Latest / The Efficient Advisor: Tactical Business Advice for Financial Planners / 172: Habits, Actions, and Behaviors of Successful Advisors with Guest David DeCelle

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172: Habits, Actions, and Behaviors of Successful Advisors with Guest David DeCelle · The Efficient Advisor: Tactical Business Advice for Financial Planners

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: You know me by now.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I like to be a combination of prepared and, at the same time, spontaneous, and today's episode is really the epitome of just that.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: So I showed up super prepared and the episode went in a completely opposite direction of what I intended, and I loved it.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: When I am prepping for a podcast interview, I do my due diligence right.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I pre-interview every single guest because, you know, I want to make sure that these people are legit.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I want to find out their background, their philosophies, make sure they have a personality.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: You know I have them, draft talking points, I draft my own questions and even with all of that, sometimes when you hit record and you're having just a conversation with someone you now know, just another thing kind of takes over.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: And in this episode, my guest, david DeSalle from the ModelFA, and I get into the habits, actions and behaviors of successful advisors.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: We also talk about how he intentionally developed new advisors using his overdraft method, which I loved, and then we dive into personal development and then what disciplines David has adopted to create commitment, consistency and confidence that has allowed him to continue to just be uber successful.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I think you guys are really going to like this one.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: So let's go and look.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: I know you are here because you know it's possible to have energy left over for your family and still have your dream business.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: You know the business that you are running instead of it running you.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: It is not just for unicorn advisors.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: It is available to any advisor at any stage in the game, serving any demographic client in any geographical location.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: If you're new to the efficient advisor, I'm Libby Gray we.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I started from scratch, built and sold by age 37, a 100% referral only planning practice that I grew to seven figures as a solo advisor, all while working just three days a week and taking off 14 weeks a year.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: I am here to walk alongside you and to show you how to do exactly the same and to help you take immediate action on the most important strategies for scaling, organizing and creating less stress and overwhelm in your business.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: We are about to transform your practice one system and one process and one template at a time.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: So move over exhaustion and get out of the way.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: After ADD, it is time to take that one right next step to build a business and a life that you love.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: And before we dive into my interview with David, there's one thing that I wanted to share before we get into it.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: So I would love to hang out with you in Tempe, arizona, at the Retirement Tax Services Summit.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: So it's a two day conference hosted by my friend, steven Jarvis and Retirement Tax Services.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: You know him from a couple of episodes all about how advisors can be better tax planners.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Anyways, I am going to be one of the keynote speakers talking about how to develop systems and processes around tax planning inside of your financial advisory business, and we're going to have an opportunity to hang out one on one.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: So for my listeners, I would love, love, love for you to come join us.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: You'll get two days of amazing content and then also just an opportunity to connect.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: I love, love, love, love, love meeting my podcast listeners.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: So we're going to do something special while I'm there.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know, they gave us a room.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure what that's going to be yet.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: If you have any ideas, let me know, but we're going to hang out September 26th and 27th in Tempe, arizona.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I've got the link for you in the show notes and if you go out to my webpage, theofficiantvisorcom, you'll see a little orange bar up at the top where you can click for more information and for special pricing, all right.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: So let's dive into this conversation with David Dessal, all right, david, I'm so glad you're here.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I have just enjoyed getting to know you and I am really pretty fired up for this conversation.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I think the advisors listening today are going to just be enamored with you and your story and kind of what you're up to and all of the things that we're going to chat about.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much for being here.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me and also a special thank you to Brendan Frazier who made the introduction.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: I know he's a common connection and common friend of ours.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: So, brendan, if you are listening in, appreciate you bringing us together.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, brendan.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Well, awesome, well, why don't you just kind of share, if you will, sort of your backstory and sort of your origin story?
