Episode 245 – From the Sidelines to the Boardroom: Brian Neale’s Unlikely Path to Building Champions

Episode Transcription

This is the Ultimate Advisor Podcast, the podcast for financial advisors who want to create a thriving, successful and scalable practice. Each week we’ll uncover the ways that you can improve your referrals your team, your marketing, and your business operations, helping you to level up your advising practice, bring in more assets and create the advising practice that you’ve dreamed of. You’ll be joined by our hosts Bryan Sweet, who is moving fast towards a billion dollars in assets under management, Brittany Anderson, the driving force for advisors looking to improve their operations and company culture, and Draye Redfern who can help you systematize and automate your practices marketing to effortlessly attract new clients. So what do you say? Let’s jump into another amazing episode of The Ultimate Advisor Podcast.

Brittany Anderson 1:06

Welcome back to The Ultimate advisor podcast Brittany Anderson here today with somebody who is going to absolutely light you up and get you excited and motivated for the future. I have with me today Bryan Neale. Bryan has been entertaining and educating audiences for more than 30 years as a veteran sales coach, keynote speaker and a Superbowl official in the NFL. Bryan understands the formula for elite performance and masterfully weaves stories from the football field with inspiring actionable content whether you know Bryan is the founder of blind zebra an elite sales and client success coaching company based in Indianapolis co host of sales unscripted, or the advanced selling podcast, which is actually the longest running sales podcast in history Fun Fact or because you’ve yelled at NFL umpire number 92 on a Sunday afternoon, you know he’s all about one thing helping exceptional individuals and teams go row Brian, welcome to the show.

Bryan Neale 2:05

Thanks Brittany that’s a big that’s a big intro. I’m like extra nervous now like what do we do in here?

Brittany 2:10

You got some shoes.

Bryan 2:13

Like a walking fun fact my team T coat teases me about that like you like a walking fun fact it’s, it’s, you know, some of the one of the two truths and a lie that game. Like I can win that game frequently.

Brittany 2:24

Like a walking fun fact my team T coat teases me about that like you like a walking fun fact it’s, it’s, you know, some of the one of the two truths and a lie that game. Like I can win that game frequently.

