Chapter 23
The Good Life
We live in a world of infinite information and constant change. Our clients are seeking peace of mind and they want clarity and perspective from all this noise of information. If you want to help them live the good life and lead them on a path of a more abundant life, you must redefine the client experience. The conversation must go well beyond the investment dialogue. As technology continues to transform financial services and fundamentally changes the relationship clients have with us, it will be that holistic approach that will not become commoditized.
I had the best classroom for the past three decades watching people in pursuit of the good life. As a student of the business, I paid close attention to how clients achieved that success, how they thought about retirement, and choices they made. Since curiosity comes very naturally to me, I would frequently ask—still do—lots of questions. Some advisors would question why I wasn't on topic. And they would be right. I wanted to truly understand why clients made the decision they made. What drives them, what they worry about, why they made certain decisions. Today and for the past 25 years I have been asking and digging deeper about the advisor's mindset. What are advisors most proud of, what were their big mistakes, who are the people that matter most in their lives, and, finally, what drives them to be successful and achieve a life with less anxiety and more purpose? It is from these “off” topics that I learn what's important to people. Because the greatest satisfaction we receive as advisors is when we fulfill our purpose: to make our clients' financial lives better. One of the great fears many of us face is that, despite all our effort and striving, we will discover at the end that we have wasted our life. In A Guide to the Good Life, William B. Irvine plumbs the wisdom of Stoic philosophy, one of the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome, and shows how its insight and advice are still remarkably applicable to modern lives.
It's All about the Journey
Society wants us to believe that we need millions of dollars to have a fulfilling retirement, because we need more of everything—newer, better, faster, bigger. The United States is projected to spend $182 billion in advertising in 2017. That's a lot of ads popping up on your smartphones, iPad, iPhone, TV, and everywhere you look. Helping your clients find balance and stay on the path that gives them more options takes finding that thing or things that provide the fulfillment your clients seek. It may be the next sports car, or maybe not.
What makes a great retirement? For many people it takes three years, sometimes longer, to shed their work identities and fully embrace leisure. Ultimately, it's about one's satisfaction and hunger for joy, community, and purpose. As an advisor, you can give your clients the possibility of a blank canvas and collaborate with them to paint a picture of their future. Everyone's idea of fun is different. The good life requires the willingness to be flexible and to change direction, but most importantly never losing the sense of curiosity.
Having your clients contemplate some of these questions may help you guide them toward their good life:
- Am I learning new things and having new experiences?
- Am I cultivating relationships with people I care about?
- Do I spend time doing the things I enjoy most?
- Am I helping others? Do I feel I am making a contribution to a better world?
- Do I have something to hope for?
- Am I living life with the sense of adventure?
Another way to guide your clients toward the good life is to ask them to complete the following exercise, designed by Laura Nash and Howard Stevenson in their book, Just Enough. The exercise helps to determine a client's definition of success, or success profile.
- On a piece of paper, sketch four intersecting circles. These circles represent the four chambers, or pillars, of success: achievement, happiness, significance, and legacy.
- Label each circle with one of these words.
- Then, in each circle write one of the following words: self, family, work, and community.
- The advisor can help the client discover the client's ideal picture for each of those categories. Mapping success for each of your clients and helping them achieve their goals goes beyond investments. It's about helping your clients define their own personal definition of the good life.
Depending on the age of the client, the pillars of success will change or evolve over time. It will be important to revisit this exercise many times over the course of the advisor–client relationship.
The good life is about following your dreams. It's about focusing on what's important to the client. It's about not letting society influence how you live or dictate what you want. I have always been intrigued and inspired by those people who follow their passion and their dreams regardless of the difficulties or challenges.
I was vacationing in Antigua, one of the Caribbean islands where people are wonderful and the turquoise water makes you feel very relaxed, when my daughter Bianca and I heard a middle‐aged couple speaking Italian. I introduced myself and Bianca to them, which sparked a wonderful conversation. Giuliana and Roberto were coming off their 42‐foot sailboat, called Patty Boy. They had been living at sea for three years. They had crossed the Atlantic Ocean a few months earlier after spending two years in the Greek Islands. At 61 years old, they were living their dream. Roberto had spent 40 years as a limousine driver and Giuliana was a dress designer who worked for herself from home. They both have grown children from previous marriages.
What's amazing is since they lived on a pretty strict budget, when it came time to select a boat they were very careful. The boat they chose was about 10 years old but in excellent condition. They spent several years sailing around their home in Italy so they could get used to the boat and gain experience and confidence before eventually sailing to the Greek Islands, where they spent almost 2 years. Giuliana really enjoyed talking and was a wonderful storyteller. It was simply amazing hearing them speak about the wonderful people they'd met along the way. This passion for living this good life was contagious. They simply lived in the moment, with no crazy schedule and no attachments to material things.