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Awesome.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: So fresh out of college I started as a financial advisor and I got finger quotes up for those who are listening to the audio.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: And the reason why I have finger quotes up is because I got my career started off at Northwestern.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: So I was there for seven years.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Probably four of those years I was, frankly, just slinging insurance and that was their main business model.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: In the last few years is when I actually started doing planning and gathering assets.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: But throughout that seven year period I spent five years running our new advisor development program, which was a combination of college interns as well as brand new hires to the firm, and took that program over.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: There was 350 offices throughout the country and, based on our teams metrics and productions, in that first year we ranked like 330 something.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: So let's just say we were not that good.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: But over the subsequent four year period we became the number one program in the country out of those 350 offices.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: So throughout that journey what I found is I kind of fell out of love with working with retail investors and financial planning clients and fell into love with developing advisors.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: So I decided to take a leap of faith, leave that business and get into consulting, so started a consulting company it was a mouthful.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: It was called the Financial Advisors Alliance.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: I did that for a couple of years came across Model FA, where I'm at now, and over that journey because I've been in the consulting side of things for seven years now.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: So over the last five years I started as a contractor, became the president of the company and then actually this past July 1st ended up buying the company, so now the CEO of Model FA.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: So that's a very abbreviated kind of cliff note version of the story.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: But I was a practitioner for seven years now in consulting, for the last seven.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: So, thinking back to that experience, when you started and you were consulting with new advisors, what were to go from right number 350 in the company up to the top?
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: What were some of the habits, the actions, the behaviors, what were some of the common denominators that you found for those newer advisors that led to success?
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: So I think the overarching thing that changed and then I'll get more tactical in my response but the mission of the program was to identify the future leaders of our firm and to make sure that they were better off having met us than having not met us.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: And at the onset I found myself if I thought that an advisor wasn't going to last there.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: I kind of row them off and I guess you could consider it like a dismissive attitude, or I was like, eh, it's not worth my time because they're not going to make it anyways.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: And that kind of changed the whole culture for the worse, where people didn't feel believed in, people didn't feel supported.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: And what I realized in that second year is we needed to flip that around.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: So the mission stayed the same, but it was just flipped.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: So the mission became to make sure that they were better off having met us than having not met us and then to identify the future leaders of our firm.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: So what does that look like?
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: I had a big focus of the training around personal development and being as it's my belief that in order to achieve anything of significance in any aspect of your life, the foundation of that is personal development and making sure that you're operating at a high level, you're taking care of yourself, you're putting positive things into your brain, you're holding yourself accountable.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: So that was one of the main things that I shifted.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Outside of that, within the Northwestern culture, especially early on in my career, I noticed that every single time I reached out to someone, I was making a withdrawal, so I was asking for either their time or their money or their network in the form of referrals, and what I know this is whether we're talking about clients or prospects, family or friends.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Like everyone I've reached out to, I was looking for something.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: And what I realized if you think about your Relationship with your bank, right, if all you do is make withdrawals and no deposits, eventually you're gonna have no money left and the the bank is gonna break up with you.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Right, you'll overdraft, so to speak.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: So the other thing that I instituted was having a focused effort on intentionally and methodically Making relational deposits with all the folks around you, so that it was the ratio was Favored and weighted more so in that direction than withdrawals.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: So when you actually did go in to ask for something, you were still in balance.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: So I would say those would be the two things that we shifted is making relational deposits well in advance of making a withdrawal and then ultimately having a focus on what I think is the foundation for anyone's success, which is personal development.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, I love that.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, I love the this Visual that I have of, like this idea of overdrafting, and I think that's super interesting, especially as an advisor early on.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: It feels like you're making withdrawals over and over and over again and maybe that you don't really have the opportunity or the Anything to deposit at that point.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: So that's a really I love that idea.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: So let's talk personal development.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: So I am, I also, a personal development junkie.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: At when it kind of came into my life, all of a sudden, everything changed, the trajectory of everything, the intentionality of everything.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: So tell us a little bit about, like, how you personally, having accomplished a lot, how do you approach personal development?
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: What are the types of habits, rhythms, things that you do in that space?
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: So I think similar to, I guess, diet and exercise, right.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: What you put into your body, you know, comes to, comes to the surface, right?