Bryan 2:39

Yeah, like a lot of people and first of all kudos to you, Brett for doing this. You and I think backstory for your audience, too. We met basically one time and you meet those people in your life. All of us have this where it’s just an instant click, you’re like good at work. These are my people or people and like, we need to do a podcast done done. So bravo to what you do love what you do, how you serve your audience, and it’s just great. So it’s awesome to be here. Let’s see what it like most people you know, the all the successes, you see the stuff you see the rings, the plaques, you hear the accolades and all that stuff. You don’t see the grind and the failure along the way. So the thing that got me to both of the things so the sales coaching work, and even the Get to the point where you know, some average dude from southern Indiana got the referee Super Bowl 56 between the rams and the Bengals both have a similar route story. Growing up as a kid I bounced around. For my dad’s job a lot. Schools I was in six schools in seven years or so. And it was always a new kid was really quiet and shy. And my grandpa, my parents got divorced when I was nine. And we moved from Indianapolis, Indiana to my hometown, my small hometown in southern Indiana called Newburgh, Indiana, on the river, Ohio River on the border of Kentucky in Indiana and my grandpa Sammy for Little League football. And he was I didn’t realize it what he was trying to do is he was basically trying to get me to make some friends, you know, like push me out of my house a little bit and do that. So you get your little kid a little boy football. I was real passive, quiet shy. And he put those pads on you feel like you can take on the world. And then you go out there to practice and then like knock the hell out of that other kid. She didn’t like That’s great. Do it again. I was like, wow, this is weird. And so what happened then is I started to get these accolades had this outlet emotionally from my parents splitting up that I didn’t have anywhere else. And I started to get very father figure really guidance and leadership from my football coach, my dad I saw every other weekend. But it just wasn’t that daily, you know, hit of what I think all kids need a strong father figure in their life. And so my football coaches be football coaches became my mentors. They were a high performance oriented group made us start to I had to write goals on cards down. When I when I was a freshman in high school. We were mandatory we had to present him to our coaches one at a time individual one on one meetings. I learned this when I was 14. So flash forward in high school. I was way too slow to play college football. Oh, my coach, he had these funny ways to say things. He used to say, Neil, you could run all day in a shoe box. I’m like, What is he saying? Probably in a shoe box. But that’s actually the shoe box. Like it took me all day to get from one to the other. I was really slow. Anyway, he said, I go, I want to stay in football. I love the connection to the what I’ve got, what do I do? He’s like, I can’t play should I coach he goes, Don’t coach, you’re gonna go into business. You should be a ref. You should get referees like so I took a test when I was 18 years old. It was an open book True False test, open book True False two hours to complete it and I got an 83 out of 100. That’s how bad it is that you know what I mean? I’m like, What am I doing, but I loved it work. My first game in Bloomington, Indiana, JV junior varsity game, fell in love with it like this is great. I ran around the field first time didn’t know what I was doing, and got in the car afterwards. And I’m like, that was awesome. And these guys that worked with me, like decades sucked. You know what he was doing, but I was hooked. And so I did what my coaches taught me to go a little note card after my first season wrote all these goals down in this little note card was 19 said I want to rep the state championship in NDN. By the time I’m 31, I want to referee in the big 10 By the time I’m 36 I want to be in the NFL at 41. I want to referee the Super Bowl at 50. I wrote that down in a new car when I was 19 years old. I had no idea how that worked. I just knew what I wanted at the end. And I would always trust it. If I commit things down in writing and dwell on them in my mind and think about them all the time. A lot of stuff comes true that way. That’s what I was taught by my football coach. And that’s what happened. Then I went to work and did and moved up the ladder. Ironically, I got called into the big 10 A referee to state championship when I was 30. So got that goal. And then I got called to the big 10 When I was 36 Exactly what I had written down and then I got called on March 22 2014 and 11:48am Not that I remember this but I remember it. I was on a call with some clients and I had an the caller ID you know, I had my contacts the NFL number just in case they call me you know, and I looked down it was a I was on a conference call was seven people and the NFL was beeping in, you know, you’re like, oh my gosh, instead of saying goodbye or Hey, bread, I’ve got a guy just hung up on my clients and answered the phone. And it was this guy, Dean Blandino, who was the vice president of officiating for the NFL. He said, Hey, we’ve been watching you in the big 10 And we’d like to invite you to come ref in the National Football League. I started crying that was a big one deal all started from the kind of the pain of my parents splitting up and the advice of my football coaches. And then the same thing in the in the sales world. So I went out and worked at Procter and Gamble, beautiful great company started always wanted to be my own boss entrepreneur, started my own company when I was 26 and was bankrupt, bankrupt by 27 and a half, I lost all my money that I had made at p&g and then some real fast just on a on a you know, chasing a bad idea for all the wrong reasons. And so then I was broke. And I’m like, What do I do now? I’m broke it nowhere to go but up. And what did I love, I love personal development, and I knew sales. Those are the only three things and that’s how I landed into sales coaching that way. And it’s been a bit of an upward trajectory ever since. So I’m really lucky guy, I love all my job.

Brittany 7:47

Wow. You know, first of all, I can tell you’re absolutely an entertainer by nature, because I’m sitting here going, I’m just gonna be I just want to sit here and just listen, I’m just gonna open this wide open, we’re gonna do this totally.

Bryan 8:00

Piano downstairs and when we bring it up.

Brittany 8:03

So, you know, one thing that I have to say is and again, for our audience members listening in this audience is primarily Wealth Advisors. Yes. And, you know, I always try to think about in all conversation. So Brian, I think back to when you and I did meet, kind of on that one time basis and how you said it just there was connection and click, and we’re like, man, we gotta have a deeper conversation for more people to hear about this. Yep. So one thing that was so interesting to me is that your approach to sales and how you teach people and how you engage team is something that I’ve never seen before. And I want to give the caveat to say that this isn’t knocking any system out there outside of what you do. But there’s a lot of sales practices that are kind of standard run of the mill. There hasn’t been a lot of reinvention to it. I mean, I think back to my early days, I was in college, and I was learning how to sell and jewelry and a lot of those principles. Yeah, some of the foundations still apply, but the world has changed. So Brian, can you share for our advisor audience like what are some of the things that you’re seeing working really well, in your sales teaching? That’s just killing it that’s driving it home that’s helping people grow?

