Episode 238 – Get Involved in Diverse Perspectives: Surround Yourself with Big Thinkers

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 1:07
Hello, and welcome back. This is Brittany Anderson with your Ultimate Advisor Podcast. I’ve got with me the fabulous Bryan Sweet and the fabulous Draye Redfern. We’re gonna go in continue into this 12 week series on what creates or what constitutes a top advisor. So today we are on episode number seven, which is that top advisors, they’re open minded, and they never let their thinking become insular. Now, if you have been with us for a while now, you know that we talk quite a bit on the topic of masterminds of surrounding yourself with people that are big thinkers that are going to help push you outside of your box that are going to give you different perspective and really help you not only grow your practice, but grow as an individual as well. So I thought that today an excellent one to kick us off, because he is the king of being involved in masterminds of really expanding his thinking and of never thinking small. Bryan, I would love for you just to touch on how, you know, you can’t say enough about what Joining masterminds has really done for you and the opportunities that it’s opened. So I would love for you to share kind of your journey on what it means to you to not let your thinking become insular because you’re the king of big thinking.

Bryan Sweet 2:34
This is such a interesting topic. And we have alluded to it a number of times in the past during these podcasts. But I do think it’s actually, if not the biggest thing, one of the biggest things that leads to success, because you’re only as good as one the people that you hang around and to the thoughts that you allow that enter your mind. And if you’re never out exploring and being exposed to new and interesting thoughts, concepts and ideas, everything that you do is going to stay status quo and very stale. And so you’ll probably continue to hear us talk about this, you know, many more times. But I would just tell you, it’s such a key to success. And the more I get involved in masterminds, or outside groups, study groups, things where the people that are part of it are excelling, exceeding and add a new level that I would like to learn or be at that level in that particular aspect. I’m nothing but good things can can happen because of that. And the more you surround yourself with that type of person. And as Draye alluded to, you know, kind of be the dumbest guy in the group, if you will. It’s just amazing. You know, what your eyes see and your ears here. And then what that creates in your brain that actually allows things to be completed. And if we personally were to say, you know, what’s the biggest reason for your success? Personally, I would have to say just belonging to all of those groups. And, you know, we’re kind of talking to the choir with Draye. And Brittany, we’re all big believers in that, but Draye was just telling me a story before we got on the podcast today that, you know, he just took that maybe to another level and, and him and his wife drove to an interesting program. So maybe I’ll jump in and let you kind of tell a little bit of that story and some other thoughts, Draye

Draye Redfern 4:49
Thanks, Brian. You know, it’s one of these things where I think that the idea of a mastermind and outside groups to impact your intelligence you Your idea processing and really make you think bigger should be an absolute prerequisite for almost any any business owner. But there’s a there’s a psychologist who did this study on the difference between an entrepreneur versus a washer printer. And the biggest difference was that was entrepreneurs had never made a point of no return. Whereas many entrepreneurs made some investments, whether that was starting the creation of an entity, or maybe their point of no return was when they finally hired their first employee. That was the point of no return. And I think that for, for me, my point of no return was, was joining a mastermind. And this was five or six years, probably blocked by six or eight years ago, I joined a local mastermind here in Texas. And I was just around so many bigger, bigger thinkers than anyone else that I had ever surrounded myself with. And that was just a complete game changing moment for you. That was my point of no return that really showed that I needed to, to be in business and doing these sorts of things. But I would take that a step further. Because, you know, that was one perspective. But as time goes on, you get to you realize what else is out there and you get to join other mastermind groups or other collectives or whatever you may want to call them to make you think bigger and bigger and bigger. And so as a result, my perspective of business and my perspective, and my, my thought of what’s possible, this is has grown dramatically over the last 10 years, sometimes we get very linear thinking, being in the financial advisor world, it’s, I need to know that this particular one thing is going to ROI in the next 90 days. But it doesn’t always happen that way with you know, when you when you sort of surround yourself with bigger thinkers, they’re no longer insular, it has a long tail effect. And so sometimes, you know, ideas or concepts that I learned in a mastermind or event, two, or three or four years ago, I wasn’t at a point in my life yet where that actually made sense or fully computed. However, when I found myself in new situations, you know, with a growing family and a new board wanted, all of a sudden, I recalled back to some of those notes. And it completely it allowed me to shortcut the time so much faster. But I take that a step further is that I am more than happy to pay for any continuing education for any events, or seminars or travel or anything for anyone on my team. Because I know how important it is for myself not to only be in the own idea vein that I that I find myself in that there might be other facets of the business that they are just absolutely enamored with, and they love, but because if I’m the only one driving the ship of world, they’re going to attend these events or these masterminds, then I’m doing my team a disservice by not actually allowing them to improve their own education, that will obviously impact the business. And so that’s another thing I would say that if you have a team around you, you’re investing them through training and your current methods, and your current systems and your current processes, which you know, is absolutely wonderful. And I think you need to do those things. But I’d also take that next step and say, You’re second in command, or your third and command or maybe even someone else down the line needs to be in a position where they can also onboard new information because you could be open minded, but if you constantly are only limited to one vein, or one stream of thinking, you’re not probably maximizing your organization is good if you can, and there’s a quote, there’s plenty of other things, we could probably unpack there, Brittany. But there’s a quote that I think is just so impactful. Maybe I’ve said it on the on the podcast before or not. But there’s a writer and philosopher named Alain de baton, as a French guy. And he has the quote that says anyone who isn’t embarrassed by who they were last year, probably isn’t learning enough. And that is just so impactful. Because I think that is the mentality that Brittany has and Bryan have that I have and that I want everyone on my team to have because I want them to be embarrassed of who they were last year, because they’ve grown so much and they’re a completely different person. So that being said, Brittany, I think that that’s, that’s at least my take on on not becoming insular.