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: So if you're eating like junk, you're gonna look like junk.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: If you're eating healthy, you're gonna look healthy, and your mind is Is the same thing.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: So think about the you know last few years, be at the political climate or COVID or what have you.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: There's just so much negative information, you know, everywhere you look, whether it be on the news or social media or even in conversations, like for a few years, that's all anyone could ever talk about, and eventually that manifests in into your life and perhaps you feel more down in the dumps, perhaps You're getting in your own way.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: So I think one of the main things is Focusing on what you're putting into your mind.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: So I'm a big fan of reading books, listening to books, listening to podcasts like this one, and making sure that you're being very, very intentional about what you're consuming.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: So there was even a Stint over a couple years where, in granted, I was a little psychotic in this, in that I had listened to like 250 books over a two-year period.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Granted, I was listening to them at like, depending on the narrators pace of their narration at like 1.5 to 2.5 X, and my goal during that process wasn't to be able to write a book report on that particular book, but my goal was rather getting one nugget from that book and Take that nugget and actually implement it since then.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Now I more methodically Read or listen to a book a month where I'm looking to go a little bit deeper and get more takeaways than just one nugget.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: But I think it starts with Making sure that you're very, very conscious Around what information you're you're taking in.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: You know, there was an example with, you know, my wife Kennedy.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: In that one point she was stressed out with work, she was feeling a little bit unhappy and I kind of walked her through a conversation and didn't audit of you know what she was consuming and she was listening to a podcast called Morbid every day which is basically talking about cold cases and murders and this and that, and I'm like well, what, why don't you just stop listening to that?
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: And you know she loves the show.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: But she stopped listening to it and, literally within two days, replacing that with something positive, she was her, her bubbly self again.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: She was happy, she was motivated, she was inspired and she, you know, had a positive aura about her, so it just goes to show in that example, like how powerful the content is that that you consume.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: So that would be number one, which is just audit what you're taking in.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Number two, I think fitness and your professional life, in my opinion, go hand in hand.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: So I developed something called the model of a C3 list and the three C's are commitment, consistency and confidence.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: So it's the idea that when you commit to something and You're consistent with that something, ultimately your confidence develops and increases over time.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: And within that list there's five main components that fit three categories.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, five main components that fit three categories.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: And these are daily disciplines that you do every day.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: So there's two things that you do to move your personal life forward.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: That could be waking up at a certain time, consuming content that could be working out, eating clean, just something that's gonna move your personal life forward.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: There's two things that move you forward as a professional in your business.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: So that could be creating content, that could be asking for introductions, that could be making a certain amount of relational deposits, that could be learning something new you know in in your industry, just something that moves your business forward.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: And then the third component is one thing that moves others forward.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: So that could be with your spouse.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: That could be a Random act of kindness like, rather than walking past the piece of trash, picking it up and throwing it out, you know, putting away two shopping carts instead of just yours.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: It doesn't need to be something groundbreaking, it just needs to be intentional.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: And what I found is there's been times in my life where my fitness and my personal life have been on point, but my business wasn't where I wanted it to be and I just felt off.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: And then there are times where business, you know, was going really well.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Things were crushing, but on the personal standpoint Things weren't going well and I just felt off.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: And there were times where my personal life was on point.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: My Professional life was on point, but I wasn't intentionally trying to serve Others around me outside of the scope, of course, of you know what I'm compensated to do and I just felt off.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: So what I found is, when you move those areas of your life forward on the daily basis in an intentional manner, it's really tough to have a bad day or to feel off kilter.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: So that would be.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Number two is just being intentional with your actions on a daily basis, in every area of your life.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: And then the other thing that's had a profound impact on me is I'm a follower of A gentleman by the name of Andy forcella.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: I've been listening to his podcast since 2016, from when it was the MF CEO project and now the real AF, and you can deduce for yourself with those acronyms stand for.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: But Although he's fairly aggressive, I Receive that tone very, very well.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: And he developed a program called 75 hard, which is oftentimes mistaken for a fitness challenge, but it's more so a program to get your mind right that ultimately has fitness benefits, and that program you can Let me see.