Bryan 9:19

100%? What a great, great topic. Great question, and the advisory world so I’ll go on a little like a rant in defense of all the advisors, listening, world changes for sure your job gets tough. The job is tough. That’s a tough job. It seems like everyone thinks it’s like oh, you just make all this money. It is so hard. It’s such a grind. There’s such a turnover early in the industry, correct me if I’m wrong, but I know about it, right. It’s really hard a stick it out and you get paid to stick it out and you you do do you can make a really great life for yourself. You’re massively inhibited by your regulations and your regulatory boards. I get that I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. But man, there’s so much knowledge that can be shared from advisers that people need as well. So young people, so I’m so happy, but you’re doing this podcast. So that even even though it’s for advisors, you know, we need to learn to reach an audience in a different way. So that’s just my little thing I get really especially I’m a big LinkedIn guy, and you guys are, ladies are so limited on LinkedIn, which what you can say and can’t say from the regulation. It just drives me crazy. Anyway, that’s my rant. What’s working, I’m gonna go two totally ends of the spectrum here. Okay, I’m gonna go the easy one first process, process, process, discipline to process discipline to process discipline to process. And I’m talking sales process here, I’m not talking mechanical. Oh, when I transfer assets from one person, I’ve got to do these regulatory authorities form not that process, I’m talking about the process of finding and acquiring a new family to advise, that’s the process I’m talking about. And most people have some element of a process. But the problem we get into is the process that they have is usually steps in the system. So we have oh, in our initial factfinding meeting, and then we do this, look under the hood, health, financial health check. And then we do this other thing, I’m talking about the discipline underneath that little bitty tiny things underneath that. I’ll give you an easy example. Now, here’s the warning for your audience. Some of these things I teach, or I call them, we have a Duff factor in our work. So a lot of people see our tools and like what da, the problem is, if I audit you on the dust stuff, most people don’t pass the audit, they know they’re supposed to do these little tactical things, but they don’t, or they do them 98% And not the extra. Here’s one very tactical for everybody. Extreme calendar clarity, extreme calendar clarity is a thing that most people don’t operate. And what most people will do is they’ll in meetings and they’ll say, hey, well, I’ve got all your information, I’ve got everything I need that we’re going to do the financial health check. So let me go through this. And then we’ll get back to here next week sometime and schedule our next sit down. That’s not what we do. What we teach is we set that meeting while we’re sitting there very tactical. If we don’t have a date set, we teach a tool called calendar first, where instead of emailing people and saying, Hey, Brittany, here’s some times I’m available, let me know an email, and you email me back, everybody hates email, pink hates it, everybody hates it, it’s a big waste of time. So what we do instead is employ a tool called calendar first, where instead of doing that, I just send you an invite with a three point agenda. It’s very precise, our stuff is very precise, you send an invite a three point agenda, you’ll see if you have a ghost a deal, you’ve got a family you’ve been working with, and they’ve just kind of blown you off or got over the holidays, and it slowed down, you just send them an invite with a three point agenda, you’d be amazed six and a half out of 10 of those will accept that invite even you’ve been chasing them on email and text and everything else sending the calendar first, they literally accepted or offer a new time, you know, within receiving the invite. It’s it’s Wow. So process is the thing. Discipline is the path to freedom. People think discipline is restrictive. So you think I’m like, like, we do a thing. And we there’s a eating plan called whole 30. So my wife and I do it every January. It’s very, very restrictive in its core. What it does, though, is it creates immense freedom because I don’t need to think about what to eat. I asked two questions. Does it grow in the ground? Or does it have a mom, if it grows in the ground or has a mom I can eat it, period into story. I’m free. I don’t have to worry about I don’t have to read labels or anything. And so think about your advisors, those of you listening here, think about how much discipline you have to process and to what depth Do you have the discipline and the difference? I say like NFL stuff, the difference when people say what’s a difference between college big 10 sec, and the National Football League, it’s that 1% On the discipline to the process. It’s the little quick step. It’s the it’s the receiver in practice that drops one pass, when nobody else drops in, that person gets cut. That’s like NFL we talked about in the intro the pro stuff. That’s what it is. I love your advisors that are listening to this to think what is pro means to me? And how do I need to amp my discipline up in the details to get there that is working? For sure. Can I go the other end of the spectrum? Let’s go to the other end of the spectrum. Yeah, the other end of the spectrum is head heart and soul. This is the whoo part. This is the real engine. This is the stuff that lines us up in here. Most people don’t operate in sales or in financial advising for how they sell and go to market with a set of guiding principles. They have moral things like Oh, I’m like everybody has integrity and there’s right often or integrity or honest like who isn’t so it’s it’s kind of I hope every financial adviser I know they’re not all but the vast majority are but you don’t need to say that I hope you don’t need to say that, you know deeper than that are some things that we have 10 guiding principles we teach all of our clients, I’ll give you a couple of them here that I think will resonate with your audience. Okay, the first the big three, I call them the this is the Trinity holy trinity of the head, heart soul abundance, detachment and intention, abundance, detachment and intention, abundance, detachment and intention if I operate my sales strategy and all those sales processes that in discipline to if I operate those with this underlying foundation of a an abundant mentality in my market that I know there’s a lot of people that need my help and always will be and always have been and I am have a healthy sense of detachment from outcomes. Some people are gonna say yes, move their assets to me, some are not some are gonna leave me that’s part of the natural breathing of the world. And then my intention is always clean. I’m always after the good of my client, even if it doesn’t include me. And I think that’s a really good thing. I think sometimes our intention, so if I’m an advisor, you come to me, you’re like, Okay, brands got nice little business probably got some assets, couple nickels to rub together kind of client I would want, that’s good. But if that intention comes to me if my if your energy, if I feel you trying to pull me in, I might resist that you might look at my stuff, the best thing I think you could do as an advisor is look at my stuff and go, you’re in great shape. Dude, you got some great choices here. I don’t think I could offer you anything else unless your advisor, you know, screw something up or something changes, I’d stay put, I would tell everyone in the earth about everybody. I’m here to talk to these people. They’re awesome. I’m not using them because I’m good. But they told me I was good. They’re so great to deal with the experience was wonderful versus well, you tried to put some, you know, big insurance policy and take half my assets and put it in this thing that I’m like, I don’t need that. I’m too young for that. You know, I mean, I don’t know the business really well. So I’m probably screwing that up. But no,