Brittany Anderson 9:01
Hey, Brittany here, stopping and pausing for a moment to talk about something that we’ve had so many of you inquire about and that is our Ultimate Advisor Mastermind. Now, I’m going to start by saying if you are not a growth minded individual, if you are not somebody who’s focused on taking your business to the next level, if you’re not focused on engaging your team, and helping them to help you in turn, level up the business, the service model, how you provide that wow experience to clients. If those things are not your focus, just fast forward right now, because the ultimate advisor mastermind would not then be for you. However, if you are looking to take your business to the next level, if you want to experience exponential growth and feel supported along the way, if you want to start working smarter and not harder. If you want to help your team members to work within the God given talents that they were provided, and use those skill sets in a way they haven’t yet to help support you in your business, to help them realize their biggest goals, their biggest dreams. If you want creative approaches to marketing, I know that can be an intimidating word. But we’re not talking here about the fancy Facebook stuff, or, you know, the latest and greatest, but rather looking at how you can market what you do, how you can express how you’re different, and how you can truly differentiate yourself in a crowded market space. If those are problems you’re looking to solve, then you absolutely want to go check out ultimate advisor mastermind.com To learn more about how we can help you on your path and journey to growth. You know, you brought up some really good stuff that I’m going to circle back to you in a second here. The whole concept of teams, we’re gonna we’re gonna get on that in a minute. But I brought up the definition of insular thinking, okay, so insular in itself, by definition, is being ignorant of or uninterested in cultures, ideas, or people’s outside one’s own experience. So think about this for a minute. If you are not, and take yourself out of this equation, if you’re not exposing your team, to the big thinking, to opportunities to grow, like like Draye, so eloquently stated, if you’re not exposing them, they really don’t have a choice but to be ignorant because they’re in their own position, right. They’re in their own world, if you as their leader, if you as their boss, per se, even though I hate that word, if you as their leader are exposing them to amazing opportunities, that is going to help shift the way that they think it’s going to open their mind to a whole different thought process. That’s how you overcome the trap of insular thinking, not just for yourself, but for your company as a whole. So I think it’s so important because we hear in dealing with not just financial advisors, but other business owners overall that we work with, in our coaching, you’ll see that they oftentimes say, Well, I just want my team members to think outside the box to think big, and it’s like, Okay, I agree with you. That’s a really good goal. So what are you doing to help put the right tools in their toolbox? Well, I don’t know. I mean, I have the checklists and everything that they can go off of, and I have internal processes. And it’s like, well, what the heck, if you’re not exposing them to these other opportunities, and it doesn’t necessarily have to depending upon where you’re at in your business. We always recommend allocating funds intentionally to Team growth. But that can be through local individuals, too, right. So maybe you have a second in command that goes with you to some of these conferences, or masterminds, or trainings or seminars, whatever you want to call them. So maybe you have a second in command that you physically have join you, then your training plan in that and in your opportunity to expand the rest of your team’s mindset is to make sure that second in command comes back and implement those key things with your team, right. So the message doesn’t get lost. Because as we know, as a financial advisor, especially as a very driven one, if you’re listening to this podcast, I would guess that you, you embrace and embody the characteristics of a top adviser. But what happens is, is you go to a conference, you go to a mastermind, you go to a meeting, and you’re like, This is amazing, there are so many amazing ideas, there’s all this good stuff, you get back to your office, and you’re onto shiny object number 421 for the day, right, and some of that gets lost. So part of your plan in creating an open minded culture, is just to make sure that the stuff is getting communicated, is to make sure that it’s getting brought to your whole entire team, it’s not stopping with you, and it’s not stopping with your second in command. So that is so, so important. But on the back end of this, I want to talk about a little bit of a danger with it. And I know Brian will attest to this and he’s gonna get a chuckle out of it. So as part of my own journey in my career in working with Brian, he has absolutely been the one to bring some of these mastermind opportunities to me, and through that through my own experience. I uncovered that I love coaching. I love being in front of people. I love speaking all of this stuff came about because of being part of a mastermind because of continuing my education because As a bit continuing on that path of, hey, I want to be around big thinkers like Draye said, it’s like the point of no return, once you’re exposed to it, you just can’t ever go back. So part of this is, is that if you’re exposing your, as you’re exposing your team, to thinking big to ideas on how to run a business on how they, it’s so much more than just their individual position in your firm, be prepared for them to skyrocket, right, deeper prepared for them to take off and really find what their true calling is, that’s actually an amazing thing for you to do. And to be able to be a testament to, in helping people live the life that they are so excited about, they can’t wait to jump out of bed in the morning. So let’s like the second effect of having an open minded culture, it’s going to encourage your team to do the same and that is powerful. That is an amazing thing that you can offer that money cannot pay for, right, there’s no price you can put on that for helping people truly find their calling in life. And that will happen when you expose people to big thinkers. So that in a nutshell, Bryan, Draye, is there anything that either of you would like to add, before we kind of round out today’s episode,

