← Ready For Retirement
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- [00:00]
A
James, I feel really lucky. By the time this episode comes out, I will be married. And you were at my wedding. You probably saw the incredible dance moves. Just kidding. But what I want you all to know, seriously, is I'm truly lucky because I've only had one partner. One partner. Her name is Alice. And we were dating for, I want to say, about six and a half years until we got married. And I was talking to my brother about this, and he was saying, wow, that's really different. I've been on hundreds of dates trying to find the right one, and I just don't know how I'm gonna find it. What did you do? And I said, to be honest, it was just a feeling. And he told me a story about when he actually went and saw a therapist about his dating, because he's like, I need to figure out a way to find my person. And he used to have a long list of, I want them to work out and have these interests, even if they're not the same to me. I want them to be passionate. And one therapist said, okay, pretend they've done all of those things and you now get to be with that person. How would you feel? And he said, well, now that you say it, I actually don't think it would be enough. And the therapist said, why? You said, these are what you wanted, and now those are done. He said, it's just a feeling. And so this feeling that I'm talking about with relationships today, which will be a topic of discussion, relates to financial planning and the trust of when you work with Root. I don't know how long any of you have been watching the YouTube videos, listening to the podcast, but if you don't mind putting in the comments below. Have you been listening, watching for a month, a year, a few years? You probably have a relationship with us in some sense, which can feel odd, but it's very real. So, James, is there a relationship that you can think back on, whether it's a romantic partner or otherwise, where you went, look, it was just a feeling that made me think maybe this isn't the right fit, romantically or otherwise.
- [01:53]
B
Yeah, this. This episode of Root Talks, we'll call this Root Talks Relationships. We're going to give some. Some advice here. Yeah, I think that we've all been there of feeling like something on paper should work, whether it's relationship, romantic relationship, whether it was a friendship of, gosh, we should be friends with these people. They have young kids, we have young kids. They have these interests. We have these interests. They live here. We live here and just for whatever reason, we don't jive and we don't feel like we fully connect. So I think we've all had those and we've had other ones where on paper, I couldn't imagine a more different person, but this is an amazing friendship, or maybe some cases this is an amazing romantic relationship. And there is something there. And what you start to realize is that feeling is I. You know, we call it a feeling, but it's. What is. What's the right word for it? There's. I forget what. But it's. It's a. Like that feeling in many cases is just condensed pattern recognition of. We go through our lives. We go through our lives over several years and decades and interactions and new experiences and new people. And that feeling is not just some random emotion that bubbles up or doesn't bubble up. It is pattern recognition. Like your mind senses something that maybe you can't even consciously put words to what it is, but your brain recognizes it and gives you this feeling of this is going to work or this is not going to work. And I think that the older we get, the more and more we should trust what that feeling is, because that feeling is not just emotional, but there's also a lot of subconscious programming going on realizing, like, you've had these experiences before, this type of person matches this, whatever that might be. And I'd give a lot of credence to whatever that feeling is.
- [03:37]
A
The average person who reaches out to root to work with us has watched or listened to our content for about six months. That's a long time. I mean, that's. I don't know how many seasons of a certain show, but I know I've recently got into Survivor and we do a Survivor draft internally, and it's a super fun experience. And I'm thinking about that going, look, if I've watched two seasons of this show, I feel like I'm connected to a lot of the characters. I call them characters, but they're people. And so for those who have been listening and watching and they reach out and we say, why now? It's normally a few different things that are along the lines of I don't feel that my advisor is asking me these questions or I didn't know what I didn't know, or I feel like at this point, there's just so much. I don't want to mess this up. And there seems to be a feeling that when James speaks or yourself, I just. I resonate with it. So if I reach out to work with Roux, I want to make sure I get that feeling. Now, of course you don't want us cloned exactly, but you want some version of that. And so what we try to do is go, how can we ensure that no matter who you work with, you're getting that same philosophy? But as James will tell you, I'm sure in a moment, our advisors are way better than we are because this is all they're doing all day. Any thoughts, James, you want to share there?