Brittany 15:50

you’re you’re actually hitting the nail on the head. And, you know, one thing we talk about a lot on this podcast in all of our coaching programs to with advisors, is that you have to lead with value first. Yes. And when we’re pushing, and I mean, you said it so perfectly that if you can feel that energy, you know, it becomes very obvious what a person’s intentions are. I actually had a conversation, Brian and I other Brian Brian’s, another one of the founders of ultimate advisor coaching, we were in a conversation the other day about energy. And this is actually kind of funny, and I promise, there’s a point to this, I love it, we were talking about how there’s like different points in the world, that are known for having like exponential energy. So there’s like this rock and a park on the East Coast. And there’s some place over in the UK, and there’s a place in Mexico and they say like energy is abundant there. And you know, Brian asked me, he said, Well, do you believe in that stuff? And I said, Yes. And here’s why I believe in energy. Because think about it, when you are in a conversation and you are lit up and you are so excited, like your body can feel it. Right? Like you can feel that surge, when somebody comes to you and their intentions are not pure, you can feel that. You know, I’ll speak for myself as a woman, if I am walking in a dark street, and I come across an alley and I’m traveling on business or something walking home from dinner at night. And I started getting an uneasy feeling that’s energy. So all these things when we’re talking about energy, that’s so irrelevant. And I think that when it comes to sales, that the person on the receiving end of it can absolutely feel, are you just trying to meet a quota? Or are you trying to actually serve and help them? So Brian, I think just with all that being said, and you kind of go into these two ends of the spectrum, I want to pull back into this notion of what it means to be a pro, right? So you’re kind of you’re setting the stage here. And you’re saying like this Holy Trinity and how you lead and how you show up and the actions you take and all these things. One thing we hear a lot in the adviser world is that it can be really hard to decide like, how do you even start your visioning process because there’s so many different options out there. You know, there’s there’s the EOS model, which I know you’re super familiar with. There’s tools with Strategic Coach, which you’re very familiar with. There are a million different systems, there’s vivid vision, there’s all these different things. So how the heck do you start and what’s a simplified process that you could lay out for somebody to set those intentions and make sure they’re covering all bases Robbo

Bryan 18:26

question and I want to go back just because I loved and if you’re listening to this, go back to what Brittany said your clients can feel your intention they can you that you can go I’m a nerd with this stuff. I’m a quantum physics guy, you can go this is science stuff, if you can prove that there’s energy that’s going on. At a quantum level for all of us. It’s proven like science stuff. I’m so glad you said that because you feel it don’t you you just feel it’s a book called The Gift of fear by the way that talks about this the gift of fear, just what you said you just feel it in tuition rates there. So remember to think of the energy you’re emoting to others. Okay, let’s go down to how to pick the thing when people get stuck if you’re listening to this and like Britney said, which one do I pick I actually have people start the on the other end of that sometimes it’s easier to pick what won’t work for me and start this to start to narrow the list down too often people like look at things and they want to make a balanced scorecard and let’s do some criteria and plus minus stuff. That’s okay. Oftentimes to make it easier for you to narrow the field is to go you know what, that’s just not blind zebra sales operating system is not my thing. You know, Strategic Coach is not my thing ELS Okay, so I’m gonna put I’m gonna evaluate it against some other things. So try to strike things first and narrow the field so you have a smaller pool that’s the first thing I always tell people when people say like they’re going to switch jobs like I’m like what are you everyone says what do you want to do? I start with what do you not want to do? It’s easier to answer I definitely don’t want to do this. I’m not going to travel I’m not I don’t want Street Commission. That’s easier to say what I don’t want that what I do want, and it narrows. So that’s the first bit there. Then I’m a I’m a huge fan. Of this comes from football. We have we have a phrase in Football I think will resonate with the group is called be wrong, strong be wrong, strong, gay, be wrong, strong means if I see a foul and I’m going to make some decision on the football field, right, and, you know, hopefully it’s not even Vikings person. I don’t even know what