What was the big lesson for me? I can think of several. The most important was that you know when someone is truly wealthy when they have control of their desires and how they spend their time. Therefore, are you time rich or time poor? When I asked Giuliana and Roberto if there was anything they missed or needed or if there was anything that would make their life better, they simply said they didn't need anything. Giuliana and Roberto appreciated every day and were amazed by each beautiful sunrise and sunset. They had a vision, confidence, and mission to sail to the Caribbean. In fact, they never plan to return to Italy. They plan to live on the boat for the next 15 years and eventually settle on a small island and buy a small house by the water. I share this story as a reminder of how two people can show us the possibility of living every day with a sense of curiosity and passion. To break away from materialism, regardless of how much money someone has. People who are trying to win more game have never confronted their demons, and more stuff puts a Band‐Aid over these demons. Therefore true wealth is not measured by how big our account is, but how happy we are, and how we enrich others with our gifts.
In the end, living the good life is about living your life by design. The right wealth management team can help the client design this customized plan. And the client's net worth should be measured by their own definition, but you can help them. If we want to live a happy life filled with abundance, we have to make that our choice. Expectations and circumstances will always get in the way, and riding the emotional rollercoaster is part of the journey. If we have reasonably good health, meaningful personal relationships, and the curiosity to keep learning and exploring to make the world a little better, we should be grateful.
“Be soft, don't let the world make you hard. Be gentle, don't let the people make you difficult. Be kind, don't let the realities of life steal your sweetness and make you heartless.”
—Nurudeen Ushawu
I've had the privilege to interview a number of outstanding industry leaders for this book and you’ve seen my conversations with them at various points in the book. One of those interviews was with John Hyland, founder and managing director of Private Advisor Group. John's story is simple, but it is the best example of what it means to have a growth mindset. He reminds us of what's possible. He inspires by deeds not words. We talked a lot about having a vision and its value. But there's more to it than that. John embodies much of what having a growth mindset means. He also walks the walk when it comes to effective recruitment, building the right culture, empowerment, optimism, and, above all, courage.
Rick: Tell me about your story from the beginning, where you started and how you got into the wealth management business.
John: I graduated college in 1989. What I knew from the beginning was two things: I didn't want to be in sales and I didn't want to go into the financial services industry. I didn't know much about what I wanted but those were two things I knew. I probably shouldn't admit all this, but I didn't want those two things because I didn't understand them and I didn't have any sort of comfort level. I didn't like sales, especially sales in that traditional sense. It was a tough job market in 1989, so I started bartending in Morristown, New Jersey, where my father was mayor and freehold director. One Saturday, my father invited me to participate in a charity softball game. I was playing shortstop and a gentleman walked up to me and put his arm on my shoulder and said, “I understand you are Pat Hyland's son and you're looking for a job.” This gentleman worked for IDS Financial, which is now Ameriprise, and he asked if I would be interested in being a financial advisor. I said to myself “Wow, I don't really want to be in this world, but this guy captures my attention.” He was special. He was my inspiration at that point. Like my father, he taught me through his ac‐tions and for me that was the greatest way to learn and it was authentic. Here is a wealthy individual and he would sit down and do cold calling with me on a Saturday morning. How many people would do that? He taught by example.
Rick: So you had a breakout year in 1993. Where did you go from there?
John: I became a district manager at American Express Financial and I was a platinum advisor. I was doing well on the managerial side as well as being an advisor. So I started to head more toward independence, transparency, and objectivity. In 1997, we called LPL as it was the biggest independent brand. That October we moved to LPL in Morristown. We started with four partners and continued on that path.
Rick: What was the vision when you first started?
John: Here's where you get a lot of transparency from me. We decided to set ourselves up as four separate branches. We did this for reasons of future profitability. So you learn by failing, and a couple years later it became apparent that this model wasn't working because we were all duplicating efforts at this point. So Bill Dwyer from LPL called and said we needed to talk because we were horrible at compliance. We were great producers but we weren't good at documentation and recordkeeping. So one of my partners and I immediately went up to Boston. It was on December 10, my birthday. They sat us down and said you either find a different firm or hire a compliance professional to run your compliance model. That was the moment we said, wait a minute, we are doing this all wrong. We had failed. Bill should get all the credit as he changed our trajectory. We immediately hired a compliance manager. Interviewing began the next day and we found a great guy who is still with us today. We all came together as one unit rather than operating as four separate branches. We realized we couldn't do everything. Fast‐forward 20 years to today. If it worked this way for the four of us, the model can be an example of creating efficiencies for other advisors. I'd like to tell you our story came from something more inspirational, but it was due to failure that this model came about.