- [04:59]
B
Yeah, I'm going to go back to the feeling thing for a second and then go there. That feeling is super important. I think from the very beginning, you, if you do something that's just a transaction and there's an exchange of value, nothing that special. But if you go anywhere, like there's some place, whether it's a great restaurant versus an okay restaurant, a great car dealership versus an okay one, a great website, e commerce site versus a there's a feeling that goes along with a great experience that we pay a lot of attention to. And that feeling really matters. That feeling of a great brand. A great brand experience actually drives behavior sometimes and can make us do the right thing if done properly. So I think that that was always super important. You know, I remember when we were hiring Jay to kind of go with you as our client success manager, to say, hey, as people are reaching out to Root, who's that first person they're going to talk to? Jay Withey. He's. He's the brother in law of one of our advisors here, Chris. And we were looking for a person, I put a description, I thought it was someone that's going to have a bunch of experience as an advisor before a bunch of doing different things. And Chris said, hey James, I got my brother in law. Well, I think you should chat with him. He's an awesome guy. And I said, cool, I trust you, Chris. You're a good guy. Even if this, I didn't have a good feeling about this person, I would give them the time of day just because I trust you and you're a good person and I'll trust whoever you put in front of us. So I did it with that. More like Chris recommended this person. I'm at least going to chat with him for a few minutes. As soon as I got on that call with Jay, I got a feeling within 15 seconds of this is our guy. Like this is the guy that the feeling people get when they watch a video. And by the way, some people don't maybe get that feeling. That's fine. Like if you don't get it from us, there's probably another advisor, another video, another. So if you. But if you're resonating with the content that I do, that Ra does that Root does. It was very important to me that when they land on our website, which if they're interested in becoming a client, the next step in that relationship and that journey would be you go to our website. We invested a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of energy into making sure that feeling was reflected in the website experience, the customer journey. The next step was then, who is the first person they're talking to at Root? At the time it was only you, Ari, but we were adding another person as we're trying to expand our capacity to serve more people. And that was going to be very, very tough shoes to fill. But within 15 seconds of talking to Jay, I thought, this is, this is the guy. The warmth, the level of genuine interest, the level of this guy embodies all of what we care about and embody here at Root. It was him. And then even the same thing with the interview process. So that's just, you know, those are the first three phases. Maybe a video. There's a feeling, okay, go to the website, that feeling continues. Okay, have a conversation with our customer success manager. That feeling continues. Well, the last step, of course, is what about the actual advisory experience? Like, there's been nothing so far. That's actually where the rubber meets the road. What's the experience going to look like? And that's where one of the coolest things to me about doing the podcast and about doing YouTube, never, never really planned on this as part of no master plan or anything. I thought it was just gonna be, this is gonna be a great way to get in front of the types of potential clients that we'd wanna work with. And a small minority of the people that listen will become clients. The other portion, hopefully they get some really valuable content. They never become clients, but great, they're better off for it. The thing I didn't realize is how many advisors would be watching that and tuned into that and become attracted to that and say, hey, this. I feel like I could become the best advisor, the best. The skill sets that I have, the experience that I have, the natural giftings that I have, where's the right place to call home so that I can be the best advisor I could. We started to attract such high quality advisors, which was so cool because it wasn't just, okay, you get that feeling on a video and on the website and Even on your first conversation with Ari or Jay, that needs a last the next 30 years and your experience with your advisor. And so we started to attract, I mean everyone at Root. It's so funny. Anytime we get together in person, we just got together in person in Denver as of this recording, it was last week with about 20 of the advisory team members here. And all of them there were a recurring theme was, I cannot believe I've been at root now six months, 12. There's no duds here. There's no one here that I feel like, oh, there's the weak link, there's the person that snuck through. No, everyone here is at such this amazing level was the feedback that the team was giving. And obviously like that's self proclaimed even, you know, that's just the feeling within the firm. This isn't like a, I don't know, we have to be careful with compliance stuff of just saying like, hey, we can't substantiate all this stuff, the Roots, but just, just kind of throwing that out there. But then finally, even as we interview all these people that are coming to Root, I'm a part of every single interview process where an advisor applies. They meet with Dylan to kind of do that cultural fit, that team fit, that vision fit of is, is this a person that we feel would fit well at Root? Then they go through a skills assessment. We, we role play. And the role play can be hard and it can be awkward and it can be weird. And we'll grill you, we'll test you well. How would you respond to these different things? Make sure you measure up to the standards, the technical standards that we set for ourselves. Then there's like peer interactions. Meet some of the people that you'd be working with, meet some of the people that be on your team. I'm the final part of the interview process and really what I'm looking for is that feeling. By the time they talk to me, they've gone through the cultural stuff, they've gone through the team stuff, they've gone through the technical analysis, we've vetted their resume, we've vetted their experience credentials, all that stuff. I want to know when I hop on with you, what's the feeling I get? Because that's the feeling our clients are ultimately going to get. And if I'm not getting a good feeling, I don't care how smart you are, I don't care how technically sound you are. That's not the experience we want to be offering to our clients. And so that feeling piece we Want there to be a thread between the first video that someone sees to the actual experience they're getting on an ongoing basis. Because, as I mentioned, that feeling is more than just bubbly emotions. It's that intuition. It's that condensed pattern recognition that says, yes, this is the experience that resonates with who I am and what I'm wanting out of my advisory relationship.
- [11:18]
A
I love that condensed pattern recognition, because I know even myself, I'll go, why do I feel this way with this certain restauran? And I'll think, maybe it's consistency, maybe it's every time I go, I have a great meal. But now that I think about it, it often is more than that. It's often, hey, every time I say, hey, can I have another glass of water? It's, oh, would you like ice with that? Versus yeah, I'll get to that in a little bit. It's a feeling, but it's not. No, it's consistent pattern recognition, condensed pattern recognition. And the more that we trust that, the more we go, yeah, like this is. When people say gut feeling, that is exactly what they're alluding to. So I love that you brought that up. My final question for today, James, then anything else? You want to take this in? In our root relationship podcast, which I don't think we're going to have a new show, don't include this or our.