Brittany 20:13

I don’t even want to talk about the Vikings. Okay, let’s get past, my

Bryan 20:17

bad. That’s on me I should have known better I know that time of year and I thought I see a bow holding foul and I throw on boot. There’s no doubt and I throw my flag what I’ve got, I’ll turn on my referee, I’ll give a preliminary signal holding 72 offense, I may go watch that film back. And it’s the worst call in the history of the National Football League. But you know what, when I called it, everybody knew that I had what I had, what I don’t do is sit there like, Oh, did he hold him? I mean, he kind of grabbed him a little bit. Maybe I should possibly drop my flag. That’s not what I do. And so as you’re doing your vetting, what do you not want start there. Next, I do like criteria. I like balanced scorecards for myself of things that are meaningful to me. And then I bounce those out. And then I pick one once I pick one, amen, I’m an all in guy. If you go Strategic Coach, go Strategic Coach. Now, I’m not saying that if you go Strategic Coach, you can’t learn something from Blaine zebra, you know, you can learn other things. Just make sure that you’re grounded in something, I think that’s really important to do this as your anchor. And then the other things go around the angkor wat you don’t do as dabble in all, I’m not a fan. I know people say this, you know, get get your Pebble, get your rock from each little thing. And then he got like a big bag of rocks. I’m like, I don’t know about that you don’t I mean, rather say this is my thing, and I can tweak it. But if it doesn’t align doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t not in there. So that’s my take on that. And

Brittany 21:31

I am so glad that you went that direction because I can speak from my own like personal experience too. And I know I can speak on behalf of, you know, I think about a few of our advisors and our last mastermind session last month. We were talking about this. And for me, squirrely entrepreneurial brain. I love new ideas. I love new people. And I get so excited, right? It’s easy to get that way. But I’ve gone through a practice of sloughing off. So I have actually come out of programs that I’m like, You know what, they’re great. And I love the people that do it. And it’s brilliant information. But is it really moving me towards that bigger vision that I have for my future? Probably not, it’s probably more of a distraction. That’s good. I think that sloughing and that deciding what you don’t want before you can go all in on what you do want is such a brilliant advice and such brilliant, you know, practical, tactical things that people can take with them right now. So Brian, you said something earlier, and you were talking about how, you know, you had your first business at 26. And at 27 and a half, you were bankrupt. And all you had is from the ground up to start, right? Yep. So I would imagine that over the course of your career, you maybe had a few more peaks and valleys over half a couple, maybe like one or two? A couple. So I would love to hear you know, how do you get yourself out of kind of the funk? How do you get yourself through the tough times? You know, you mentioned how you know in the NFL, it’s that person who doesn’t make that drop? That’s who gets pulled forward. So how do you stay mentally strong? How do you move forward during those times that are real, real tough? Yeah,

