growing. We're having a ton of fun. We're getting a lot of great feedback. So thank you for all of the listens. Um, connect with us on LinkedIn, man.

send us a dm. Adam and I will actually respond to you. Yeah, we will. And if, maybe, if you're lucky, we'll even put one of your questions on, uh, on our podcast. So, Perfect. We got some cool stuff coming, but uh, thank you for listening and Adam, the pleasure is always talking to you multiple times a day. , ,

[00:38:49] H. Adam Holt: I'm very sorry in advance.

Thanks everybody. Derek, good to hear your voice and we'll see you at the next podcast.

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