Bryan Sweet 16:13
Only thing that I could think of Britney is make it a part of your journey of each of your staff members each year to purposely help them take it to the next level and learn something new, as I heard you, you know, continuing to describe, you know, your journey and just other team members. You know, they don’t necessarily know what to do and where to go and, and the the classes to take. But I can tell you no matter what they are, when they come back, it’s always so enlightening, and they’re so glad that they got it done. And they learned so much. And it does cause them to think differently. And we’ve actually had other team members that learn things about themselves that that’s my unique ability, or that’s what I love to do more. And we’ve changed job responsibilities because of that, because some people have duties in their jobs that they necessarily don’t like, and things that they love. And the more you can get them to always be doing things that they love makes, you know coming to work a pleasure each day. So push each of your teammates along a little bit every year, and you will be amazed at the growth that you’ll see going forward.

Brittany Anderson 17:33
I think that is so relevant and so, so true. So to wrap up today’s top takeaways, you know, the number one and again, we’ve talked about this before, it’s not a different story. But it is so important, and we believe in it so much. Number one takeaway is figure out how you can surround yourself with big thinkers make that that choice, take that first step to involve yourself, whether it’s a mastermind, it’s a seminar, it’s a coaching program, whatever it is, surround yourself with big thinkers. The second takeaway is get your team on that same path, right? Bryan mentioned, having it be part of your team members journey to really help them also surround themselves with those big thinkers. And three to kind of tie it all together is just make it part of your culture. That’s what you do as a business. That’s who you are, right? Now, that’s not going to just attract top talent that’s going to attract really, really great clients to who believe in what you do. So that wraps up episode seven of our 12 week series on characteristics of top advisors. We will see you back here next week on the ultimate advisor podcast. Hey Brittany here, we hope you got a lot of value out of today’s episode to access the key takeaways, the show notes and any deliverables go to ultimate advisor podcast.com. And while you’re there, check out the ultimate advisor mastermind. If you want to learn ways to maximize your income, your impact and your legacy through an automated practice, a self managing team and a killer culture that clients can’t stay away from. We look forward to seeing you back here in next week’s episode.