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: I've listened to his podcast all the time and he always says that I believe it's episode 208 If you want to check that out for Andy forcellas podcast.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: But I've done 75 hard Three times over the last few years and that's done a really, really good job of just keeping me in check, keeping me organized, keeping me inspired, keeping me intentional.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: So I think, if you combine being mindful of the content that you're consuming, not getting lost, scrolling through social media, getting pulled into the news and all that stuff, with some intentionality around the other aspects of your life.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Both of those serve a wonderful foundation for you to really grow and expand in whatever area of your life you want to grow and expand in.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: So hopefully that answers your question, but those would be the three main things that I've done that have really put me on a good path.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's funny you mentioned that.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: So I've done 75 hard twice now and I started it once in November in Ohio, just for the record, and that was probably chilly yeah, the most so for people listening if you don't know.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: One of the requirements is that you do 45 minutes of some sort of physical activity outside and that was a intentional choice on my part and probably one of the hardest things I've ever done.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: But the mental endurance that came out of that for me and it was in a really interesting period of my life was phenomenal.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: And it looks crazy and it sounds crazy and you know, like people on Instagram doing it kind of maybe come off as crazy, but it's such a transformative experience.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: And if you, if you've ever heard of it and you've contemplated doing it and you're like, oh, I don't know, I have this wedding coming up or this vacation or I'm too busy or this or that, the last time I did it was, I want to say, I started on July 8th of this past year and on July 1st I bought the Model FA.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: On July 4th I got engaged and then my birthday is in August and I had a bunch of other changes, you know, between then and the end of the year.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: So most people would say, oh, I'm too busy, I got too much stuff going on.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: I can't really focus on this.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: But for me, because of all those changes that were occurring, I was like I need something constant in my life right now.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: So when I was arguably at my busiest, I added 75 hard into the mix and I can honestly say that by doing so it kept to me sane because I had that foundational constant in my life when everything else was up in the air and ever changing.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: So if you have an excuse, there's probably someone out there that has a better excuse that still did it.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: So I would encourage you to get over that, get past that, work through that and dive with both feet in.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and so, and something else you kind of mentioned was about content that you're consuming and you get into the true crime kind of stuff.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Something else to add on to that is the people that you surround yourself with, and I know so.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: I started at a broker dealer as well.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: I ran a broker dealer practice for 16 years and one of the things that I identified early on was and I called them there were like three sets of people at the company that I worked at.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: There were the ducks, and those were the people who were always like, eh, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right about everything.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Like right, and that was just the perfect name for the ducks.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: And then everybody else was fatballed in 50 when I started right at a pretty conservative broker dealer and then there was like this teeny tiny group of advisors who thought differently, who felt differently, who acted differently and when I started kind of sitting at the table with them, the whole because you know it's easy to get sucked into the ducks complaining about the thing and the compliance and how the forms are processed and the corporate office and the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah all the changes.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: And things totally changed when I surrounded who I spent my time with specifically in the industry.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think too, even outside of you know, whatever four walls you operate in, that's true in your personal life as well.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: So I'd say one of the hardest things that I've experienced and even very recently, and but it's also been one of the most beneficial things is the group of friends that you grew up with or went to high school with or went to college with, that have been, you know, there for you along every step along the way.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: If you're on a particular trajectory in your career and in your life and they're not on that same trajectory, maybe they're complacent, and if that serves them and that makes them happy, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: But over time you end up shedding some of those relationships and establishing new ones of people that you aspire to be like.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: And I got this advice.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: So I grew up in a super blue collar city in Massachusetts and filled with and I don't mean to be mean when I say this, but just filled with a bunch of average people and you know townies, so to speak.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: And, again, if that makes them happy, there's nothing wrong with that.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: But that's not what I wanted for my life and my managing partner at the time, bob Freeling, you know, gave me advice and I was 23 maybe, so keep in mind you know, I just recently graduated from college still you know, doing all the fun stuff with all my friends that I went to school with.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: And he's like, hey, you, you, you got to get new friends.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: And at first I was pissed.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: I was like, what do you like?
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Who are you to tell me that I need to get new friends?