Bryan 23:12

that’s a great great question. Full of full of valleys full of peaks full of valleys without question they just as part of the life like I said, the natural breathing. And I made some, you know, have some massive valleys, I split my family up horrible, my son sitting right behind the, you know, the camera here, it’s it may cause a lot of pain a lot of people’s lives. So to take inventory of that and what happened, and then found a path and a way to live life a different way. And then I do that every day to try to make it better. But I found in that one of the people in my support group had a little phrase so in America, you know, we’re taught when he get knocked down, get up when you get knocked down, you get up you fight back, he said, Maybe we should when we get knocked down, stay down for a minute and just feel the pain and it was really hard for me to do because I love to get out of the pain climb out of it. Let’s get the good and positive everything’s good and okay, that’s kind of how I was wired. And that’s what got me into some some hot water and some trouble and things like that. I’m like, No, sometimes I just have to sit here in crap if you’re explicit rated but you get it right. It’s like, you just have to sit here in it and it sucks and it does and it’s okay to sit there and just feel that stuff and you will eventually start to move through that but I think sometimes we try to mask that with all sorts of things with food, booze, money and drugs and stuff like gambling, whatever else and then we try to you know, numb that and move and you got to learn to be okay in the pain a little bit no matter how do I give you a heavy example there’s some lighter ones, but no matter what and like okay, this sucks lose a huge client, my number one asset based, you know, I got 100 million assets under management and my $20 million asset client leaves a huge hit. Ah, it’s awful. It’s terrible. Sit here for a minute. Okay, that sucks. Why this sucks. This feels feel rejected feel like I’m not good enough. Maybe I don’t belong in that that nine figure club and just live in that stuff for a moment before you start to work your way out of it. I think that’s the first thing and then I’m a little anti nine. I’m so Tony Robbins. A lot of people know Tony Robbins are the big motivational guy walk on hot coals. And he has this concept called massive action take massive action towards your goal. I’m a fan of taking Ed bitty tiny action. In this case, I don’t think massive action can serve us really well. As well as small steps can be a little cheeky thing. I always say, people talk about their health, I start working out. I’m like, You know what, first step, put your shoes on, just put your running shoes on and sit there on the couch with a bag of Cheetos or Doritos, whatever, watch TV, just have your running shoes on. And then at some point, just stand up and walk into the kitchen and just stand up. I think the little steps are the better the best antidote for that valley to feel at first and then take the little step out like, okay, Screw this $20 million client left, I’m gonna go find four more screw them, it’s too much man, slow down, right? Just just work your way out of it slowly. And then I think you have a better foundation, you’re on better ground, we need to do that if you do it for the right reasons. So that’s my advice on that. Feel it for a minute. And then slow step out of it.

Brittany 25:59

it. You know, I think there’s there’s so much to be said there too. And I think about actually a friend of ours and the founder of Genius Network, brilliant mastermind for entrepreneurs, Joe Polish. So he has said multiple times during our times together and those mastermind meetings that, you know, the most accepted form of addiction is workaholism. I think that what you just laid out, there is an exact representation, because you kind of went through this gamut of you know, people kind of covered the pain, right. So you just go all in and whatever your advice is, well, for a lot of high achievers, it’s really easy to consume yourself in your work. And I think about you know, the ability to control your environment. So a lot of times at work, when you’re the boss, you get to control your your, you’re helping autosave you tell people what to do. Like you’re guiding people, you’re making the decisions, you’re the ultimate decision maker, and then at home, sometimes you’re the garbage woman or the garbage decision. And so it’s really easy to throw yourself into that. So I think that you you just kind of encapsulated so beautifully, like, slow down, I see so much. And I’m not going to squirrel on this, I promise but I got to point it out is there’s so much out there. And I believe this is toxic, where people are like, leave your nine to five, rip the band aid off, get out of there. And it’s like, well, let’s have a plan. Let’s make sure your family’s taken care of. And let’s ensure that you actually have something to go to. Same thing with advisors serving clients that are going into retirement, you know, a lot of our audience members, that’s the niche, because that’s where the money is, you know, they’ve accumulated up to a point and you don’t often see a very successful retirement, when somebody just rips the band aid off with no plan. I mean, what happens is, as people end up, you know, they regress, right? Like, they end up bored, they ended up tired, their health declines. And then there are mortality rates. And I mean, I could go down this whole rabbit hole. But you know, I think that pause that intentionality. And you know, just really, you know, making sure that you give yourself a moment to kind of come back to the top. I think that’s just beautiful advice. It’s fantastic.

Bryan 28:02

Yes. And I could see how it directly applies both of the advisors listening here, but also to their client, because they’re playing they’re playing counselor a lot as a financial advisor, especially later in life. Yeah, you know, people and couples and things like that they’re really a bit of a like a therapist as much as they are. But it’s all advisor. Yeah, the tools. And the idea is to say, Let’s just hang on a second, like you said, Let’s just slow down and take our time here versus like, cut the cord,

Brittany 28:26

you know, so I do want to go the direction too, because one of the things that pulled me into the notion of blind zebra, I was actually on a call with another advisor, friend, advisor, team member friend, and they’re like, you gotta check this out. Bernie, like, this is awesome stuff. And he said, literally, he said, he’s like, I read through it, and I was immediately pissed. And I’m like, why? He’s like, I was pissed, because I didn’t think of it first.

Bryan 28:51

That’s the biggest complaint and get it.

Brittany 28:53

Right. He’s like, it just seems so obvious. And one of the biggest struggles in the advisor world that we hear consistently, is this whole notion of, you know, what are the advisor metrics? So you kind of talked Brian about a scorecard. You talked a little bit about, you know, how that’s important. But it’s also you know, the Holy Trinity and making sure you’re alive. So could you give me just based on like the wind zebra principles, a couple things that you would say, okay, advisor who is looking to grow through a ceiling of complexity, is looking to just kill it at this next level, what’s maybe like one or two things that they could do to immediately sharpen their scorecard?