Rick: Very interesting. Failure happens to a lot of people but you happen to be honest about it. When did the vision really start to take off?
John: In 2005–2006, we had an ah‐ha! moment. That's when the business model started to take shape. Two of the now five partners really saw the vision and we started to invest our time and energy into this model. That was my partner, Pat, and myself. In 2007, Pat and I had a vision and parted ways with the other three partners, buying them out.
Rick: So in 2007, how many advisors worked with you?
John: Twenty for whom we were acting as their Office of Supervisory Jurisdiction (OSJ). We are in a great place today because we saw the opportunity. We kept growing 20 to 25 advisors a year.
Rick: How do you recruit that many people when you are only two people?
John: Pat and I make great partners. Pat is an amazing guy. He has amazing bandwidth and at that time I was more the face of the firm.
Rick: So that's a lot of dinners, lunches, and so on, to try to recruit. That must have been exhausting.
John: I loved it! All of it! I am really into relationships and I have always been. I believe this business has always been about relationships. The ground is shifting as we sit here but it's all going to be about relationships.
Rick: How did you get involved with triathlons?
John: Before I answer that question, let me back up a little. I was on a bad path in the 1990s. I got married in 1994. I was going out every night, drinking a lot, having martinis and steak dinners, and so on. I was a big dude. No exercise, all about fun.
Rick: Why do you feel that's so unusual? Others on Wall Street do that.
John: Well, it wasn't good because it wasn't great balance. Then in 1999, I had an ah‐ha! moment in my life. It happened in the Giants Stadium parking lot before a game. This will sound crazy, but everyone that day was talking about the Ironman Triathlon because it had been on TV the day before. To me it was an impossible task. The guys I was with were talking about how impossible it was, but also how amazing it was, and I don't know quite how to explain it but something clicked in my head, probably because I love challenges. I am a big fan of deeds, not words, so I didn't talk about it much. So I told myself that day in the parking lot that I am going to do this. I am not going to tell anybody. I went to work the next day, searched the Internet, and found an Ironman Triathlon in Lake Placid in July of the next year. My wife was my biggest supporter. I bought a bike that week and signed up for swim lessons. Lo and behold I went to Lake Placid in July of 2000 and finished my first Ironman. That was a turning point in my life.
Rick: Obviously, you trained hard. How did your life change? What do you mean by that?
John: Everything gets better when you have balance—relationships, business, health, and so on. So from that point on every year for the next nine years I raced the Ironman. In 2008, I competed in the world championships in Kona, Hawaii. It's absolutely amazing! It became an essential part of my life and I became a better husband, father, and so on. In 2009, I took a year off because I felt I owed it to my wife and kids. I asked myself, “Can I step back?”
Rick: You got sick in 2010. Tell me about that.
John: In April 2010, I get a call from my oncologist. I had joined the Leukemia Society board in 2000 because I had lost an aunt in 1992 to leukemia. So I served on the board as president in 2007/2008 and was involved in fundraising. So I knew a lot about leukemia. My doctor asked if my wife and I could stop by the office that day. I replied that I wasn't coming in and that I wanted to know immediately why he was calling. Clearly with that kind of call you know something's not right. He wouldn't tell me over the phone despite my insistence. Rick, this is still very emotional for me.
Rick: John, I can see this is still very painful.
John: The doctor said you have AML [acute myeloid leukemia]. To you that might not mean a whole lot, but I knew right away what that meant. I asked him right away, am I going to live? There was a long pause and he said there was a lot of work to do. My sister, who is a nurse, and my wife and I went right away to meet with him. I was admitted the next day and immediately started chemotherapy. So with acute leukemia there is an 18 percent survival rate. It was by far the darkest period of my life.
Rick: Fast forward, when did you start seeing hope?
John: About 30 days after I was first admitted to the hospital they got me into remission but I still had 5 more months of chemo ahead of me. While in the hospital, I talked to Pat, my partner, about launching our own RIA. It may seem crazy to some, but I had nothing but time to think and I needed purpose. We came up with a name and got the legal part in order and then we launched PAG in 2011. That's where the tipping point occurred. Now it was about gaining scale. That was the vision. Pat and I are always big on where the puck is going and not where it is. We saw the future and saw the value that we could bring to advisors. We knew it was going to get more complicated from a regulatory standpoint and the trend toward independent wasn't going to stop. Because the advisor has to wear so many hats our value is to remove the daily functions, such as compliance, HR, and so on, so they can better focus on the client. We took all the hats away except for the one they really want to wear, to offer advice. Our value had once been looking at the business through the advisor and had now shifted to looking at it through the eyes of the client.