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: And I didn't take them up on that right away.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: But over the years, like he was, he was spot on and typically the advice that hurts the most is is the best advice, and sometimes it takes a little bit to process it.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: But I've noticed, you know, every year that goes by, I typically add someone of significance to my life and shed someone or at least hang out with them less if they're not on the same path that I'm on, and, as hard as that can be, it really, really helps you level up.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: I was just talking with you may know Dan Allison in the industry.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: I'm very, very good friends with him and he's had a substantial amount of success, like a couple different eight figure exits over his life.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: And every time we talk in a good way, we just kind of brag back and forth about what's happening in our life and it's super well received and it inspires each of us and we're encouraging of each other.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Where there are some folks in my life where it would just come off as bragging, just telling them about the things that I'm doing or want to do.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: So you got to find those folks around you that support, you, encourage you and, you know, want to do something of significance, assuming that that's something that you want to do as well.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: And all that to emphasize essentially the point that you just made with a couple you know specific examples.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was watching I think it was a TED Talk or something.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I actually wish I could find it again and they described these relationships and talking about, you know, friendships and even family and colleagues, employees, you know describing it obviously like as seasons.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: But one of the visuals that he kind of described it and I thought this was really interesting was, if we think about a rocket, you have these boosters that get you to a certain level and then they have to fall off in order for you to continue ascending, and I just thought it was a really cool way of describing this, like they're critically important, they're attached to you for a period of time and the fuel and the fire and the things that they give you help you ascend, but at some point it's okay if they fall off, because they did, they fulfilled that purpose and there's nothing innately wrong with them.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: It's just part of that, part of that ability to get higher and higher into the atmosphere.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: So, for those of you listening, my job was dropped during that example.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: I'm 100% stealing that.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: I think that is a wonderful metaphor and analogy for what we just discussed.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: That is spot on.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I wish I could remember where I heard it.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: It's probably been eight or nine years and it's just really kind of stuck with me and it's actually given me a lot of that, because I think there's this idea that you're filled with guilt, right, you're like if you don't have friends from middle school, still right that something is wrong with your ability to retain relationships, or if you're not hanging out with those high school friends anymore.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: And making friends when you're young is easy, making adult friends that really pour into you and have that, like you were saying, you can brag back and forth to people that will clap for you.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Basically, it's so interesting.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I love that imagery and that's kind of helped me think through relationships that hurt sometimes when it's time to shed or it's time to prune, and this idea of these boosters like hey, I needed that person in my life to get me through something or to something.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's spot on, and that's actually one of the things.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: My wife and I are closing on a new home in about 10 days, and one of the things that we're most excitedly nervous about is, I wonder what the neighbors are like.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Right, if we can forge new friendships that align with our values and the things that we want to accomplish.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, what I also think, too, is, if you're, are you familiar with what your reticular activating system is, your RAZ by chance?
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: No.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: No.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: So it's essentially like your brain's filter.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: So the example that I always use, where I get responses of oh yeah, I know what that is, so don't ruin my streak, at least pretend.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: But I think you'll be like oh yeah, I get that.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: So think about the last vehicle that you bought.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: You buy the car You're driving around.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: You're like I feel like everyone has this car Right, all those cars were already there.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Your brain just didn't filter it as relevant information until you bought one.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: So that can be applied to a bunch of different aspects of your life.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: But if you're looking to, if you just simply make a decision that you want to level up your group of friends and the people around you, life and your reticular activating system will start to look for evidence and start to look for ways to accomplish that.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: And that's relevant to a goal that you set, to a person that you want to meet, to whatever scenario you want to put out there.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: So I wanted to mention that because if you find yourself in a position where you're like you know these friends are fun to watch the Super Bowl with, but I can't really, you know, ideate and and you know vision with them, and you know there's nothing that we can really do to help each other accomplish our goals.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Just make a decision that you want to find those people and just keep an eye out in your interaction throughout your life, and those people will be brought into your life and you can establish those, those new relationships.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: So the reticular activating system is essentially your brain's filter for relevant information based on the thoughts that you have.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember the first time that was ever really true for me.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: I can remember when, the first time I was pregnant, all of the sudden, everybody else in the universe was pregnant too, everywhere we went, there were babies and there were pregnant people and it was just like there's more people pregnant right now than ever before in the history of pregnancy.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Just because you know, I am acutely aware of this.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: So so for an advisor listening who is like, yeah, you know, like personal development, I get it feels a little woo woo maybe or whatever where would you suggest?