Bryan 29:33

Bravo on that good question. Oh, sorry, this where he gets stuck on the question like, What would you do, Britney? I’m kidding. Yes. Get back to the host like that’s a good question. Why don’t you do is a really good give me a pause to think so let me tell you what, what’s coming to my mind. I always start in the guiding principle. That’s one thing I always certainly got to get my head heart and soul right before I go to the action or the language so the first thing I get, I get a real healthy sense and dose of abundance and detachment together first because I want to get through The ceiling. That’s my moving through that. And so what do I have to do I have to see the the abundance above the ceiling, the abundance above the ceiling through the clouds. I also though have to look down and say I’ve got some things weighing me down that I have to let go of. That’s the detachment. So a very tactical thing. This is so easy to prescribe advice, especially when it’s not my industry, but we do this for our sales clients that aren’t advisors also. So it fits. We do a once a month funnel cleanse, it happens on the last Thursday of every month in the afternoon. That’s all on purpose. For my b2b sales clients, what we do is we cleanse our open sales funnel of debtor stale deals, things that are just slogging along and not getting any any action we just sent him a really polite email say Brittany you know had a trouble getting connected here I’m assuming got bigger fish to fry. I’m going to cut it loose for now stay in touch down the road and wish you lots of success love Brian. And then I go to my my CRM, my Salesforce, my HubSpot, or whatever I go close last Britney, and it’s out of my life, okay, you’re not out of my life. But the deal is yes, and I can always restart if it needs to restart but it’s gone. But it needs to be physically gone closed, lost here be wrong trunk close loss very definitive now like, well, you know, Brittany can still come around, I’ll still keep in touch with her. That’s, that anchors you down under your ceiling, I have to jettison, I have to let those things go to release weight. So I can go up. Here’s the part that’s hard for financial advisors, I think all of you all of you have a group of clients that if they left, you would secretly be happy, because they’ve got a low asset value, they take ton of your time, they don’t take your advice. But for whatever reason you’re attached to them, could be your brother, sister in law, could be a family member could be someone you grew up with, you’re like, oh my gosh, if they left him, you know, yet you still hang on to him, you still hang on to him, let’s check our intention there. Let’s be real, right? It might be time to go. And I don’t like the I hear this a lot. I hear it in the financial advisory space somewhat like I fired a client, I fired my clients. I don’t that doesn’t feel good to me who wants to be fired, it’s bad intention. What I like to do though, is help people move to a better place for them and for us, and we used to match and fit up and now we don’t need more. And it’s not a bad no one’s right and wrong. It’s just we’re going to a place and they’re going to a place and the places we’re going now don’t fit anymore. They used to fit. And now they don’t no one’s fault. No problem. So we do a little exit plan for them to move them to a different advisor, maybe a peer, maybe a junior, maybe someone getting whatever and I start to I start to trim the bottom. There’s a book called necessary endings necessary endings by Henry Cloud, it’s a really great book, Henry Cloud is a combo, kind of self help business, Christian author all weaved into one you kind of can’t tell any of the above until you like read into it necessary endings is what it says everything in life ends everything. And we see sometimes earnings is bad, Oh, I lost a client, I lost a family. He looks that as good. He calls that in his book pruning. So I would give the advice to your listeners that you need to systematically at least once a month prune your portfolio, someone is going to roll you know for whatever reason, it could be someone with a high AUM number or high asset number, portfolio number, and they’re just a pain in the tail. They’re like, I just can’t I don’t want to deal with them anymore. Because they’re waiting it out. You’re taking your time space, this is physics, space gets filled. I promise you, all of you listening, if you create space in your client portfolio, it will get filled, I promise you it will and it won’t if it don’t it won’t if it don’t as on purpose southern Indiana talk once a day, so rhymes. Okay, so that to me, the greatest thing I think financial advisors could do that would help them break through the ceiling is to cut some things loose and prune their portfolio for really good reasons and trust in the abundance of the market that new better things will come their way. I think

Brittany 33:35

that is absolutely brilliant and so gold and I can’t tell you how many times the conversations come up about that’s kind of on them. And that’s you anymore. So I think you’re dead on so that’s great. I’m betting Brian that our advisors tuning in right now are going I need to learn more about what this guy does and how he serves. So before I asked my last couple questions, can you share how can people reach you get a hold of you follow you all of that good stuff?