Rick: You shifted from the advisor experience to the client experience.
John: It's a natural path and evolution. We have a great team and Pat and I give them a lot of autonomy.
Rick: How was your health in 2011?
John: In 2011 I was on the triathlon starting line again and I did a half Ironman. I did it with my wife, Kristin. In 2012, I did the first New York City Ironman. In 2013, I was back in Kona, Hawaii, racing, in the world championships. All of this just 2½ years after being dismissed from the hospital with one of the most deadly forms of cancer.
Rick: So how are you feeling at this point? You must feel everything is behind you and you have a second chance at life.
John: I never look back and ask, “Why me?” I saw it as a blessing. I saw it as one of the greatest things that could have ever happened to me.
Rick: How did cancer change you?
John: I did an Ironman in 2014 and unknowingly I had leukemia again during the race. Two months later I relapsed. I knew while I was racing that something wasn't right. I wasn't performing as well. I had a third relapse in 2016, so that's three times. People survive AML the first time only 20 percent of the time. Rarely does one survive it three times.
Rick: How do you deal with that? It's must be so tough on you and your love ones.
John: It's tough and I am still in the throes of it. They declared me in remission again in August 2016. I still see doctors weekly.
Rick: Did cancer help you see things differently?
John: As I look back on my life, I really wouldn't change anything. I was happy with my life. What did change was perspective came into focus fast, really fast. Things I used to focus on that I thought mattered shifted and I began to focus on what really matters. I started to allocate my time that way. We all say that certain things are important to us but our log of our time is not always in alignment. I have it aligned a whole lot better now. People say “I love my family” and “I love my kids,” but now I spend more time with them than ever. I am conscious of the time spent. How I use my time and talent. The market goes down and you lose 20 percent of your portfolio but to me that is not a problem. Any problem that money can solve is not a problem. It's one of my lines. When you get diagnosed with something like cancer, nothing else matters.
Rick: When I lost my mother, my world and perspective changed and I had less tolerance of disingenuous people. My world shrank. How do you deal with relationships now?
John: Yes, it's all about quality versus quantity and how I allocate my time. I am conscious of and understand what's a real problem and what isn't. Not getting upgraded on your flight is not a problem.
Rick: This is an incredibly inspiring story. How do you find balance between health, family, and business?
John: You know the expression, “It's never about the money”? I am being honest when I say it's never been about the money. It's not a factor. It's that DNA inner voice, inner drive, it doesn't go away when you're sick. So continuing to execute on our vision is very important to me. Where I am today is that I have to go on with life as if I am okay. Every once in a while I revisit the idea of retiring but realize there will be a big hole in my life.
Rick: What are some of your final thoughts as you look back at your success? (John was very uncomfortable when I referred to him as successful.)
John: Things have all worked out. I have trouble with success because I am not sure what it really means.
Rick: What's next for you?
John: I am going back to Lake Placid for a half Ironman.
Giving Back
By definition, philanthropy is, whether of a person or an organization, seeking to promote the welfare of others, especially by donating money to good causes and being generous and benevolent. People in all income brackets give lots of money away each year to great causes. In fact, Americans gave an estimated $358.38 billion to charity in 2014, according to the 60th anniversary edition of Giving USA. That total slightly exceeded the benchmark year of 2007, when giving hit an estimated inflation‐adjusted total of $355.17 billion.
But money plus passing on wisdom and knowledge becomes much more impactful than just writing a check. In a small way, we can all leave a legacy beyond the name on a building or a foundation. Some people I know in their fifties and sixties are finding time to mentor young adults, speak at universities, and work with various charities to provide a specific expertise that's desperately needed. If we are fortunate enough to be in a position to have the luxury to make the world, or even just one person, a bit better, why not fully engage and explore?
We tend to have a passion for something that grabs hold of us early on in our lives. I realized in college that Wall Street was where I needed to be. I wanted to be entrepreneurial, with the opportunity to create wealth and help people with their financial goals. I made one mistake after another: I had the wrong shoes, I lacked confidence, I didn't know how to follow up, I didn't know how to network, I can go on and on. Therefore, mentors have always played a role in my life.
It's no surprise that today I want to play a small part in helping future leaders create the right path to realize their dreams. Investing in our future leaders is good for our economy and humanity. I have created a lecture series for universities to help students connect with industry leaders for advice and strategies to give them a competitive advantage. The feedback has been extremely positive and that's what keeps me going back.
My suggestion is this: if you feel you can help others because you have some specific and special talent, start now. You can improve the circumstances of others.
“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.”
—Ayn Rand