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Or if you have someone that comes to you and says like, okay, I do want to start taking this seriously, where would you suggest that they start?
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Do you have some particular favorite books or places to hang out online that they can start to get the good you know mojo from all the PD work?
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: So I think a good place to start is to just ask the people that you hold in a high regard about a book or a podcast that's had an impact on them and their life and their journey, and that's essentially what you're asking me now.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: So the ones that come to mind is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Every time I go to say Napoleon Hill, I have to hold myself back from saying Napoleon Dynamite, by the way, and you knew exactly where I was going with that.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: So that's a book that I read or listened to at the start of every year, just as a as a friendly reminder.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: Also there's we've already talked about it, but Andy Fosella's podcast.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: If you scroll all the way back to episode one, I believe, if you type in real AF and you scroll all the way to the bottom, it then turns into the MFCEO project and there's like 300 something episodes, because right now his podcast is a mixture of business stuff and political stuff.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: So if you're not interested in the political stuff, just scroll back to episode one and like there's 300 episodes there that are all about building your business, getting your mind right, and I went through those in order and realized that all right.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Well, I know a bunch of stuff but I didn't really take action on anything.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: So then I went back to the beginning and listened to all the podcasts again and then just picked one thing that I learned and implemented it.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Pick one thing and then implement it over and over and over.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: So I would say, you know, a good staple book is thinking grow rich as a good starting place If you haven't read that yet, and if you have, if it's been a while, reread it, re-listen to it and then from there you know Andrew Fosella's podcast and outside of that, just the people that you hold in high regard ask them about a book, ask them about a podcast that's had an impact on them.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Or even you know where I because I needed a lot of books to consume that two year period where it was like 250 something books.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: So whatever I wanted to learn at the time, I just Google best book about fill in the blank and found that.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: So I think if it's something that if you take it seriously and you really want to improve in a particular area of your life, again your RAS is activated, you'll find the content that you should be consuming to help you towards whatever that path is that you want to go down.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, I love that and so I'll make sure I link all of that.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: And you might have seen me like staring off into the distance.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at my bookshelf, thinking where do I have?
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Thinking, grow rich.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: I probably need to read that.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: It's been, it's been a minute since I've read that.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: And for advisors listening, we do at the Efficient Advisor, I do a fake book club every month and it's a fake book club in the sense that I just share the book that I'm reading and there's there's no meetings, there's no like timeline that we read.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: We never discuss it, it's just.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: It's just a fake book club for people to go at whatever pace that they want to, but to have some ideas of you know, books that that I'm working through and I and I do kind of come back randomly and we'll share some of the impact that it's having or some of my takeaways.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: So maybe we'll do oof, I'm looking to see.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: I'm like I have my 75 hard books somewhere around here too.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: I'm like I don't know if that's going to make it to the fake book club or not, but we'll see.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: So it's it's since packed because we're packing for the move that I that I mentioned, but I did have right here.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: I haven't started it yet because it just came in the mail recently.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: But Andy Frissel is new book, the book on mental toughness.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: So if you haven't scooped that up yet, definitely get that.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I think, and I've always wanted like a badass bookshelf in my house and now I finally have a bookshelf in my future house so I have, like all these books and boxes that I've had no homes for.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: So it'll be good to the like, get a visual representation of all the content that I've consumed.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: And even with the audio books that I've listened to, I've always bought the actual book as well, so that I have that on my future bookshelf.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: So here shortly I'll be able to pull some off the shelf and be like hey, check this book out, go get this book.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: I'm having built ins put in here too.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: But I'm like, oh, I've been a Kindle reader for the last like three years.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Like, oh, I don't know what to do.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Well, before we wrap up, I always like to ask my guests, especially those who are, you know, successful business owners.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: So this is a show about efficiency, right?
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: So is there any tool, resource that could be a software, could be just a mindset hack, anything that helps you that you've adopted in the last couple of years that helps you operate your business more efficiently?