- [12:12]
B
Relationship.
- [12:15]
A
Unless you guys get in the comments and go, oh, my gosh, I'm crying. You guys are putting me through every emotion. This is not going to be a Love island variation, I can promise you that. But in all seriousness, how. I mean, yes, we're biased. We love who we work with. We are excited to go to work. We're on the balls of our feet. If you heard our last episode where we talked about, okay, how do we really view growth and what is our mission and vision and purpose? You can learn way more about that once again in last week's episode. But for today, how do we make sure as this team grows, as you speak to advisors, you get that condensed pattern recognition, if you will, that you receive from James, your videos.
- [12:56]
B
Part of it is just controlling for the speed of growth. I think that there's a. There's decentralized command is a concept that I like a lot. The sense that we want our advisors to be fully equipped to know the mission, to know the vision, to know the tools, know the resources, to know how we plan, to be fully trained, to be fully coached, and then let amazing advisors be amazing advisors within the framework that we talk about. The best way to regulate that is to have a culture, a high trust culture, a culture that demands excellence. Like a culture where all of this is instilled in everyone. Because that good culture kind of keeps that decentralized command in place. Like that allows people to say, I can go be the best possible advisor to this new client that maybe has never met me before, but they've seen the podcast, they've seen the videos, they've gone through this. I can give them a highly personalized experience without having to put them in what we'll often refer to as that cookie cutter solution. Because I'm not trusted to be an advisor. So therefore, I fill out a questionnaire for them and I give them the standard portfolio, I give them the standard advice. That's not what we want. We want them to be fully freed up to be the best advisor they can be. But that culture is something that is more than just creating a fun environment. That culture that kind of demands excellence, and that culture that all of us are elevating each other and that culture that all of us are supporting each other, and that culture that we're attracting the right type of person. And at some point as we grow, you can outgrow that culture, which is why we're super. The back half of this year, for example, we grew pretty quickly. The first six months of this year kind of met. We talked about this as a leadership team, as an executive team, talking about the fact that, hey, I think we're going to slow. We're going to slow a bit. We don't want to get to that point where we're potentially outgrowing our culture. There's only so much growth that culture can sustain before kind of external forces start to pull in different directions. You think if you have an awesome culture and it's five people, to use an extreme example, the next day, 500 people are hired. Those five people aren't going to automatically influence the other 500. And that culture is not going to continue. It's going to kind of become the blended average of those new 500 who maybe waited for whoever has the strongest personality or strongest say. So there has to be this controlled level of growth of how, as we are growing, not growing so quickly, that these values, these expectations, this sense of mission, vision, purpose, core values, it has to become kind of embedded in what everyone's doing. And there's that kind of becomes a natural limit, a natural governor of how, how we choose to grow so we can ensure that experience is being maintained as new Team members, come on board here.
- [15:35]
A
Love it. James, you might be aware, but I have a few pet peeves, so punctuality as always. You guys know if you've been to my live shows, which are on YouTube, 3 O' Clock Pacific time, I will say if anyone's ever late, I have no concern as long as I've been informed ahead of time. If someone were to say, you're never going to believe it, but a shark just started walking on land and hurt myself and I'm in the hospital, I would say, no worries, thanks for the heads up. I am that forgiving. But when I'm not informed ahead of time, that's a pet peeve. Another pet peeve is slow drivers in the left lane. Another pet peeve is one that we can actually fix for you, which is how do I know? I'm going to assume this is all of your pet peeve, is that you're going, I'm watching James on YouTube. I'm listening to Ari on the podcast. I have a pet peeve, which is I really enjoy the content. I'm resonating with the technical savviness, but I also like the way they're explaining it. It doesn't feel like I'm being spoken down to. My spouse isn't falling asleep to it. But how do I know I'm going to get that advisor that feeling? And here's how you can fix that. You can go to our website right now and under our website, Root Financial, at the top, there's going to be a tab that says about and you can go learn about our advisors in a way you've never seen before. We have two types of series with every advisor. There's Root Drops, which is me doing more of a technical focused episode with them based off questions that you personally could have dropped in the Root Collective, our free community. And there's another show called Advisor Unplugged with Jay, who James mentioned, the one who you speak to. If you're reaching out to work with Root for that initial call and he's learning more about their story and so you might listen to those and go, wow, I feel like I know Jay really well. Ahead of the introductory call with him, you might find you resonate with one particular advisor over another. And that's because you're a human and you're not a robot and we want to know that so that you are paired with the advisor that you resonate most with. So that's another episode of Root Trucks. As always, please like this, Please comment if there's something you learned. That can be. I've never heard of condensed pattern recognition, but it resonates. That can be. I'm still thinking about Jersey Mike's from last week when James mentioned it. That can be. Oh my gosh. I have a friend who just needs to hear this because I want to share why I joined Root, and they just explained it better than I've ever tried. So we love getting to do this. Thank you, as always, for tuning in, and we'll see you next time.
- [18:05]
B
It.