Bryan 34:02

Absolutely. So my give up my personal email on purpose. It’s Brian with a Y B ry A n at blind dash shift put the dash in there, blind blnd dash zebra.com You can shoot me an email if you ever want to talk or learn more. Someone either me or my team will get with you for sure. I’m a junkie on LinkedIn I’m all over LinkedIn all the time. So by all means please follow me and say hi if you do if you do send a request put a little note in there the Herbie on the Britney Anderson show what is the show called about it

Brittany 34:29 

What’s your ultimate advisor? Advisor podcast

Bryan 34:31

sorry I forgot that in the spirit of being transparently Yeah, but so if he wasn’t the ultimate advisor podcast make sure the I heard you talking to Brittany do that too. And then you can go to Brian neal.com P ry n n e l e that’s where I do my keynote speaking stuff and then blind se br dot coms website where we have the plug our our newest we have the blind zebras sales operating system is the thing we’re bringing to the world now. And it is all the tools that I’m talking about in really quick notion here in depth instructional design step by step instructions tells you how to do sales so that those visions come come clean. So love to talk to anyone who’s listening and by all means tell tell me that you heard about me through here so then we’re instant friends. Because I know no one hanging out listening to Brittany’s gonna be bad energy. 

Brittany 35:14

I know that right? All right, people don’t let me down here.

Bryan 35:17

Push you bring you know, hey, can you can you delete our episode? Get a lot of traffic here that I’m not bad energy traffic.

Brittany 35:24

People here reaching out?

Bryan 35:36

good. This is good. So go are going to therapy most so you’re my therapist, and I’m being your patient. I am looking forward to learning because I have the affliction of the addiction of work. And I’ve gotten some messages. I had a mentor for last couple of years who told me you gotta slow down. Dude, you run hard are hard at work. I work the weekends and the NFL. It’s a hard job rough and NFL. I do keynote speaking, I get five kids, you know, I’m running hard. I love it. I love it. And so I am looking forward to in 2020 for finding my way into a bit more of a calm presence to learn to pull back a little bit. I just literally just started that just got some feedback from one of my good friends, my refereeing career, he’s like, Dude, you run hard, you slow down. Yeah, I’m like, that’s such good. I gotta listen to that. So I’m really looking forward to that. I don’t know where it’s gonna take me. I literally started like yesterday, you know, as,

Brittany 38:3

gosh, you know, I love that. And here’s a brilliant takeaway, actually, what you just shared for our listeners think about the level of courage and transparency that it takes to show up on a podcast that is listened to nationwide, and be like, I intrinsically think I’m lazy. And I don’t really know that I’m lovable or like, totally, like, it’s a real deal. Gosh, and it’s the real deal. And here’s the thing that I honestly truly believe in the work that we do. And what you just did there to kind of help close us out is that the more we can show up in a vulnerable space and a vulnerable state, the more transparent that we can be. My belief is that it opens up the groundwork for people to share things with you that they normally would not share. So you get into a situation where you’re in adviser mode, and you’re talking the numbers and the markets and even the goals right? Like the because people use the excuse, like I talk to my clients about goals, and it’s like, well, but how much do you actually open up space for them to truly be transparent and share like their deepest desires with you? Yes, that’s where people make momentum. And my belief is that by being vulnerable and transparent, just like you did there at the end, Brian, that’s really where the magic lies. So I thank you for taking it that direction. That was awesome. You’re awesome. and

Bryan 40:00

do thank you. And I think for financial advisors, the ones that can do what you just said that people will throw money at them. They don’t need to go through charts and you know this and returns, they don’t need to do that. I need to hear how you grew up with money and what it means to you and what you’re scared of. And what you’re embarrassed by and shameful. And I’m going to tell you mine first, they will throw money at you telling you they will. Great, Brett, really good.

Brittany 40:21

100% Well, Bryan, thank you sincerely for being on the show today for pouring your heart and soul out and the value that you bring to help people not just grow in their sales but really grow as humans. I’m great. 100%

Bryan 40:36

Same for you. Love what you’re doing. Bravo. Huge podcast fan. So kudos to you for doing this. And we listen. 

Brittany 40:42

So that rounds out today’s episode of The Ultimate advisor podcast. We’re gonna catch you right back here next week. Hey there, Brittany Anderson here. If you are loving what you’re hearing on our ultimate advisor podcast, don’t keep us a secret. Share us with other advisors that you think would benefit from the messages that you are hearing. The easiest way to do that is to simply send them to ultimate advisor podcast.com. And if you want to learn a few other ways that we could potentially serve you as an advisor, go check out ultimate advisor mastermind.com. As always, we are so happy to have you here with us as part of the ultimate advisor community and we look forward to a continued relationship