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to share something that isn't super fancy.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: It doesn't require a subscription to a new software and whatever software you use, it probably has this functionality.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: Again, this isn't groundbreaking, but it's incredibly helpful.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: So for me, as I'm sure with the folks listening like you're busy with meetings, right, With client meetings, and oftentimes those meetings generate various tasks that you need to do or follow up that you need to do, and for a while I was trying to maintain all that stuff in my head.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: But I just have a task list hooked up to my Google calendar where, as soon as something comes up, I know it in the task list.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: And what I found is I went from my head hitting my pillow at night and having everything run through my head of what I needed to do, because my brain needed to remember that, because it wasn't documented anywhere.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: And now, when I just again it's not groundbreaking, but added to the task list, I actually sleep well because I know it's captured.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: I know it's not going to be forgotten about.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: I think the other thing that's had an impact on me is for the last gosh I don't know, three years ish.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: I've written in.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: You can get on Amazon, I think it's like 20 bucks.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: It's called the five minute journal and it prompts you as to the three things that you're grateful for.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: So that's a morning and evening exercise.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: So it's the three things that you're grateful for, the three things that you want to accomplish and focus on that day, three affirmations, and then you're done.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: For the morning and that night it's the best three things that happened that day, and then two things that you learned from that day.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: And it's good self reflection exercise to start and your day.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: I'd say I'm consistent with that 80, 85% of the time.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm human too, but anytime I'm feeling off.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: One of the things that has gone by the wayside is that journaling exercise or my content consumption has become, you know, or it's been pulled in the direction of the political stuff going on or just anything negative.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: So as soon as I shift what I'm consuming and how I'm reflecting right with that journal exercise, I get back, you know, just like that.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: So I would say those would be the two incredibly simple.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: You don't need to subscribe to anything new, Maybe spend 20 bucks on the journal, or I just gave you the category so you can just do it in a blank notebook too.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: But those would be two things that come to mind.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and thank you for sharing that 80% right, Like I think there's sometimes like you know, like especially advisors, a lot of our Enneagram threes that are listening right, like if they miss a day, then they feel like they've completely failed and, you know, miss the point of the journal.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: So I remember hearing one time someone say to me whatever you're looking for, you'll find it.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: So if you're looking for negative traits, like in your partner, you'll find them.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: If you're intentionally looking for positive things in your partner, you'll find it.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: If you're looking for negative things in your business, you'll find it.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: If you're looking for positive things, you'll find it.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: And so I love this idea of gratitude and intention and being really intentional about looking for the things that happened in your day that were exceptional or positive.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: So thank you for sharing that.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: And that's, and that's your ass right there.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: So you knew what your ass was, but now you have a label for it.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: That's a perfect example of your reticular activating system taken over.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, awesome.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: I know somebody listening will have taken away one or two things.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Maybe we'll have a whole bunch of people doing an efficient advisor 75 hard together or something like that the unofficial 75 hard book club.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah the fake book club around 75 hard.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Well, awesome, well, thank you so much for your time.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it and, like I said, I know somebody listening will take something away from what you've said and hopefully go and implement it and get to experience some of those positive results.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I appreciate you having me and excited to switch seats here shortly, having you on our podcast as well, so I appreciate you having me on yours.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Absolutely so for anyone listening.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Where can they find you?
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Where do you hang?
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: out online.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: So I mainly the two platforms that I mainly hang out with on our Instagram and LinkedIn.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: So you can just type in my name on LinkedIn, david DeSsell.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: Instagram is just David underscore DeSsell, but you could also just Google my name.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: I've put out a lot of content over the last you know, seven years or so.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: So basically anywhere that you can connect or websites or all that stuff, just Google David DeSsell and you know it'll be there on the first page.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: We'll link all the things in the show notes too.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, david.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Almost almost All right.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: So after that conversation, I will admit I had a little PTSD surrounding my experience with 75 Hard.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, I loved it.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: It was one of the most challenging things that I ever did.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: I made the poor choice of starting it in November in Ohio, which meant I was doing it through Thanksgiving, christmas, new Year's, snow, all the things.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: But it was.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: If you haven't done it before, if you haven't looked into it, I'd highly recommend it and it was a big, big accomplishment.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: When I got to the end of the 75 days and I was super tempted to do another round, that's how much I actually enjoyed it.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: And I'm thinking about it now and I'm like, hmm, maybe, so maybe we'll do a fake book club situation with a fake 75 Hard.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Anyways, I really enjoyed this conversation.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Like I said at the top of the episode, it went in a totally different direction than I was intending, but I really liked it.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: I think it's an important conversation to have is how are you so?
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: I say this all the time about your role as a CEO in your business.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: So if you own your business, part of your job is to develop your team, both personally and professionally, and this is one of those you must lead by example kind of situations.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: So before you can properly lead a team in personal and professional development, you need to be leading yourself in personal and professional development first.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: And I particularly liked the conversation around where he was kind of referring to you know this idea as relationships right as withdrawals and deposits, and how do you intentionally and methodically make deposits and then be able to ask for withdrawals without getting into overdrafting?
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: I also really just appreciated kind of the five disciplines that he was talking about to move things you know, to move your personal life forward, to, you know, develop your professional things and to move others forward.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: I thought that was really really great.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: I love the three C's the commitment, the consistency and the confidence.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: And I'll say this here as I wrap up the episode.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: But you know, motivation is a fleeting substance, but significantly more impactful than motivation is momentum and keeping momentum in the in the same direction.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: So right now for fake book club, we are doing the Slight Edge by Jeff Olson, and if you don't know what fake book club is, it's just where we pick a book and you read it at your own pace, on your own timeframe, in your own world.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: You don't have to show up to any kind of discussions.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: There's no actual book club, there's no feedback.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: You do your own processing, just literally.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Just hey, I'm reading this book, I'm finding it really helpful or interesting, and the thing with the Slight Edge is it's something I try to read around January every year ish.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: I would say I'm pretty pretty consistent with it missing a year here and there.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: So I'd say, on average, I read it every 18 months and, let's be honest, I have ADD, so I read the first half of it every.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: You know, I'll be honest, a lot of books, you know, I know they need to fill up a certain number of pages and it gets a little repetitive after a while.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: You can get the gist.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: I like to read it through the full, the full amount, like I probably get some hate mail for this, but I read it all the way through the full book the first time.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: And then there's a lot of books like Rocket Fuel, I think, is one of them too where I can just reread the first six chapters and be like, yes, okay, that is everything I needed.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: That's a great refresh great motivation.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: I think the Slight Edge is kind of sort of the same way, but anyways, I digress.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: So the purpose of the book, you know, is really talking about these small incremental changes and how it's the little things, it's the little amount of effort exerted in the same direction that builds momentum and that is stems out of discipline.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: And discipline can come with this really ugly connotation of like being in trouble if you don't do something, and really I just like to think of it as discipline kicks in when the motivation wears out.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: So just putting one foot in front of the other and just doing the thing in momentum is so much more important than motivation.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: If you depend on motivation, you'll never get anything done because we're all motivated for about a hot minute until we see something shiny and we're motivated in that direction instead.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: So anyways, I hope you thought this was a little bit different of an episode.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: I hope you thought this was helpful.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: I personally love personal development and professional development and it's something that once I really embraced it in my own world, I saw the trickle effect that it had on my team inside of my practice.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: I saw the trickle effect that it had on my family and my friends and we talk about a lot of hard things in this episode about leveling up and people being rocket boosters and going through stages and phases and seasons of life, and it's all just kind of an interesting thing, I think, to step back and observe and sort of calculate and think through every now and then as part of your personal and professional development plan.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: So, anyways, hope you guys found this episode helpful.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: I love this idea again of commitment, consistency and confidence, and the commitment and the consistency are really what truly build the confidence over time.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: So I'd love to chat with you more about this over in the Efficient Advisor community over on Facebook and if you want to hang out on LinkedIn, I'd love for you to connect with me and I do.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: That's my primary platform, so there is special content inside of the Efficient Advisor community, but also different content over on LinkedIn.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much and hope you guys have an amazing rest of your week.